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Sorry, I don't follow. If you remove the tech from dropping of atomic bombs, you still have firebombs, gas attacks, and myriad other weapons that may or may no

Sorry, I don't follow. If you remove the tech from dropping of atomic bombs, you still have firebombs, gas attacks, and myriad other weapons that may or may not be considered either war crimes or simply too destructive to allow. You can still extrapolate and / or build analogies from the older models to the new one. Why can't we remove the tech in this context? Is the issue that the tech allows surveillance of public conversation to happen cheaply at scale, and that creates a fundamentally different scenario from someone saying things in public being overheard? Because I'd argue it does not; if one says things in public one should expect authorities to overhear the thing too because they're also in public.

SamoyedFurFluff 2y ago
You actually really can’t extrapolate too much from existing weapons when the nuke was dropped. The singular, overwhelming devastation of that one weapon radically altered international politics forever.
refulgentis 2y ago
One simple difference that jumps out to me straightaway is the a gaping gulf between "decided to check it out" and "wrote down the names of everyone there and stuck it in a state-owned filing cabinet" People aren't taking umbrage with the cops knowing there is a protest, or attending one, you're right, that would be unreasonable.
- mmooss 2y ago
  Don't forget how someone can find any word in that filing cabinet, instantly, from anywhere in the jurisdiction (and is probably shared elsewhere).
mmooss 2y ago
> you still have firebombs, gas attacks, and myriad other weapons All are post colonial-era technology. By analogy to your argument, if we can only address surveillance as if colonial-era technology was used, then we can only address military actions that way. What if someone set off a colonial-era explosive? Not a big deal, right?
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  Are we talking law or morality? I think I see what you mean if we're talking morality. If we're talking law, this is exactly the rabbit-hole people end up going down trying to justify or un-justify the Second Amendment in an era where the weapon is a 60-to-1 force multiplier for body count, not a 1.5-to-1 (in that if two men approach you with a knife, and you have a colonial rifle, you can probably reliably shoot one of them and then you're on equal footing with the other). The law has all kinds of pockets where they wrote it when people were on horseback... But it still applies.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > The law has all kinds of pockets where they wrote it when people were on horseback... But it still applies. That's not how it works. It can't be ignored, but even words change meaning over years (and are often imprecise to begin with). The Supreme Court changes intepretations - a lot, recently.

SamoyedFurFluff 2y ago

You actually really can’t extrapolate too much from existing weapons when the nuke was dropped. The singular, overwhelming devastation of that one weapon radically altered international politics forever.

refulgentis 2y ago

One simple difference that jumps out to me straightaway is the a gaping gulf between "decided to check it out" and "wrote down the names of everyone there and stuck it in a state-owned filing cabinet" People aren't taking umbrage with the cops knowing there is a protest, or attending one, you're right, that would be unreasonable.

mmooss 2y ago
Don't forget how someone can find any word in that filing cabinet, instantly, from anywhere in the jurisdiction (and is probably shared elsewhere).

mmooss 2y ago

> you still have firebombs, gas attacks, and myriad other weapons All are post colonial-era technology. By analogy to your argument, if we can only address surveillance as if colonial-era technology was used, then we can only address military actions that way. What if someone set off a colonial-era explosive? Not a big deal, right?

shadowgovt 2y ago
Are we talking law or morality? I think I see what you mean if we're talking morality. If we're talking law, this is exactly the rabbit-hole people end up going down trying to justify or un-justify the Second Amendment in an era where the weapon is a 60-to-1 force multiplier for body count, not a 1.5-to-1 (in that if two men approach you with a knife, and you have a colonial rifle, you can probably reliably shoot one of them and then you're on equal footing with the other). The law has all kinds of pockets where they wrote it when people were on horseback... But it still applies.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > The law has all kinds of pockets where they wrote it when people were on horseback... But it still applies. That's not how it works. It can't be ignored, but even words change meaning over years (and are often imprecise to begin with). The Supreme Court changes intepretations - a lot, recently.