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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

Besides, I don't care how "legal" they make it or how much oversight and checks they put in place.

At the end of the day, they're still collecting everything. And I don't want that to happen. Is that too much to ask for? Google got in so much trouble over collecting Wi-fi data, but if the governments do it, and a lot more, it's fine? Surely there have been, and will continue to be alternative solutions to stopping terrorists besides collecting everyone's information en-masse.

Also, what about the foreigners? Politicians, judges, activists, everyone is fair game for spying? I don't want to live in such a world. That's can't be the future.

Obama tries to make it seem like this is the "balance" between privacy and security. This nowhere close to a "balance". They're getting everything. How is that a "balance" for privacy? If that's the balance, I don't think I want to know what they have in mind for when they really only care about security.

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Have you forgotten yes we can...this is the guy, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard no less, that accepted the peace prize, while running two wars and with a 'kill list' in his pocket, so don't worry Obama can balance anything.

I hope they give him another Nobel for just being so awesome.

They look like bigger fools now for giving him the Nobel than they did when he hadn't accomplished anything.

The 'Nobel' as you put it encompasses multiple fields, most of which are based in sciences proven by empirical analysis. The 'Peace' prize has historically been controversial as contributions to peace are inherently political in nature.

Please don't disregard the other prizes: they represent real, quantifiable achievements. Peace is a simple result from political policies, but chemistry, physics, and medicine have a rich history of research and application.

Nobel Prize categories:

* Physics

* Chemistry

* Literature

* Peace

* Physiology

* Medicine

* Economic Sciences

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is actually distinct from the "real" Nobels. It is also even more of a joke than the Peace Prize, often.

I would rather not argue about 'economic sciences' at this time, that subject is usually far more politicized than 'peace.'

The Prize in Literature's never free of the usual political recriminations either - there's a fine line between endorsing a message and acknowledging execution (and the fact that the ends an author sets plays an important role as well) that's never been fully articulated.

There is always the Nobel of Literature... Do not despair. They are really putting a lot of effort into it.

UofC not Harvard

The grand "balance" has been under our nose the entire time, as laid out by prof Lessig, also of Harvard.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964883

I think it is ignorance that is causing this. Specifically, ignorance of the nature of information, and maybe a propensity of lawyers to attempt to "balance" security with law, and thereby destroy security.

Read my other comment here about Palantir's marketing material, how they advertise "immutable audit trails", and how that's supposed to provide transparency and whatever... and a link to a paper that says it doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5965317

I don't blog, so somebody else should compile this and publish it.

> And I don't want that to happen. Is that too much to ask for?

civilization and government are way more nuanced than this. the answer to your question is yes, yes it is too much to ask for. you probably don't want to pay taxes, receive speeding tickets, or be subject to laws but you are...

I always find it funny that taxes are only for the poor as far as I'm aware. In reality speeding tickets aren't for reckless driving they are for funding police departments. The laws we have are and have always been designed to require whole teams of specialised people at great expense to debate whether, in fact you are or aren't in contradiction of them (insert campaign for plain terms legal messaging that is binding). In fact the law is so complex now that if you can pay for the smartest people to get you off the hook on technicalities.

We didn't get onto corporate power and influence in this thread (yet) but you get the idea. Is shut up and take it an option anymore when it's looking increasingly likely that governments corrupt and subvert real public debate (infiltrating organisations like Greenpeace with trouble makers), monitor everything you do on the internet and can trace it all back to you, and should the policies change under, say a Nixon, McCarthy or worse you could find the apparatus on your doorstep for a making everyone a suspected terrorist fairly soon. Turnkey Tyranny is exactly the correct terminology.

The truth is you can't trust the NSA to do the right thing and anyone with any common sense can see even in very very recent American history the powers of the state were massively abused. Freedom, democracy, these always have just been words to sugar coats a system by the rich for the rich. I the more you look at the system the more you realise that Chomsky is right about power and that you and me all need a fairer slice of the cake (both monetarily and in terms of our say in how government happens). What is good is that the means of production is coming back to the people; I can see the rich and powerful being very scared indeed by this.

How are the means of production coming back to the people? I'd like to know, because that's where the hope is.

Within 20 years 3d printing and Open Ecology will have given _you_ the means to pretty much never need to buy anything from the man again. Real communities that live off the grid can happen within our life times (and it not be the most tiresome back breaking work in the world) and maybe we can find a bit of happiness in the joy of being human rather than the endless procession of churning out ever more so that the rich above us can steal it from us.

How will people in those communities pay their taxes?

Presumably through voluntary subscription to private services, or flat taxation of alternative currencies controlled by and tied to local communities where usage of the currency is voluntary.

The way we're taxed federally right now with corporate loopholes and crazy income tax laws is bad.

The people who operate the current tax system probably won't take kindly to an alternative system just being 'declared'. And they have lots of guns.

Why would these communities need money? On what basis would they be taxed with no income?

Tax is assessed on exchanges of value - not money itself.

Otherwise, corporations would be able to just pay people in kind by providing them with accommodation, transport, clothing, etc, and save a giant tax bill.

If a significant sized community creates a moneyless economy, the tax man authorities will take an interest, and just start assessing transactions based on financial equivalences.

Yes, and I hope you do see that taxing this self-sufficient community (assuming it did not require the benefits from the govt like highways and whatnot) would be akin to theft if it were compulsory.

Of course all communities require something from the global external economy, but I see no reason why a community's internal transactions would have to be assessed by an external entity. Alas that is not the way of the world today.

I agree with you about the ethics of this. I'm just pointing out that the technology for self sufficiency isn't the major barrier. It's the politics that are the problem.

2013.06.30 Your monthly privacy balance calculated by NSA: ZERO.

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