It’s in times of war that freedom of speech is most endangered, and is most repressed. And we’ve seen this: the sedition act was passed in the period of near-war with France in 1798. People were sent to jail for criticizing the government during The Civil War, or were sent to jail for criticizing the entrance into World War One. And, so on, down to the present day.
Around 1994, I attended a small conference in Washington, DC; it was memorable because it was at that event that I really understood that the US imperial war faction intended to militarize cyberspace. At the time, I thought that was just their way of spending the “peace dividend.” Perhaps it was that, too.
The best kind of ‘risk’ to take is the risk of no-risk. I.e.: a sure thing. when you’re talking about capitalism, that means “win/win” scenarios should look indistinguishable from when the game is rigged in someone’s favor. Otherwise, you haven’t rigged it hard enough.
This must be a horrible moment for a rabbit or a mouse or a chipmunk; when I think about the predator drone-strikes, I imagine they must instill the same immobilizing terror, except the drones don’t cast that flickering shadow.
Back in 2009 I did some strategy consulting for a company that was building a cop-cam system; they wanted to know if having the data in “the cloud” would be acceptable, and what protections would need to be in place for the customers to trust it. My job was to look for perverse incentives in the design, and to suggest ways to make the storage option more palatable.
It’s become a rite of the losers to decry the influence of money on politics, and it’s a legitimate complaint. As a portable form of power, money is going to immediately be corrupting to any system you can inject it into.
When I tried flying a drone right up to deer they don’t seem bothered until you get quite close.
And it was OK. I am generally sick of movies in which the final resolution is two people in spandex beating the crap out of each other.
What do you call it when someone wants more money, even proportionally tiny amounts, yet is willing to go to great lengths to get them? I’m surprised psychologists haven’t come up with a term for it, though I suppose it could be a manifestation of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
I came home and, as I got close to my house, this fellow was standing by the porch.