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Years ago, when I interviewed at places that did USG-related work, the stuff I heard about that I didn't have to sign an NDA to hear, scared me enough that I kn

Years ago, when I interviewed at places that did USG-related work, the stuff I heard about that I didn't have to sign an NDA to hear, scared me enough that I knew Snowden-scale stuff was entirely within the capabilities of the US Govt. I didn't realize they would use it against us just blatantly in direct violation of every law put in place to prevent it, though. I think the lesson I learned from the Snowden leaks is, if the government can do it, the government will do it - if not now, one day soon. That's... kind of a value-changing, life-changing realization. That no law will stop a government from doing what it wants. We can't stop it. But what we can do is install enough peep-holes (transparency) that when it happens, we're more likely to find out about it, so we can do something about it.

EGreg 3y ago
Same with corporations, too: https://community.qbix.com/t/balancing-privacy-and-accountability/215 https://community.qbix.com/t/balancing-privacy-and-accountab... https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169
passer_byer 3y ago
Sadly, this seems to be the case. Which means we the people, have lost control of our government.
- freerangebat 3y ago
  I wonder if historically governments were ever controlled by the people. It seems democracies that can somewhat control the government are extreme outliers in human history.
  - dudul 3y ago
    Democracy via elected representatives is a lie. "Extreme outliers" may even be too much. Is there even a handful of examples?
    - still_grokking 3y ago
      It's not even a lie. It's just not democracy. The whole point of democracy as it got invented was that the people can directly vote on any government issues. No direct voting on every day do day policy, no democracy. Simple as that. "It would not be possible in practice" is the actual lie. We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody. I'm not saying that everything would be perfect if people could decide about their fate in an actually democratic way. The majority is dumb on average. That's a sad truth. But I'm not sure it would be really worse than what living in our current lie is. Given some fundamental rules (like human rights), which couldn't be overruled easy by simple majority voting, such a system could work, imho. The "only" question is how a society could arrive at a true democracy. Given for example into what the french revolution culminated I have no high hopes that creating a bigger democratic society is even possible.
      - phs318u 3y ago
        Pure democracy as you describe it, even if technically feasible, would still result in tyrannies and terrible outcomes. The biggest problem isn't lack of influence on the laws, it's lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. And that problem exists whether it's x number of people influencing the outcome, or 1,000,000x. Every negative influence that politicians are open to, the masses are also open to (though scale may vary e.g. wrt corruption). The overwhelming evidence across the globe is that people are easily fooled, easily misled, easily manipulated, prone to illogic, prone to responding emotively, prone to selfishness, and can be corruptible, destructive and suicidal. They routinely will sacrifice advances to their own cause in order to exclude, punish and exorcise others. No, technically direct democracy would lead to no better outcome, though I'm sure at some point in our history we'll try it.
        still_grokking 3y ago
        You've just made an anti-argument to your own claim. As people are people, real democracy would not be worse than the status quo as we're already ruled by people with lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. But you can't for example corrupt the majority of all people. So real democracy would be at least in this point better. By no means worse, but better in some regards is a clear win imho! > lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy.
  - lstodd 3y ago
    Like it's said in Russia - government is controlled by the people, and we know who these people are.
- throwaway892238 3y ago
  In 2020, the Presidential election voter turnout was the highest it's been in three decades, at just over 60%. But that's still 40% of eligible voters that didn't "lose" their voice in government, like losing their car keys. 80 million people decided to give up their voice. In other countries, people really do lose their voice in government. Plenty of countries are under the jack-boot of totalitarian regimes that will torture and execute whoever steps out of line. We live in a country that is so far away from that, that all we have to do to change our government is mail in a form. And we still can't be bothered to do that. So any lack of government control is completely our own fault. The government's still gonna do whatever it wants to do. But we also have the power to bring it to heel. The thing is, you have to actually do something with that power.
_8j50 3y ago
I think your takeaway is wrong. It isn't the government doing naughty secret things but the government doing so with support from a plurality of the people. The patriot act is a non-partisan issue that gets renewed every administration. Snowden and Assange should be locked up accroding to a majority of americans. Your takeaway should be that a democracy would always reflect the will of the people with or without any law because that is what the rulers must do to continue to get elected. You worry about privacy and laws, they worry about answering for even a relatively small terrorist attack. The people gave away their freedoms out of fear.
- imiric 3y ago
  > The people gave away their freedoms out of fear. Where do you think that fear comes from? It can be fabricated using real or fake events anytime the government wants to pursue a political or financial goal. Modern media is a government mouthpiece, even in apparent liberal democracies, and is used to sway public opinion in any direction. This mechanism is also exploited by political enemies, to sow dissent and social unrest, crippling democratic systems.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    The original fear of terrorism was very real, but they sacrificed theirs and their childrens freedoms for temporary security. The cowards let the terrorists win. We live in the most information accessible time in history and in the US most people can read and write and are capable of researching topics on the internet. If someone is falling for fake information, it is not the media's fault, they can fact check any media themselves. It is because their ears are hearing the lies they crave. Even when you debate with people these days on many political topics they basically plug their ears and scream "fake news". They are more interested in winning culture wars than the truth. The immigrant family down the streer driving down home prices or having to attend diversity meetings at work is a greater concern than the FBI monitoring all their comms. There have always been media and politicians that want to use fear to control the people. Why is now and why is the US special?
    - 3y ago
vasco 3y ago
This is what proponents of small government fear, and by extension why creating more organizations where a small group of people deciding for a large group is bad, because they can be corrupted. See for example any union that has existed for more than 10 years and how they are called "corporate unions", in an intentionally blind case of "no true Scotsman". Also one of the reasons communism doesn't work - the mechanisms needed for it to be implemented centralize even more power to a central committee than with other systems of government. I agree, the world-view really changes once you realize this.
brabel 3y ago
Transparency is the key. Governments love secrecy because that allows them to do whatever nasty stuff they want while pretending to be righteous at the surface. Just look at past secrets that have been disclosed recently and think: should those things really be secret? I say absolutely no. The mentality of keeping things secret to hide your real intentions, or to not upset people too much (or they will panic!), or to keep other governments on their toes so you're ready to take them by surprise in the event of a conflict (how has that worked so far? The real threat actors will know anyway what naughty stuff you're doing to make sure they'll be the losers if the need arises - like when you just urgently need more cheap oil) is something we, all peoples of the world, need to overcome as soon as possible. You may argue the situation in the world right now proves that governments need to be ready for conflict all the time, and secrecy gives them more power to take enemies by surprise... but you're mistaken, it's exactly the opposite! The whole China/Russia animosities are due to the West patently doing things, like keeping military bases in every weak country[1] that will let them around China and Russia, that clearly shows they have every intention to escalate to a war with them at the earliest sign of trouble, yet we lie without hesitation about it... like we're the peaceful people who keep trying to convince evil governments to change their belligerent ways. Perhaps if we stopped putting weapons pointing right at them, right at their neighbourhood, they would be better persuaded that war is not a possibility? We do the same with climate change by the way... we want everyone else to change, or we won't do it alone, forgetting that we're the ones who pumped 90% of the CO2 into the atmosphere over the last 200 years of industrialization, while some countries that are now considered "climate villains" have been on it for only a couple of decades... hypocrisy at its worst. [1] https://www.rferl.org/a/where-are-us-and-russian-military-bases-in-the-world/28890842.html https://www.rferl.org/a/where-are-us-and-russian-military-ba...
- heywhatupboys 3y ago
  See also this columnist's take on secrets: "Biden’s classified leak isn’t the problem. The government shouldn’t have secrets in the first place." https://cinchnews.com/2023/01/26/bidens-classified-leak-isnt-the-problem-the-government-shouldnt-have-secrets-in-the-first-place/ https://cinchnews.com/2023/01/26/bidens-classified-leak-isnt...
- 3y ago
snarfy 3y ago
I kind of had this realization when reading about things the government did in the past, like air-drop LSD onto soldiers, agent-orange, psychic experiments, and other nonsense. My first instinct was 'wow, those wacky 60's', but then it slowly dawned on me 'what's changed?'. Nothing, nothing has changed. I wonder what they are doing today.
win32k 3y ago
> I didn't realize they would use it against us just blatantly in direct violation of every law put in place to prevent it, though. They didn't. You interpreted the Snowden revelations incorrectly. The government actually cares a LOT about civil liberties.
andrepd 3y ago
Transparency and a strong and independent investigative press is our best defense.
marssaxman 3y ago
> we're more likely to find out about it, so we can do something about it. How does that help? For me the lesson of the Snowden affair has been that it does not matter whether we know what the government is up to, because they will do what they want to us regardless; there is nothing we can do about it.

EGreg 3y ago

Same with corporations, too: https://community.qbix.com/t/balancing-privacy-and-accountability/215 https://community.qbix.com/t/balancing-privacy-and-accountab... https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169

passer_byer 3y ago

Sadly, this seems to be the case. Which means we the people, have lost control of our government.

freerangebat 3y ago
I wonder if historically governments were ever controlled by the people. It seems democracies that can somewhat control the government are extreme outliers in human history.
- dudul 3y ago
  Democracy via elected representatives is a lie. "Extreme outliers" may even be too much. Is there even a handful of examples?
  - still_grokking 3y ago
    It's not even a lie. It's just not democracy. The whole point of democracy as it got invented was that the people can directly vote on any government issues. No direct voting on every day do day policy, no democracy. Simple as that. "It would not be possible in practice" is the actual lie. We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody. I'm not saying that everything would be perfect if people could decide about their fate in an actually democratic way. The majority is dumb on average. That's a sad truth. But I'm not sure it would be really worse than what living in our current lie is. Given some fundamental rules (like human rights), which couldn't be overruled easy by simple majority voting, such a system could work, imho. The "only" question is how a society could arrive at a true democracy. Given for example into what the french revolution culminated I have no high hopes that creating a bigger democratic society is even possible.
    - phs318u 3y ago
      Pure democracy as you describe it, even if technically feasible, would still result in tyrannies and terrible outcomes. The biggest problem isn't lack of influence on the laws, it's lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. And that problem exists whether it's x number of people influencing the outcome, or 1,000,000x. Every negative influence that politicians are open to, the masses are also open to (though scale may vary e.g. wrt corruption). The overwhelming evidence across the globe is that people are easily fooled, easily misled, easily manipulated, prone to illogic, prone to responding emotively, prone to selfishness, and can be corruptible, destructive and suicidal. They routinely will sacrifice advances to their own cause in order to exclude, punish and exorcise others. No, technically direct democracy would lead to no better outcome, though I'm sure at some point in our history we'll try it.
      - still_grokking 3y ago
        You've just made an anti-argument to your own claim. As people are people, real democracy would not be worse than the status quo as we're already ruled by people with lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. But you can't for example corrupt the majority of all people. So real democracy would be at least in this point better. By no means worse, but better in some regards is a clear win imho! > lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy.
- lstodd 3y ago
  Like it's said in Russia - government is controlled by the people, and we know who these people are.
throwaway892238 3y ago
In 2020, the Presidential election voter turnout was the highest it's been in three decades, at just over 60%. But that's still 40% of eligible voters that didn't "lose" their voice in government, like losing their car keys. 80 million people decided to give up their voice. In other countries, people really do lose their voice in government. Plenty of countries are under the jack-boot of totalitarian regimes that will torture and execute whoever steps out of line. We live in a country that is so far away from that, that all we have to do to change our government is mail in a form. And we still can't be bothered to do that. So any lack of government control is completely our own fault. The government's still gonna do whatever it wants to do. But we also have the power to bring it to heel. The thing is, you have to actually do something with that power.

_8j50 3y ago

I think your takeaway is wrong. It isn't the government doing naughty secret things but the government doing so with support from a plurality of the people. The patriot act is a non-partisan issue that gets renewed every administration. Snowden and Assange should be locked up accroding to a majority of americans. Your takeaway should be that a democracy would always reflect the will of the people with or without any law because that is what the rulers must do to continue to get elected. You worry about privacy and laws, they worry about answering for even a relatively small terrorist attack. The people gave away their freedoms out of fear.

imiric 3y ago
> The people gave away their freedoms out of fear. Where do you think that fear comes from? It can be fabricated using real or fake events anytime the government wants to pursue a political or financial goal. Modern media is a government mouthpiece, even in apparent liberal democracies, and is used to sway public opinion in any direction. This mechanism is also exploited by political enemies, to sow dissent and social unrest, crippling democratic systems.
- _8j50 3y ago
  The original fear of terrorism was very real, but they sacrificed theirs and their childrens freedoms for temporary security. The cowards let the terrorists win. We live in the most information accessible time in history and in the US most people can read and write and are capable of researching topics on the internet. If someone is falling for fake information, it is not the media's fault, they can fact check any media themselves. It is because their ears are hearing the lies they crave. Even when you debate with people these days on many political topics they basically plug their ears and scream "fake news". They are more interested in winning culture wars than the truth. The immigrant family down the streer driving down home prices or having to attend diversity meetings at work is a greater concern than the FBI monitoring all their comms. There have always been media and politicians that want to use fear to control the people. Why is now and why is the US special?
  - 3y ago

vasco 3y ago

This is what proponents of small government fear, and by extension why creating more organizations where a small group of people deciding for a large group is bad, because they can be corrupted. See for example any union that has existed for more than 10 years and how they are called "corporate unions", in an intentionally blind case of "no true Scotsman". Also one of the reasons communism doesn't work - the mechanisms needed for it to be implemented centralize even more power to a central committee than with other systems of government. I agree, the world-view really changes once you realize this.

brabel 3y ago

Transparency is the key. Governments love secrecy because that allows them to do whatever nasty stuff they want while pretending to be righteous at the surface. Just look at past secrets that have been disclosed recently and think: should those things really be secret? I say absolutely no. The mentality of keeping things secret to hide your real intentions, or to not upset people too much (or they will panic!), or to keep other governments on their toes so you're ready to take them by surprise in the event of a conflict (how has that worked so far? The real threat actors will know anyway what naughty stuff you're doing to make sure they'll be the losers if the need arises - like when you just urgently need more cheap oil) is something we, all peoples of the world, need to overcome as soon as possible. You may argue the situation in the world right now proves that governments need to be ready for conflict all the time, and secrecy gives them more power to take enemies by surprise... but you're mistaken, it's exactly the opposite! The whole China/Russia animosities are due to the West patently doing things, like keeping military bases in every weak country[1] that will let them around China and Russia, that clearly shows they have every intention to escalate to a war with them at the earliest sign of trouble, yet we lie without hesitation about it... like we're the peaceful people who keep trying to convince evil governments to change their belligerent ways. Perhaps if we stopped putting weapons pointing right at them, right at their neighbourhood, they would be better persuaded that war is not a possibility? We do the same with climate change by the way... we want everyone else to change, or we won't do it alone, forgetting that we're the ones who pumped 90% of the CO2 into the atmosphere over the last 200 years of industrialization, while some countries that are now considered "climate villains" have been on it for only a couple of decades... hypocrisy at its worst. [1] https://www.rferl.org/a/where-are-us-and-russian-military-bases-in-the-world/28890842.html https://www.rferl.org/a/where-are-us-and-russian-military-ba...

heywhatupboys 3y ago
See also this columnist's take on secrets: "Biden’s classified leak isn’t the problem. The government shouldn’t have secrets in the first place." https://cinchnews.com/2023/01/26/bidens-classified-leak-isnt-the-problem-the-government-shouldnt-have-secrets-in-the-first-place/ https://cinchnews.com/2023/01/26/bidens-classified-leak-isnt...
3y ago

snarfy 3y ago

I kind of had this realization when reading about things the government did in the past, like air-drop LSD onto soldiers, agent-orange, psychic experiments, and other nonsense. My first instinct was 'wow, those wacky 60's', but then it slowly dawned on me 'what's changed?'. Nothing, nothing has changed. I wonder what they are doing today.

win32k 3y ago

> I didn't realize they would use it against us just blatantly in direct violation of every law put in place to prevent it, though. They didn't. You interpreted the Snowden revelations incorrectly. The government actually cares a LOT about civil liberties.

andrepd 3y ago

Transparency and a strong and independent investigative press is our best defense.

marssaxman 3y ago

> we're more likely to find out about it, so we can do something about it. How does that help? For me the lesson of the Snowden affair has been that it does not matter whether we know what the government is up to, because they will do what they want to us regardless; there is nothing we can do about it.