As Matt Damon was talking about "civil liberties vs. security" it resonated with essentially every second sentence DIRNSA was saying at his public appearance at BlackHat.
This is a false dichotomy, and definitely not about some sort of tradeoff to protect us from "terrorists amongst us" (which in itself is a dubious claim.)
All these programs are about the creation of a de-facto authoritarian state serving nobody else but the powerful corporations and the decision-makers that said corporations keep in place via their accumulated wealth.
This isn't some democratic debate about civil liberties at conflict. This is a fucking plutocracy.
1. To what degree do we actually have a security problem?
2. Once it's made transparent for us to see that/if there actually is a grave problem:
3. What causes the security problem? What are we doing/what have we been doing that is causing others to think it's worth the sacrifice to launch attacks, instead of living peaceful and happy lives?
Surveillance could never be more than a stupid patch to the real issue at stake. We have to get to the causes, now. Obviously, that means a lot of rich people will lose valuable contracts.
That's because those discussions usually hinge around changing the way we live in some way - be it more expensive consumer goods/utilities or what-have-you.
Either way, any increase in the cost of living (unless directly attached to 'creating jobs' whatever that is) is inherently evil and wrong. Therefore, a close-scrutiny of, in my case, US foreign policy leads down an evil and wrong road.
Beautiful, isn't it? We want increased transparency in public and private areas, we want less violence, we want less exploitation of third-world workers, we want, we want, we want. BUT, as a whole, we're not really willing to sacrifice much of anything.
Your comment finally made me realize why the difference in analysis of the problem leads to difference in solutions.
Some people think that corporations are the root of all evil. They accumulate wealth, then put people in power to protect that wealth. Others think that government is the root of all evil, while corporations are either forced to cooperate or willingly abuse this system, because if they don't, then competitors will surely do it. Thus the latter group believes that businesses simply respond to incentives.
Thus it is no surprise that the first group of people usually believes we need more elaborate regulations and a good government. The second group usually sees the solution in eliminating part or all of the government as an inherently corrupt institution.
Matt Damon probably belongs to the first group, although I'm not sure.
Somewhere in the Amazon jungle there's a tribesman, wearing a vine-fiber thong, who's taking a break to looking up at an airplane flying overhead, and then getting back to hording all the bone-hammers, and plotting how to sabotage that ascendant hunter who everyone is starting to like so much.
I am not sure why you comment was down voted. I never said they had the monopoly on it, simply that are are the very forefront of it in this country.
The Government is blatantly controlled by special interest groups. All one has to do is follow the money....
My main point was that it was the lax oversight and enforcement of rules meant to check large corporations that has led to our current predicament. There is nothing new to see here as we laws on the books to keep companies from getting to big or mixing certain types of activities, yet we/congress gutted most of those so here we are...
In most countries, bribes and abuse of power are illegal (and prosecuted), yet still happen at large scale. The problem is when the same people responsible for oversight (making sure that government doesn't get controlled by small powerful groups) and enforcing the rules are the ones that are most corrupt (in other words, if some corporation bribes a government official, then the latter's buddies help cover it up, is that the corporation's fault or the government's?)
One of the essential problems with libertarian philosophy is that it starts from the premise that there are two meaningful actors: the individual and the state. This makes it extremely hard to conceptualize and introduce a third actor, like corporations, which means corporations need to be lumped in with either the individual or the state.
Libertarians who are sympathetic with corporations will tend to lump them in with the individual, talking about the state imposing itself upon them. Those less sympathetic will tend to lump them in with the state, talking about their undue influence on political theater.
This is what you've been told. Libertarians don't start from this premise and that's not even the point. Yes some people are irrational, but most are not, otherwise it would be impossible to conduct business at all. Even if we assume that government fixes some of the things caused by irrational behavior, it inevitably screws many others, because actors in a government are no more rational than the general population.
But the point of the libertarianism is that governments have incentives in the wrong place. Expecting a politician not to lie and act in the interest of the public without ever looking back at those who actually pay him (corporate interests) is like locking a gentleman and a lady in an apartment for 4 years and expect nothing to happen.
Hold on. Why is the rationality of people even relevant here?
> But the point of the libertarianism is that governments have incentives in the wrong place.
Is not what smokeyj down there thinks. His claim, freely paraphrased, is that libertarianism is about minimizing violence in order to maximize human freedom. I don't think he would accept that there's a class of people called "politician" which you could make such sweeping generalizations about. That wouldn't be an individual-level evaluation. Or, for that matter, a class of people divided by gender.
Oh, my apologies, I misread. I thought you were bringin up that usual argument that libertarians think all people are rational...
But answering your question, no libertarians don't necessarily assume there's just a state and everyone else. However they emphasize state so much because of its violent and deceiving nature. Corporations are there to make money. It's explicit, everyone knows this. May not be pretty and corporations may be greedy from someone's standpoint of view (although, what is greed, really?), but they don't lie. And everyone also has the freedom to buy or not to buy certain things they offer.
State, on the other hand, pretends to serve public interests, but actually serves private interests. It also extracts taxes from people with a threat of force and then pretends it gives things for free! But who's gonna build the roads, they say! So, in a nutshell, this combination of force and deceit makes state a very undesirable institution.
See, I find this claim suspect. Yes, the reality is that corporations exist to make money. But I'd argue that it's bad corporations that exist to make money; corporations ought to exist in order to provide value.
But then again, that's what marketing is, no? It's about the corporations claiming to provide value without actually doing so. Isn't that as bad a deceit as that you claim for the state? No business fails to lie, even if their lies are no larger than those of their competitors and they have to do it to stay in business.
We all know it and accept it, but we also all know that public roads aren't free and are paid for by taxes. I don't think I've ever heard someone "pretend to give it for free".
> no libertarians don't necessarily assume there's just a state and everyone else. However they emphasize state so much because of its violent and deceiving nature.
Can you point me to a libertarian who doesn't focus on the state?
Take, for instance, feminism. Feminism is ridiculously multifarious, with hugely different groups going after hugely different instances of patriarchy. That's hard to deny, regardless of whether or not you agree with feminists. Libertarianism has existed longer than feminism has (depending on how you count), but I've never heard a libertarian discuss the implications of their philosophy on the conduct of something other than the state.
It's not as if there aren't a wealth of opportunities. Groupthink is a major problem, but libertarians don't concern themselves with that. They don't call it a moral failure. You don't see libertarians talk about bullies except as analogies. Is there any kind of libertarian movement trying to address schoolyard bullying? I haven't seen it.
Your words say that the state is just one problematic actor out of many. Your actions say that the state is the only actor that matters to you.
You may want to check out Stefan Molyneux, he's a libertarian (ancap, actually) and he addresses a lot of the things that are not directly related to state. He talks a lot about children and bullying too.
He's built his software business. Radio show started as a hobby, I suppose. The thing is, he's very talented at constructing arguments. The presentation may seem a bit eccentric, but get through this. If he can't convince, I don't know who can.
Well, his software business wasn't an outgrowth of his libertarian views on affairs unrelated to the state, I imagine. I'm not saying he's an indolent sloth; I'm just saying he hasn't put much action down next to his words, as recorded by Wikipedia.
I'm just sort of unsettled that a single radio-talk host is your entire hope for libertarianism as a philosophy larger than "government bad individual good".
> One of the essential problems with libertarian philosophy is that it starts from the premise that there are two meaningful actors: the individual and the state.
..you should really get a better grasp on libertarian philosophy before making statements like this.
If there were any two groups libertarians would lump people in, it's violent and non-violent actors. Libertarians don't recognize the rights of corporations, governments, dictators, despots, etc. Actions are evaluated at the individual level -- which is apparently a radical new concept. Libertarianism isn't a philosophy about government, it's a philosophy about human action in general, all of which is empirically evident. It's waaayyy more principled than a political philosophy, which seems to drive many people nuts.
> ..you should really get a better grasp on libertarian philosophy before making statements like this.
There are a lot of libertarians who disagree with other libertarians.
> Actions are evaluated at the individual level -- which is apparently a radical new concept.
If this were actually true, then libertarians couldn't say anything useful about groups of people. Which means you can't talk about governments and corporations at all.
So what's the incorrect statement here?
I get that you're proud of your philosophy, but why is it that every time someone represents it to me, they open gaping wide holes large enough to fly a planet through?
> There are a lot of libertarians who disagree with other libertarians.
Lots of scientists disagree with other scientists. I find science to still be valid.
> If this were actually true, then libertarians couldn't say anything useful about groups of people.
Obviously I'm here to argue the opposite :) Libertarian insight is more relevant because it's deduced using principled and empirically evident reasoning. This is like saying a microeconomics has nothing to contribute to macroeconomics, wherein reality macroeconomics is simply the resultant of microeconomic activity. Trying to understand economics from a strictly macro perspective leaves you with.. modern numerology.
> So what's the incorrect statement here?
False dichotomy ;)
> I get that you're proud of your philosophy, but why is it that every time someone represents it to me, they open gaping wide holes large enough to fly a planet through?
Many self-proclaimed libertarians don't understand the logical conclusion of the philosophy and do a poor job of representing it. With people like Glenn Beck claiming to be libertarian, I can see where you're coming from.
If I could try to convey the essence of what I, and many other self-proclaimed libertarians view the philosophy as -- it's a framework for analyzing human action. Much like game theory, it doesn't tell you what the game is or how to play. It's simply saying, here's a framework for analyzing human action, and here's what the outcomes will be.
> Lots of scientists disagree with other scientists. I find science to still be valid.
I wasn't saying libertarianism isn't valid. I was saying that making a claim about what libertarianism is is necessarily suspect, mine as much as yours.
> Libertarian insight is more relevant because it's deduced using principled and empirically evident reasoning.
Are the principles deduced from empirically evident reasoning, or is it as questionably axiomatic as any other system?
This isn't a "libertarianism makes sense" claim you're making; this is a "libertarians are so awesome" claim. Furthermore, neither this sentence nor your economics analogy actually refutes my essential claim that the inability to evaluate and reason at anything other than the individual level makes it impossible to speak usefully about groups of people. The empirical evidence is that groups have significant effects on people. It is quite clear that it is extremely rare, if at all extant, that people can be defined without relation to a group.
That leaves libertarianism and its radical individualism very suspect, from an empirical point of view.
> False dichotomy ;)
You have to present a third alternative to show it's a false dichotomy.
> It's simply saying, here's a framework for analyzing human action, and here's what the outcomes will be.
To be frank, that's not a philosophy at all. That's a model. These are two hugely different things, not least because philosophies are normative.
Libertarianism, as I understand it, is founded on the claim that the word "liberty" has an esteemed place in the structure of the world. That isn't a "framework for analyzing human action"; that's an assertion that "freedom is important and we should not impinge on it". This is a really significant deviation from your claims.
Or I guess you could disagree with all this. Are you sure you're a libertarian? You haven't brought up freedom or liberty at all. You kinda sound like an economist.
> making a claim about what libertarianism is is necessarily suspect
You're right, libertarianism is really an umbrella term for many schools of economic, political and other philosophical thought. I'm simply representing what I found to be the most established and logically consistent tenants of said philosophy.
> Are the principles deduced from empirically evident reasoning, or is it as questionably axiomatic as any other system?
I'm speaking to the works of Ludwig Von Mises (along with Murray Rothbard) and his work on Human Action, specifically the development of Praxeology and Catallactics -- which are derived from the Action Axiom. I would say the core tenants of Austrian Economics are very much observable and repeatable, much like game theory.
> Furthermore, neither this sentence nor your economics analogy actually refutes my essential claim that the inability to evaluate and reason at anything other than the individual level makes it impossible to speak usefully about groups of people.
Sure I did. Microeconomics is a counter-example. There's also game theory and personal psychology. I guess it depends on what you consider useful.
> The empirical evidence is that groups have significant effects on people. It is quite clear that it is extremely rare, if at all extant, that people can be defined without relation to a group.
I guess I concern myself with the the largest of these groups, the human species. While cultures and economic landscapes change, the basic tenants of Praxeology and value-theory do not. Preference and desire is present in all acting humans, and I think these realities can be best used to explain why actions are taken.
> That leaves libertarianism and its radical individualism very suspect, from an empirical point of view.
I'm not claiming individuals don't act differently based on their setting and peers, just that these phenomenas can be observed at the individual level in an empirical fashion. If it isn't, then your group knowledge is limited.
> To be frank, that's not a philosophy at all. That's a model.
Yeah, it's a big tent..
> You have to present a third alternative to show it's a false dichotomy.
That I didn't make an incorrect statement?
> Libertarianism, as I understand it, is founded on the claim that the word "liberty" has an esteemed place in the structure of the world.
I would argue that libertarians believe in the antithesis of authoritarianism, and that they have economic and philosophical principles for believing so. While governments and corporations are groups of people, the fruits of their actions can be better analyzed by the actions they take and not what they call themselves.
>I would say the core tenants of Austrian Economics are very much observable and repeatable, much like game theory.
Neal Stephenson made the analogy that math is more than just a 'physics of bottlecaps'. In the same sense, even if you have a set of sound testable principles, It is a fundamental mistake to blindly assume that the dominant forces on the scale at which you can test and reason about are the dominant forces on the scale of e.g. the global market. Given that the behavior of markets on a global scale is [a] chaotic, and [b] driven by group behavior, it is not clear to me that useful conclusions can be drawn from the behavior of markets, or the study of the individual. Consider as an analogy the behavior of gas particles both severally and in totum.
In any case, you are verging on falsehood by implying any scientific basis to libertarianism. Whether you consider it a philosophy or an economic theory or a religion, these things all merely ape the trappings of science. I don't merely mean to imply that libertarianism is a useless philosophy: like intelligent design, it is an actively harmful memetic virus.
> Microeconomics is a counter-example. There's also game theory and personal psychology. I guess it depends on what you consider useful.
I won't get bothered over the term "useful". I mean "non-trivial", basically. It's true that microeconomics, game theory, and personal psychology discuss individual-level actions quite a bit. What they don't do, because they generally know better, is discuss group-level actions.
And that's my point.
Unless you have an actual example of a discussion of a group entity, such as a government, in any of these fields? Surely personal psychology doesn't discuss how a high school clique acts in response to another high school clique?
> I guess I concern myself with the the largest of these groups, the human species. While cultures and economic landscapes change, the basic tenants of Praxeology and value-theory do not. Preference and desire is present in all acting humans, and I think these realities can be best used to explain why actions are taken.
But this is not real.
We have families. We have congregations. We have teams. We have armies. We have governments. We have mafias. We have corporations. We have meetups. We have discussion groups. We have social networks.
Pretending that these do not exist is not empiricism. It's confirmation bias. It's walking along a river and throwing frogs over to the other side because your hypothesis said they wouldn't be on this side.
> I'm not claiming individuals don't act differently based on their setting and peers, just that these phenomenas can be observed at the individual level in an empirical fashion. If it isn't, then your group knowledge is limited.
Show me. You're claiming to have a lot of empirical evidence. Show me.
> That I didn't make an incorrect statement?
You claimed that I made a false dichotomy when I said you could either evaluate only at the individual level OR have the capacity to talk about group-level effects.
To prove that this is a false dichotomy, you have to present a third alternative. That's what makes a false dichotomy false. You haven't done this.
> I would argue that libertarians believe in the antithesis of authoritarianism, and that they have economic and philosophical principles for believing so.
So what is it? Is libertarianism about some vague antithesis of authoritarianism, or is libertarianism a framework for analyzing human action? Those aren't the same thing.
You're the one who came in here with guns blazing saying that I didn't have a sufficient grasp on libertarian philosophy. Now every time I bring up another dimension of libertarianism, you change what you claim it is. How about starting from some of your axioms and principles and just flat-out explaining it like I'm five?
> What they don't do, because they generally know better, is discuss group-level actions.
I'll happily google for you, but I feel like you're not even trying. If you would just look over the wiki for game-theory you'd see economics is one of it's main applications.
As for economics, there's an entire field called behavioral economics. It's about the impact of the individual psyche on the market place, which also incorporates many aspects of game theory.
Value isn't real? Preference isn't real? Drive isn't real? Help me out here.
> Pretending that these do not exist is not empiricism. It's confirmation bias.
I don't know why you think I don't believe social groups. I only claimed that libertarians don't recognize the "rights" of groups, which is completely different.
>> I'm not claiming individuals don't act differently based on their setting and peers, just that these phenomenas can be observed at the individual level in an empirical fashion.
> Show me. You're claiming to have a lot of empirical evidence. Show me.
> To prove that this is a false dichotomy, you have to present a third alternative.
The alternative to "So what's the incorrect statement here" is that I didn't make an incorrect statement. The burden on proof is on you to show that "If this were actually true, then libertarians couldn't say anything useful about groups of people". I've provided numerous examples of how actions can be evaluated at the individual level to predict the outcome of a group in the wikis I've linked to. Even the study of market failure is well in the domain of the micro economist.
> So what is it? Is libertarianism about some vague antithesis of authoritarianism, or is libertarianism a framework for analyzing human action?
I claimed it's a philosophy about human action. This entails a framework for analyzing action, that also concludes authoritarianism is not compatible with maximizing the satisfaction of the individual's preference -- which would lead to the next topic of discussion which is value theory.
> How about starting from some of your axioms and principles
Don't take other people's things that don't belong to you, because you wouldn't want your stuff taken from you. Don't start fights with the other kids, because you wouldn't want them to start a fight with you. If you do start a fight, expect conflict and escalation. If you're bullied, feel free to defend yourself because you're not obligated to be bullied.
I agree with the popular fictional character. Power is a shadow cast on the wall. It is more about what people perceive than it is about any real measurable force of 'power'. This is why revolutions are determined by key personalities staying loyal or defecting, because they command loyalty themselves in peoples _perceptions_ of power.
The military hold 'real' power, but so do corporations. Both can lose power with a change in perceptions. Sure weapons and dollars generally do a pretty good job of indicating who has power (bullets and currency do wonders to change peoples behaviors), but they can also be ignored as power-indicators given a properly motivated population (think the groups that followed Ghandi or MLK, as dead-horse examples.)
Does having 8 more declared aircraft carriers than the known world and numerous forward operating bases help cast big shadows? well, sure. Having the ability to reach out and touch much of the world with a full-fledged military operation in very short time-windows does portray a very powerful aura.
Despite this, 1 out of 5mil civilian contractors also shrank this shadow quickly by outing a secret program, then (the more important part) taking advantage of extradition laws to publicly "get away with it" [Snowden]. A different civilian shrank this shadow a few years ago by building a technology to publicize (as in "to make public") any and all secrets of powerful entities [Assange & WikiLeaks; I say powerful entities & not gov't, as they seem happy to out corporate secrets. How powerful the corps that they have chosen to out secrets of actually are, I have my own doubts].
I like to think of power as the active ability to change a given reality. The greater (measurably larger in quantity or quality) the reality you can change, the greater the power. In these terms, it's easy to see how power is fleeting, and perception-based. If they are in fear, monetarily in your pocket, or loyal to your cause, you are powerful. But, how fast do these things change?
There definitely is a tradeoff between civil liberties and security. Each action of the police, warranted or not, is an invasion of privacy (civil liberty) while still being aimed at solving a (planned or alleged) crime (security). A state monopoly on firearms is another example.
The problem with the argument that DIRNSA and similar circle make is that the current invasion of civil liberties brings negligible or no improvement of security. They're exaggerating the security gains and downplay the erosion of rights. That's the dishonesty in the current debate.
I think Damon is very well on the mark here - a decision to give up civil liberties for security should not be made by the government/powers to be but rather by a well informed public. There's a major problem with that approach though: How do we educate the public in such a way, that they can make well-informed choices. That's a pretty tough nut to crack.
Maybe in your mind. Maybe you want to think that these innocuous debates on the internet means something.
Don't be fooled by empty words by either politicians or pundits on tv or the net. Watch what the government does - at federal, state and local, the security budget keeps slowly going up. Never coming down. The supreme court rulings slowly move in one way, never another. The number of laws slowly keep going up, never coming down.
But since you are allowed to debate it to death, which none of the decision makers take note of, there is this illusion of debate.
Damon is talking a good game, but it's still within the parameters of the talking points that the pols and talking heads put out on tv.
When the budgets for security go down, When the number of prisoners in jail go down, when the number of laws go down,
when the number of people working for police, fbi, cia, nsa, military go down, when the number of supreme court decisions go left, then let's talk about civil liberties.
Till then it's nothing more than an empty, peurile phrase.
See, all I'm trying to point out is that there's a flaw in your argument that can easily be exploited to undermine your line of reasoning. I'm all on your side and agree with your assertion, but the argument cannot be "There is no balance between security and liberty" since the most secure state would be where every one of us is locked in a high security cell. No more murders, no theft, no rape, no crime, perfect security. What a beautiful world.
The right question to ask is "How should the world we want to live in look like?" and I'm certain that most people would prefer to security budgets to go down, to see the TSA disappear, see elemental rights reinstated. It's a hard argument to make since people cling to security, but you can't substitute it by denying that security and liberty are at least partially on a trade-off scale.
i think you're missing the point. the benefit to 'security' as a result of the NSA surveillance is without evidence. as a result, comparisons of an imaginary 'trade off' between security and privacy are premature. we don't know the benefit to security, so how can we possibly make an informed decision about trading some of our privacy away for it?
also, even your hypothetical example falls pretty flat on its face. your world of everyone in a cell might actually have more theft, rape, crime etc. who is guarding the cells? who is doing the feeding? would they exchange favours for additional food?
the point is that a 'trade-off' is superfluous until you have evidence that it's even beneficial.
You're repeating my argument from the GP post, so I'll summarise it again: Security and Liberty are to a significant extend tradeoffs. [1] However, currently we're so far out on the side of security that the security gains of the measures are nil. The current measures just have costs in liberty while providing no security benefit.
> also, even your hypothetical example falls pretty flat on its face. your world of everyone in a cell might actually have more theft, rape, crime etc. who is guarding the cells? who is doing the feeding? would they exchange favours for additional food?
Robots ;)
[1] The relationship is somewhat more complicated, for example at least a certain extend of security is required for liberty and there's more factors in play, but that's a different case to make.
Whatever the relationship is between security and liberty is not known at this time. Any talk of 'sacrificing privacy for security' is complete bullshit because there is no data on the effectiveness of such measures. The trade off is not known, therefore you can't attach an imaginary relationship between the two.
> The current measures just have costs in liberty while providing no security benefit.
I think we can just both agree on this point and leave it here.
I'm not sure how I hadn't already thought of this, so I wonder has everyone else missed this or not. We've all been thinking that not enough people outside the tech. world have been paying enough attention to these revelations - what better way to change this than through celebrity endorsements? Not necessarily of Snowden himself, but endorsements of the message that what is going on is wrong.
Or has this been happening already and I just missed it?
Celebrities are on average not much different than other people. Most of them are sheep.
Like most of us do not go to protest on the streets over such a thing, most celebrities will not be bothered to stick their head out in a possibly career crippling way.
The ones that do regularly are quickly labelled as parts liberal Hollywood that can be disregarded.
Another thing is that actors are part of the big movie-industrial complex that has a lot of interest in surveillance because they perceive this as their only hope against the free distribution of data.
But I agree it would be worth the effort to actively pursue people like Matt Damon to give the cause widespread legitimacy. Easy it will be not, I'm afraid.
This is the first instance I am aware of where a mundane celebrity not known for an interest/connection to tech has spoken out against the NSA on this topic. I'm sure there have been at least a few instances of lesser known personalities doing so.
I sincerely welcome this; celebrities have large networks.
What counts as a "mundane celebrity?" Jimmy Carter has already said Snowden's actions were "beneficial" and that "America does not have a functioning democracy at this point in time."
Well, Jimmy Carter is a former president of the United States, ambassador, and politician.
I was thinking generally of famous people that don't have a past or present connection to public policy. Either way though, it's a grey term, so there is plenty of room for interpretation. The point, I think, remains the same.
As far as famous people of any sort talking to the public on this issue, my attitude is the more the better.
> "This is the first instance I am aware of where a mundane celebrity not known for an interest/connection to tech has spoken out against the NSA on this topic."
>It doesn't seem to have much more impact than when anyone else does it.
Not sure how one would measure that specifically, but any sort of public education on the issue by any influencer with a significant network is additive.
Sure; it's my subjective impression. It just didn't seem any more additive than any other story on the subject.
Maybe if celebrities bring it up in forums the larger public can't/won't ignore, their visibility would generate a larger reaction. (e.g. mentioning it at awards shows or live interviews or the like)
Totally agree. And to be honest, I've been wondering if there's going to be a moment when certain celebrities and Hollywood 'types' start getting 'caught' in the data that has been found... in some sort of new age McCarthyism.
Though just a role in a movie (though one he co-wrote), his scene about why his character in Good Will Hunting should or shouldn't work for the NSA seems relevant.
EDIT: Here's the text of it (it appears unformatted because it's one long (well-delivered) line of text).
Why shouldn't I work for the NSA? That's a tough one.
But I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at the NSA, and
somebody puts a code on my desk, somethin' no one else
can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break
it. And I'm real happy with myself, cus' I did my job
well. But maybe that code was the location of some
rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East and once they have
that location, they bomb the village where the rebels are
hiding... Fifteen hundred people that I never met, never
had no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are
sayin', "Oh, Send in the marines to secure the area" cus'
they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there,
gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number
got called, cus' they were off pullin' a tour in the National
Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie over there takin'
shrapnel in the ass. He comes back to find that the plant
he used to work at got exported to the country he just
got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his
ass got his old job, cus' he'll work for fifteen cents a day
and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only
reason he was over there in the first place was so that
we could install a government that would sell us oil at a
good price. And of course the oil companies used the
little skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices.
A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't
helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They're takin'
their sweet time bringin' the oil back, of course, maybe
even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who
likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the
icebergs, it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil
and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now
my buddy's out of work. He can't afford to drive, so
he's walking to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks
because the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic
hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' cus' every
time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate
special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with
Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for
somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not
just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn
enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby
seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I
could be elected President.
EDIT TWO: Watching that monologue in context made the scene more relevant. The NSA guys try to entice him with the opportunity to work on cool math with brilliant people. He responds with something I can only imagine current NSA smart people haven't done but I hope they are starting to -- to consider the consequences of their actions and their responsibility. Hacker News posted a story -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258093 -- about a math professor whom the NSA employed for a couple summers as a math undergrad in Princeton now calling on his colleagues to question their contributions and to speak up.
It raises a timeless question in science and engineering: "I can do this, but should I? ... What are the consequences?"
He also wrote the script for that movie with Ben Affleck, which means that at least one of them must be familiar with these issues. (Also, the original script focussed a lot more on the FBI's attempted recruitment of Damon's character.)
I got a BS (laughably, there is nothing further from science) in Global Security & Intelligence Analysis in 2009, and had decided before graduating that I didn't want to go federal for lack of control over the consequences of my actions. I didn't turn down any concrete opportunities; in fact, I could never get myself to turn in an application. Maybe I was rationalizing fear of failure with that pit in my stomach, but it felt a whole lot more like 'you really shouldn't do this' then 'you're not gonna make it'.
This was also where I found a love for hacker news and internet tech; I thought (and continue to think) that tech leaders are doing more to make the world a better place than any gov't intelligence apparatus. I say this while fully admitting that state intelligence is important, and necessary.
I ended up taking a non-tech low level sales job right out of college, and worked/learned my way into the tech world. I'm in oil & gas data now (I'm sure some think O&G is just as evil; I'm not one of them), and never been happier learning & building.
This is not to say that vanilla, non-tech analysis is comparable to crypto, or that I'm some sort of good-will-hunting character. I really like his justification though:
"I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected President."
Anywho, good find, thanks for posting and the transcript.
I just watched this recently (out of the blue), and had completely forgotten about the NSA recruitment portion, and thought, "Jesus, how relevant and poignant." Lets not forget this movie is 16 years old. Barely anyone knew the NSA even existed at that point.
I never liked that scene because it seemed like he was reading off cue cards. He may not have been, but that's the impression I got, so I didn't get that sense of amazement I was supposed to.
> "If we're going to trade our civil liberties for our security, then that should be a decision that we collectively make,"
I don't understand how the blog author can relate the use of the word "collectively" to a hint at Communism, East Germany and the Stasi. Is this generally a taboo word in the US ?
Yes. A central idea of the American experiment is that there are exchanges of liberty for security which it is not acceptable to make even if the people collectively decide to make them.
That is why certain liberties are enshrined in the Constitution, which is intentionally made hard to amend, rather than merely in law, which is relatively easy to change.
Looking at the number of totalitarian systems which started out as expressions of the collective will of their societies in the two-plus centuries since, I'd say the founders got this one right...
Collectively we can pass laws and change the constitution.
The supreme court has ruled, in Smith vs Maryland, that the government can capture message metadata from a third party when a message is conveyed by that third party without warrant. So the constitution doesn't help much here -- either we need to collectively change the constitution or collectively pass a lot of laws or collectively get different supreme court judges appointed and have the ruling overturned.
> Looking at the number of totalitarian societies which started out as expressions of the collective will of their societies in the two-plus centuries since
Which ones are you talking about? I can't think of many. I can think of quite a few where authoritarian movements got substantial support, but I can't for sure name many where such regimes were anywhere near a majority, and I'd think a majority at least would be required before it becomes reasonable to talk about "expressions of the collective will of their societies".
Ok, from that point of view, it can make some sense. Even if it seems in the current debate, the issue was the trade-off was more or less made unilaterally by the executive branch, without much consultation, which is actually worse that a "collective" decision, whatever that means.
Is this in general how reporting on 'celebrity opinions' is done in the USA? Apart from the one or two lines that directly quote Matt Damon, the rest of the article is an abomination.
I do however hope this reaches more people, there's nothing like a celebrity endorsement.
He's effectively equivalent to a TV news anchor reading a a teleprompter about the topic, except his message is being delivered to a larger network than many broadcasts and the message itself is less neutral and more sympathetic.
This is good from an information dissemination perspective, which has been a massive problem for this topic in the past. It's a sign that the topic is finally starting to grab mindshare in popular culture. That is a prerequisite for many, if not all, of the possible remedies to the problems of govt illegality and overreach.
I would not think you'd need me to spell it out for you, but I'd wager it is because it illustrates the penetration of a major technology issue into popular culture. An issue who's presence (or lack of) in mainstream mindshare has significant ramifications for many many tech services (cloud, encrypted comms, email, etc).
We've already seen multiple tech services announce shutdown as a direct result of Snowden's revelations of NSA's behavior, and solutions to these problems can't be framed without factoring in public support/lack-of.
If you head over to the hackerNews FAQ (I'm sure you can track it down) you'll see that this is eminently on topic.
So yeah. It's an on-topic current event illustrating the traction technology policy that is affecting the entire globe is gaining in popular culture.
Can't imagine why a hacker would be interested in that....
Trying to paternalize on a subject this central isn't going to work. We are far from the era of central media control supported McCarthyism. If you want to play it like it is unimportant, you end up looking compromised by coming up with no valid counter arguments. If you don't care what others express in a smart concise way and attempt a one liner like that, why would others care about your lateral failed attempt to discredit the source. Stay well.
So actors are out strictly because they're actors. So whose opinions, views or insights should we consider? Knowing nothing about you I guess I shouldn't care what your views are either, clearly you couldn't possibly have any insight into any situation.
I recently read an interview with Damon that covered some of his background, which was quite left wing (his family still are) so I'm not surprised this bothers him. I hope he uses his position to try keep the conversation about what's right and fair in terms of surveillance. It's not great that we need celebrities onside to try and remind people that something is awful, but it's not a bad thing.
Chris Matyszczyk sounded a bit condescending. But I had to laugh at his last line, "However, can we truly trust ourselves? We are, after all, the bright sparks who voted in the current Congress."
I would extend that line of questioning to include:
1) Can we trust ourselves given that we elected several Presidents who were - a) Obviously oblivious frat boys who were better at campaigning than governing (GW Bush and Clinton 2nd term); b) Ex-CIA (GHW Bush -- actually he was DCI, don't believe he was ever an agent); 3) Someone who campaigned on a progressive platform but quickly abandoned most of it upon election (Obama).
2) Can we trust ourselves given that we find a Matt Damon snark piece on Cnet so damned fascinating?
I care because, based on interviews I've read, as a person he is unusually thoughtful and intelligent. He is clearly a person of principle who is troubled by the goings on in the world around him, and who is articulate about what those troubles are and that it's important to address them.
> It is, though, a tempting and charming notion that we could all get together and decide on how much of our civil liberties we really ought to give up or not.
Is this really possible in US? Or is someone just going to explain to him that he is socialist/communist? >:-)
Author suggests we should consider Damon an expert on whether someone is acting. That's rather silly. Why aren't we using actors instead of torture, then?
>the actor who must know a thing or two about the covert world
and
>He is being asked what he thinks of Edward Snowden. Astonishingly for someone who has been Jason Bourne and knows the danger of such things, he is answering the question.
WTF. Actor who has been playing Jason Bourne and been in Good Will hunting now is now expert?
No, I think the OP was more balking at the idea that an actor "must" know about the covert world. He may well do, but it isn't an immediate assumption just because he played a spy guy.
WTF. Actor who has been playing Jason Bourne and been in Good Will hunting now is now expert?
It is not like he's got a PhD in the history of surveillence, but he's going to be better educated on the topic than joe random citizen. After all, at the very least he's spent a fair amount of time thinking about the details of his roles and in this case those details have a lot of overlap with the current situation.
Finally! I have been waiting in anticipation, not unlike a pre-pubescent girl at a Justin Bieber concert, for Matt Damon to make a statement. Oh thank you, great actor whose day job is to read what other people tell you to say, for telling me what to think. I would be lost without his voice, guiding me like a compass towards the truth.
This is a false dichotomy, and definitely not about some sort of tradeoff to protect us from "terrorists amongst us" (which in itself is a dubious claim.)
All these programs are about the creation of a de-facto authoritarian state serving nobody else but the powerful corporations and the decision-makers that said corporations keep in place via their accumulated wealth.
This isn't some democratic debate about civil liberties at conflict. This is a fucking plutocracy.