[ExI] calling for our exi computer security hipsters, was: RE: Donald Trump

[BillK]

On 8 May 2016 at 07:52, Anders Sandberg  wrote:
> On 2016-05-08 02:24, BillK wrote:
>>
>> I agreed that an open society was a 'good thing', but it is far too
>> utopian for the current state of humanity.
>
>
> Huh? I was using it in the standard PoliSci sense. And by that sense you and
> me are living in open societies. Not "open", but open. We will not go to
> jail for criticising the government policy unless we do it in some really
> crazy way. If we organise to change something in society we have a fair
> chance of influencing things. There is rule of law, people criticising the
> law, and changes to the law.
>
> There are a lot of places that do not have open societies. But overall, a
> fairly sizeable chunk of the world is open as per the latest indices (e.g.
> Freedom House).
>


Definitions can be tricky. There is open society, open government,
press freedom, freedom of information, etc.
Freedom House commented in 2016 --
"These developments contributed to the 10th consecutive year of
decline in global freedom".

Western societies are certainly more open and more free than many countries.
But the amount of secrecy, spying, tracking, spin and public opinion
manipulation going on is discouraging.
The US appears to be moving towards a merger of corporate and state
power (fascism).
And whistleblowers are severely punished (if the state can get hold of them).

So there is much room for improvement in the 'openness' of Western society.

BillK