“What people used to call liberty and freedom we now call privacy. And we say, in the same breath, that privacy is dead.”
— Jacob Appelbaum
462 karma · joined April 28, 2015
— Jacob Appelbaum
And what if there simply isn't enough work, in the traditional sense, to go around? This is a very real issue as automation increases and this time around the newly jobless can't go work on Ford's assembly line or take stenography classes. The fact is there are going to be far more people without jobs than there are jobs available.
It's kind of ironic that in 2015 work is fetishized to a degree that would make Karl Marx blush. This is a worrying trend. As another contributor has already pointed out, if we don't update our, quite literally, outdated attitude towards work and employment we are potentially facing some very serious social unrest.
The up/down voting system on here is toxic as it disappears posts for no good reason whatsoever.
Even discussing pedophilia calmly and reasonably opens one to the charge of being a pedophile or a "pedophile apologist." Taboos can reveal a lot about a society but I'll leave that discussion for another time.
I don't completely trust the motives of guys like the author of the linked article. Others have already pointed out technical errors in the article and questioned the soundness of his methodology. His irrationally labeling Tor as "the devil" is a bit odd too (and highly illogical), to say the least. He even admits he has an irrational hate-on for pedophiles.
What is this guy actually achieving with his "honeypot" other than wrestling with his own demons (more on this later)? He set out to entrap ostensible pedophiles and gather their IP addresses etc. Not child abusers or child pornographers but people that clicked on his link offering a "community of like minded individuals." He explains in detail the technical aspects of his operation and what he learned about the people he interacted with and draws some very dubious conclusions. (Such as "Many visitors to the site were active pedophile predators." Maybe this is the case, but he offers no compelling evidence other than a few lines of a chat room transcript. Not once does he mention even contemplating contacting the FBI or his local PD or any other LEA. Rather, this seems to be mostly about him.
There have been a few high-profile cases over the years where crusaders dedicated to fighting things they found morally reprehensible (e.g. prostitution, narcotics, pornography, homosexuality, child pornography) were outed as being voracious consumers and/or practitioners of that which they vehemently opposed in public at every opportunity. One of them was a DA who made a name for himself with his aggressive prosecution of alleged prostitutes and child pornographers. There is a term for this in psychology which I can't recall at the moment. Basically, there are some people who deal with the cognitive dissonance and the associated shame and guilt of being attracted to something society or their religion condemns morally by venting against it publicly while indulging in it privately. A guy who has an anti-porn website, say, and publishes anti-porn literature for distribution in schools who travels the country speaking out against porn and attending and organizing anti-porn conferences while fapping himself raw to internet porn every night after work.
I am *not saying I think the guy in the article is a pedophile or harms children. I am saying that I don't think his prime motive for doing this project is empathy or compassion for victims of child abusers and predators. He sets up a "honeypot" that serves no practical purpose. No suspected child abusers were investigated, no children saved from harm, police and LE don't even get a mention. Nothing new and useful was brought the table.
Yet based on his two-week escapade "Tor is the devil." That seems like a very odd statement, especially coming from an engineer. Is his computer the devil's sidekick? He does admit that he is motivated by personal reasons and it very much shows. After reading his piece I don't know what the take away is supposed to be. Pedophiles use the internet? Tor is used for illegal activities? Anyway, it's late and this is going in circles. I mean no disrespect to the author but I am left feeling very puzzled.
Hence we get scenarios where China is claiming islands a thousand miles off its coast as domestic territory and while the US Air Force flies overhead and Obama tut-tuts the whole thing is a boundary pushing exercise (no pun intended) and China continues to do what it wants, within reason. China knows that shooting civilians as in Tiananmen Square in 1989 makes for very unflattering optics and jeopardizes the Western trade and investment it needs.
Every day articles and blog posts announces the imminent demise of US and Western power or China's impending economic collapse. It's possible of course but for the moment not very probable. But it is clear that the West is no longer *utterly dominant.
More significantly, which countries do you think are in a position to attack the lower 48 states? Canada and Mexico. Can't see that happening any time soon. Sadly, an American on American conflict seems far more likely than a foreign invasion, but even that would require a a civil society and social order break down of unprecedented scale.
This is true in *today's culture of work. Unemployment, even if a person was laid off due to their employer going bankrupt, is still seen as a personal failing. And unemployment for most people means a race against the clock before savings dwindle (if they are lucky enough to have been able to save for such an emergency). And prolonged unemployment and the uncertainty and drop in status that comes with it can be demoralizing and depressing, especially for people who have little prospect of finding a satisfying or at least decent paying job. The people that sleep and watch TV are likely doing so because they are under psychological stress. Our culture fetishes work to a degree that would make a Marxist blush and unemployment and not working is punished by society on many levels.
But if the culture of work changes over time and not working in the traditional sense no longer means destitution, stigma and loss of status, well, who can say for sure not working at an unsatisfying job will result in misery and lazing around doing nothing.
This is great if you're an employer but what are the consequences of shifting from a capitalist economy to a capitalist society? There is more to a successful society than increasingly desperate and ruthless competition for a shrinking pool of jobs. How many people want to spend their entire working life in a cage match for survival hoping that they are one of the lucky few who make to the billionaire's club? If government isn't going to represent the people what's the point of having one?
The standard retort from market fundamentalists (and it is a faith) is to reframe the debate as capitalism vs. socialism, or argue that the market is as natural as breathing and we have to let it do what it must. The first one is straw man argument; not many people are arguing in favor of a Marxist paradise. And the market as a system of nature is simply delusional. A market economy is fine, most people agree on that. The problem is when the market model invades every last aspect of society and opposition is neither mon-existant or rendered impotent. The end result is a dictatorship of market fundamentalism. Kind of a capitalist version of the Soviet Union where the Communist Party is replaced by oligarchs and the lowly worker is replaced by the lowly worker version 2.0. IOW, post-industrial feudalism. Is that what "the people" want? Something tells the answer is "no, they absolutely do not."
I am a secret agent not just any agent...and I pursue my own agenda instead. lol
Dude, life is not an economics textbook. Have you actually worked in the real world with real people?
If a CEO/hiring manager decides employees that become depressed, get sick, are involved in an accident, whatever are to be shown the door rather than offered help or assistance, fine, that is their prerogative. But don't pretend it's not a shitty way to treat a person.
And employers wonder why so many people absolutely despise their jobs. Treating a person like a piece of equipment that can and should be replaced immediately if a part malfunctions or it isn't performing optimally is an excellent way to ensure an oppressive and hostile work environment. But then you get to crack the whip and scare some "motivation" into the workforce, and maybe that's exactly what you wanted to do. Just don't expect a grateful and productive staff.
Greater Tokyo is home to about 37 million people. California's population is about 39 million people and Canada's population is about 35 million people.
This suggests that the Earth could easily sustain 7 billion human beings, and then some. There is certainly enough land available. But consider some the problems we are facing today - including but not limited to - unequal distribution of resources (and a finite supply of these resources), people starving to death (at a rate of 21,000 people each day according to a poster in this thread) despite producing enough food to feed everyone on the planet and many (most?) people on Earth still living in abject poverty.
Theoretically, after radically reorganizing the economy and radically reducing consumption in the wealthy nations, housing, feeding and clothing 7 billion people is certainly possible, if not very probable. But Earth's 7 billion people living a consumer capitalist lifestyle is, unless I am missing something, simply not physically possible. It's often said that for everyone on Earth to live like Americans and Western Europeans we would need an additional three planet Earth's worth of resources. I have no idea how accurate this is but as a species we cling to our consumer lifestyles knowing that it's responsible for many deaths and much misery in many parts of the world. If the consequences of global warming are as dire as many scientists claim, we'd rather jeopardize our species' very existence on this planet before seriously reducing our consumption levels.
Where was I going with this again? Overpopulation, right. It seems to me humans will choose instant gratification no matter what the consequences are. If it's not happening to me, right now, it's not happening. Nobody starving around here. The weather's nice too and the stores are well stocked. Oh, and the Internet, I have that too. In other words we are behaving like junkies. Yeah I could try quitting and living a productive lifestyle but you know I have enough dope stashed away and money to buy more when that runs out..and getting dope sick really, really sucks. I'm not a masochist dude and frankly I can afford to get high and not think about tomorrow or next week or whatever. I'll deal with that shit when and if I have to.
What blows me away is that China's small but growing middle class already includes more people than the entire population of the United States. I wonder where China sees itself in 15, 20, 30, 100 years? Unlike Western cultures, Chinese culture takes a long view and is much more prepared to sacrifice short-term gain or gratification for long-term gain. Or at least that was the common perception. From where I'm sitting it looks like humanity is on the brink of self-destruction unless something compels us to radically alter our preferred lifestyle or, even less likely, technology steps in to save the day. Really, I have no idea how things will actually play out. But humans suddenly embracing selfless altruism and self-sacrifice...nah, I just can't see it happening.
Well, that was 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Gave me a lot to think about though. Why am I talking to myself again? -
I really wonder about this country and its dysfunctional and, frankly, dehumanizing institutions. We deny a significant minority of our citizens the most basic benefits of living in the world's most advanced society. And I'm not talking about the small minority of dangerous offenders that are justifiably kept in prison for life. We also have a difficult time admitting that the profit motive almost certainly guarantees a corrupt and unjust prison system.
The recording industry's "good old days" were mostly before my time but producer and musician Steve Albini, who was around back then, called the record industry out in 1993 in an essay succinctly titled The Problem With Music http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17
Here he talks "about the advantages of the internet, the death of the major label system, copyright law and that ‘purple dwarf in assless chaps'" http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albinis-k...
Article and video here... http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albini-at...
An excerpt: In contrast to what almost anyone else will tell you, Albini believes there has never been a better time to be involved in music – as a fan and as a musician (excluding, perhaps, the megastars): “I see more bands and I hear more music than ever before in my life. There are more gigs, more songs available than ever before, bands are being treated with more respect, and are more in control of their careers and destinies.
“I see them continuing as a constellation of enterprises: some big, some small, most small but all of them with a more immediate response from their audience and a greater chance to succeed. It is genuinely exciting.”
Looking at the western world today it seems obvious that the rights and liberties our ancestors fought to achieve and uphold are not something we should be taking for granted. Indeed, in 2015 there is compelling evidence that liberal democracy and its star progeny - a stable and prosperous middle-class - are seriously wounded. You even list some of the factors contributing to the current state of affairs in other posts in this thread.
However if I came across as fatalistic that certainly wasn't my intention. Yes, democracy is wounded and under attack but that does not mean a return to feudalism is inevitable. I did say that a return to some sort of feudal order seems likely if current trends continue unopposed. Even pacified westerners have a breaking point. The growing movement to keep the free and open internet from being subjugated by governments and corporations in the name of a global surveillance society shows that people are not going to sit idly by and let the powers that be strip away their hard won rights and liberties. Ditto the ongoing campaign for a liveable wage and police accountability.
That said it would be a fatal mistake to underestimate the addictive nature of power and the effect it has on those who possess it. The "global elite" will not wake up one morning and decide to share the spoils of legislated inequality.
As political scientist Henry Farrell, referencing British academic Colin Crouch's 2009 book Post-Democracy, wrote: "At some point shortly after the end of the Second World War, democracy reached its apex in countries such as Britain and the US. According to Crouch, it has been declining ever since. Places such as Italy had more ambiguous histories of rise and decline, while others still, including Spain, Portugal and Greece, began the ascent much later, having only emerged from dictatorship in the 1970s. Nevertheless, all of these countries have reached the downward slope of the arc. The formal structures of democracy remain intact. People still vote. Political parties vie with each other in elections, and circulate in and out of government. Yet these acts of apparent choice have had their meaning hollowed out. The real decisions are taken elsewhere. We have become squatters in the ruins of the great democratic societies of the past." (http://aeon.co/magazine/society/henry-farrell-post-democracy...)
It remains to be seen whether democracy will persevere or if this brief (so far) respite from feudalism will remain an historical anomaly. The choices we make going forward will have a huge impact here. If we decide to keep our heads buried in the sand and continue telling ourselves that everything is just fine despite evidence to the contrary, that would be immensely disrespectful to every person that has risked life and well-being to create or protect the rights and liberties we too easily take for granted...even as they are being systematically dismantled all around us.
This is not to say a return to a feudal order is inevitable but various flavors of feudalism served as the west's default social and political structure for thousands of years before democracy made its appearance.
I suspect reality will sink in if or, rather, when, an economic catastrophe precipitates a breakdown in the social and/or political order and the standard of living falls out from underneath the citizens of today's prosperous nations and mass unemployment, hunger, deprivation and violence become tangible and inescapable. If present trends continue we are fucked but, as you mentioned, change for the better (or worse ;p) can manifest itself quickly and unexpectedly.
As for China...it's home to a civilization that's remained more or less intact for over 5,000 years. Something tells me that despite western pundits disingenuously prophesying its imminent collapse China will be around for a while yet. But there like here change can come fast and hard when it's least expected.
The digital revolution (and it is a revolution) has already changed the world in ways that were unimaginable even 15-20 years ago. And this is only the beginning!