Riktor posted:

Second question: is there a cheaper way to keep the population at bay?

Yes. It's called football. And beer. And drugs.

You don't say? Football.. Really? That's only 5 months out of 12. That still gives us fans plenty of time to get up to all kinds of nonsense. Say.. Reading insults like this in a post and feeling compelled to respond to the nonsense?

Prezbyter posted:

And just as the hot babe with the huge tits looks great, she, as most information hereabouts, has likely been altered for the ease of consumption. The proper lighting, physical enhancement, angle and background can make a plain girl into a pornstar. Underneath, though, remains the same sad girl. Or horny little vixen. It is a broad community.

Pfft. It's called expensive face and body creams. You know.. Hair of camel, tail of rat.. *applies liberally* Horny little vixen? If you don't know the right sequence of buttons you just end up slapped in the face. I know that's not a permanent blush you have going on there Prez. Honestly.



Gentleman, you have obviously become bored with ripping into each other and are now making catty remarks about half the population of the forum. Good job!

Honestly.

^^ Hahahahaha you should visit the photo thread more often. It appears when The Man said "Big fucking titties!" We all found a home.
As for what he's happy about.. History shows that's not really your stronge suit is it?

*will disrupt this thread no more.

Rogue1 posted:

Riktor posted:

Second question: is there a cheaper way to keep the population at bay?

Yes. It's called football. And beer. And drugs.

You don't say? Football.. Really? That's only 5 months out of 12. That still gives us fans plenty of time to get up to all kinds of nonsense. Say.. Reading insults like this in a post and feeling compelled to respond to the nonsense?

Bread and Circuses

Thank you. Drive through.

There's a vast conspiracy?

Those with a little historical perspective understand that the USA has claimed itself the victim of many vast conspiracies. Long before you or I were alive and continuing to this instant. I realize that is hard to comprehend.

Try it this way: the HUAC was designed to root out the single communist who was trying to subvert our noble system. The Pentagon developed all manner of the deadliest weapons on the Earth to kill the solitary communist, Baathist, terrorist (add whatever group you might like) that threatened or threatens our way of life. That work for you?

All this deadly nonsense we're sparring about, you defending (cause you, like so many brave Americans are terrified of all the baddies coming to get us) me opposed (because all this ruinous weaponry and intelligence gathering bullshit is based upon manufactured threats to justify massive military outlays) is about little more than conspiracy. You or I discuss murdering people to steal their resources, we engage in conspiracy, because 1. there's more than one of us, 2. what we plan is illegal.

When the corporations, which make all these weapons and body scanners and drones and intelligence hard and software, engage in the same action, it becomes legal because it is done under the imprimateur of government. Unless you imagine a solitary opponent as the justification for all of our repressive social behaviors and anti-social global behaviors, then it is conspiracy being discussed. I'll define other words for you as we proceed.

This makes more sense than most of your previous post, but just because an action precedes another does not establish a causal link. You're also implying that we haven't learned from past mistakes, which I think is overstating the matter.

Just because a causal link isn't obvious does not deny one. You then suggest that the wars we are currently prosecuting at such cost can't be causally linked to any or all of the others we've so engaged since WWII? Korea - communists. Vietnam - communists. Cuba - communists. Nicaragua - communists. Honduras - communists. Iran - communists. Chile - communists. Does a pattern begin to emerge or are these all coincidences?

After the collapse of the USSR it shifted: Iraq - Marxism. Bosnia - terrorism. Sudan - terrorism. Afghanistan - terrorism. Iraq (again) - terrorism. Pakistan - terrorism...

General/President Eisenhower warned of the very issues we're dissecting - untrammeled power in the military/industrial corridors. I realize with your vast political experience that such amateurish proclamations from people like the general carry little weight - but we are not in global war and economic collapse because we spend too much on education. Clearly.

Apart from saying that you're not big on national defense, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The various and sundry security agencies are tools which need oversight and proper use. Have there been egregious violations of the trust placed in government? Of course. Has it been part of a trend? I would hesitate to say that we have the resources to systematize or coordinate something of the magnitude you're suggesting.

Likely because you hesitate to consider reality dispassionately. (And you phrase yourself like Donald Rumsfeld, which is not to your advantage if you wish to appear credible.) So, these various and various security agencies are tools, like nukes, and biological weapons and chemical weapons and domestic drones and machine-shotguns and on and on? One then wonders, what one would expect to build with such tools?

I look at the world at arms, at war, at imminent risk owing to our inability to learn, distrusting and suspicious and see that only desolation comes from tools which destroy while fostering enmity. Some, sad deluded fools think bombs and guns and survellience build freedom. They certainly free many from the burden of maintaining a pulse.

As to my unfounded generalizations and your disdain for absurdity (you should really consider some of your positions) I speak from a position of history, you advance ideology. Sure America has made some mistakes but that doesn't mean we're not right, is where I see you coming from. Just because our leaders lie doesn't mean we shouldn't believe them. Right?

It would be nice to operate from a place where I believed I could tell the difference from their lies and their truth and so blithely impugn any who aren't so gifted, but reality teaches me to not accept liars (or their apologists) at face value. Or better still to accept their ludicrous proclamations as the parlaying for advantage so many liars seek.

I have no survellience network, no high explosives or attack helicopters. Haven't spent myself into ruinous debt buying weapons to defend myself. Don't need huge walls to protect me from my neighbors (I find common decency works just fine) and contrary to your ludicrous assertion, don't think anyone is out to get me.

I don't support the CIA, NSA, NRO, DARPA or any of the numerous other spy agencies because I don't think, contrary to popular propaganda, the world is out to get us. Only a paranoid lunatic would imagine such anti-social networks as beneficial to our public mind or international face. The USA is paranoid.

That you can't see it is your own shortsightedness.

Prezbyter posted:

There's a vast conspiracy?

Those with a little historical perspective understand that the USA has claimed itself the victim of many vast conspiracies. Long before you or I were alive and continuing to this instant. I realize that is hard to comprehend.

Try it this way: the HUAC was designed to root out the single communist who was trying to subvert our noble system. The Pentagon developed all manner of the deadliest weapons on the Earth to kill the solitary communist, Baathist, terrorist (add whatever group you might like) that threatened or threatens our way of life. That work for you?

All this deadly nonsense we're sparring about, you defending (cause you, like so many brave Americans are terrified of all the baddies coming to get us) me opposed (because all this ruinous weaponry and intelligence gathering bullshit is based upon manufactured threats to justify massive military outlays) is about little more than conspiracy. You or I discuss murdering people to steal their resources, we engage in conspiracy, because 1. there's more than one of us, 2. what we plan is illegal.

When the corporations, which make all these weapons and body scanners and drones and intelligence hard and software, engage in the same action, it becomes legal because it is done under the imprimateur of government. Unless you imagine a solitary opponent as the justification for all of our repressive social behaviors and anti-social global behaviors, then it is conspiracy being discussed. I'll define other words for you as we proceed.

This makes more sense than most of your previous post, but just because an action precedes another does not establish a causal link. You're also implying that we haven't learned from past mistakes, which I think is overstating the matter.

Just because a causal link isn't obvious does not deny one. You then suggest that the wars we are currently prosecuting at such cost can't be causally linked to any or all of the others we've so engaged since WWII? Korea - communists. Vietnam - communists. Cuba - communists. Nicaragua - communists. Honduras - communists. Iran - communists. Chile - communists. Does a pattern begin to emerge or are these all coincidences?

After the collapse of the USSR it shifted: Iraq - Marxism. Bosnia - terrorism. Sudan - terrorism. Afghanistan - terrorism. Iraq (again) - terrorism. Pakistan - terrorism...

General/President Eisenhower warned of the very issues we're dissecting - untrammeled power in the military/industrial corridors. I realize with your vast political experience that such amateurish proclamations from people like the general carry little weight - but we are not in global war and economic collapse because we spend too much on education. Clearly.

Apart from saying that you're not big on national defense, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The various and sundry security agencies are tools which need oversight and proper use. Have there been egregious violations of the trust placed in government? Of course. Has it been part of a trend? I would hesitate to say that we have the resources to systematize or coordinate something of the magnitude you're suggesting.

Likely because you hesitate to consider reality dispassionately. (And you phrase yourself like Donald Rumsfeld, which is not to your advantage if you wish to appear credible.) So, these various and various security agencies are tools, like nukes, and biological weapons and chemical weapons and domestic drones and machine-shotguns and on and on? One then wonders, what one would expect to build with such tools?

I look at the world at arms, at war, at imminent risk owing to our inability to learn, distrusting and suspicious and see that only desolation comes from tools which destroy while fostering enmity. Some, sad deluded fools think bombs and guns and survellience build freedom. They certainly free many from the burden of maintaining a pulse.

As to my unfounded generalizations and your disdain for absurdity (you should really consider some of your positions) I speak from a position of history, you advance ideology. Sure America has made some mistakes but that doesn't mean we're not right, is where I see you coming from. Just because our leaders lie doesn't mean we shouldn't believe them. Right?

It would be nice to operate from a place where I believed I could tell the difference from their lies and their truth and so blithely impugn any who aren't so gifted, but reality teaches me to not accept liars (or their apologists) at face value. Or better still to accept their ludicrous proclamations as the parlaying for advantage so many liars seek.

I have no survellience network, no high explosives or attack helicopters. Haven't spent myself into ruinous debt buying weapons to defend myself. Don't need huge walls to protect me from my neighbors (I find common decency works just fine) and contrary to your ludicrous assertion, don't think anyone is out to get me.

I don't support the CIA, NSA, NRO, DARPA or any of the numerous other spy agencies because I don't think, contrary to popular propaganda, the world is out to get us. Only a paranoid lunatic would imagine such anti-social networks as beneficial to our public mind or international face. The USA is paranoid.

That you can't see it is your own shortsightedness.

You're all over the place, dude, and at this point you're just venting and pointing fingers, again; this time at me. There's a war, so it's part of your conspiracy. There's an intervention, so it's part of your conspiracy. There's a government agency, so it's part of your conspiracy. The entire United States is part of your conspiracy. I am part of your conspiracy. What the fuck is your point? The USA is paranoid???

ALL GENERALIZATIONS ARE FALSE (including this one).

You don't speak from a position of history, you interject history in a position of conspiracy theory. Your wild accusations against anyone who doesn't wholeheartedly agree with you evidence this.

Also, I haven't really advocated much in the way of positions except that it would be nice for you to provide some empirical evidence, which we're still waiting for. If that's absurd, you're beyond hope. You are trying to make this a dick-measuring contest instead of having a grounded discussion. That you dichotomize my point of view from yours is proof positive that you aren't paying attention to what's been said. That you liken me to Donald Rumsfeld is fucking laughable.

Furthermore, if your idea of common decency is calling people shortsighted, I doubt your neighbors like you very much. Your attitude rots.

Quote some propaganda think-tank all you like, I prefer Roosevelt myself.

"Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference."

-FDR

More preaching, still no empirical evidence.

Some assclown waxing psychic about pervasive surveillance recording "undoubtedly" existing and being used based on nothing but his own tarot card readings does not constitute an empirical study.

As it stands, I see no compelling reason to bother responding further to your haphazard and uninspiring posts about Big Brother. Find someone else onto whom to unload your illogical, inconsistent nonsense.

By the way, Dante was an actual poet, not a fictional character, just putting that out there.

As it stands, I see no compelling reason to bother responding further to your haphazard and uninspiring posts about Big Brother. Find someone else onto whom to unload your illogical, inconsistent nonsense.

The United States is a national security state. This is a fact whether you choose to accept it or not. The fact that we spend more on our military and intelligence operations (one in the same - at odds as always) than all other nations combined is well reported and not denied by the government. If you choose to not be informed about basic geopolitical realities, then it seems that your attempts to impress with intellect fall by the wayside. They certainly have with me.

Inconsistent? Do you know what that word means?

You blather about the demand for hard proof of what is evident around you then offer God?

Divine justice is a fictional morality lesson, just as the notion of an all knowing, seeing, loving, vengeful, forgiving, jealous god is fictional. You demand proof from me and offer FDR quoting about the benevolence of the rich and supernatural benificence.

I will offer you this - I find you wholly consistent.

Prezbyter posted:

As it stands, I see no compelling reason to bother responding further to your haphazard and uninspiring posts about Big Brother. Find someone else onto whom to unload your illogical, inconsistent nonsense.

The United States is a national security state. This is a fact whether you choose to accept it or not. The fact that we spend more on our military and intelligence operations (one in the same - at odds as always) than all other nations combined is well reported and not denied by the government. If you choose to not be informed about basic geopolitical realities, then it seems that your attempts to impress with intellect fall by the wayside. They certainly have with me.

Inconsistent? Do you know what that word means?

You blather about the demand for hard proof of what is evident around you then offer God?

Divine justice is a fictional morality lesson, just as the notion of an all knowing, seeing, loving, vengeful, forgiving, jealous god is fictional. You demand proof from me and offer FDR quoting about the benevolence of the rich and supernatural benificence.

I will offer you this - I find you wholly consistent.

Your entire argument is a non-sequitur.

What the United States government has done in the past (your so-called "historical perspective" ) is not positive proof the government has the requisite technology, manpower, and incentive to monitor everything everyone is saying to everyone else.

Honestly, how can you not see this? The MKULTRA program doesn't put the requisite bodies behind desks. The Bay of Pigs invasion doesn't write the code. The bombing of Cambodia doesn't build the solid state storage arrays necessary to handle the unfathomable data transfers.

What the government has done isn't the question. The question is whether or not the technology, and thereby the capability exists. You may argue the intent is there, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but you cannot, and have not proven the government has the ability to do what you claim.

I've gone over this before, and, frankly, I've no intention of going over it again. For a person who claims his profession is "philosopher", you are woefully deficient in your grasp of basic logical fallacies. This is 101 material, if not par for the course in some half-assed high school philosophy elective. That you have been unable to address these very simple points, opting instead to reread A People's History of the United States aloud (and as if none of us have read it ourselves) while chastizing us for daring to demand you back up your claims with positive proof, leads me wonder whether you are unwilling to apply these concepts out of some petulant inferiority/pedagogical complex, or because you really don't understand them at all.

Perhaps I'm being an optimist here, but I think it is because you don't understand them. If that's the case, you can find a basic list of logical fallacies here. Once you've gotten the hang of those, there is a more in-depth list here.

Until then, I wash my hands of this silliness.

Prezbyter posted:

As it stands, I see no compelling reason to bother responding further to your haphazard and uninspiring posts about Big Brother. Find someone else onto whom to unload your illogical, inconsistent nonsense.

Yes, everyone who disagrees with your wild assertions is choosing not to "be informed about basic geopolitical realities." In case it hadn't crossed your mind, you do not get to choose what facts are cause and effect on the fly. Your discounting of intellectual argument in general as shown by your behavior on this forum and complete lack of empirical evidence to support your conclusions is probably why you take stock in propaganda.


You're good to your word.


What the government has done isn't the question. The question is whether or not the technology, and thereby the capability exists. You may argue the intent is there, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but you cannot, and have not proven the government has the ability to do what you claim.

The question is what the government does. Not has done, or is or isn't capable of, what they do. I'll offer some links and quotes from people not concerned about divine justice or so desperate to discredit me that they'll ignore the very behavior they accuse me of in their own posts.

The concern I, as a philospher, express is the underlying mindset that even the desire for such things as Total Surveillence poses. We are currently at war in at least 5 other nations, all that we started based upon lies by the very people who came up with TIA and then said they had scrapped it, owing to popular outrage. We're on the verge of global conflagration owing to our noble work in Syria and Iran, which Russia has made clear they will enter.

Why?

Because we're afraid. That's the public justification for all this war, all this surveillence, all of this bullshit. We's scared.

The evil-doers are coming for us. The evil-doers are always coming for us. Run and hide, duck and cover. Fox will tell us who to hate today.

The real reason is the same as its always been, some rich guys get richer off of war and surveillence, electronic and otherwise, so we always gotta be afraid. Have lots of enemies, everywhere. I've written to the NSA asking them for the hard copy documentation proving that all of their billions and billions of dollars of listening gear isn't being turned on us. Strangely, they can't provide even that proof.

Guess we'll have to rely upon more public sources.

As a result of the digital revolution, many aspects of life are now captured and stored in digital form. Concern has been expressed that governments may use this information to conduct mass surveillance on their populations. Commercial mass surveillance often makes use of copyright laws and "user agreements" to obtain (typically uninformed) 'consent' to surveillance from consumers who use their software or other related materials. This allows gathering of information which would be technically illegal if performed by government agencies. This data is then often shared with government agencies - thereby - in practice - defeating the purpose of such privacy protections.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Police surveillence:

[www.nytimes.com]

Fed surveillence:

[www.zdnet.com]

ATT surveillence:

[www.eff.org]

I am not afraid of Iranian nukes. I am not afraid of Muslim terrorists. Or Hindu terrorists. Or even Jewish or Christian terrorists (the scariest of all). Don't spend myself broke to defend myself from enemies all around me. I am not afraid of puerile insults from people who live in happy little bubbles, nor am I afraid of being spied on by my government or anyone. It is this nation that lives in that perpetual manufactured fear.

I am merely aware of it.

And point it out to those smart enough to get it.

Thank for enlightening us to the government's engagement in the targeted surveilance of specific groups and/or entities, but, as I've said, we're already aware of that.

The premise of the argument, AGAIN, is that the government has the technology - and is using the technology - to ACTIVELY monitor EVERY domestic electronic communication.

For nearly a page and half now, I've been trying to keep you on topic. You either refuse or you are incapable. Regardless, I no longer care.

You're a hopeless case.

Good day, sir.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/2012 02:20PM by Riktor.

chrisdonohue posted:

What really irritates me is that we all know that we've had drones and surveillance all around the rest of the world and people think that's totally fine; like we own the world. And to think of how much money all this costs when we have people in our country who can't get a college education, not because their stupid, but because theycan't afford it. With all we spend on spying, couldn't we pay for every American to get a full college education? Wouldn't that be more constructive than spying on anyone? Who voted for these fucked up priorities? The majority of Americans would surely vote for better education and healthcare before they vote for spying on the world, right? We need to fix our "democracy".

Yes, and debt relief for education was a major issue of the OWS protests. Remember also that Congress recently tried to get rid of PBS and NPR as part of their spending cuts, when for the cost of a single missile they could pay for both several times over.

Why am I back here? Oh yes, to add something to this endless debate.

A good example I think here might be call centers. No matter how large the particular facility may be, every call is recorded and stored in the database. If certain foul language or key words are used by a center representative, the call is flagged immediately for a monitor to listen to. Also should there be a dispute between customer and rep the calls can be pulled up and listened to.

Another fine example is Google. Every key stroke while using a google product is stored in their databases. For what purposes? Perhaps targeted advertising, perhaps more. Regardless, the government and states are (and have) requested Google information from these data bases and gotten it. Facebook is now doing the same and storing all.

So, while I don't believe big brother would have people listening to every conversation, etc.. Should we think it can't be recorded, stored and brought back at some future date to bite an individual in the ass if need be? Now that would be just naive on our parts wouldn't it?

I for one am not a "Doomsday" person. My personal cup is always half full. But to think these drones are for our "own good and the good of the country" is well.. I leave it to you to figure out.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/2012 06:16PM by Rogue1.

HurtNoMore posted:

Riktor, nice use of font variation.

I aim to please.

If you cross your eyes and squint you can almost make out "To provide for unmanned drones for the use of domestic intelligence gathering." in section 1 article 8 of the Constitution. Almost.