The tendency of tech society is tyranny

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Enki
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

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noddy wrote:
Enki wrote: Bollocks. The NSA doesn't HAVE to listen. This is more like saying you have no right to privacy in your apartment because your neighbor can put a glass to the wall to use as a microphone.
if the NSA is to be effective then the NSA HAS to use all the resources sitting infront of it - the nature of the internet with its messages without envelopes all being copied from one location to the next makes the act of not listening the act of closing ones eyes and ears (lalalalalallaa) - which is why my analogy of arguing on a public bus is unfortunately true.
Not really, if you can subpoena the information for an active investigation you can access the data then. The NSA doesn't need to store it, they just need to have access to the private company's data and work on rationalizing data formatting.
if you live in an apartment block then your neighbour does hear all your arguments and every time you flush the toilet and everytime you shag.
I don't hear all that.
this is but one of the reasons i left the inner city living :P
I hear ya.
dont take my stance as consent, its just my technical understanding of the internet doesnt allow me to take the concept of privacy seriously - it is a public space in its current design and would require many changes involving adhoc peer to peer technologies with constantly changing encryption schemes before i considered it otherwise.
I don't take the concept of privacy seriously, but I think there should be legal ramifications and legal protections against abuses. Or to put it more simply, I am not ok with others knowing things when I don't. I don't like the idea of being an information underclass. This is ultimately what drives me as a tech entrepeneur. I want to have access to my own intelligence, I want to have access to my own means of production. As I have said more than once, I would have no problem with all of my secrets being public knowledge and would prefer that to the NSA having proprietary knowledge that no one else has. Let everyone live in public if we are to do away with privacy, but creating a secret government of shadowy figures that rule us from behind the scenes, i am not cool with that at all.
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noddy
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by noddy »

Enki wrote:
noddy wrote:
Enki wrote: Bollocks. The NSA doesn't HAVE to listen. This is more like saying you have no right to privacy in your apartment because your neighbor can put a glass to the wall to use as a microphone.
if the NSA is to be effective then the NSA HAS to use all the resources sitting infront of it - the nature of the internet with its messages without envelopes all being copied from one location to the next makes the act of not listening the act of closing ones eyes and ears (lalalalalallaa) - which is why my analogy of arguing on a public bus is unfortunately true.
Not really, if you can subpoena the information for an active investigation you can access the data then. The NSA doesn't need to store it, they just need to have access to the private company's data and work on rationalizing data formatting.
if you live in an apartment block then your neighbour does hear all your arguments and every time you flush the toilet and everytime you shag.
I don't hear all that.
this is but one of the reasons i left the inner city living :P
I hear ya.
dont take my stance as consent, its just my technical understanding of the internet doesnt allow me to take the concept of privacy seriously - it is a public space in its current design and would require many changes involving adhoc peer to peer technologies with constantly changing encryption schemes before i considered it otherwise.
I don't take the concept of privacy seriously, but I think there should be legal ramifications and legal protections against abuses. Or to put it more simply, I am not ok with others knowing things when I don't. I don't like the idea of being an information underclass. This is ultimately what drives me as a tech entrepeneur. I want to have access to my own intelligence, I want to have access to my own means of production. As I have said more than once, I would have no problem with all of my secrets being public knowledge and would prefer that to the NSA having proprietary knowledge that no one else has. Let everyone live in public if we are to do away with privacy, but creating a secret government of shadowy figures that rule us from behind the scenes, i am not cool with that at all.
your line is a very fine line indeed - my country blurred the crap out of it by trying to make all the various private nodes on the net store data for longer and then provide better integration for the govenment snoops via government controlled broadband - making the nsa approach on inhousing everything a waste of money ;)

its all minor variations on simmilar outcomes with the increase in bandwidth and increase in storage space making the difference between who stores "what where" less meaningful every day.

its only an advantage to have local storage when the bandwidth to external storage is limited.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Demon of Undoing »

My position is that of noddys; it is inherent to the format of the tool that it will be used by people that wish to use it to aquire power by soecifically using every means at their disposal. It will happen ( will! HAH!) eventually. And it will be done using tools that yes, by Ford, will be able to interpret your facial expressions to decider intent. If they want to. But make no mistake, as miniturization, speed and power increase, you will be known root and branch by the Eye. Your intentions, your fears, your habits, your routines. Give me your bank card data and I can tell you about a very large fraction of your life. Existing tools dwarf this capability. Future ones, yes, make Orwell look like an optimist.

And this is precisely why Tinker is correct; there have to be agreed- upon limits that simply are not violated but under specific concern. This is America 101. And it's by nature shot to hell just on the very idea of the Internet itself , sadly. This is not reason to surrender, though. This is reason to have strong limits that are technically unnescesary and inefficient. Those safeguards need to be woven into the very fiber of what inevitable surveilence protocols do manifest ( as they inevitably will). In the old days, they called it checks and balances.

But there is no balance to a technocracy. Who has the highest tech, wins. There is no second place. Contra the disciples of the Gods of the Copybook Headings,there is a tipping point approaching. When we hit it, you won't have privacy down to your dreams. If there is a way to beat tyrants with that tool- even tyrants using it for our own good- I can't imagine it.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by noddy »

Demon of Undoing wrote:My position is that of noddys; it is inherent to the format of the tool that it will be used by people that wish to use it to aquire power by soecifically using every means at their disposal. It will happen ( will! HAH!) eventually. And it will be done using tools that yes, by Ford, will be able to interpret your facial expressions to decider intent. If they want to. But make no mistake, as miniturization, speed and power increase, you will be known root and branch by the Eye. Your intentions, your fears, your habits, your routines. Give me your bank card data and I can tell you about a very large fraction of your life. Existing tools dwarf this capability. Future ones, yes, make Orwell look like an optimist.

And this is precisely why Tinker is correct; there have to be agreed- upon limits that simply are not violated but under specific concern. This is America 101. And it's by nature shot to hell just on the very idea of the Internet itself , sadly. This is not reason to surrender, though. This is reason to have strong limits that are technically unnescesary and inefficient. Those safeguards need to be woven into the very fiber of what inevitable surveilence protocols do manifest ( as they inevitably will). In the old days, they called it checks and balances.

But there is no balance to a technocracy. Who has the highest tech, wins. There is no second place. Contra the disciples of the Gods of the Copybook Headings,there is a tipping point approaching. When we hit it, you won't have privacy down to your dreams. If there is a way to beat tyrants with that tool- even tyrants using it for our own good- I can't imagine it.
if you dont want people reading your face, wear a face covering like bandits and muslim women do - i demand the right to wear a nijab!
if you dont want people reading your electronic messages then use heavily encrypted private peer to peer networks like government spooks do.

their is no legal way out of this using agreed-upon limits - anyone that says that and wants that is themselves the means by which conformist authoritarianism grows.

oh how much do i crave that comfy little village of cohesian from like mindeds who agree with my stance... what are the limits to my being able to create it... why would i protect the survival of those which make my lifestyle vision harder...

yikes, back to irrational morality foundations and societies agreement on the first principles again, all paths lead to it... kill the rest... amen.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

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to clarify my stance and rant against the above backdrop of rambling.

it is america 101 in the sense of the usual suspects of private alternatives to public infrastructure and the right to provide alternatives to the existing systems which is why its such a fraught argument with tragically low levels of success - the public internet cannot be stopped from snooping so your right to a private subset is a requirement of keeping it to a minimum and making life harder for the all seeing eye.

the only way to keep it free-er and less authoritarian is by allowing smaller groups to setup their own private networks and connect them to other groups, even worse it requires these private networks to discriminate against and reject connections from groups they dont trust... which is anti the security paranoid right wing and anti the left wing progressive free public services for all mindsets.

the usual arguments we are all sadly familiar with - modernity and multiculturalism and cooperation without consent and the various stances on what it means to be a "society" in a post tribal world.. or are we post tribal at all.. or how do you create conformity to fight conformity.

bugurk.

the only real optimism i have is in our flexability - im so much cagier about such things than my parents generation and the generations following me will be even more so - ive spent far more time practising blank face than my dad ever would of.

the peak oil people just might be right and the new renewables based world might be so much LESS than we can currently imagine - maybe thats my doomer pron leaking out again.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Enki »

noddy wrote: if you dont want people reading your face, wear a face covering like bandits and muslim women do - i demand the right to wear a nijab!
if you dont want people reading your electronic messages then use heavily encrypted private peer to peer networks like government spooks do.
Government spooks use biometrically encrypted hard drives.
their is no legal way out of this using agreed-upon limits - anyone that says that and wants that is themselves the means by which conformist authoritarianism grows.
We are already there.
oh how much do i crave that comfy little village of cohesian from like mindeds who agree with my stance... what are the limits to my being able to create it... why would i protect the survival of those which make my lifestyle vision harder...
It's a good question.
yikes, back to irrational morality foundations and societies agreement on the first principles again, all paths lead to it... kill the rest... amen.
Morality is eminently rational. We have been taught otherwise into a logic that is not rational at all. There is basically one commandment in the bible. Just one. Don't prey on other humans.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Simple Minded »

noddy wrote:to clarify my stance and rant against the above backdrop of rambling.

it is america 101 in the sense of the usual suspects of private alternatives to public infrastructure and the right to provide alternatives to the existing systems which is why its such a fraught argument with tragically low levels of success - the public internet cannot be stopped from snooping so your right to a private subset is a requirement of keeping it to a minimum and making life harder for the all seeing eye.

the only way to keep it free-er and less authoritarian is by allowing smaller groups to setup their own private networks and connect them to other groups, even worse it requires these private networks to discriminate against and reject connections from groups they dont trust... which is anti the security paranoid right wing and anti the left wing progressive free public services for all mindsets.

the usual arguments we are all sadly familiar with - modernity and multiculturalism and cooperation without consent and the various stances on what it means to be a "society" in a post tribal world.. or are we post tribal at all.. or how do you create conformity to fight conformity.

bugurk.

the only real optimism i have is in our flexability - im so much cagier about such things than my parents generation and the generations following me will be even more so - ive spent far more time practising blank face than my dad ever would of.
Good points nod, that why the international brotherhood of redneck zen practitioners relies on smoke signals for our primary communication. Everyone has access to them, the sender knows what he means, but no one who reads them knows what the hell the sending is saying. Kinda like the internet..... in that regard ;)

I like your statement about blank face and your dad. The desire to impress thousands of receivers in a limited time, few of whom will spend more than a few seconds trying to understand the transmitter........ Sorry, no time, call waiting.... on line 42b...... whoa text message........ pager..... Many of whom feel they have a right not to be "offended"..... While refusing to take responsibility for their chosen interpretation of available information...


When the megaphones get bigger, so does the desire for a larger audience.... sometimes there are unintentional listeneers....

I'm not sure who is funnier, the person who yells into their cell phone on the bus while demanding privacy, or the eavesdropper who demands not to be offended.

The desire to be "free".. from the results of our thinking and habits. While perennially requesting Big Brother to get into our shorts and make our lives better.....or thinking the "right" technology/legislation will make "the others" better.... is producing results.....
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Simple Minded »

If I were Obama, I would attempt to defuse the blowback over the NSA spying by announcing that effective immediately, via executive order, the NSA would be refocused as the National Similarity Agency, dedicated to the promotion of social justice, multi-cultural equality, equalization of human potential, and ending offense in the minds of the offended.
Hell, the infrastructure is already in place.....

When the hate crime/hate speech trial balloons were starting to be floated (late 1970's?), if you pointed out to the supporters that the idea of emotion crime, was eerily similar to the concept of "thought crime" in the novel 1984, the contemporary enlightened intellectuals thought you were nuts.

I'll bet a full 50% of the pissed off would approve.

and if they didn't, his supporters could yell RACIST!!!
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

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noddy wrote:if i get mr p right then prism is a tin foil hat issue and any criticism of obama on it is only fit for the loony fringes... fair enough, thats what ive been saying.
There were right wing nutjobs reporting on Echelon in the late 90's, I used to listen to them late at night. One night they would do Echelon then the next night UFO's, then Bigfoot, the JFK, then fake moon landings, and so forth. You may not have people like that. Do you get Ancient Aliens? It was that crowd. Until recently Echelon = Ancient Aliens = El Chupacabra = X Files, etc.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

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Mr. Perfect wrote:
noddy wrote:if i get mr p right then prism is a tin foil hat issue and any criticism of obama on it is only fit for the loony fringes... fair enough, thats what ive been saying.
There were right wing nutjobs reporting on Echelon in the late 90's, I used to listen to them late at night. One night they would do Echelon then the next night UFO's, then Bigfoot, the JFK, then fake moon landings, and so forth. You may not have people like that. Do you get Ancient Aliens? It was that crowd. Until recently Echelon = Ancient Aliens = El Chupacabra = X Files, etc.
Looney fringe . . . Right wing nutjobs . . . Conspiracy theory . . .some proven correct in retrospect.

All are correct in that they reveal faults in news coverage and doubts/fears/aspirations of people. Even the silliest of them.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

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Mr. Perfect wrote:
noddy wrote:if i get mr p right then prism is a tin foil hat issue and any criticism of obama on it is only fit for the loony fringes... fair enough, thats what ive been saying.
There were right wing nutjobs reporting on Echelon in the late 90's, I used to listen to them late at night. One night they would do Echelon then the next night UFO's, then Bigfoot, the JFK, then fake moon landings, and so forth. You may not have people like that. Do you get Ancient Aliens? It was that crowd. Until recently Echelon = Ancient Aliens = El Chupacabra = X Files, etc.
Why is this even relevant? Those programs were already well into violating rights along this axis at that time. It's a simple fact. If you're trying to smear the entire issue by yammering on about tinfoil hats, you are not paying attention. You're hijacking .
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Enki »

Demon of Undoing wrote:
Mr. Perfect wrote:
noddy wrote:if i get mr p right then prism is a tin foil hat issue and any criticism of obama on it is only fit for the loony fringes... fair enough, thats what ive been saying.
There were right wing nutjobs reporting on Echelon in the late 90's, I used to listen to them late at night. One night they would do Echelon then the next night UFO's, then Bigfoot, the JFK, then fake moon landings, and so forth. You may not have people like that. Do you get Ancient Aliens? It was that crowd. Until recently Echelon = Ancient Aliens = El Chupacabra = X Files, etc.
Why is this even relevant? Those programs were already well into violating rights along this axis at that time. It's a simple fact. If you're trying to smear the entire issue by yammering on about tinfoil hats, you are not paying attention. You're hijacking .
I don't think that's his point. I think his point is that only the tinfoil crowd cared about it back when there was even time to do anything about it.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Demon of Undoing »

Enki wrote:
Demon of Undoing wrote:
Mr. Perfect wrote:
noddy wrote:if i get mr p right then prism is a tin foil hat issue and any criticism of obama on it is only fit for the loony fringes... fair enough, thats what ive been saying.
There were right wing nutjobs reporting on Echelon in the late 90's, I used to listen to them late at night. One night they would do Echelon then the next night UFO's, then Bigfoot, the JFK, then fake moon landings, and so forth. You may not have people like that. Do you get Ancient Aliens? It was that crowd. Until recently Echelon = Ancient Aliens = El Chupacabra = X Files, etc.
Why is this even relevant? Those programs were already well into violating rights along this axis at that time. It's a simple fact. If you're trying to smear the entire issue by yammering on about tinfoil hats, you are not paying attention. You're hijacking .
I don't think that's his point. I think his point is that only the tinfoil crowd cared about it back when there was even time to do anything about it.

Which has no bearing on anything to do with anything. That I can see, anyway. I'm not interested in whether a political faction he loves or loves to hate was talking about whatever.

Edit: yeah, went back a page to where he brings up Bell as an excuse to give the Republican Party their mandatory daily knob shine. More pretending they were a viable alternative. The fact that there was no viable alternative doesn't make the Republicans into a realistic one.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

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The nature of viability is in how the bureaucracy is structured and how it views itself. Viable to do the things it has been doing, questioning policy is not to be done. The policy has been this way forever so it must be good policy! And well, it's made the USA #1. Manifest Destiny baby!

We are America, lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own, resistance is futile.

In the world of the machine, you can be anything you want, as long as it is not: being unplugged from the machine.

So what flavor of singularity are you dreaming about?
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Demon of Undoing »

I don't know. But I can think of no better bridge to an AI event than a deep surveillance network. But that's neither here nor there.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by noddy »

while(1) domesday_book++

off topic but related - i dreamt up silly little black comedy with no clever tact in it that had a dual strand story - one of the scientists and keepers in the zoo and their challenges to keep the animals healthy and stimulated, the other strand our beloved elites and the masses in highrise apartments and they had exactly the same scripts.

a total oliver stone cheese fest.. ends with some poignant looking at each other through glass moment, string orchestra blazin.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Enki »

Demon of Undoing wrote:I don't know. But I can think of no better bridge to an AI event than a deep surveillance network. But that's neither here nor there.
I think the thesis of your argument rests in the acknowledgement that the machine views the entire material universe as an information system. And that it fundamentally perceives its own right to have perfect knowledge of that system.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Enki »

noddy wrote:while(1) domesday_book++

off topic but related - i dreamt up silly little black comedy with no clever tact in it that had a dual strand story - one of the scientists and keepers in the zoo and their challenges to keep the animals healthy and stimulated, the other strand our beloved elites and the masses in highrise apartments and they had exactly the same scripts.

a total oliver stone cheese fest.. ends with some poignant looking at each other through glass moment, string orchestra blazin.
I think it would work best if it culminated in one of the bureaucrats confronted with one of the zookeepers in some sort of black swan event at the zoo that turned his afternoon frolic into serious business that challenged his perception of how the world is constructed by putting him in a situation that could only be caused by the construction of the world in such a manner, but totally and completely violates the fundamental precepts of that world's order.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Ibrahim »

Enki wrote:
Demon of Undoing wrote:I don't know. But I can think of no better bridge to an AI event than a deep surveillance network. But that's neither here nor there.
I think the thesis of your argument rests in the acknowledgement that the machine views the entire material universe as an information system. And that it fundamentally perceives its own right to have perfect knowledge of that system.
That's the technical reality of the techno-snooping, but the political problem is still what is done with the information. A malice and eventual coercion comes from a person or people, against other persons or people. Technology isn't the actual threat per se, its a weapon wielded by the threat.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Demon of Undoing »

Ibrahim wrote:
Enki wrote:
Demon of Undoing wrote:I don't know. But I can think of no better bridge to an AI event than a deep surveillance network. But that's neither here nor there.
I think the thesis of your argument rests in the acknowledgement that the machine views the entire material universe as an information system. And that it fundamentally perceives its own right to have perfect knowledge of that system.
That's the technical reality of the techno-snooping, but the political problem is still what is done with the information. A malice and eventual coercion comes from a person or people, against other persons or people. Technology isn't the actual threat per se, its a weapon wielded by the threat.

Yes. Skynet moments aside, the system is a tool to magnify human nature. In this case, the nature of a very very few, much vetted, unsupervised, unelected, multi administration group. If they are at this time morally pure as the proverbial driven snow, they will not be for long. The tools magnify the power to know. They will eventually do so for someone for whom the constitution is not merely inconvenient, but anathema.

Assuming it hasn't happened already.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Ibrahim »

Demon of Undoing wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:
Enki wrote:
Demon of Undoing wrote:I don't know. But I can think of no better bridge to an AI event than a deep surveillance network. But that's neither here nor there.
I think the thesis of your argument rests in the acknowledgement that the machine views the entire material universe as an information system. And that it fundamentally perceives its own right to have perfect knowledge of that system.
That's the technical reality of the techno-snooping, but the political problem is still what is done with the information. A malice and eventual coercion comes from a person or people, against other persons or people. Technology isn't the actual threat per se, its a weapon wielded by the threat.

Yes. Skynet moments aside, the system is a tool to magnify human nature. In this case, the nature of a very very few, much vetted, unsupervised, unelected, multi administration group. If they are at this time morally pure as the proverbial driven snow, they will not be for long. The tools magnify the power to know. They will eventually do so for someone for whom the constitution is not merely inconvenient, but anathema.

Assuming it hasn't happened already.

It doesn't make them unstoppable, though it would probably be easier to stop them if anybody seemed to care that it was happening.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by noddy »

yep - petty local officials is the most likely bad outcome for most of us - the reasons could be corruption or they could be as mundane as a personality conflict and them not liking "people like you".
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by noddy »

Enki wrote:
noddy wrote:while(1) domesday_book++

off topic but related - i dreamt up silly little black comedy with no clever tact in it that had a dual strand story - one of the scientists and keepers in the zoo and their challenges to keep the animals healthy and stimulated, the other strand our beloved elites and the masses in highrise apartments and they had exactly the same scripts.

a total oliver stone cheese fest.. ends with some poignant looking at each other through glass moment, string orchestra blazin.
I think it would work best if it culminated in one of the bureaucrats confronted with one of the zookeepers in some sort of black swan event at the zoo that turned his afternoon frolic into serious business that challenged his perception of how the world is constructed by putting him in a situation that could only be caused by the construction of the world in such a manner, but totally and completely violates the fundamental precepts of that world's order.
thats why you are a writer and my main artistic releases are music and photography, both of which speak without words :)

you got me thinking though - i like the black comedy idea of the zookeepers having the perception insight and allowing the animals a pathway back to free whilst the human bureaucrat moves in the opposite direction and the big poignant ending is the animal on the outside of the glass cage watching the human.
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Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Enki wrote: I don't think that's his point. I think his point is that only the tinfoil crowd cared about it back when there was even time to do anything about it.
Not exactly. In fairness maybe I should flesh this out.

Echelon was tinfoil material by the MSM. It's not that only the tinfoils cared about it, it was caring about it made you a tinfoil. Whether you are liberal, or conservative, there are certain issues/topics respectively rightly or wrongly that you simply do not talk about because you lose. This is now coming from a different framework, but until recently Echelon was one of them. I won't go into the details on how Republicans actually curtailed the program in the last decade because it will be angrily denied and isn't ultimately relevant.

In politics you have to pick your battles. For whatever reason in the 1990's echelon was tinfoil material. If you raised the topic you were in alien Roswell territory. Back when that used to be a bad thing. It just was. If you don't know that go find a time machine and then report back to me on how I'm wrong, because apparently I'm dealing with a gaggle of greenhorns here who were radicalized sometime between 2001 and 2003, and believe political history began at that date.

This is what is so objectionable about people like Berzer, who after the fact come in pointing fingers but will do nothing to do the actual donkey work of doing things one day at a time, one step at at time, one brick at a time. When you elect Republicans whole scads of government oppression goes off the table, socialized medicine, taxes, government regulation, constitutional rights, on and on. Half the stuff that the GOP does that it shouldn't is to pacify the MSM into not calling us child starvers and racists. The other half can be dealt if the Democrats had been erased and the MSM broken, and a new party naturally emerging. Then we can pick and choose between those two parties. This option was rejected by people like Berzer stupidly, and it will never present itself again. Now he cheers as Christians are put on rail cars. It's good for them.

When Democrats are in power ALL freedom is at risk, as Democrats do not believe in any limits on gov't. The only freedoms they even pay lip service to is sex and drugs, and even then they almost never follow through.
Censorship isn't necessary
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Enki
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Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:04 pm

Re: The tendency of tech society is tyranny

Post by Enki »

noddy wrote:yep - petty local officials is the most likely bad outcome for most of us - the reasons could be corruption or they could be as mundane as a personality conflict and them not liking "people like you".
My In-Laws town had to shutdown the police department and all public lights because the Mayor's wife as part of the city council turned down a building permit because she didn't want the house which was her best friend's house growing up to be altered. The family trying to build an extra room for their baby naturally sued the town because they went back and forth with their architects to bring it up to code. They won, the town went bankrupt and elected the dude Mayor because no one else would run.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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