On Thu, 7 Mar 2019 16:36:34 +1000 jamesd@echeque.com wrote:
On 2019-03-07 06:59, Punk wrote:
On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 17:02:41 +0000 (UTC) jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:
I consider it virtually axiomatic that there is no invention that can be used purely for helping freedom, or used purely for harming freedom.�
True, objects are morally neutral. They can be used for good or to harm people. Scientific knowledge is usually neutral as well.
.But I think there tends to be a bias in the system that allows individuals to use inventions FOR freedom.�
Which system are you referring to? The system of nature? Western political systems? Or?
Capitalist economy, as it has existed for thousands of years.
Oh right. By thousands of years, you mean, never.
Each technological advance gives the state more means of control, and the individual more means of resisting control.
No, as I mentioned, each technical advance implies more complexity so it favors groups of people who specialize in technical stuff and who control technical development.
Individuals, however, are naturally more numerous and more technologically advanced that governments,
"invididuals are more advanced than governments" doesn't even make sense. And newsflash : governments are just a bunch of criminal individuals.
and there are a lot of private businesses.
All of 'private' business are partners of the government. As I mentioned and you apparently ignored.
Soviet Union used to have armed guards on photocopiers.
sure sure.
When I went to Cuba, if a Cuban wanted to make a phone call, he had to go to a police station with a policeman visibly listening in on the line so that he would not even think of saying something he should not say.
of course, that must have been the case. Now, as we all learned in free govt school, that's communism. But what about capitalism? Under capitalism no policemen are needed for direct surveillance because govcorp has super high defintion video cameras, all fiber optic is tapped, all mass produced wireless phones are backdoored, people carry trackers with 30cms accuracy, the govt has imaging radar with 1m accuracy on satellites (thanks Jim B. for that piece of news =) ) - off the top of my head. The list is surely a lot longer.
Obviously point to point and one to many communication is liberating, as we can tell by the efforts of terror states to control them.
yeah, one to many communication is really liberating, just look at CNN, faux-news and all the rest of broadcasters.
The primary threat to privacy today is giant corporations in the pocket of the government sweet talking private individuals into *voluntarily* handing over their data.
well, voluntarily implies informed consent and I think there's little of that. But, at any rate, that's how retarded people are after being educated in free capitalistic govt schools.
For example viber by default backs up all your viber messages in the clear to google drive, where the greatest AI in the world does a pattern match for topics of interest.
no such thing as AI - it's just pattern matching.
But, on the other hand, encryption and point to point communication is inherently resistant to the state.
yeah, if your hardware and OS isn't backdoored.
I just did a bunch of transactions by bitcoin that were either politically incorrect, circumvented government regulation, or both. Bitcoin plus encrypted messaging gives me liberty that no one used to have.
yeah bitcoin and its fully open ledger is such an amazing tool...for tracking all transactions ever made.
Twitter censors, but gab does not. Viber theoretically encrypts, but then cheerfully backs up all your messages in the clear to the worst possible location, but Whatsapp really is encrypted.
sure sure - I blindly trust marx fuckerberg, the capitalistic owner of fukerbook, and I blindly trust marlingspike and the 3 millions he got from the pentagon to 'develop' signal.
Giant corporations tend to be in the pocket of the state,
no, giant corporations ARE the state.
but this creates room for smaller businesses and corporations to compete with them.
no, those smaller businesses are just as corrupt as big businesses and they get bought out as soon as they pretend to 'compete' anyway.
Google is losing its grip after purging all its smartest engineers for mansplaining.
in your dreams.
All its new products are crap, its self driving car runs into people, and its AI is getting dumber.
google was always crap. The only reason the google cancer is a big as it is because it's the flagship facade for the NSA...and americunt capitalism.