sage_joch

11 ms·

31.
by sage_joch 13y ago
Snowden unveiled a horrifying truth about our government: widespread surveillance has been combined with a class of officials who do not face consequences for breaking the law. I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that the Constit
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by sage_joch 13y ago
I agree that it would be foolish to trust anything Obama says at this point. But I also found a bit of solace in his paying lip service to the Constitution. Given the government's increasingly open hostility toward anything resembling
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by sage_joch 13y ago
I've considered this too, but I haven't seen any signs of deception in Snowden's words or actions. As a counter-example, consider Obama's 2008 campaign. Many people were deceived by his speeches on civil liberties, mysel
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by sage_joch 13y ago
I take it you're not a fan of pair programming. ;-)
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by sage_joch 13y ago
If Congress has passed laws abridging the freedom of speech, then those laws are illegitimate. Unfortunately, it feels as if speaking favorably of the Constitution is enough to get put on a watch list anymore.
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by sage_joch 13y ago
This was an insightful comment. I will be declaring it as income in April.
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Awesome, thank you. I suspect there are things I would change if I could just wave my hand, but nothing is stopping me from creating my idealized version myself (aside from laziness and not wanting the stress of owning a website).
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Tell HN: this is a startup I would use passionately if someone created it
3 points by sage_joch 13y ago|2 comments
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by sage_joch 13y ago
I have thought about the unsettling possibility that we are presently navigating The Great Filter. It may ultimately be a question of whether our philosophy can keep pace with our technology (and right now it is quickly falling behind). But
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by sage_joch 13y ago
"In my comic, our civilization is long gone. Every civilization with written records has existed for less than 5,000 years; it seems optimistic to hope that the current one will last for 10,000 more," Munroe told WIRED. It'
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by sage_joch 13y ago
I don't feel outrage these days so much as foreboding. I was convinced the verdict was a foregone conclusion. It's hard to describe how damn good it feels to be wrong on this. When I saw the verdict on cnn.com, I immediately inter
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Technically yes, and so is Reddit. I need a better word to describe organizations like CNN, MSNBC and Fox that make concerted efforts to divide and distract. Maybe I should have just said "cable news".
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Because a big part of these stories is how they are being spun and downplayed by the corporate media. Reddit is one of the few places in which such stories (concerning the loss of individual rights and government checks and balances) can st
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Note this story was also near the top of /r/news on Reddit, but has since been removed. http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1in7p5/president_obama...
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Individual freedom might be a difficult thing to measure quantitatively (aside from incarceration rates, which have been getting significantly worse), but Daniel Ellsberg recently argued that the Nixon era was far less threatening for whist
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Fun fact: if you start typing "Edward Sn..." into Google News, it will not auto-complete it. I don't know if there is an innocuous explanation, but it is consistent with a media that is trying to downplay stories like this.
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by sage_joch 13y ago
If there is no legal recourse for blatant violations of the Constitution, then our rights are already gone. We should not have to rely on the generosity of those in charge.
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Since you're not answering I'm going to take a guess: you're suggesting that since the actual reality of this whole situation is murky, I should tone down my speculation. And the more I think about it, the more I think you ar
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Ever since I read the NY Times article posted here a couple years ago (see below), I have had a similar response. I love reading about Dwarf Fortress, but I'm hesitant to actually try it. http://www.nytimes.com/2011&
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Well, this comment made me think. It's not every day you get called a potential NSA provocateur. But I'm not sure what you're suggesting with respect to my future comments. When I comment on political topics, I have a couple
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Yeah, we really don't know. But I'm extremely uncomfortable by the fact that foul play is a real possibility. We already know that the federal government is operating largely in secret and without regard to the law (their insist
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by sage_joch 13y ago
A week earlier, President Obama, in a television interview, asserted that oversight of the surveillance programs was "transparent" because of the involvement of a special court, even though that court’s sessions and decisions are
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by sage_joch 13y ago
It occurred to me yesterday how powerful Twitter must be. They must have a good portion of most peoples' web histories, which could sell for a lot in certain markets. This is all just wild speculation, but I also wonder if they made a
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Where are the macrostructures? We don't see Dyson spheres or other evident macroscale engineering. This might be a stupid question, but could the Red Square Nebula be considered a candidate? http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Brainwashed is a strong word, and I've never met your friends. But I would argue that the NSA story is vastly more important than the issues you mentioned, except possibly the environment (and see my comment above about gay rights). My
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Among my group of friends, DOMA generated far more interest than the NSA news. Are they just misled by the media? I wouldn't blame anyone for taking more interest in gay rights than the NSA. The emerging widespread acceptance of gays
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by sage_joch 13y ago
Well, the beauty of a democratic society is that if a majority agree with you, then you can change the system. This is technically true, but ignores the fact that it's a totally rigged game. You have a news media that's intent o
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by sage_joch 13y ago
The first responsibility for a nation is to the security of its people. Everything else is an extraordinary distance down the line. This is a horrifying line of thinking. It reminds me of the quote, "If you want total security, go to
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by sage_joch 13y ago
This sounds like a loaded question. ;-) But in all seriousness, I think one of Steve's big contributions was rejecting the constant calls for tags, and opting instead to implement subreddits. (I'm just a guy watching from the side
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by sage_joch 13y ago
My understanding is that Reddit would not be Reddit without Alexis. He came up with the name and (I believe) the alien/branding. But more importantly, he fostered a culture of doing the right thing over making an extra dollar, which ul

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