TRWTF: Everyday security
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Just to recap:
- bridget99 says you don't have a right to privacy
- clothing covers your privates
- A man who posts on a forum under two female-sounding aliases doesn't think humans should wear clothing
- I made the next bullet point up
- Excel saves your undo stack when you push backspace twice
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@blakeyrat said:
@Jaime said:
It's more than hiding and intolerance. Human societies have used privacy for all kinds of important social purposes. We let someone know we trust them intimately by being OK with them seeing us naked. We let people know they are in our "circle" by letting them in on things that we keep private. Not just illegal stuff or bad stuff, but random stuff that's controlled for the sole purpose of defining an inner circle.
Without privacy, people lose the ability to form complex social relationships and become more like cattle than people.
Bullshit. There was no privacy, or expectation of it, for the first 99% of humanity's development.
I'm not sure those are contradictory statements. Sure, mankind had no privacy, but how complex were our social relationships? I doubt a large, free, pluralistic liberal democracy like the United States could exist without privacy.
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@Adanine said:
I
think privacy is too loosely defined overall for there to be a right
for it.Hwah? I don't think privacy is that loosely-defined at all, nor do I think that has any bearing on it being a right.
@Adanine said:
It could be turned
into a legal weapon similar to how that Woman acted in Bridget's other
thread.I don't even know what other thread you're talking about, but turned into a weapon? I mean, you people do realize this is more than just an hypothetical scenario, right? There are centuries of political philosophy and jurisprudence to draw from. Your example of somebody getting their mail in their underwear is asinine--it's well-established both legally and just using common sense that if you do something in public view, with no attempt to act privately, then there can be no infringement of your privacy. It's just like how the police don't need a warrant simply to observe your comings and goings. Just like they can read the contents of any postcards you send through the mail, or anything written on an envelope; they just cannot open the envelope itself without a warrant.
My point is, you're really setting up some huge strawmen here. I don't think any sane person ever suggested that a right to privacy meant punishing somebody who simply observed someone else in public. A more realistic question would be "Can the police place hidden cameras in your house and observe you without a warrant?" Or perhaps something a little more "gray area": how do we deal with technologies which allow police to blanket entire public areas with video surveillance which can be tied into facial recognition and other public records?
@Adanine said:
Not to
mention, if someone goes batshit crazy over every "Threat to his
security", never wants to be identified at all and constantly prevents
any piece of information about him being in the hands of anyone else... I
kinda want my Government to track that guy.I can understand your concern, but why would you care? How often are bad things done by people who are that paranoid about their privacy? Those people are trying to stay out of the spotlight. It seems like the vast, vast majority of crimes are committed by people who have a large footprint of public data.
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@bridget99 said:
And you act as if the "right to life" were some kind of absolute that no sane philosophy would ever deny... but I suspect that this phrase was in fact original with Jefferson, and I feel certain that it was considered a radical idea at the time.
Isn't "we hold these truths to be self-evident" basically saying "the following is obvious and indisputable"?
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@joe.edwards said:
@bridget99 said:
And you act as if the "right to life" were some kind of absolute that no sane philosophy would ever deny... but I suspect that this phrase was in fact original with Jefferson, and I feel certain that it was considered a radical idea at the time.
Isn't "we hold these truths to be self-evident" basically saying "the following is obvious and indisputable"?Yeah. It's basically "here are the axioms upon which the theorems of government are built."
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@morbiuswilters said:
Hwah? I don't think privacy is that loosely-defined at all, nor do I think that has any bearing on it being a right.
We disagree. My argument is that I don't think what constitutes a violation of one's privacy can be broadly defined. The difference between doing something normal and Infringing on someone's privacy are invisable lines that differ from person to person, not a list of rules written in stone.Some people are very open, and have no issue with any information about them being publicly available. Some people are very closed, and react defensively to anyone finding out any information at all about them. One of my friends orders her coffee under the name "Jane" because she's uncomfortable with people knowing her real name (It's not that it's a complicated name or anything, I've checked).
If you want to define privacy, I don't think it's possible to do it in a broad sense in a way that satisfies the majority of people for that country. Prove me wrong though. Can you define Privacy as something that everyone can agree to, or atleast respect? The only other way is to implement it on a case-by-case basis ("The right of piracy does not extend to walking outside your house in underwear").
The Bridget thread involved a professional victim - Someone who chooses to be offended at things that aren't actually offensive. It cost someone their job. I just think that innocent people may be affected as well under similar circumstances. That guy who runs Strangers Project, for example.
As for your examples, if every other house also had hidden cameras in it, then I'd imagine I'd be a boring watch. But practically speaking, no one would watch.
I'm not against the street camera idea either. What freedoms are they stripping from me? How does this make me unhappy or unmotivated? I can't think how it would affect my life in any way. I'm not even sure how this is related. Is walking to work private? You're out in public...
What about people taking photographs with other people in them, without their consent? Same question with Videos?
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@morbiuswilters said:
@bridget99 said:
Well... yes. ("Feeling of time & distances" section.)The notion of civil rights is a relatively new one, and the scope of the word "right" has probably grown over time.
If by "relatively new" you mean "within the last 350 years", then I suppose so.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Or perhaps something a little more "gray area": how do we deal with technologies which allow police to blanket entire public areas with video surveillance which can be tied into facial recognition and other public records?
You don't need technology to do that - people have concerned themselves with curtain-twitching and drawing up records since the year dot. Technology's just enabled them to do it quicker and cheaper than manual means.
We shouldn't concern ourselves with dealing with the technology, more how the results are interpreted by those that wish to act upon the received data.
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@Cassidy said:
You don't need technology to do that - people have concerned themselves with curtain-twitching and drawing up records since the year dot. Technology's just enabled them to do it quicker and cheaper than manual means.
This seems like a variant on the saying that quantity has a quality all it's own (especially interesting as applied here, since this is often attributed to Uncle Joe). When it's slow (and therefore expensive) to do, it's much less of a problem than when it's cheap and quick.
@Cassidy said:
We shouldn't concern ourselves with dealing with the technology, more how the results are interpreted by those that wish to act upon the received data.
But the problem is that the expensive old ways are obvious and intrusive. And if it's being done on a large scale, you probably can't concern yourself with it without getting shot. On a bigger, cheaper scale, it's not necessarily obvious when and where it's happening, so how can you know if it's no big deal or Stalinist?
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@Adanine said:
We disagree. My argument is that I don't think what constitutes a violation of one's privacy can be broadly defined. The difference between doing something normal and Infringing on someone's privacy are invisable lines that differ from person to person, not a list of rules written in stone.
Some people are very open, and have no issue with any information about them being publicly available. Some people are very closed, and react defensively to anyone finding out any information at all about them. One of my friends orders her coffee under the name "Jane" because she's uncomfortable with people knowing her real name (It's not that it's a complicated name or anything, I've checked).
If you want to define privacy, I don't think it's possible to do it in a broad sense in a way that satisfies the majority of people for that country. Prove me wrong though. Can you define Privacy as something that everyone can agree to, or atleast respect? The only other way is to implement it on a case-by-case basis ("The right of piracy does not extend to walking outside your house in underwear").This could be said about any right. Is it free speech to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater? Is burning a flag free speech? What about using racial epithets? Pornography? Does everybody agree on what is and isn't permissible speech? Does that make it any less of a right?
In common law jurisdictions, case-by-case is exactly how laws and rights are defined. There are some overriding principles, some rules-of-thumb and guidelines, but ultimately every single case that ends up before the court is a part of the case law which underpins precedent for future cases (of course most don't have any significant impact on case law, but some do.)
@Adanine said:
As for your examples, if every other house also had hidden cameras in it, then I'd imagine I'd be a boring watch. But practically speaking, no one would watch.
I'm guessing your European. Otherwise it's hard to account for your complete acceptance of Big Brother.
@Adanine said:
I'm not against the street camera idea either. What freedoms are they stripping from me? How does this make me unhappy or unmotivated? I can't think how it would affect my life in any way. I'm not even sure how this is related. Is walking to work private? You're out in public...
We enjoy a certain amount of privacy due to the fact that it is simply impossible to monitor everything we do, even in public. If automated surveillance becomes more ubiquitous, it will erode those "pockets" of privacy that naturally exist. How will it effect you? I'm guessing you probably violate the laws of your country every single day; obscure laws violated in small ways that never get prosecuted because nobody is motivated to find out. What happens when that process becomes automated? What happens when it becomes possible for the police to have evidence of crimes committed by every single person? When the decision to prosecute becomes arbitrary based on the whim of a government employee?
And if you're not sickened by the thought of total surveillance of your life, I have to wonder what the fuck is wrong with you.
@Adanine said:
What about people taking photographs with other people in them, without their consent? Same question with Videos?
Once again, these aren't obscure hypotheticals. These are questions that have already been answered. In general in the US, you can take photos or videos of private individuals* in public, assuming what you're doing doesn't constitute harassment or is not threatening in nature. So you couldn't follow someone everywhere they went with a video camera. And if you have an ex-wife who you've had a contentious divorce with, you probably aren't going to be allowed to sit outside her house and take photos of her comings and goings. And while not everybody is going to agree with these limits or like them, they do form a basis of law that is well-established in the US.
(*Public figures have far fewer privacy rights than private individuals. Hence why photographers can follow Paris Hilton everywhere, trying to get a picture of her dirty snatch.)
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@Cassidy said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Or perhaps something a little more "gray area": how do we deal with technologies which allow police to blanket entire public areas with video surveillance which can be tied into facial recognition and other public records?
You don't need technology to do that - people have concerned themselves with curtain-twitching and drawing up records since the year dot. Technology's just enabled them to do it quicker and cheaper than manual means.
We shouldn't concern ourselves with dealing with the technology, more how the results are interpreted by those that wish to act upon the received data.
No, but technology makes it much easier and gives the police much further reach. You live in a common law country--this stuff matters. The rights of the people and the privileges of the government are established in case law, but as the facts on the ground change, so too will precedent. Courts may decide that pervasive, automated surveillance gives the police far too much power and upends the careful balance between the public interest of police surveillance and the private right of privacy. That's one of the great things about living in a common law jurisdiction.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Adanine said:
Not to mention, if someone goes batshit crazy over every "Threat to his security", never wants to be identified at all and constantly prevents any piece of information about him being in the hands of anyone else... I kinda want my Government to track that guy.
I can understand your concern, but why would you care? How often are bad things done by people who are that paranoid about their privacy? Those people are trying to stay out of the spotlight. It seems like the vast, vast majority of crimes are committed by people who have a large footprint of public data.
People who have unscheduled appointments with money transports and jewellers stores (and a few days later a scheduled appointment with their house in Thailand) are often very paranoid about their privacy. So yes, excessive privacy seeking is an indicator of possible maliciousness.
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@boh said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@Adanine said:
Not to
mention, if someone goes batshit crazy over every "Threat to his
security", never wants to be identified at all and constantly prevents
any piece of information about him being in the hands of anyone else... I
kinda want my Government to track that guy.I can understand your concern, but why would you care? How often are bad things done by people who are that paranoid about their privacy? Those people are trying to stay out of the spotlight. It seems like the vast, vast majority of crimes are committed by people who have a large footprint of public data.
People who have unscheduled appointments with money transports and jewellers stores (and a few days later a scheduled appointment with their house in Thailand) are often very paranoid about their privacy. So yes, excessive privacy seeking is an indicator of possible maliciousness.
Of course criminals try to keep their crimes from being found out, but that's hardly the same thing as somebody who is trying to stay "off the grid". In fact, for the example you've given, that person is almost certainly "on the grid" in a normal capacity, if they're buying international plane tickets.
I'd say something about Europeans having a shocking love affair with the police state (albeit not that shocking when you consider their history); a dying civilization populated with naive sheep being led to slaughter, but America's not that far behind and, as usual, is working a lot harder at it than lazy Europe.
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@morbiuswilters said:
I'd say something about Europeans having a shocking love affair with the police state (albeit not that shocking when you consider their history); a dying civilization populated with naive sheep being led to slaughter, but America's not that far behind and, as usual, is working a lot harder at it than lazy Europe.
I'm offended, and I'm not even European o.O. I'm Australian.If you think it's worth it to go through all the work of defining a legal definition on what constitutes a breach of privacy, then you're clearly focused on this. My only question is why? What benefit do you get? How come you think that a Democratic Government (Which, by definition is a Government made to serve it's people) would use a system like the camera example to harass its own people?
The only thing I think that's different between my Government and yours, is that in general Australians know if the Australian government propose to roll out street/house cameras, our government is so laughably constrained by the politics of politics to actually be able to do anything. It simply couldn't set up and maintain this network of surveillance if they tried, let alone use it. I'd actually prefer the UK government, it seems like they can actually get stuff done.
From what I've read, America seems to have the same problem, yet everyone seems to think that either major party has the power to do anything.
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@morbiuswilters said:
This could be said about any right. Is it free speech to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater?
<a href="http://notalwaysworking.com/conspire-with-hires-to-yell-fire/29324>Does it matter?
@morbiuswilters said:Is burning a flag free speech?
Who cares? If people aren't getting upset about that group burning flags, I can't see why they get upset about others doing so.
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@PJH said:
@morbiuswilters said:
This could be said about any right. Is it free speech to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater?
Does it matter?Technically I qualified it with "crowded" to prevent just such a circumstance. Of course, I didn't say what it was crowded with..
@PJH said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Is burning a flag free speech?
Who cares? If people aren't getting upset about that group burning flags, I can't see why they get upset about others doing so.I'm sure you know this, but that's because it's both patriotic tradition and codified in the Flag Code* which states "The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning." (however this is unenforceable as the US Supreme Court has ruled this a violation of the First Amendment.) There's a difference between reverent flag-burning ceremonies and burning a flag as a form of political protest. And believe me, the latter is viewed with considerable contempt. A flag desecration Amendment could probably pass, but has never quite had the momentum to make it out of the Senate, always losing by a single vote.
(*You'd probably be surprised at what the Flag Code prohibits: using the flag in advertisements of any sort; may not be printed on napkins, boxes, wrapping paper or anything meant to be discarded after use; using the flag as part of a costume or athletic clothing (how often do you see US Olympic athletes violate this one?); should not be hung during rain or violent weather (I see flags flying in the rain all the time). However, none of it is enforceable, except as a guideline for the military and Federal government.)
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@morbiuswilters said:
There's a difference between reverent flag-burning ceremonies and burning a flag as a form of political protest.
I really don't see it - apart from people deciding they'll take offence at someone else's behaviour (one right most people don't have is the right to not be offended.) It's similar over here with poppies for example - total overreaction - it's only a poppy/flag fercrissakes!
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@Adanine said:
I'm offended ... I'm
Australian.I'm deeply sorry.
@Adanine said:
If you think it's worth it to go through all the work
of defining a legal definition on what constitutes a breach of privacy,
then you're clearly focused on this.I've said it a hundred times already, but this isn't some hypothetical I'm pulling out of my ass. Such definitions already exist, codified in the laws. I'm sure they exist in Kangarooland since it's also a common law country.
@Adanine said:
How come you think that a Democratic Government
(Which, by definition is a Government made to serve it's people) would use a system like the camera example to harass its own people?Are you really this ignorant? Do you somehow think because something is defined it a certain way that that's a guarantee of anything? Here's a list of democratic (or ostensibly democratic) countries: pre-1960s America; the Soviet Union; Nazi Germany; the First French Republic; Cuba; China; India; North Korea.. nope, not one of those countries has ever had a major civil rights violation. Hell, I seem to remember the Democratic Government of Australia having some pretty nasty business with the Aborigines not too long ago..
Heck, while we're at it, let's just eliminate habeus corpus. I mean, the police, by their definition, are there to protect and serve, so what benefit do you get by trying to hold them accountable?
@Adanine said:
The
only thing I think that's different between my Government and yours, is
that in general Australians know if the Australian
government propose to roll out street/house cameras, our government is
so laughably constrained by the politics of politics to actually be able
to do anything. It simply couldn't set up and maintain this network of
surveillance if they tried, let alone use it.Which is really a blessing. And by-design. It's supposed to be hard for the governments of liberal democracies to wipe out the rights of their citizens with a single blow. No, no, that kind of thing takes at least a few decades of deceit to pull off.
@Adanine said:
I'd actually prefer the UK
government, it seems like they can actually get stuff done.Short of oppressing Africans, I haven't thought of the UK government as getting stuff done at any point in the last 67 years. Well, I guess you can add "a managed slide into mediocrity, masked only by the pretense of being even weaker than they are."
@Adanine said:
From
what I've read, America seems to have the same problem, yet everyone
seems to think that either major party has the power to do anything.America's in a death spiral now. It's been building for decades but it's become inescapable now. We hardly make anything of tangible value anymore; we're utterly dependent on the rest of the world, but too arrogant to even see our vulnerability for what it is. Increasingly all productive work is done by an ever-shrinking minority who keep the majority in beer, drugs, junk food, cigarettes, TV and iPhones. It's failing fast and the only thing that has staved off the bottom falling out is a manipulated image of the economy that shows things far better off than they are; a sickly sweet glut of debt jammed through the entire economy to keep the gears clanking through another season of reality TV.
I'd venture the average American is stupider than at any point in our history. An formless blob of narcissism, covered in a thin veneer of carefully-cultivated, mass-market identity, generating entire volumes of vapid discourse on their meaningless lives, meticulously posted to a dozen social networks to be seen by their 900 "friends" who are all too busy engaging in the same ritual of self-love to give any notice. They grab their iPhones made by what is, for all practical purposes, slave labor (but it's okay, because AAPL is a "hip" company, so parrot the hordes who have selected the "socially-conscious liberal do-gooder" pre-packaged identity) so they can Google for photos of Honey Boo Boo's dirty snatch. Deep inside, they might have a twinge that something is wrong, but it's quickly overwhelmed by the intense hatred they've been cultivated to have against those with ever-so-slightly different pre-packaged identities.
The intellectual, economic, social and moral core of the greatest nation on Earth continues to rot unabated, drawing us ever closer to the painful collapse of our empire, but nobody seems to care.
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@PJH said:
@morbiuswilters said:
There's a difference between reverent flag-burning ceremonies and burning a flag as a form of political protest.
I really don't see it - apart from people deciding they'll take offence at someone else's behaviour (one right most people don't have is the right to not be offended.) It's similar over here with poppies for example - total overreaction - it's only a poppy/flag fercrissakes!I can understand that position, but I'm not sure I agree. Societies find solidarity through symbols and I think it's that solidarity that keeps things from falling apart. As easy as it is to say "It's just a flag/poppy", I have to wonder if that attitude isn't what leads to the slow erosion of community.
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@Adanine said:
I'd actually prefer the UK government, it seems like they can actually get stuff done.
A government that can "get stuff done" is the scariest kind of government. A lot of thought and effort went into the US Constitution to prevent just that. Sometimes, it even works.
@Adanine said:
From what I've read, America seems to have the same problem, yet everyone
seems to think that either major party has the power to do anything.Sort of. They've figured out how to write vague laws where the bureaucracy can fill in the blanks later. In many ways, this is worse, because no one really knows WTF they're doing. You can almost sort of hold a Congressman or a President accountable. Who even knows who the Deputy Assistant Secretary of WTF is?
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@Adanine said:
I'd actually prefer the UK government, it seems like they can actually get stuff done.
Unfortunately UK Govt's achievements pale somewhat in comparison to their myriad of failures, of not learning by failures, or repeating failures and of hiring failure contractors that unpredictably don't perform and deliver an expensive failure.
Sometimes I feel successes tend to be apportioned to someone with clue, rather than a dept or govt steering on the whole.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Increasingly all productive work is done by an ever-shrinking minority who keep the majority in beer, drugs, junk food, cigarettes, TV and iPhones.
You're also describing UK there: we've become viewed as the haven containing social workers falling over themselves to find inventive ways of providing free housing, healthcare, luxury goods all funded by the tax system so you can squeeze out yet another mouth to feed to justify a property upgrade - or conduct your bomb-making activities and vitriolic spleen about how the evil west infidels will fall under the might of triumphant muslims (who aren't violent and will threaten decapitation upon any cartoonist that claims so).
Even recent attempts to try and limit state handouts has the media rolling out a struggling edge case to demonstrate how a good person will suffer under proposed new changes.
Feh. I'm just getting old and jaded.
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@morbiuswilters said:
I haven't thought of the UK government as getting stuff done at any point in the last 67 years.
Sure they have.
[quote user="Wikipedia"]
On the day of the shooting, the police were hunting four men believed to be involved in the failed bombing attempts the day before. Intelligence had linked the men to a block of flats in Tulse Hill, south London, the same building in which Menezes was living. Police put the communal entrance under surveillance, and on the morning of the shooting, saw Menezes leave the building. Plain clothes officers, armed with pistols, followed him as he took a bus to Brixton tube station, before boarding another to Stockwell tube station because the tube station at Brixton was closed. Specialist firearms officers were called to Stockwell. Just after Menezes entered a train, several officers wrestled him to the ground and fired seven bullets into his head at point blank range. The train was still at the platform with its doors open, having just been evacuated by officers.
[/quote](Emphasis mine.)
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@morbiuswilters said:
Are you really this ignorant? Do you somehow think because something is defined it a certain way that that's a guarantee of anything? Here's a list of democratic (or ostensibly democratic) countries: pre-1960s America; the Soviet Union; Nazi Germany; the First French Republic; Cuba; China; India; North Korea.. nope, not one of those countries has ever had a major civil rights violation.
Read China's version of the Bill of Rights sometime. Wow, if they actually used their Constitution for anything other than floor mats, they'd be the most liberal, democratic, free country on Earth by far.
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@blakeyrat said:
if they actually used their Constitution for anything other than floor mats, they'd be the most liberal, democratic, free country on Earth by far.
But they are so comfortable! Unfortunately morb's description fits pretty much every country including mine. There have been some feeble efforts to revert the situation here but so far they have failed, spectacularly. At least change for change sake is something to be hopeful about because stagnation will doom us all.
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@morbiuswilters said:
I'd say something about Europeans having a shocking love affair with the police state (albeit not that shocking when you consider their history); a dying civilization populated with naive sheep being led to slaughter, but America's not that far behind and, as usual, is working a lot harder at it than lazy Europe.
You don't browse /pol/, do you? You'd like it in there. Not joking.
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@blakeyrat said:
Bullshit. There was no privacy, or expectation of it, for the first 99% of humanity's development.
The first 99% of humanity's development took place before we were even apes, during which time we started like protozoa and ended something like cattle, but, crucially we were definitely closer to cattle than human.
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Eugh - hit reply to the wrong post. Fuck it.
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@eViLegion said:
The first 99% of humanity's development took place before we were even apes, during which time we started like protozoa
Extraordinary is the zeal that makes a pedant go back 4 billion years without batting an eye or having a point.
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@Cassidy said:
Even recent attempts to try and limit state handouts has the media rolling out a struggling edge case to demonstrate how a good person will suffer under proposed new changes.
For every one person on food stamps here who needs them, there are 1000 who are just cheating the system. Don't believe me? I've never met a single person who needed to be on food stamps, and I have met many, many people on food stamps.
It's particularly prevalent among my age cohort. These are perfectly healthy people in their 20s, with jobs, and pretty much all of them can afford to spend $300 /month on marijuana. And the thing is, food is cheap here (as you can tell by our ever-expanding asses) but these people use it as a way to "upgrade" what they eat. Prime cuts of steak, lobster tails, name-brand junk food.. I'm not even joking. I have friends who work check-out at grocery stores and they say you can always tell the people who are going to pay with food stamps because their carts contain 7 cases of Coca-Cola and 5 bags of name-brand chips. The real poor people who aren't on welfare may eat crap food, but they can't afford the name brands. And anyone middle-class is pretty much going to shun junk food.
The funny thing is, many of these people will rant about people on welfare. When you point out that they're on welfare it's always something like "Yeah, well, I pay taxes, so I'm just getting back what's mine. Plus, it's not my fault I'm a dishwasher at Denny's.. do you have any more weed?"
Fucked. Rotting from the inside out.
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@blakeyrat said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Are you really this ignorant? Do you somehow think because something is defined it a certain way that that's a guarantee of anything? Here's a list of democratic (or ostensibly democratic) countries: pre-1960s America; the Soviet Union; Nazi Germany; the First French Republic; Cuba; China; India; North Korea.. nope, not one of those countries has ever had a major civil rights violation.
Read China's version of the Bill of Rights sometime. Wow, if they actually used their Constitution for anything other than floor mats, they'd be the most liberal, democratic, free country on Earth by far.
The USSR had an extremely liberal constitution, too. (Although some of the "rights" it guaranteed were really entitlements, which is part of why things go off the rails in the first place.) That's why I tell people: laws don't matter, culture matters. If you have a culture where laws and the power of the state are viewed as increasingly arbitrary, then it won't matter what the laws say.
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@eViLegion said:
@blakeyrat said:
Bullshit. There was no privacy, or expectation of it, for the first 99% of humanity's development.
The first 99% of humanity's development took place before we were even apes, during which time we started like protozoa and ended something like cattle, but, crucially we were definitely closer to cattle than human.
Still: no privacy. Why, the neighbors could look right in and see you fission!
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@spamcourt said:
@morbiuswilters said:
I'd say something about Europeans having a shocking love affair with the police state (albeit not that shocking when you consider their history); a dying civilization populated with naive sheep being led to slaughter, but America's not that far behind and, as usual, is working a lot harder at it than lazy Europe.
You don't browse /pol/, do you? You'd like it in there. Not joking.
I'm not sure what you're referring to.
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@joe.edwards said:
@Adanine said:
FTFYThe rite of piracy
I never knew about that one.
