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If I were a government, I would let the police do its job without mass surveillance. Also, not all problems can be solved. Or, if I were a government, I would c

by dsign 3y ago

If I were a government, I would let the police do its job without mass surveillance. Also, not all problems can be solved. Or, if I were a government, I would command all companies and individuals to drop what they are doing and work non-stop on cancer research.

denton-scratch 3y ago
> Also, not all problems can be solved. This is something it took me a long time to integrate. Politicians, especialy politicos with their backs against a wall, face demands to "do something about it" that they can't resist. The result is often a treatment that is worse than the disease. If that's true, the corrollary is that we shouldn't mock politicians when they come up with "solutions" that are ineffectual - provided they're just ineffectual, and not Trojan horses for some more insidious plan. Perhaps the best answer to "something must be done" is to do something - anything - that doesn't cost too much, and doesn't do much harm.
ako 3y ago
And how do you know upfront that the mass surveillance is worse than the alternative, e.g., a country run by organized crime, children and young women being exploited at large scale? Do you think police can be effective without mass surveillance if the other side has all this technology at its disposal? Cancer is high on my list of problems that cannot be solved, we’re getting older, old age comes with decline of your body, spending money on a lost cause is a huge waste.
- voxic11 3y ago
  Prevent the country from being run by organized crime by spying on the the people running the country, not the public. If you inverse it and instead allow those running the country to spy on the public but not the other way around then when organized crime takes over running the country they have an insanely powerful tool to use to stay in power and accomplish their evil goals.
- dutchCourage 3y ago
  The way you prevent the country from being run by organized crime is by spying on the governing bodies, not the private citizens (those typically don't run the country). In practice, it means we should have transparent data about the people running the country. As a rule of thumb, good politicians tend to fight for transparency in the government and privacy for their citizens. Bad politicians push the opposite view.
- dsign 3y ago
  > And how do you know upfront that the mass surveillance is worse than the alternative That's not a real disjunctive. In my current country, where politicians are accountable and mass surveillance is not (yet) a thing, the country is not run by organized crime, and children and young women are not exploited. But I have lived most of my life in a country with mass surveillance (Cuba. And no, you don't need client-side scanning, a sufficiently high number of police riding bicycles will do just fine.) The chilling effect on public speech and thought has brought untold misery. All politicians are corrupted party-folk chosen from above. Young men and women enthusiastically jump at the opportunity of being sexually exploited for a chance to escape the country. There is the bottom of the dumpster where the slippery slope of totalitarianism takes us. > Cancer is high on my list of problems that cannot be solved, we’re getting older, old age comes with decline of your body, spending money on a lost cause is a huge waste. I would recommend you visit the aforementioned Cuba. A cancer prognosis there is better than it was during the middle ages, but far worse than it is in a first-world country. So, cancer is not unsolvable, it's just that there are different levels of progress across time and places. Same goes for aging, but there we have this cultural brick you have so brightly illustrated that says even trying to do something is a "huge waste".

by dsign 3y ago

denton-scratch 3y ago

> Also, not all problems can be solved. This is something it took me a long time to integrate. Politicians, especialy politicos with their backs against a wall, face demands to "do something about it" that they can't resist. The result is often a treatment that is worse than the disease. If that's true, the corrollary is that we shouldn't mock politicians when they come up with "solutions" that are ineffectual - provided they're just ineffectual, and not Trojan horses for some more insidious plan. Perhaps the best answer to "something must be done" is to do something - anything - that doesn't cost too much, and doesn't do much harm.

ako 3y ago

And how do you know upfront that the mass surveillance is worse than the alternative, e.g., a country run by organized crime, children and young women being exploited at large scale? Do you think police can be effective without mass surveillance if the other side has all this technology at its disposal? Cancer is high on my list of problems that cannot be solved, we’re getting older, old age comes with decline of your body, spending money on a lost cause is a huge waste.

voxic11 3y ago
Prevent the country from being run by organized crime by spying on the the people running the country, not the public. If you inverse it and instead allow those running the country to spy on the public but not the other way around then when organized crime takes over running the country they have an insanely powerful tool to use to stay in power and accomplish their evil goals.
dutchCourage 3y ago
The way you prevent the country from being run by organized crime is by spying on the governing bodies, not the private citizens (those typically don't run the country). In practice, it means we should have transparent data about the people running the country. As a rule of thumb, good politicians tend to fight for transparency in the government and privacy for their citizens. Bad politicians push the opposite view.
dsign 3y ago
> And how do you know upfront that the mass surveillance is worse than the alternative That's not a real disjunctive. In my current country, where politicians are accountable and mass surveillance is not (yet) a thing, the country is not run by organized crime, and children and young women are not exploited. But I have lived most of my life in a country with mass surveillance (Cuba. And no, you don't need client-side scanning, a sufficiently high number of police riding bicycles will do just fine.) The chilling effect on public speech and thought has brought untold misery. All politicians are corrupted party-folk chosen from above. Young men and women enthusiastically jump at the opportunity of being sexually exploited for a chance to escape the country. There is the bottom of the dumpster where the slippery slope of totalitarianism takes us. > Cancer is high on my list of problems that cannot be solved, we’re getting older, old age comes with decline of your body, spending money on a lost cause is a huge waste. I would recommend you visit the aforementioned Cuba. A cancer prognosis there is better than it was during the middle ages, but far worse than it is in a first-world country. So, cancer is not unsolvable, it's just that there are different levels of progress across time and places. Same goes for aging, but there we have this cultural brick you have so brightly illustrated that says even trying to do something is a "huge waste".