2020 US Election

[chenGOD]

12 hours ago, Nebraska said:

if yang made privacy a fundamental right, would you trust him that your data would be private? 

See caze’s explanation. 

[Nebraska]

12 hours ago, caze said:

well if he did that then it wouldn't be up to him, it's the courts you'd need to place your trust in.

and would you place your trust in the courts then?

[Nebraska]

 

[chenGOD]

29 minutes ago, Nebraska said:

and would you place your trust in the courts then?

At some point, you have to trust your institutions. They are the core of development and growth. There is an excellent paper on this topic which I am attaching to the post. 

In the US, institutions can widely be seen as transparent and non-corrupt. Yes there are examples of corruption, and every nation should strive to eliminate that, but corruption in the US is nowhere near as pervasive as it is in much of the non-developed world. To say otherwise is to insult the people who have to suffer the results of corruption in said countries.

Although the shit that's going on with the current regime is unpalatable, it still pales in comparison to corruption in places like Nigeria or Myanmar, or North Korea or China. And of course the big difference is you actually have some recourse to fix parts of it, with little fear of going to jail or being knocked off.

 

So yes, I'd place my trust in the US courts far more than in any tech corporation.

institutions-as-the-fundamental-cause-of-long-run-.pdf

[auxien]

57 minutes ago, Nebraska said:

 

pretty underhanded tactics by the DNC to keep Sanders out

 

 

 

 

[goDel]

1 hour ago, Nebraska said:

and would you place your trust in the courts then?

Nebraska, apart from the explanations others have already given you, I'd like to say your logic seems extremely cynical to me.

It's like you're saying fundamental human rights are irrelevant because you can't trust anyone, or any institution. So in a way you've basically given up on civilisation and reduced humanity to animal territory where the laws of nature hold. You've reduced human rights to mere fiction, if you argue like that.

If this is how you see the world, you've got a very bleak view, imo. Depressingly so. Are you OK?

[Nebraska]

31 minutes ago, goDel said:

It's like you're saying fundamental human rights are irrelevant because you can't trust anyone, or any institution. So in a way you've basically given up on civilisation and reduced humanity to animal territory where the laws of nature hold. You've reduced human rights to mere fiction, if you argue like that.

this is actually very accurate- although i do not feel that it is i who is reducing human rights to mere fiction but what people have allowed/accepted as reality. i do not even believe with the current number of people or the climate of society it is even possible to have a positive outlook or consider that people deserve such rights. at this point, people are fighting for the fantasy of the rights they want, not the actual rights themselves.

i believe people deserve the fundamental rights to privacy- but there are people in flint michigan and other countries that cannot even get clean water. i personally don't believe (or trust) that any government that cannot solve the problem of getting it's citizens clean water can be entrusted with issuing any kind of law granting the court system to uphold data privacy laws. 

there was an interview recently with edward snowden where he said governments (particularly .us, .uk, .de) collect everyone's data. you pick up your phone, make a call, check facebook or whatever else- then you turn off your phone and go about your day. your phone is secretly pinging towers transmitting information about who you called and for how long- what you read on facebook and for how long. that metadata is collected to create a profile of who you are.

i believe the only way to reduce such "invasion" is a). not use technology that would open you up to such vulnerability or b). be responsible for your own privacy.

you are not wrong in saying my outlook is cynical (maybe even depressingly so)- but to me, i'd say the only difference is our brains are different. nothing more

 

Edited October 2, 2019 by Nebraska

[goDel]

46 minutes ago, Nebraska said:

there was an interview recently with edward snowden where he said governments (particularly .us, .uk, .de) collect everyone's data. you pick up your phone, make a call, check facebook or whatever else- then you turn off your phone and go about your day. your phone is secretly pinging towers transmitting information about who you called and for how long- what you read on facebook and for how long. that metadata is collected to create a profile of who you are.

i think you need to make a distinction between "could" (or "technically possible") and "is". the whole snowden ordeal basically showed that already. and because of it, even US law have become more strict. in the sense that it is illegal for the us government to profile you without a good reason for doing so. but the reality of this current information age is indeed that if you're on the grid, you'll leave traces of information. 

but i'd be surprised if germany did collect everyones data, btw. as that goes against the recently activated EU laws on privacy (GDPR). and germany tends to be more strict in its privacy laws. even within the eu.

btw, a phone "secretly" pinging towers is basically a necessity for making a call possible. because you could be moving while calling. and for people calling you, to be able to establish a connection with your phone the network needs to now which towers to use to connect.

it's inherent to mobile phones. without localisation info, the entire system would overload because every call needs to be sent to every tower in the network. it's a matter of efficiency.

52 minutes ago, Nebraska said:

i believe people deserve the fundamental rights to privacy- but there are people in flint michigan and other countries that cannot even get clean water. i personally don't believe (or trust) that any government that cannot solve the problem of getting it's citizens clean water can be entrusted with issuing any kind of law granting the court system to uphold data privacy laws. 

there are many examples of things going wrong. flint is a nasty one in the sense that the problem was man-made, completely unnecessary and badly solved, as far as i can tell. but the thing is, the water used to be fine in flint. and in most modern western societies, it's the norm that basic stuff - like water/electricity/sewer - is running fine. and arguably, more stuff is actually working perfectly fine as opposed to not. 

so from where i'm standing, i think you're using a broad brush when you use examples like these and basically ignore all the stuff that is actually working fine. it would be healthy to have a broader perspective on stuff like these, imo. and having a broader perspective doesn't mean ignoring the stuff that goes wrong or needs improvement, btw. You can have it both ways. of course, i don't live in flint but in some EU country. so i'm a bit privileged in that aspect. but if you're ignoring the progress made in the last 100 years, the joke's on you, imo.

[chenGOD]

1 hour ago, Nebraska said:

there was an interview recently with edward snowden where he said governments (particularly .us, .uk, .de) collect everyone's data. you pick up your phone, make a call, check facebook or whatever else- then you turn off your phone and go about your day. your phone is secretly pinging towers transmitting information about who you called and for how long- what you read on facebook and for how long. that metadata is collected to create a profile of who you are.

I am going to tell you that no one in government cares who you are, unless you are a terrorist or a serious criminal with links at a high level to transnational organized crime. Most law enforcement agencies do not have the capacity to analyze even a tenth of the data they hold. 

 

1 hour ago, Nebraska said:

i believe people deserve the fundamental rights to privacy- but there are people in flint michigan and other countries that cannot even get clean water. i personally don't believe (or trust) that any government that cannot solve the problem of getting it's citizens clean water can be entrusted with issuing any kind of law granting the court system to uphold data privacy laws. 

You are conflating local governance (in the Michigan example) with federal laws. Is flint's water supply indicative of America's as a whole? No. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

[Nebraska]

11 minutes ago, goDel said:

but i'd be surprised if germany did collect everyones data, btw. as that goes against the recently activated EU laws on privacy (GDPR). and germany tends to be more strict in its privacy laws. even within the eu.

i might be confusing the five eyes with the fourteen eyes

i think you confused my phone pinging towers example. it's not pinging towers for the necessity of making phone calls- it's directly communicating with servers about call you made, the length of the call, keywords used, apps you have installed etc. it does so when you have your phone turned off (i.e. when you're not making a call. when it's not in use) and this is not done for your benefit.

as to "ignoring the progress made in the last 100 years": not sure which one(s) you're talking about. maybe women's suffrage? i sometimes like the fact that we had to impose such limitations only later to overcome them to think of it as progress, but i'm also someone who see's technology as doing much more harm than good.

as to the joke being on me (in your opinion): that's another problem. i don't see this a competition where one is better off than the other. you said as far as you can tell the problem in flint was man made- but i wish you were more accurate in stating who exactly because it's a government made problem. so in the same way you'd trust the government to impose the courts to keep your privacy safe- people in flint trusted the government to handle their water safety as it's a human right to have clean water, and they contaminated it. 

i don't live in flint michigan, but i was using it as an example of why i wouldn't trust the courts to handle my privacy. there used to be a time i thought it would be so ludicrous to buy bottles of air, and yet now it's a reality. do you think the people of china should get their government to do something about that too, or is the very idea of having that conversation point to a deeper problem?

[Nebraska]

19 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

I am going to tell you that no one in government cares who you are, unless you are a terrorist or a serious criminal with links at a high level to transnational organized crime. Most law enforcement agencies do not have the capacity to analyze even a tenth of the data they hold. 

this reminds me of an analogy someone used. they said "the primary reason for window curtains in a house is so people cannot see in. we don't want people looking in because we consider what we're doing to be private. whether it's having dinner, watching tv, going to the bathroom, making love etc. none of these things are illegal or special but we have a strong desire for privacy."

for the same reason- when i write an e-mail, or browse twitter- i prefer to know that this activity is private, unless i want it otherwise. 

oh and yes, i do believe flint's problem is indicative of america as a whole. another example was the dakota access pipeline or, more recently, there was this

p.s. analogy used was taken from crypto paper

[chenGOD]

And I'm telling you, no one from "the government" is looking at your e-mail unless you are a terrorist, distributor of CP, or have links to organized crime. They do not have the resources to do so, even with the technological advances we all currently enjoy. The analogy doesn't hold because in the living room scenario, someone specifically has to be looking in at you. When you use twitter, your activity is most certainly not private, as twitter keeps metrics on you, and so does Google and Facebook through cookies. These corporations are definitely spying on you.

27 minutes ago, Nebraska said:

more recently, there was this

So that paper talks about a recent discovery that this chemical PFAS is harmful in higher concentrations than normal. What has the government done about it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#U.S._federal_government_actions

 

oh yeah and vitality air? https://www.businessinsider.com/vitality-air-alberta-canada-no-health-benefits-2015-12

[Nebraska]

18 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

And I'm telling you, no one from "the government" is looking at your e-mail unless you are a terrorist, distributor of CP, or have links to organized crime.

The analogy doesn't hold because in the living room scenario, someone specifically has to be looking in at you. 

i'm in the belief that privacy works best if everyone uses it. the government isn't spying me, but i don't see the determent of using measures as though it were.

in the analogy, i don't believe someone has to be specifically looking in at me. it's the mindset that drawing the curtains/closing the curtains that gives one a sense of privacy regardless of what mundane activity they may be engaging in such as watching television or eating dinner etc.

[dr lopez]

andrew yang is an idiot

[goDel]

1 hour ago, Nebraska said:

i don't live in flint michigan, but i was using it as an example of why i wouldn't trust the courts to handle my privacy. there used to be a time i thought it would be so ludicrous to buy bottles of air, and yet now it's a reality. do you think the people of china should get their government to do something about that too, or is the very idea of having that conversation point to a deeper problem?

this looks like a "glass is half empty" kind of reasoning. the government of flint fucks up, so governments in general can't be trusted. that's just very bleak and a poor generalisation, imo. to me that's similar to having a bad experience with a person and concluding all people must be equally bad. not sure how you can overcome any set back in life with that kind of reasoning.

sorry, i don't buy it. we just have a massively different outlook on life and the world etc. better to leave it at that, imo. wish you all the best, btw. and honestly a bit more positivity.

[Nebraska]

4 minutes ago, goDel said:

the government of flint fucks up, so governments in general can't be trusted.

government of flint = american government. american government is part of the five eyes who have an agreement to share, collect and analyze data on each others citizens under the ukusa agreement. is that "glass half empty" reasoning?

also, i wish you had given me examples of "the progress made in the last 100 years" you had alluded to earlier, but i do promise to try and have a more positive outlook in the future. believe me, i'm not cynical because i want to be. 

[goDel]

i don't see how flints local government should be equal to "american government", btw. you mean the federal government? or just that all kinds of governments of all regions in america function equally? so ny government is same to flint government?

i'm not sure if i want to continue this argument, btw. i'm only seeing vast generalisations going all over the place. and i'm really not interested to chase all the rabbits you're going to pull out of your hat. this will probably come across as disrespectful. but please understand that from my perspective, it's just a bunch of generalisations based on stuff that's on the internet or in the media.

so yeah, you don't trust your government. or any government. fine. point taken. lets leave it at that. i'm not going to bring you to different ideas.

coming back to the beginning of the argument: governments are built on and operate within legal frameworks. if they don't operate within those, they're corrupt. which is what appears to the case in flint btw. and which is also why i don't understand your "flint government = american government". as that implies the corruption systemic throughout america.

if that's your position, fine. i'd respectfully disagree and hope we can leave it there.

[Nebraska]

36 minutes ago, goDel said:

"flint government = american government". as that implies the corruption systemic throughout america.

if that's your position, fine.

this is my position. my apologizes if i was unable to state my points more clearly though

and i'm in agreement with you about leaving it there.

[Brisbot]

Well Tulsi has come out for "Medicare choice" which is a bad idea as it will probably result in crappy healthcare in the longrun even if it starts out solid. Everyone will have it, but the public option will be weak AF funding wise if not implemented correctly as it will naturally be or become worse than the private option. Medicare for All is something you can't really compromise on. If it's not fully public or primarily so then there will be many ways to weaken it by screwing with the funding, and there are many politicians in govt. who have incentive to do so.

There's also the issue of the funding itself. The idea behind Medicare for All is that most people will pay less for their healthcare even if taxes go up, so most people in the lower and middle class will save money every year. With her plan it'll cause people in the middle class who already have private healthcare to pay more in taxes overall for nothing and will become disliked by those people.


 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Brisbot

[Brisbot]

On 9/26/2019 at 3:39 PM, goDel said:

I guess I was making a broader point. Influencing politics is not just through financing single campaigns, btw. Like specifically Warrens campaign. I mean, it's not that Wallstr will be putting money in a single basket. They're investing through all kinds of baskets. On different levels. And opposite sides of the isle. Money is rarely ideological. Or principal even. It's pragmatic. (edit: rather opportunistic)

The issue with Warren is that she is proving susceptible to being influenced. It's unclear now where her values lie as she is becoming more and more a dem-centrist over time. Which happens to many democrats it seems. Whereas with Bernie it's clear, so he has my vote for the primary. However if Bernie drops out for Warren then she still has my vote, I still think she would make a good president. Better than Obama ever was.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Brisbot

[zlemflolia]

1 hour ago, Brisbot said:

The issue with Warren is that she is proving susceptible to being influenced. It's unclear now where her values lie as she is becoming more and more a dem-centrist over time. Which happens to many democrats it seems. Whereas with Bernie it's clear, so he has my vote for the primary. However if Bernie drops out for Warren then she still has my vote, I still think she would make a good president. Better than Obama ever was.

I want it to be a Bernie-Warren ticket, but if it's not a Bernie ticket, I want it to be an Anyone-Bernie ticket, but at the same time it's possible that if Bernie ends up being a VP candidate he is sort of downgraded in the eyes of centrist dems and would also lose steam for a 2024 run since he's running against his own President who's now an incumbent.  Basically if Bernie doesn't win we're fucked.

[goDel]

I was assuming his primary was finished given his heart problems, btw. Do you really think he's in a condition to keep on campaining for another couple years (primaries and national)? Doesn't seem realistic to me. 

[zlemflolia]

55 minutes ago, goDel said:

I was assuming his primary was finished given his heart problems, btw. Do you really think he's in a condition to keep on campaining for another couple years (primaries and national)? Doesn't seem realistic to me. 

He had a medical issue, he underwent surgery to fix it, and now he's in recovery.  I've seen no suggestions that he has chronic health issues.  For people as old as him, this isn't unexpected or evidence that he's out of commission any time soon.  Don't let media headlines frame your view of his future viability.  The only time that exists is right now

Edited October 3, 2019 by Zeffolia

[zlemflolia]

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-02/bernie-sanders-treated-chest-pain-cancels-campaign-events

Inserting stents into arteries is common in the United States — there are at least 600,000 such procedures a year, and perhaps up to one million. It is usually uncomplicated, and patients return home within a day or two.

“The prognosis is very good,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, chief academic officer of the Heart and Vascular Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. “Most patients are home the next day and back to work very quickly.” He said he did not see it as an impediment to returning to the campaign trail.

[goDel]

27 minutes ago, Zeffolia said:

He had a medical issue, he underwent surgery to fix it, and now he's in recovery.  I've seen no suggestions that he has chronic health issues.  For people as old as him, this isn't unexpected or evidence that he's out of commission any time soon.  Don't let media headlines frame your view of his future viability.  The only time that exists is right now

Not sure what media headlines have to do with this. This is about experience with people with heart conditions. Healthcare issues like these simply don't fall out of the sky. And don't disappear like snow either. This will impact his condition, and it's really not obvious to think he will simply move past this and continue campaigning. Even if "the prognosis is very good". Bernie is not like most patients. As most patients don't work in the conditions Bernie works in.

And "prognosis" usually says something about survival. Not condition. Saying he'll live another 10 years is not the same as believing he has the condition to campaign a couple years and be president thereafter. 

I don't think you're interpreting those quotes the right way, tbh. And again, this has nothing to do with media framing my views. (i spend my professional life focussing on healthcare, btw)

 

edit: i'm not saying he can't continue. just saying there's a real chance he won't.

Edited October 3, 2019 by goDel