[ExI] The NSA's new data center

[Kelly Anderson]

On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 5:59 AM, The Avantguardian
<avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> No. The real answer in the long term is to spread ourselves across so many star systems that NOBODY can kill all of us with weapons of mass destruction. We need multiple offsite backups of the species or of individuals, it doesn't matter.
>

Well, yeah, that is the ultimate solution in one sense.

> Select individuals have had the power to destroy civilization with the push of a button for over fifty years now. What is it about THOSE people that make them so much more special or trustworthy than you or me? That at the time, someone paid millions to put them into high office to make sure special favors were done in return?
>

Hopefully, and so far, the process keeps complete lunatics from
getting access to those buttons. Should the launch codes be kept
secret? You bet. At least for now. We don't have any way of protecting
ourselves at this point. My assertion that privacy may not last
forever is based on technologies that don't exist now. These
technologies will make privacy a quaint memory, I'm afraid. And while
they will allow the powerful to peer in at the less powerful, the
reverse is likely also going to be true. I don't like the asymmetric
application of privacy any better than today's class warfare. Both are
really bad.

> You ask if privacy is sustainable in such a world where individuals can wipe out all intelligent life? I ask you is individuality or intelligent life itself sustainable in such a world?

Maybe not. It would sure answer the question "Why is there nobody out there?"

> And furthermore, why does a society of beings so powerful that the lowest amongst them can extinguish them all, insist upon treating their lowest so shabbily that they would want to extinguish all their fellows?

You are forgetting about mental illness. Though with enough
technology, maybe we can defeat mental illness along with poverty and
the scourge of crazy ass religions. But it won't be easy.

> Have we learned nothing from over 5000 years of recorded history? What goes around comes around so I assure you the end of oppression will be the end of fear.
>

Sorry, what historical events lead you to THAT conclusion?

>>Asking it a different way. If everyone in the world had a button, that
>>if pushed would end the world, how long would the world last? Knowing
>>that the answer is "seconds, if that long"... and knowing that
>>individuals will likely obtain such technology some day in the not too
>>distant future... Could privacy survive in such a world? Should
>>privacy be allowed to survive in such a world?
>
> More people have the nuke now then ever. I know how much you loved how special it made America feel for something like 50 years now. I enjoyed it too. But it's time to let it go and come up with the next big thing. America cannot be the goose that lays golden eggs if we obsess over any one egg. The world never will be safe no matter how much freedom or dignity you sacrifice to the government. We just have to learn to cope with risk as we go, rather than using it as an excuse never to leave the cave.
>

You know, I think Ron Paul makes a pretty good argument when he says
"let the Iranians have the bomb." At least it's worth thinking about
seriously.

>>My motto, "Privacy is dead, get over it."
>
> That sounds a little like "Mao won the Cold War" to me.
>
>>If DCFS would install and monitor cameras in every room of my house, I
>>would let them. Why? Because it would protect me from their wild
>>imaginations! I'd rather let them in on all my so called "secrets"
>>than have them assume that I have secrets that I don't possess in
>>actuality. That's because they have absolute power over everything I
>>really care about, my family.
>
> Let no parent come between the state and its future voters. They are
> no longer your children. They are now "children of the sun".

If you think our children belong to us today, then you are living in a
happy dream world. The world I lived in before DCFS came in and
started trying to ruin my life. I have lost 7 of my children to those
bastards having done not one damn thing wrong to those kids. So don't
go trying to tell me that we live in some kind of free country. Those
freedoms are already dead and buried.

> I heard that one before only it was in a different language. So why would you tolerate anybody having absolute power over your family?

Why would the East Germans tolerate the police state? Because it WAS,
and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it.

> And if you are going to tolerate someone having absolute power over your family, why would you choose a faceless beauracracy? I mean if a person abuses power, you can always guilotine them. When a bureaucracy abuses power, they just lose the paperwork, and you don't even know who to blame.
>

Welcome to my life. You don't CHOOSE this. They choose YOU. You get in
the bureaucrat's sights, and you are toast. I can not live where I
want to live because there are bureaucrats who would make sure I lost
the kids I do have now if I moved back into that jurisdiction. But, if
they knew the truth because they had 24/7 video and audio of my life,
then I would have a chance to fight the bastards.

> I might request that I have my own
>>little private space for bathing and personal time... but eventually,
>>I think I could get over even that. Look at how quickly people on
>>reality TV get used to the cameras and just get on with their lives.
>>We'll ALL be reality TV stars in the future is my prediction.
>
> Yes, we will all be humiliated on television before the rest of the world so that society can find its one true winner. Until next season of course.
>

Look. You pick your nose... we all masturbate from time to time... we
have weird sexual fantasies and activities... if we all knew that we
all had these weird things that we ALL do... wouldn't it help us to be
more naturally human? I think the bonobos have it right sometimes.

>>In no way would I give up rights, but I don't see privacy as an
>>absolute right. Then maybe we'll get over this idea that we're not
>>just smart bipedal apes, but rather somehow special.
>
> Huh? I quote The Constitution:
>
> "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
>

OK, you may have me there. My right to privacy from the government is
a right. My privacy from other citizens? Not so sure about that...
Nevertheless, the trend sure seems to be towards less privacy, and I
don't think we'll be able to reverse that trend.

> Are not my words and my deeds truly mine? If not, then why hold me responsible for them? If so, then why seize them and search them unreasonably without a warrant? Spies are powerful weapons of war. Why does my government make war against me?
>

My government, or at least little parts of it, are at war against me.
And I against them. They know I'm after them, and they fear me. And I
fear them. It's not pretty. War never is. It is an asymmetric war, and
I have few weapons... only that there are a few checks and balances
left in government.

-Kelly