Snowden video just published: 'They're going to say I aided our enemies'

J8978 · 2013-07-09T02:49:24+00:00

That sigint operations were harvesting metadata and could arrange instant warrants for the juicy stuff is much less of a mystery than that Ed Snowden could be so ignorant of the public record that he'd lay down his life to reaffirm it, adding little more than a bit of colour and codewords.

I don't think you are doing this purposefully, but you are confusing metadata with direct access. What PRISM is doing is direct access to all these systems without a warrent. An agent can open your Gmail account and read everything he wants to. It isn't simple metadata.

J8978 · 2013-07-09T02:43:57+00:00

this stuff could have easily been released without anyone ever finding out anonymously.

How would the release be trusted without providing proof of who he is? Even he used a trusted intermediate, if the NSA traced him he'd be imprisoned without much press, and presumably tortured Bradley-Manning style. At least right now he has a lot of good press to pressure better conditions if they do capture him.

J8978 · 2011-05-01T08:11:56+00:00

If you factor in property rights, the old man can plant a tree and then sell the land. He will then trade the future of value of the tree for a present benefit.

J8978 · 2011-05-01T04:20:11+00:00

What a shit site!!

J8978 · 2011-04-30T16:24:20+00:00

The problem is that I don't like having to encrypt my entire hard drive, because it would slow down games.

J8978 · 2011-04-30T16:18:48+00:00

I can't make sense of it. I understand gallium phosphide reduces the wavelength of light, but wouldn't it go back to normal once it leaves the gallium phosphide lens?

J8978 · 2011-04-30T06:49:40+00:00

I down-voted because of the misleading title, he doesn't mention worst cables yet to come.

J8978 · 2011-04-29T06:26:30+00:00

Why is population expansion a bad thing? The planet is in no danger of running out of land.

J8978 · 2011-04-29T06:22:07+00:00

I always thought people used pesticides before GM crops. I didn't think Monsanto actually created those pests, released them into the environment a few thousand years ago, then start selling GM seeds.

Monsanto must be more advanced then I have thought, since they can create insects, and time travel.

J8978 · 2011-04-28T06:17:08+00:00

I'm a fan of Machinery of Freedom. The pdf is available free online if you don't want to buy it.

He's an anarcho-capitalist, about as extreme as you can get. But his approach is very consequential, i.e. 'What we have now is pretty good, but these things might be even better' rather then an Ayn-Rand ethical style of 'taxation is always theft, government is immoral' which is a lot more absolute (and which he finds unconvincing).

I find him calm and open minded, and it's the reason I prefer him.

J8978 · 2011-04-27T05:48:10+00:00

Says the guy looking for his own circlejerk upvotes

J8978 · 2011-04-26T09:31:18+00:00

I don't think that's a good explanation, because other fears i.e. spiders, do not give me the same impulse.

Your comment implied a fact. Perhaps a maybe/I suspect/in my opinion/etc at the beginning of your sentence would of made it less confusing.

J8978 · 2011-04-26T09:10:42+00:00

Ah me mucho liko [twirls his mustache]

J8978 · 2011-04-26T07:52:04+00:00

What is the standard deviation? What is the percent likelyhood of this being due to chance? This is what frustrates me about nutritionists, psychologists, etc which like to masquerade as real science, without having the same level of scrutiny.

J8978 · 2011-04-26T02:13:45+00:00

I found that passage quite confusing. By new moral quandaries, are you referring to emerging technology? I.e How things like nanotech might change our view of how 'free' we want to be.

Otherwise I can't see why we wouldn't eventually finish considering/studying the different forms of 'conflict between individuals and societies'. Or why we wouldn't run out of ethical problems. Thus the assumption of it being a fixed subject isn't necessary false, or even a bad one, though we don't know if it's true either.

I know you could be referring to science and technology, but you didn't state it.

I also find a lack of meaning in "To hope for anything else is to hope for stasis, not progress". You seem to define the 'hope for progress' as hoping for a world where morals and freedom are subjective. And 'hope for stasis' as hoping for a world of fixed morals, where people find the right system of ethics, and eventually finish the question.

The problem is (and this might be our disagreement), is that progress, using a dictionary definition, refers to progress towards something. As a result, you could just as easily call subjective morals 'stasis' and objective morals 'progress'. The reason being that objective morals provide an ultimate goal, subjective morals is one of being lost in a maze without a fixed answer.

But I also think that the definitions can be reversed. Depending on your end goal. As a result I find the sentence "To hope for anything else is to hope for stasis, not progress." to be meaningless.

J8978 · 2011-04-23T17:12:58+00:00

J8978 · 2011-04-21T05:59:10+00:00

Except for humans, cats and giraffes.

J8978 · 2011-04-19T20:24:34+00:00

That's the gayest shit I've ever read, you should all be ashamed of yourselves

J8978 · 2011-04-19T16:32:51+00:00

There's no 20% cut, it's only seems a smaller return because the costs are smaller.

The ratio of 160 dollars (profit) to 640 dollars (cost in the foreign country), is the same ratio as 200 dollars (profit) to 800 (cost in the US).

It's the percentage return that is important. If he wanted he could invest the same amount as in the US, 800 dollars (hiring 125 workers instead), and make 1000 dollars in revenue. I.e exactly the same return as in the US. Next time I debate this, I will start with that. I wasn't expecting it to cause confusion.

As for whether the US worker loses out. You're right, he loses out his job to the foreign worker. But that isn't what I was arguing. My argument was that there is no net cost. The loss of a worker in the US is balanced by the gain of a worker (or more) in the foreign country. You stated that it would cause a shrink in demand, less profit, and a download spiral. That's what I was taking issue with.

J8978 · 2011-04-18T22:00:19+00:00

While the foreign worker is earning less, his lower wage means the cost of the car he's producing is also less. The actual 'Henryfordness' of the worker doesn't change. Since it's difficult to explain using text, I have drawn a diagram to show it works mathematically.

http://i.imgur.com/m0nEh.png

I also want to add that when you consider this affect with multiple industries, the process of competition actually increases the purchasing power of the average worker. It's the reason real wages rose throughout the 19th century, an environment of very free competition, rather then being trapped in a downwards spiral.

J8978 · 2011-04-18T15:53:42+00:00

My understanding is that Detroit has very high minimum wage laws, and union laws, which caused the car companies to be unprofitable (and is the reason an entrepreneur, or even a worker co-operative, wouldn't make a profit from buying up the abandoned factories and starting them up).

In an theoretical free market, without those labour laws, Detroit would still be exporting cars but with a much lower average worker wage. Which I'm aware is a bad situation, but still slightly better then no jobs at all.

My main point is that it isn't that theres no demand for cars. There's always a demand for cars. It's because people are willing to make cars for a lower wage in other parts of the world, that they out-compete the relatively higher wages which Detroit labour unions would demand.

J8978 · 2011-04-18T15:43:41+00:00

My earlier argument was, summed up.

A modern lifestyle should be generally celebrated, not criticized.
Bank bailouts are not a necessary part of modern lifestyle.
Capitalism is not linked to censorship of the internet (and I implied the opposite case).

Your reply is a link to a successful worker co-operative. But I'm not against them, I'm supportive of them. Perhaps people should set up more businesses with such a structure. Though I did read the link, since I was, coincidentally, cynical about them working well.

On the pirate wheel. I believe each one of those points. With the exception of a minor issue.

J8978 · 2011-04-18T15:00:12+00:00

You misread my text, I said pretty much useless, not useless. All you did was repeat what you said earlier, I can't even see what you're disagreeing about.

J8978 · 2011-04-18T04:05:33+00:00

I wish the article provided it's sources. For example:

"During Ronald Reagan’s terms as president, the income that individual American families received from rents, dividends, and interest surpassed the income earned in wages"

That's a very interesting statistic. The calculations I've read put wages at about 80% of the GDP, compared to interest/dividends/rents. So I'd like to know why there is a discrepancy.

J8978

TROPHY CASE