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This site is filled with knuckleheads who actually think that the fall of the US would be a good thing, but they mostly live with their parents and have certain

This site is filled with knuckleheads who actually think that the fall of the US would be a good thing, but they mostly live with their parents and have certainly never run a business never mind any government. Every man is a king now that the internet is here so clowns can spout off bullshit. We are at war with Muslim extremists, pretending we aren't is not helpful.

angersock 13y ago
Unless you'd care to show otherwise, you like data to support your assertions re:HN's demographics. We--by which I assume you mean the United States--are at war with whatever seems to be most profitable to the powers-that-be at the time, whether that is drugs, Muslims, or our own citizens. There is a very valid concern that such a policy of scaremongering and sly abuse of power could result in Bad Things (tm) if the beast decides that a war on one of us would be a worthwhile expenditure of time. To pretend otherwise is foolish. There are people out there that wish us harm, as there always have been. Part of the burden of doing great things is the acceptance of the fact that you'll be targeted by those less capable--and part of the requirement is that you bull ahead and don't let it bother you.
- youngerdryas 13y ago
  > the United States--are at war with whatever seems to be most profitable to the powers-that-be at the time This is a good example of a knucklehead comment. There is no profit in fighting cave dwelling extremists who want to make sure girls don't go to school. Instead of wishing for the demise of the US you should be saying thank Christ the Americans are in charge. HN can be a bag full of stupid on non-technical issues. I am going to start actively campaigning for the US to stop paying for the EU's defense.
  - it_learnses 13y ago
    lol thank Christ? Who's letting the creationists in to a scientific news site? Go back to faux news.
    - angersock 13y ago
      Yes, because belief in Christ is clearly an indication of mindless conservatism or creationism.
      - it_learnses 13y ago
        "Thank Christ, America is in charge" - a quote like that clearly is...
        youngerdryas 13y ago
        Agnostic, sorry.
  - tdfx 13y ago
    This is first class trolling.
    - alan_cx 13y ago
      Bless you for your generosity, but too much credit. Its more like some one stopped getting enough attention on usenet.
    - venomsnake 13y ago
      More like third. A proper first class would not be downvoted.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    "There is no profit in fighting cave dwelling extremists who want to make sure girls don't go to school" Unless you are making bullets, guns, body armor, etc. Never underestimate the US government's ability to do seemingly pointless things just to prop up certain businesses. We see that very same pattern of behavior elsewhere in the government; what makes you think the military is exempt?
    - youngerdryas 13y ago
      Over 3000 dead is more than enough motivation, no petty political payoffs are needed to support going after suicidal fascists. Occam's razor.
      - betterunix 13y ago
        Thus explaining the lack of military response in the "friendly" countries where those terrorists had been hiding, training, and collecting their money, and the continued military effort elsewhere that is directed at people who were not involved with the attack.
        youngerdryas 13y ago
        You are confused why we don't respond militarily to friendly countries? Ok.
  - angersock 13y ago
    If you want to stay in office, you do things which gain you political capital--you protect your citizens from threats real or fabricated, you promote the economy through sound policymaking or cronyism, and so on and so forth. There is nothing inherently good or bad about my statement; one simply does not do anything in policymaking without a profit motive, be it for themselves or their constituents.
jacquesm 13y ago
> This site is filled with knuckleheads You did not have to go and prove the point so extensively.
- youngerdryas 13y ago
  I qualified that. Judging by your past comments I don't think you are foolish enough to believe that the fall of the US would be a good thing.
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    Even if the terrorists managed to deliver one 9/11 per month it would take centuries to bring US to their knees.
    - youngerdryas 13y ago
      (#killed/month)/population = long time. Programmers.
      - venomsnake 13y ago
        Well no - the metric you have given is people/seconds/people which is people/(seconds*people) which gives 1/s which is frequency and not time. But anyway I have found that data based decisions and policies tend to produce better outcomes than emotional based ones. I do find my theory sound - that currently in the world there is no terrorist organization (or even state actor outside of Russia/China) that is capable to deliver enough pain to convert the US to failed state. The Russians were hammered terribly in WWI and WWII and survived - 20-40 million lives lost. Germany was razed and survived. Poland was decimated and survived. Japan got direct nuclear hits and survived as a state. Israel is under constant real treat for a tiny country and is doing fine. 9/11 was a black swan - a lot of systems already in place failed. The subsequent plots were all incompetent and much smaller in scale (which we are thankful for). So the statehood of the US is in no danger. And there is tiny danger for the civil populace. There may be a lot of factors that could turn the US into the Mad Max world - economic collapse, ecologic one, meteorites, IP laws gone berserk. But the idea that terrorist could cause the fall of the US don't hold to basic napkin math.
harshreality 13y ago
We are at war with terror (and have been, and always will be), just as we are and have always been at war with Eastasia, but that is completely irrelevant to the question of whether massive domestic surveillance with poor oversight and even poorer accountability is a good idea. Even if your goal is solely to prevent terrorist attacks and you don't give a damn about domestic collateral, it is still not so obvious. The question is whether, with all the data in the world, there are signals in that data that are exclusively correlated with terrorists and terrorist activities. And, secondarily, whether data mining and ML techniques have found, or can in the near future find, those signals. If not, then, in Schneier's words: "Piling more data onto the mix makes it harder, not easier. The best way to think of it is a needle-in-a-haystack problem; the last thing you want to do is increase the amount of hay you have to search through." [1] [1] http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/opinion/schneier-boston-bombing http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/opinion/schneier-boston-bombin...

angersock 13y ago

Unless you'd care to show otherwise, you like data to support your assertions re:HN's demographics. We--by which I assume you mean the United States--are at war with whatever seems to be most profitable to the powers-that-be at the time, whether that is drugs, Muslims, or our own citizens. There is a very valid concern that such a policy of scaremongering and sly abuse of power could result in Bad Things (tm) if the beast decides that a war on one of us would be a worthwhile expenditure of time. To pretend otherwise is foolish. There are people out there that wish us harm, as there always have been. Part of the burden of doing great things is the acceptance of the fact that you'll be targeted by those less capable--and part of the requirement is that you bull ahead and don't let it bother you.

youngerdryas 13y ago
> the United States--are at war with whatever seems to be most profitable to the powers-that-be at the time This is a good example of a knucklehead comment. There is no profit in fighting cave dwelling extremists who want to make sure girls don't go to school. Instead of wishing for the demise of the US you should be saying thank Christ the Americans are in charge. HN can be a bag full of stupid on non-technical issues. I am going to start actively campaigning for the US to stop paying for the EU's defense.
- it_learnses 13y ago
  lol thank Christ? Who's letting the creationists in to a scientific news site? Go back to faux news.
  - angersock 13y ago
    Yes, because belief in Christ is clearly an indication of mindless conservatism or creationism.
    - it_learnses 13y ago
      "Thank Christ, America is in charge" - a quote like that clearly is...
      - youngerdryas 13y ago
        Agnostic, sorry.
- tdfx 13y ago
  This is first class trolling.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Bless you for your generosity, but too much credit. Its more like some one stopped getting enough attention on usenet.
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    More like third. A proper first class would not be downvoted.
- betterunix 13y ago
  "There is no profit in fighting cave dwelling extremists who want to make sure girls don't go to school" Unless you are making bullets, guns, body armor, etc. Never underestimate the US government's ability to do seemingly pointless things just to prop up certain businesses. We see that very same pattern of behavior elsewhere in the government; what makes you think the military is exempt?
  - youngerdryas 13y ago
    Over 3000 dead is more than enough motivation, no petty political payoffs are needed to support going after suicidal fascists. Occam's razor.
    - betterunix 13y ago
      Thus explaining the lack of military response in the "friendly" countries where those terrorists had been hiding, training, and collecting their money, and the continued military effort elsewhere that is directed at people who were not involved with the attack.
      - youngerdryas 13y ago
        You are confused why we don't respond militarily to friendly countries? Ok.
- angersock 13y ago
  If you want to stay in office, you do things which gain you political capital--you protect your citizens from threats real or fabricated, you promote the economy through sound policymaking or cronyism, and so on and so forth. There is nothing inherently good or bad about my statement; one simply does not do anything in policymaking without a profit motive, be it for themselves or their constituents.

jacquesm 13y ago

> This site is filled with knuckleheads You did not have to go and prove the point so extensively.

youngerdryas 13y ago
I qualified that. Judging by your past comments I don't think you are foolish enough to believe that the fall of the US would be a good thing.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Even if the terrorists managed to deliver one 9/11 per month it would take centuries to bring US to their knees.
  - youngerdryas 13y ago
    (#killed/month)/population = long time. Programmers.
    - venomsnake 13y ago
      Well no - the metric you have given is people/seconds/people which is people/(seconds*people) which gives 1/s which is frequency and not time. But anyway I have found that data based decisions and policies tend to produce better outcomes than emotional based ones. I do find my theory sound - that currently in the world there is no terrorist organization (or even state actor outside of Russia/China) that is capable to deliver enough pain to convert the US to failed state. The Russians were hammered terribly in WWI and WWII and survived - 20-40 million lives lost. Germany was razed and survived. Poland was decimated and survived. Japan got direct nuclear hits and survived as a state. Israel is under constant real treat for a tiny country and is doing fine. 9/11 was a black swan - a lot of systems already in place failed. The subsequent plots were all incompetent and much smaller in scale (which we are thankful for). So the statehood of the US is in no danger. And there is tiny danger for the civil populace. There may be a lot of factors that could turn the US into the Mad Max world - economic collapse, ecologic one, meteorites, IP laws gone berserk. But the idea that terrorist could cause the fall of the US don't hold to basic napkin math.

harshreality 13y ago

We are at war with terror (and have been, and always will be), just as we are and have always been at war with Eastasia, but that is completely irrelevant to the question of whether massive domestic surveillance with poor oversight and even poorer accountability is a good idea. Even if your goal is solely to prevent terrorist attacks and you don't give a damn about domestic collateral, it is still not so obvious. The question is whether, with all the data in the world, there are signals in that data that are exclusively correlated with terrorists and terrorist activities. And, secondarily, whether data mining and ML techniques have found, or can in the near future find, those signals. If not, then, in Schneier's words: "Piling more data onto the mix makes it harder, not easier. The best way to think of it is a needle-in-a-haystack problem; the last thing you want to do is increase the amount of hay you have to search through." [1] [1] http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/opinion/schneier-boston-bombing http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/opinion/schneier-boston-bombin...