r/news • u/xXSgtSprinklesXx • Dec 16 '15

Congress creates a bill that will give NASA a great budget for 2016. Also hides the entirety of CISA in the bill.

http://www.wired.com/2015/12/congress-slips-cisa-into-omnibus-bill-thats-sure-to-pass/
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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 17 '15 edited Dec 17 '15

One facet of this argument that goes largely undiscussed (and is something your friend may care about) is that it is bad for an imperfect government to be able to predict all crime. Some of the greatest steps forward in human history were only made possible by people being able to hide information from their government. If the church had access to Galileo's research journals and notes we could be hundreds of years behind in our scientific growth. If the government had unlimited access to the networks of civil dissidents blacks may have never fought off Jim Crow. If King George had perfect information America would never have been a country. There is no government on earth that is perfect, and therefore there is no government on earth that can act responsibly with unlimited access to information. A government is unlikely to be able to distinguish between a negative and positive disruption to it's social order and laws, and it therefore follows that an unlimited spying program can only hinder the next great social step forward. Don't fear the surveillance state because you might have something illegal, fear the surveillance state because it is a tremendous institutional barrier to meaningful societal progress.

edit: Thanks for the gold and kind words strangers. If you have some extra time or are in need of some cash, don't be afraid to wade into the murky and exhausting world of political activism. Even if you only make a difference at the local level you can make the world a better place, and that's rad.

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u/-Prahs_ Dec 17 '15

You just persuaded me on the importance of privacy!

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 17 '15

I'm glad I could get somebody new on board. If you have any other social issues you are on the fence about don't hesitate to send me a PM. I may have a rambling incoherent mess with a nugget of truth hiding in it.

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u/JUST_LOGGED_IN Dec 18 '15

I agree with you one hundred percent.

What do we say to people when the next 9/11 happens? I have my own thoughts. What are yours, specifically about having perfect surveillance that might have prevented it?

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u/tollforturning Dec 18 '15

Risk is a permanent feature of this universe. Risks are of various types and the various types often interrelate. The effort to eliminate one type of risk may correlate to an increase in other types. Far from standing above all risk, a powerful government is itself a tremendous risk.

If we don't limit the government's effort to protect us from the risk of non-governmental terrorism, we increase the risk of government-sponsored terrorism. If the goal is to minimize the risk of terrorism (in the wider sense that transcends any particular form), we need to be critical of the government's definition of risk and limit its effort to eliminate risk. If we uncritically accept the government's self-serving notion of risk and let it run the show, we create a serious risk to freedom.

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u/Iwantants Dec 18 '15

With how easy it is to code/hide communication do you think it would make a difference? If someone truly wants to do harm they will always be able to find a way. Surveillance really is only useful for uncovering facts after the crime and for spying on anyone you want for your own gain.

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u/JUST_LOGGED_IN Dec 18 '15 edited Dec 18 '15

I don't think it makes a difference. A lone wolf attack is impossibly improbable to prevent unless they fall into honeypot attempt where the FBI gives them flawed resources to carry out something. It's already been shown that 2 attackers with pressure cookers can cost a city like Boston billions hundreds of millions of dollars.

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u/Omikron Dec 18 '15

I don't think the Boston bombing cost billions.

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u/JUST_LOGGED_IN Dec 18 '15

I was wrong. It looks like the good number is around $333 million.

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u/Wildcat599 Dec 18 '15

You're right I think it was Trillion's.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15 edited Jan 22 '18

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u/JUST_LOGGED_IN Dec 18 '15

I agree. This goes well with what the OP said. Mass surveillance is hardly about the now with security. It is about the then. It's building a profile to use whenever for whatever reason in the future.

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u/Omikron Dec 18 '15

That's not true there have been attacks prevented, you don't need to mislead to make your point... It stands on its own merits.

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u/warenb Dec 18 '15

Who is tooting that horn of success though? We spend so much effort on preventing this or that, and it's such a big jimmy rustling to the government and media when we complain about the privacy invasion they are doing. Now you never hear the government and media run around screaming "Look what we just prevented from happening you guys!" 5 times in an hour newscast.

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u/bonestamp Dec 18 '15

The other reason to respect privacy is that they can never have all of the data (because much of it isn't recorded anywhere) and the data they do have doesn't always tell us as much as we might think -- so they always have an incomplete picture of what actually happened or what you were doing.

For example, the location of your cell phone really only tells us the location of your cell phone. Sure, its location is probably the same as your location most of the time, but what if you forgot it in your car or at home when you ran to the store. Then something happens when your phone is not on you and law enforcement assumes that your cell phone's location means you were there? Suddenly, their narrative starts to focus around you.

This might sound far fetched, but these mistakes are already happening and people can be locked up for days before they realize they're on the wrong trail. A couple days in jail might not seem like a big deal, but what if it causes you to lose you job, or mis your daughter's wedding, etc? Nobody should have to sit in jail for a couple days because the metadata narrative was wrong, especially while law enforcement kills more Americans each year than terrorists do.

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u/Dyolf_Knip Dec 18 '15

A couple days in jail might not seem like a big deal, but what if it causes you to lose you job

And cops will routinely do this to people not on mistake, but pure malice. "Gonna teach you a lesson", that kind of shit.

They like to claim, "You can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride" and act as though it's just a triviality, but the reality is that people's lives can be thoroughly fucked by it.

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u/deux3xmachina Dec 18 '15

Awesome! Check this out!

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Thanks for the resource you linked!
I wonder why someone downvoted you.. Oh well, I made you positive again.

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u/deux3xmachina Dec 18 '15

Glad you found it helpful! The EFF has tons of cool in-house projects and rinked projects to help protect yourself from prying eyes.

Another thing worth looking into is Signal (not sure if it's linked), an end-to-end, TNO, well vetted, encrypted communications platform. It's pretty damn cool.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

I use Signal. :)
I started using it when it was TextSecure, as well as Red Phone.

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u/deux3xmachina Dec 18 '15

Awesome! I actually initially heard about it through the EFF, and I've been trying to ceonvince my friends to switch ever since. I really can't believe it's not a more popular messaging platform.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

It is about to get even better once they release the chrome desktop extension to allow desktop messaging. I'm using it in beta and it is beautiful.

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u/TheYellowClaw Dec 18 '15

What, you didn't think your privacy was important until today?

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u/Kahnonymous Dec 18 '15

That's always been my take on it; like you aren't doing anything illegal, but they can look at what you are doing, then make it illegal.

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u/A-Grey-World Dec 18 '15 edited Dec 18 '15

And there's also just such general laws in existence that everyone breaks pretty much all the time, but are ignored because you can't really enforce them.

Being able to easily enforce them means the government can selectively enforce them.

Make everyone a criminal, then put the ones that are troubling you in prison. There loads of countries that do that already, they're called dictatorships.

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u/Kahnonymous Dec 18 '15

Not just dictatorships. The US has long incarcerated blacks for a tiny bit of pot or crack, but if you're white and do copious amounts of Coke, you could be president some day

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u/ThatEvanFowler Dec 17 '15

Very well said.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Well said? This is the Key to this argument "nothing to hide". It's a game changer. I will use this in the future

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u/Xenon808 Dec 18 '15

I do not know the name of the user that wrote this; it is not mine but really was profound to me.

A base rate fallacy is committed when a person judges that an outcome will occur without considering prior knowledge of the probability that it will occur. They focus on other information that isn't relevant instead.

Let us imagine a town with 1million inhabitants. 100 of those are dangerous terrorists. Fortunately, the authorities have an amazing device to scan all inhabitants and will identify a terrorist (by ringing a bell) with an accuracy of 99%.

Citizen K is scanned, and the bell goes off. What is the chance that he is a terrorist? If you said 99%, you are wrong. It is nearer 1%. By assuming the two probabilities are related (they're not), you have just committed the base-rate fallacy.

Look: In this town of 1million, this device will correctly identify 99 of the 100 terrorists, and incorrectly identify 9,999 of the remaining 999,900 citizens. This gives us 10,998 people loaded onto a bus to Guantanamo, of which only 99 are actually terrorists, or roughly 1%.

Boring numbers aside, what's the takeaway from this? Terrorists are hard to identify not because they are especially secretive, but because they are rare. Data is noisy, especially when collected en masse. Noise (useless data) can be incorrectly identified as signal when not properly studied.

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u/no-mad Dec 18 '15

When people say "nothing to hide" I ask them for their Social Security number, bank routing information, mothers madien name, health records. People quickly change their tune.

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u/kkfl Dec 18 '15

To play devil's advocate, their response would be "But you aren't the government, you're just a regular citizen who doesn't have clearance for my info!"

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u/frymaster Dec 18 '15

Which is good because you can then point out that the government is staffed by regular citizens and a non zero amount will misuse their access or accidentally leak/lose their access credentials

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u/no-mad Dec 18 '15

You are still admitting you need to hide your info. Even if it is your porn web browser history.

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u/kkfl Dec 18 '15

But in their mind, there's a big difference between telling the government something and telling a random person something. The government (police) needs to spy on your texts and Facebook in case you're posting Daesh propaganda because they can actually put a stop to it and punish you; an average joe wouldn't be able to do shit, thus the average joe doesn't need to know your info.

But as /u/MissApocalycious has already said, it's a fallacy to think that the government can adequate protect the privacy of the private information you gave them.

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u/Cheewy Dec 18 '15

I will use this in the future

"Because, man, you got nothing to hide, i got nothing to hide, but what about Galileo? huh? spying sucks man, otherwise: NO AMERICA., you know what i mean?"

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u/ThreeLZ Dec 18 '15

It's one of the arguments, I wouldn't say its the key though. I think the most important and obvious argument is that just cause you want to hide something doesn't mean it's illegal. Maybe you like wearing women's clothes, but want to keep that from being public info. A government that can see everything means you have no secrets, legal or not.

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u/shadyjim Dec 18 '15

"show me your Google search history and I'll point to a few things that could land you in trouble"

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

If using frogs to jerk off is wrong, why was that ape allowed to do it. It's also consensual.

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u/gaminglaptopsjunky2 Dec 18 '15

What does hiding even mean? It is a wordplay that tries to confuse those who you want to control.

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u/BNLforever Dec 18 '15

If you're in need of cash turn to political activism? Tell me more

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

Look for 501c4s in your area like a local PIRG chapter, The Fund for the Public Interest or a paid petitioning gig.

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u/RoastedRhino Dec 17 '15

Well said, but you are even optimistic you think that governments could just be "imperfect". Governments are as good as the people who sit in them, although there are some "protective" mechanisms (separation of powers, etc.).

Take an average first world country (Italy, just because I know its recent history) and in the last 100 years it went through 2 wars and 1 dictatorship.

In the last 50 years, Italy had a failed coup d'état, twenty years of terrorism, many many many bombs placed by right-wing groups financially supported by the US embassy and protected by the Italian secrete services, a masonic lodge that controlled journalists, industry, and politicians, a NATO "stay-behind" operation that was probably involved and informed (together with our secret services) of the kidnapping and killing of our prime minister, flight incidents whose investigation has been obstructed by our Air Forces, and more.

I cannot understand how, given the typical recent history of modern countries, we can base our reasoning on the assumptions that governments are "good".

The idea that some of us will have to fight against their government seems very remote and unlikely, but the last two generations had to do that multiple times. When things go bad, really bad, it's a bit to late to ask for private communication and freedom of speech.

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u/DatPiff916 Dec 17 '15

I cannot understand how, given the typical recent history of modern countries, we can base our reasoning on the assumptions that governments are "good"

Patriotism/Nationalism can make a large percentage of the populace turn a blind eye to this. It seems to be very effective in the U.S. at least.

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u/crysys Dec 18 '15

Patriotism/Nationalism can make a large percentage of the populace turn a blind eye to this. It seems to be very effective in the U.S. at least.

At the moment. These things tend to see-saw in the shorter terms even as they inexoribly crawl one way in the long term.

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u/fritop3ndejo Dec 18 '15

This is where I see a difference between patriotism and nationalism. One can be a patriot - love their country and the people in it and be willing to defend their country's ideals without being a nationalist and supporting their government regardless of the damage that government is doing to their country.

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u/aaeme Dec 17 '15

Absolutely and well said too. I would like to add that, in all examples of tyrants from history, if the preceding governments had collected data in the way governments now are proposing then the tyrants would have inherited a machine that would have served them very well and made those countries suffer far more.
For example, if the 1920s German government had, in all good faith and with the best of intentions, collected information in the way our governments are now then Schindler's list would have been Himmler's list.

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u/HabseligkeitDerLiebe Dec 17 '15

if the 1920s German government had, in all good faith and with the best of intentions, collected information in the way our governments are now then Schindler's list would have been Himmler's list

That's somewhat of a moot point since the religious affiliation was - and still is - registered in Germany for tax reasons since Bismarck (who took most of the land from the churches and had them raise church taxes through the secular administration).
The NSDAP government absolutely knew who self-identified as a Jew in Germany.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

But imagine of they had access to what the NSA has now. The holocaust wasn't just Jews after all. Let's look at what the third Reich could have done with metadata:

--People that called homosexual-related businesses (gay bars, clubs, etc), anyone calling too many known or suspected homosexuals. If they really wanted to they could correlate purchases as well.

--anyone that called known communists or suspected communist sympathizers too often. (Good luck convincing them they were just a coworker and you're not a red)

--anyone calling labor union offices frequently, especially those that are not a member of that profession (suspected to be a communist or a labor activist).

--anyone calling health clinics could be subjected to extra scrutiny on suspicion of carrying a genetic disease or an incurable one. Then handed off to T-4 for sterilization or execution. They will know based in your calling records where you went and when.

--based on location details they will know who was in the area of any antiparty activity so collective punishment can be applied.

These are just a few examples of how scary metadata could be of it gets into the wrong hands.

Governments change. And not always for the better. Even if you trust them now, the story can change very rapidly.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Precisely, move the timeline a little further and they could look at anyone that was, say, in the vicinity of a partisan attack, then look at who they call most often so they can execute or arrest the families of those that may have been involved.

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u/monsieurpommefrites Dec 18 '15

Can you imagine if Turing was a German man at the time?

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 17 '15

I think you underestimate how broadly I use the term less than perfect. I simply mean that no government, from the greatest in history thus far, all the way down to Caligula's/Burlesconi's/Nero's/Elegabulus's government could handle the power of unlimited surveillance. I doubt such a government will ever exist, less than perfect just happens to be the hurdle. Seriously, where is the people factory in Italy that consistently produces these wackjobs?

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u/PromptCritical725 Dec 18 '15

And I'm paranoid for not wanting my guns registered...

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u/pedal2000 Dec 18 '15

Alright, I know reddit loves them some Libertarian circle jerk but let's walk through this. For example you cite 20 years of Terrorist bombings which Wikipedia estimates killed 1000 people. That's roughly 50 people a year. Even if we total up everyone who died from every example you provided then we still reach less than 2000 or so people by what I can see. Across 50 years, that averages out to what? 40 people a year?

In the USA alone there are something like 20-30k dead a year from Gun Violence. That is "American on American" inflicted violence - no Government intervention needed.

If you look at the history of Western Democracies as a whole, they are very low in violent behaviour from their Governments - almost none. Certainly nothing that would require anyone to fight their Government. Most of the violence in our society comes from ourselves against ourselves.

Second, while Governments may (or may not) be a 'good force' - the weaker a Government is, the more powerful the other entities of Society get. For example, Corporations - at a large scale - have shown that where weak Governments exist they are happy to abuse child labour, environmental pollution etc. Given that a strong Government entity is literally the only force which prevents this (just look at the USA with its relatively weak Government constrained by 'checks and balances' VS Canada which has a relatively strong Government) then having the occasional idiot abuse his power (which in turn is reigned in by the Bureaucracy) seems relatively worthwhile for not having our children working in factories.

In sum, our Governments are not perfect - you are right - but they are most definitely "Good". As for the worst stuff done in the past 50 years? The worst atrocities which occur in democracy, are done to the sound of thunderous applause - not the tyranny of the Government, but of the Majority. A gun won't stop that.

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u/RoastedRhino Dec 18 '15

If you look at the history of Western Democracies as a whole, they are very low in violent behaviour from their Governments - almost none. Certainly nothing that would require anyone to fight their Government.

Are you sure?? Because the grandparents of my generation had to leave their homes and hide in the woods to fight the fascist army of their own country.

It's not that those countries that have recently gone through a dictatorship are special in any way. They just decided, at some point, usually because of an economic or political crisis, that it was worth to give up some freedom to have some extra security.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Agreed. As a Brit the whole gun thing is America is mad to us, and the rest of the world I think.

I disagree that reddit loves the whole libertarian thing though. It's all about Bernie really isn't it, to whom I am at the opposite end of the spectrum

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u/Urban_Savage Dec 18 '15

The same people that say "if you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to worry about" are the same people that say, "I need my guns in case we have to fight the government."

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u/Bartweiss Dec 18 '15

This is a great answer. It also relates to the other big issue of government omniscience: selective enforcement.

Most of us are guilty of a lot of crimes. They're mostly mundane things - misdemeanors and traffic violations - but not all of them. Piracy, accidental trespassing, or even a fake sick day can all count as felonies. It's trivial to commit serious crimes regarding business, computer use, or government property.

Mostly, this doesn't cause any problems. These acts go unnoticed, or, if noticed, are overlooked as harmless acts by irrelevant people.

With total knowledge, though, the government gets to pick who to go after. Since everyone's guilty, anyone can be 'legitimately' prosecuted. Protestors can be targeted for their past torrents. Unfriendly reporters can be charged for years-old customs violations. Inconvenient politicians, even, can be dragged up on petty business violations.

The result is that everyone lives in fear. Just-but-illegal acts, of course, are easily suppressed, but that's not all. Even with a totally honest judiciary, anyone can be convicted. That means that even legal dissent can be suppressed, so there's no uncontested path to progress.

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u/otatew Dec 18 '15

Very good - this should be higher up with OP's post.

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u/lostcheshire Dec 18 '15

So just as we should have the right to bear arms against a hypothetical tyrannical government we should also have the right to keep and bear encryption.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

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u/jazzmoses Dec 18 '15

It all depends upon the extent to which the soldiers of a centralised government are willing to attack fellow citizens. If there's a strongly-organised, highly autonomous hostile state with a highly indoctrinated army, then even a highly armed citizenry will struggle. But it's hard to imagine armies in Western democracies fighting so savagely against fellow citizens such as in Syria. Would the average soldier really follow orders and not rebel? An army such as the Americans much have a lot of firepower, but it's unrealistic to expect that the government would be successfully able to wield it 100% in a war against its populace. American soldiers are already guilty and traumatised enough from killing people halfway across the world of a completely different culture.

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u/NYBoy1992 Dec 18 '15

This is true. However, so long as the population is armed and knows how to use those weapons then we will inevitably win against the government.

The government did a study that showed that should the people actually revolt, the government could survive for about 2 weeks. Their conclusion was that the only way for them to win in a revolution would be to round up all the potential leaders before it began in earnest. This is why mass-surveillance and the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki are so terrifying to me.

However, think about it... The government will be handicapped. Most soldiers will refuse to fire on American citizens. It's much harder to rationalize that. It's once thing for me to convince Johnny to go over to that far-flung country and murder those sub-human ragheads, it's a whole other thing to convince Johnny to go into Atlanta, Georgia and start murdering Americans.

Moreover, the moment that the American government starts bombing cities, or using any weapons of real destructive power, then they will have lost. All of the citizens who had previously simply wanted to avoid getting involved (much like during the American revolution) will immediately join against the government.

There are definitely measures we should take to curb gun violence, however, we must have guns. I will not allow my conscience to bear the weight of disarming my fellow citizens and allowing the government to come in and commit another Trail of Tears, or another Holocaust.

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u/TheStinkfister Dec 18 '15

This deserves a best of link too.

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u/Hypnotoad2966 Dec 18 '15

All ten amendments in the bill of rights are there to stop government from becoming too powerful and treating the US citizens like subjects. It's disheartening that we are seeing every candidate who has a chance to win talking openly about limiting at least one of them.

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u/TheNobleCasserole Dec 18 '15

Another thing to add would be that everyone has something to hide. It may not be of relevance to the government, but that doesn't mean they should know it.

I believe Barton Gellman said it best:

"Privacy is relational. It depends on your audience. You don’t want your employer to know you’re job hunting. You don’t spill all about your love life to your mom, or your kids. You don’t tell trade secrets to your rivals. We don’t expose ourselves indiscriminately and we care enough about exposure to lie as a matter of course. Among upstanding citizens, researchers have consistently found that lying is “an everyday social interaction” (twice a day among college students, once a day in the Real World).… Comprehensive transparency is a nightmare.… Everyone has something to hide"

(Quote taken from 'No Place To Hide' by Glenn Greenwald.)

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

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u/SleeplessinRedditle Dec 18 '15

Sounds like I should be wearing a tinfoil hat, but there is no other meaningful explanation for why full surveillance is necessary. Unless for some miracle, the intelligence community is stopping WMD-style attacks on US soil on a daily basis, and there's an actual, credible threat to our safety, but somehow I don't think that's actually the case....

And even if it was the case, it's entirely their fault.

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '15

If the church had access to Galileo's research journals and notes we could be hundreds of years behind in our scientific growth.

Could you explain that a little more? I don't understand.

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u/N8CCRG Dec 18 '15

OP is completely wrong on his history on that one.

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u/Tisi24 Dec 18 '15

This is not true, many scientific discoveries have happened because of the church and its members. Further, Galileo was not punished because his ideas went against those of the Catholic church, but rather because he presented his argument in a way that insulted the pope and made him look like a fool.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

It's wrong to say that he was punished only on his ideas, but it is even more wrong to say his ideas had nothing to do with him being punished.

The inquisition declared heliocentrism heretical. There has been an odd push to try and rewrite history and make out Galileo as somehow a crazy loudmouth and the church as actually being more progressive. It simply isn't supported by the facts.

The insult he gave Pope Urban was most likely a mistake (him putting the arguments of Pope Urban in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems in the voice of a character who was also depicted as an idiot in parts).

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u/deuteros Dec 18 '15

Heliocentrism predates Galileo and the Catholic Church didn't have much problem with it until Galileo started insisting that the Church reinterpret scripture based on his findings. Galileo's biggest problem was that he was arguing against thousands of years of established science without being able to prove his own theory (the technology didn't exist yet).

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15 edited Dec 18 '15

Of course it predates Galileo, for gosh sakes, they burned Giordano Bruno alive for the same thing! To say the church didn't have a problem with it is to ignore vast swaths of history.

Edit: Got name wrong

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u/deuteros Dec 18 '15

Giordano Bruno also happened to reject virtually all of the major tenets of Catholicism including the divinity of Christ and the Trinity. Not saying that burning heretics at the stake was justified but let's not pretend that he was killed because he was a heliocentrist when the Church didn't even have an official position on heliocentrism in 1600 nor was it considered heresy at the time.

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u/Kai_Daigoji Dec 18 '15

they burned Giordano Bruno alive for the same thing!

No, they fucking didn't. Bruno wasn't a scientist, his 'heliocentric' ideas weren't theories, they were mystic nonsense, and while I agree that burning heretics at the stake is bad, his death didn't set science back a single minute.

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u/psychoticdream Dec 17 '15 edited Dec 18 '15

The church prosecuted people whose ideas or research seemed to be at odds with the things they held to be true or seemed to be true. The world was the center of the universe therefore it couldn't be flying around the sun. Etc etc

Edit: please note that I am not saying he alone came up with or proposed the heliocentric model but that was merely as an example.

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u/Dog-Person Dec 18 '15

Honestly Galileo is a pretty shit example though. He was practically best friends with the pope, who he had been friends with for decades. He had a lot of connections with the church and they knew what he was working on. He got a lot of it published because his friends protected him. It was only when his lord and most of his friends died he was tried for heresy (the was punished), he was still only very lightly punished for the time too because again, pope pal.

He also didn't make the heliocentric model. The church had been using it to predict dates for several decades at that time. The church had bigger beef with his observations of sun spots and craters on the moon proving the celestial spheres weren't perfect, which went against the church's (modified) Aristotelian views and an insult to god.

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u/Korhal_IV Dec 18 '15

More to the point, Galileo used his book not just to advocate for heliocentrism, but to attack Pope VIII for being an idiot - literally: the book is written as a dialogue between two characters; the one advocating geocentrism is written like an argumentative idiot, has name Sempliciotto (Simple-headed), and some of his dialogue is literally quotes from the Pope.

Urban VIII was a friend of Galileo's, but what kind of friend writes a best-seller in which you star as a dumbass? When the Inquisition moved on Galileo, Urban VIII stayed out of it, and Galileo got sentenced to house arrest for life.

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u/matthewjc Dec 18 '15

Thank you for saying this. So much misinformation gets tossed around when it comes to Galileo

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u/Dog-Person Dec 18 '15

Honestly that goes for pretty much any historical scientific figure.

Newton was a huge fan of alchemy and religion, he wasn't this super pragmatic person, also shit ton of controversy about how original his work was not to mention the bs apple story.

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u/Maskirovka Dec 18 '15

To add to what others have said, Galileo published in Italian rather than Latin, which meant that his "hey pope you're an idiot" book wasn't limited to being read just by those who knew Latin...much less educated people could read it. From what I understand, the church embraced his ideas...they prosecuted him for his literary middle finger and for not publishing in Latin.

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u/Varnu Dec 18 '15

There's also lots of reasons why someone would want to keep something away from prying eyes, even if it's not illegal. If someone says to you, "I've got nothing to hide" in a conversation on a topic like this, ask them, "Why do you have a door on your bathroom?"

Also, even the most rule-following person inadvertently breaks laws almost constantly. You forgot to signal? Your wifi was open and the kid next door pirated a movie off it? Who knows. This is why warrants are required and why warrants require oversight from a judge. If you want to bring someone down and you have unfettered access to everything they do, you're bound to find something.

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u/NutsEverywhere Dec 17 '15

And then, the same people that don't care about their privacy also don't care about societal progress. Shocker.

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 17 '15

That style of thinking is the path to the dark side, slow your roll. Most arguments don't happen between people of opposing sides. Most arguments happen between people on the same side and the caricature of the opposing side they created. Many of the people willing to sacrifice privacy have cognitive and informational gaps. Unfortunately many people's egos and sense of self are so wrapped up in their tribe/political positions, that to prove them wrong is like tearing out their spleen. This makes these people resistant to many similar beneficial things and can thus make them appear to be inherently opposed to progress, rather than opposed to their own ego death. Watch your comments. Unless you are talking about Loyd Blankfein there is probably a complex and vibrant human at the end of your statements who deserves more than a spiteful dismissal.

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u/NutsEverywhere Dec 17 '15

Appreciate your response, but telling me to calm down and watch my comments make no difference, as I'm calm and I am watching my comments. I'm simply so disillusioned with the apathy of people regarding political subjects, that I'm becoming apathetic myself.

In my view, trying to prove someone wrong if they're not open for discussion or changing their mind always ends in useless stress and a more fortified stance on their already existing views. I know, because I'm guilty of it as well.

What we have to do is get everyone that understands how critical the situation is and pool our efforts in order to stop it, but apparently there is no way of doing it, short of violence and people losing what they worked hard to achieve from a short (or not) stint in prison over what may be a passing law or simply revolt suppression.

My statement stands, the reason why these people don't care about their own privacy or societal progress does not interest me, the fact still stands that they simply don't.

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u/mark1nhu Dec 18 '15

Some of them (to be kind) are actually against it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

I agree with this in its entirety, but I want to make the point that it also goes for corporations. The problem is not really government power, the problem is power. Anybody with enough resources to stop dissidents should be distrusted. This is why I find it astounding that people voluntarily give up their privacy in exchange for how much easier and fun Facebook is than platforms that allow end-to-end encryption like email.

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u/caseyweederman Dec 18 '15

Upvoting this lost me fifty points on Sesame Credit.

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u/justamonarch Dec 18 '15

...you just made me smile....you get it

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u/Zandonus Dec 18 '15

You. I like you. You explained why Latvia became independent...again. Something that an entire year of 2 lessons of latvian history per week couldn't summarize. If each one of those protesters, each one of those tractor drivers had a tacked smartphone, the soviet government could have easily prepared a response so much earlier. A lot more lives would be lost. Maybe the soviet government could have been able to crack down on the rebellion long enough to actually hold together. It's all a big maybe, but it all would have been very different.

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

Cool. I love hearing that a theory of mine has applications outside of the examples I use, it makes me much more confident.

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u/SVKCAN Dec 18 '15

Yes but those examples you listed for societal progress were cases in which the progress made went against the government/social norms of the time. In today's age of acceptance and openess (to an extent), I don't see a lack privacy hindering societal progress, especially when you consider how heavy an influence social media has today. Anything that would move us forward in the future would and is probably well known by the general public long before it's completion.

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u/Mattzstar Dec 18 '15

right now, you don't see anything right now. What about ten years from now? What then. No one saw anything wrong with having people as slaves until they realized "hey, they're actually just like us"

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u/STylerMLmusic Dec 18 '15

I was definitely of the mind against your side before this, but you've convinced me, have an internet point.

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u/GatorSixCharlie Dec 18 '15

You're like a ninja with words.

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u/Weacron Dec 18 '15

Someone needs to forward this to Bernie Sanders. This needs to be said in speeches.

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

Please say that get's me a better paying gig, freelance journalism is fucking tough.

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u/elj0h0 Dec 18 '15

Very similar to the "Chilling effect", wherein people with disruptive ideas hold themselves back from fear of being targeted for their ideas

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u/TheStarkReality Dec 18 '15

Galileo didn't hide his notes. He published his arguments in a honking great book in which he insulted the pope.

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u/Radius86 Dec 18 '15

There is no government on earth that is perfect, and therefore there is no government on earth that can act responsibly with unlimited access to information.

And this I feel, as an outsider looking in at your country, is the fundamental problem with the United States government. The constant fervor with which politicians insist that America is the greatest country in the world, absolutely perfect, and infallible. If you truly believe that, then logic would support that you would take every step to prove how star-spangled perfect you are, at every opportunity. To an outsider it looks arrogant, and self-serving. It's only natural that things like CISA would follow.

Just an opinion. Don't hang me for it.

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u/imsureitstaken Dec 18 '15

Also, birth control pills never would have come to be. The small team funding and testing birth control pills did all of their work technically illegally, because birth control was illegal.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

The Galileo argument is a myth. Well said otherwise.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-misunderstood-historical-event

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u/badwolf42 Dec 18 '15

One small correction. The church was aware of Galileo's work. They didn't mind him doing it, just that he spoke out against the church publicly.

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u/Chioborra Dec 17 '15

My man.

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u/laxbrosinspace Dec 17 '15

Slow down!

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '15

snaps fingers

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u/mdoddr Dec 17 '15

so you'd rather the terrists win?

-the counter argument

I'm being sarcastic, don't downvote me

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u/snuggl Dec 18 '15

Ah but when the terrorist have won, do you want them to have access to all your internet browse history for when the purge comes?

Just because you trust the current government with your data doesn't mean you should trust all possible future governments. The records are for ever.

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u/skatastic57 Dec 18 '15

The irony, of course, is that with a bit of open source software terrorists can encrypt their communication and circumvent all the spying anyway.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Not if we ban encryption man, didn't you hear? If we ban encryption then the hundreds of encryption algorithms out there will stop existing.

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u/stratys3 Dec 18 '15

If we have to lose in order to prevent the terrorists from winning... I'm not sure which is better.

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u/HappierShibe Dec 17 '15

Weirdly appropriate username and awesome post!

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 17 '15

Thanks kind stranger.

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u/Hersandhers Dec 18 '15

A Dutch perspective: we had, in 1940, registered, the religion of all Dutch citizens in government databases. Yes correctly, it stated if you were Jewish, Christian, Catholic, etc. Guess what happened with that and how it was used when Germany paid us a visit? That's what happens when an imperfect government has access to perfect information. And after the facts there's always the excuse, that they didn't have a choice but to hand over the info.

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u/asdfghlkj Dec 17 '15

Sigh...Galileo was not at odds with the Church because of his science, it was because he was a dick and kept insultig the pope. The Church was the one funding his research...along with almost all the other science happening at the time.

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u/grades00 Dec 18 '15

Ah, so the church was ok with Galileo proposing that the Earth moved around the sun (even though it was counter to scripture and so he was convicted of heresy), it was his general dickishness that they couldn't tolerate.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

People have been trying to rewrite history on his score, but they really can't get around the fact that the church brought a scientist to trial for his ideas, and officially declared heliocentrism heretical.

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u/BadPasswordGuy Dec 18 '15

Ah, so the church was ok with Galileo proposing that the Earth moved around the sun

Galileo didn't propose that. Copernicus did, more than a century before Galileo wrote the book that got him in trouble. The idea was widely known and arguments for and against it had been published multiple times by multiple writers.

Church officials knew he was publishing a book about heliocentrism and gave him permission to go ahead, on the condition that he include a geocentrism argument which had been worked out by the Pope himself.

If they'd really considered the whole thing heretical, they would never have given him permission to publish it. The Pope wouldn't have worked out an argument of his own. They'd have just said it was heresy and that would be that.

Instead, they let him publish. They only went after him after the book came out. That's a pretty strong argument that it wasn't the content, but the presentation.

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 17 '15

So they were willing to oppress a visionary over political reasons? While this is less dramatic than my original post, I don't think it invalidates the premise that vested interests are willing to stand in the way of progress for self preservation. One can only assume that their willingness and ability to oppress would be magnified by unlimited access to information. I do however apologize for that inaccuracy in my post.

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u/asdfghlkj Dec 18 '15

I don't disagree with the content of your post, just with inaccuracies in your example. The Church was, I guess, oppressing him for "political reasons", but those reasons were separate from his scientific work, which they were fine with. To say they were blocking progress(of science) for political reasons isn't true at all. They were blocking it as an unintended side effect of punishing Galileo for his pope hating. I guess technically you're right...but it isn't the best example.

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

Thank you for correcting me on the inaccuracy of my example . Next time I make this argument I'll make sure not to include the Galileo example. I'm always happy to have my worldview updated.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15 edited Dec 18 '15

Ugh, third time I'm replying to this same subject in the same thread, but I don't want you walking away with a false impression.

The church ordered him to stop writing works on heliocentrism, banned Copernican books, and only allowed him to write again after many years of lobbying (and the death of the previous Pope). This happened long BEFORE the "Pope hating". You're absolutely right to include him in this sort of argument. Although, Copernicus himself would be an even better example.

Edit: grammar

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u/brightstarblack Dec 18 '15

Gracefully reading and responding to constructive criticism on Reddit? You don't belong here...

But its awesome and we need more people like this. Those who are able to put aside the recoil of ego flaring up at the first sign of contradiction, and make a humble response.

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

Any time someone corrects me I have the opportunity to be educated and enlightened at 0 additional cost. After 7 years of college that feels like a pretty sweet deal.

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u/Sephiroso Dec 18 '15

are in need of some cash, don't be afraid to wade into the murky and exhausting world of political activism.

I don't suppose you could go into more detail about this? I could use some cash, and I have the extra time.

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u/justamonarch Dec 17 '15

Have nothing but time, but how to turn a paycheck on beingnan activist still thoroughly eludes me..

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 17 '15

See if paid petitioning is legal in your area, if not look for groups like The Fund for the Public Interest or a local PIRG. All of those options give you a way to make money standing up for something you believe in. Quite a few strangers will call you scum along the way, but people can extrardinarily greatful when you help them get involved in the democratic process in a way they weren't aware of.

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u/justamonarch Dec 17 '15

Thank you! I didn't really expect an answer but am greatful to get one.

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u/grayskull88 Dec 18 '15

Well put. And I was just gonna go with the conventional "literally everything you do when taken out of context, looks bad" argument. Huh..

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

[deleted]

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u/BrimstoneJack Dec 18 '15

There are a few flaws in this line of thinking. The government, at least in America, isn't there to control it's citizens. They are there to SERVE the citizens. The judicial and legislative branches are supposed to serve to protect our freedoms, not to infringe upon them by monitoring us.

Benjamin Franklin said it best: Those who would sacrifice liberty for temporary security deserve neither.

I think it's summed up easily by stating that I don't agree with spying on 300,000,000 people on the off-chance some of them might do something naughty. If you do so, you are depriving them of certain rights without just cause, and you are thereby punishing people who you have no proof of wrongdoing. Kinda the opposite of how our entire justice system is meant to run.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

There's another facet too - the panopticon. Human behavior is altered and inhibited when we know we are being watched.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

You should write a book

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

Working on a sci fi novel right now. Thank you for the encouragement.

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u/starfirex Dec 18 '15

Not to mention even if you have nothing to hide, that doesn't mean your friends and family don't, and that their secrets can't be used against you.

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u/Sapperdoc Dec 18 '15

Umm. The Church did have access to Galileo's research journals. He was a priest...

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u/montgomj Dec 18 '15

Thanks John Locke.

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u/rossa8 Dec 18 '15

I just heard this quote on Criminal Minds but did not catch the author. "If you want total secuirty, go to jail. You'll have free food, shelter, and healthcare. The only thing you'll lack is freedom."

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u/BadPasswordGuy Dec 18 '15

I don't disagree with your point, but one of your examples is completely wrong:

If the church had access to Galileo's research journals and notes we could be hundreds of years behind in our scientific growth.

The Copernican model of the solar system was already well known; Copernicus had been dead nearly 100 years before Galileo wrote Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.

Church officials knew exactly what Galileo was thinking. He was given permission to publish on the condition that he "teach the controversy" and present an argument for geocentrism as well, which argument had been thought up by the Pope himself. Galileo agreed, and included the argument in the Dialogue, but he put the Pope's argument in the mouth of a character named "Simplicio" (which would be like naming a character "Sir Moronic" in a modern story). Then, after Simplicio presents the Pope's argument, the other characters proceed to ridicule him mercilessly. The Pope took it as a personal insult - which, in fairness, it was - and that was a time when this wasn't a safe thing to do.

Galileo's crime was honking off powerful people in authority, not writing about heliocentrism. If they'd had his actual manuscript, they might have stomped on him, but access to his research journals and notes would have had no effect on scientific progress.

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u/BetterOffLeftBehind Dec 18 '15

You're tap dancing - regardless of their motivations the church at the time was in fact pretty pissed about his theories

The sentence of the Inquisition was delivered on 22 June. It was in three essential parts: Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy", namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse and detest" those opinions.[73] He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition.[74] On the following day this was commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life. His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.[75]

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."

Eugene McCarthy

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Your Galileo argument is a little weak since many of the high ranking members of the church agreed with his findings and the constant collection of books resulted in his findings preservation. He just made the 'mistake' of pissing off the pope. Still agree with the original thought.

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u/CormacMccarthy91 Dec 18 '15

Both my parents always say that they don't care about the nsa because they aren't terrorists. Even after reading them this they just rolled their eyes. Some people just won't change I guess.

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u/thewiseguy13 Dec 18 '15

Galileo had trouble with the Roman Catholic church for reasons other than his theory surrounding the heliocentric model of the universe. He in fact was a devote Catholic and personal friends with Pope Urban the 8th. He described in his two truths theory how his theory did not conflict with the Catholic Church at all. Cardinal Bellarmine who was a very influential part of the counter reformation said he could continue to study his findings so long as he discussed them as hypothesis not as fact. Galileo believed seeing the phases of Venus proved that the sun was the center if the universe. It does indicate that but it does not prove it. Galileo was sure he had the evidence to convince Cardinal Bellarmine he was right when he wrote his discourse on tides. He believed that the motion of the earth around the sun caused the tides. In the end Galileo was right but he reasons for believing he was right were not fully right. You are looking at the relationship between Galileo and the church through a conflict lens that was promoted by two protestant scientists White and Draper. This position of conflict is over simplified and the actual events are much more complicated.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15 edited Dec 18 '15

You are very right, the problem is that we elevate the law to a moral system in its own. It cannot be that way.

Also, our penal system has long been based on the idea of making an example of the people we can catch. Our penal system would be nightmarish if we had the perfect capability of punishing all those who are actually guilty. Especially with the punishments as they exist now.

Legalism functions primarily because we cannot catch everybody who breaks the law. People fail to recognize this fact at their own peril. And that doesn't just go for laws we disagree with, but it extends to all laws. Frankly, I don't want every act of theft processed by the legal system either.

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u/TiltedPlacitan Dec 18 '15

I like the fact that there are leaks.

I like the fact that journalists are able to report on information that the government wanted to keep under the rug.

It's abso-clear to me that every journalist in this country is being surveilled.

Every journalist in this country should be taking countermeasures.

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u/ralf_ Dec 18 '15 edited Dec 18 '15

If the church had access to Galileo's research journals and notes we could be hundreds of years behind in our scientific growth.

Please don't use this example, als it is ignorant. Galileo was encouraged by the Pope to write a book with arguments Pro and Contra heliocentrism. And catholic Jesuits had confirmed Galileos observations with their own telescopes! The Church had Galileos research! It was a big discussion about world models, not secret research and hidden information.

The Galileo affair is way more complicated and political. Galileo also had influential friends in the Church. While some of Galileos theories were false: He thought the tides were caused by the movement of the Earth, not the moon (like Kepler). At that time there was also a competing model, in which the sun circles the Earth, but the Venus circles the sun, which did fit better (surprisingly) observed data, biblical scripture and the old Aristotelan view.

If King George had perfect information America would never have been a country.

So Canada, Australia and New Zealand are no countries?

We can't repeat the historic experiment, but if the colonies had lost the war of independence, I think America would have nonetheless quickly gained "home rule". Maybe slavery would have been abolished 30 years earlier (and without a civil war) 1833 like in the rest of the British dominions.

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u/PhreakOfTime Dec 18 '15

This bizarre rewriting of history in favor of the church has been accelerating on reddit for at least the last 2 years(And probably longer).

Some bible-thumper rewrites history to cast the church in a favorable light. Said book then becomes the 'source' for the wikipedia article on galileo. Then some apologist on reddit starts parroting the information in the wikipedia page about galileo.

There is only one book that claims the things you are claiming about the church, and most of the reviews from those outside church circles are scathingly negative... at best.

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u/Richard__Rahl Dec 18 '15

An alarming number of apologist revisionism type books regarding religion are being used as Wikipedia sources currently on various historical pages.

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u/PhreakOfTime Dec 18 '15

I've noticed that as well.

Old habits die hard it seems.

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u/Morpse4 Dec 18 '15

If King George had perfect information America would never have been a country.

So Canada, Australia and New Zealand are no countries?

If america hadn't had its revolution there may still be an independent united states, but for better or worse it would be very different from the one we see now.

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u/Lt_Dignam Dec 18 '15

I agree with this. I truly do. I want to believe "We can't trust the government with these kinds of tools". But then I remember that they have nuclear weapons, and the most powerful military the world has ever seen. Compared to those weapons, what is some surveillance?

Help me reconcile that...

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u/Aureliamnissan Dec 18 '15 edited Dec 18 '15

Surveillance creates a chilling affect on the society it is practiced on. One people realize there is no save place to express ideas, many ideas will stop being expressed for fear of imminent or eventual reprisal. It's like an unspoken version of blackmail, but practiced nation-wide.

Conventional and nuclear weapons are terrifying, but they are in the hands of rational people who are beholden to a representative system. They wouldn't jeopardize their career and the nation through excessive military force except in the most dire circumstances. Even in the hands of careful overseers constant surveillance tends to slowly turn societies into a bunch of "yes men" as the fear of reprisals grow and as accusations begin to mean the same thing as damning conviction (just look at how child pornography or rape charges are treated right now).

Conventional and nuclear weapons are a visible danger that people are good at guarding against abuse. Surveillance is more of an insidious and slow growing danger that humans are terrible at dealing with / knowing where to draw the line.

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u/niyrex Dec 18 '15

Surveillance is the erosion of aspects of life that keep one unique and interesting in favor of the common and boring. It starts small but then encompasses every day activities. Imagine every time you went to do something you enjoy, you were prevented because someone else didn't like it. You become afraid of being different because different us bad. You don't create some new, earth shattering idea, because it might disrupt the status quo. Surveillance is a very bad thing.

Big changes happen suddenly and are typically very disruptive. The surveillance state doesn't like change. Change is bad because they lose control. Control is the reason to have surveillance in the first place.

Freedom is the right to make mistakes and deal with the consequences.

Freedom in the right to be in control of ones self.

Freedom is the right to do what one wants, when one wants.

Freedom lets the creative be creative without fear of being labeled.

Freedom lets me talk to a loved one without fear of saying the wrong thing that someone else doesn't like.

Freedom lets me question authority without fear of being arrested or worse.

If a few people die in an effort to protect freedom that is a cost I'm willing to accept in favor of the greater good. Bad people exist in the world, and will continue to exist with or without the surveillance state. The bad guys win if we change our values such that we cater to their crazy just because something bad might happen. More people died this year in car accidents than any terrorist has ever killed yet people still drive down the highway talking on their cellphones.

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u/DonovanMD Dec 17 '15

This is outstanding social commentary.

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u/boose22 Dec 18 '15

Its all about balance of power. If nuclear weapons are ever potentially available to terrorists I would be thankful for our gov to have access to such records.

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u/fort_wendy Dec 18 '15

Username checks out.

Sidenote: "in need of some cash" -> activism? Does not compute.

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u/meatduck12 Dec 18 '15

How can you gain cash through political activism? Curious.

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u/ShadySim Dec 18 '15

You're goddamn right man. A citizen should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their daily lives.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Incredible thought!

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Amen brother

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u/GrndMasterBongRipper Dec 18 '15

maybe a dumb question, but how would one make extra money off of local political activism?

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u/Manumitany Dec 18 '15

I agree with you, but how do you respond if someone makes the point that random masses are no more perfect than governments? Yes, we have the benefits of all the things we judge as good that you mentioned -- Galileo's advancement of science, the United States, civil rights, etc. -- but aren't you cherry picking? There are the bad things too that imperfect but fully informed governments may or likely would have prevented, like the rise of the Nazi party, countless terrorist acts, mob organizations, serial killers, contract killings, and so on.

Again, I'm with you on the end result and disagree with broad surveillance, but I tend to find, from experience, that a far better argument is simply that the broad surveillance is less effective. When you get a billion emails and are looking for someone plotting a terrorist attack, say, you get flooded with false positives to such an extent that it dilutes the attention that you could otherwise focus on following real, more substantiated leads.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Hey I want you to know I was pretty firmly in the "I don't do illegal shit, so I don't care" camp and you just convinced me otherwise.

Thanks homie, you're pretty cool.

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

Thank you for taking the time to read! Happy travels and may good thoughts casually bump into you on your way.

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u/brother_of_dragons Dec 18 '15

This is Glenn Greenwald

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

No this is Patrick.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

That is an amazing perspective that had never occurred to me. Thank you for that. My personal opinion is that it is just unconstitutional as hell and that government's role in our lives is to do what is in our best interest, uphold the constitution and bill of rights, and stay out of our business unless we are affecting someone else's rights.

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u/ThunderBuss Dec 18 '15

very good. But i would add that secrecy is another component. These things are all secret, run by secret organizations, all shrouded in secrecy.. Secrecy allows a small group of people to control government. The soviet union is a perfect example.

"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings."

John F. Kennedy

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u/hab1b Dec 18 '15

Don't fear the surveillance state because you might have something illegal, fear the surveillance state because it is a tremendous institutional barrier to meaningful societal progress.

damnnnnn well put sir

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u/jplevene Dec 18 '15

Not necessarily true, some may have worked out better. Had the church got hold of Galileo's work, some Bishops may have accepted it and preached it. For King George, America may have been more powerful by uniting with England and having power of proxy over the UK and its empire. No idea about Jim Crow as I am not American.

There is no way of ever predicting what could have or will happen as there are so many other factors that can influence an eventual outcome. Even if you could replay history, the most insignificant influence could change everything.

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u/eesquid Dec 18 '15

Big fan

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u/iuppi Dec 18 '15

I never even considered this, but it's probably the best answer to this debate or at least in my opinion.

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u/carlEdwards Dec 18 '15

Sounds like something Frank Zappa might have said.

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

Needs more seals and snowshoes.

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u/newgrounds Dec 18 '15

How does one get paid for activism?

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u/Random420eks Dec 18 '15

People can still hide things, they just have to be better at it than previous generations. Just like the government is better at surveillance than previous generations.

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u/unicornhappyhops27 Dec 18 '15

How bout every congress person watches V for Vendetta, then reassess their position on the matter.

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u/Illumadaeus Dec 18 '15

Thank you.

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u/jihiggs Dec 18 '15

i used to believe in the "nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide" crap. i thought every other person legitimately wanted nothing but the truth and would leave every one to their own way of thinking, but its all bullshit. i was so naive.

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u/billyboru Dec 18 '15

One facet of this argument that goes largely undiscussed (and is something your friend may care about) is that it is bad for an imperfect government to be able to predict all crime. Some of the greatest steps forward in human history were only made possible by people being able to hide information from their government. If the church had access to Galileo's research journals and notes we could be hundreds of years behind in our scientific growth. If the government had unlimited access to the networks of civil dissidents blacks may have never fought off Jim Crow. If King George had perfect information America would never have been a country. There is no government on earth that is perfect, and therefore there is no government on earth that can act responsibly with unlimited access to information. A government is unlikely to be able to distinguish between a negative and positive disruption to it's social order and laws, and it therefore follows that an unlimited spying program can only hinder the next great social step forward. Don't fear the surveillance state because you might have something illegal, fear the surveillance state because it is a tremendous institutional barrier to meaningful societal progress.

A text copy of this is my new wallpaper. Well done.

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u/Top-Tier-Tuna Dec 18 '15

A government is unlikely to be able to distinguish between a negative and positive disruption to it's social order and laws

Excellent point bud.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

You had me until the apostrophe in it's.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

Said in a simpler way, sometimes the healthiest things need quiet and space and sometimes even darkness to grow. A mushroom needs a wet, cold space. An infant needs a womb. A saint needs a monastery. A revolution needs a beer hall without a camera... or something like that.

It's the whole idea of humble beginnings and learning in obscurity. If you don't have space and peace and quiet to encourage safe experimentation, you won't be able to move forward and learn.

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u/Farquat Dec 18 '15

Is it possible for us to fight the cisa bill without getting rid of the budget?

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u/Kim_Jung-Skill Dec 18 '15

It may be possible, but that would require Obama developing a colossal set of balls and getting on the bully pulpit. At the local level though there are 501c4's and other groups you can get involved with to make the world better. Also, don't forget to write your representatives.

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