Living in a surveillance state: Mikko Hypponen at TEDxBrussels

[DeSwiss]

TEDxTalks·Published on Nov 1, 2013

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

- All the librarians of the world are hereby requested to begin moving George Orwell and Aldous Huxley works into Non-fiction.

[BelgianMadCow]

1. Brussels, TED, and surveillance state?

I'll K& R now and watch it later

Thanks for all you do round here, DeSwiss.

On edit: about libraries: recently re-read 1984 and Brave New World. 1984 somehow had an ING (major bank) sticker on it. I desperately fought the urge to defame the sticker, and thought about including a small note in the book. But didn't :sigh:

[DeSwiss]

5. De nada.

- And thank you. It just shows that even a cracked pot has its uses.

[BelgianMadCow]

9. Now that I did see it - a couple points

1. Excellent primer on the Snowden revelations and privacy (and debunking the usual counters)
2. Consider the US (government) as the colonizer of the internet. 96% of the world are the "foreigners" many on DU throw under the surveillance bus without thinking. Prepare for some real backlash (see: plummeting hardware sales in emerging countries)
3. The solution? Open Source.

As to 3, allow me to add http://prism-break.org to the thread. It's a list of Open Source alternatives for just about anything you do online.

Oh, and I forgot: beautiful story, the cracked pot one!

[cantbeserious]

2. Snowden Will Prevail In History - He Did Us All A Big Favor

eom

[RC]

3. Most of us, as yet, do not realize how big a favor.

It will take many years to right the many wrongs of our government and drive out the entrenched criminals responsible.

[cantbeserious]

4. Agreed

eom

[DeSwiss]

6. He showed everyone the chains we didn't know were there.

- Now it's up to us to get them off us.

[20score]

7. I never thought I could hold a group of people in more contempt than I did the Bushies,

but those from the Joe McCarthy wing of the Democratic Party have proved me wrong.

To defend Total Information Awareness is despicable enough, then add hypocrisy and it's over.

[DeSwiss]

8. I'm trying to quit being contemptuous as an emotional response.

It is HARD. But I've determined that I have no other choice after years of study and contemplation. I've concluded that we can't hold disdain for others, simply because they're unevolved.

Failing to do so is sort of like holding contempt for Neanderthals because they ended up losing to us because they were big, slow, clumsy clods. Yet, since they've recently found Neanderthal DNA in humans, they apparently weren't ALL bad.

So, being left with no logical reason to be contemptuous, I concluded that I couldn't blame DINOs, 3-Wayers, Repukers, even Libertarians. No more than I'd consider blaming a person for their having any other kind of mental illness, or for their skin color, their height, or their inability to twerk properly (assuming there is a proper way).

All in all, I'd say it's a real loser emotion. Think about it, the object of scorn never gets the benefit of our disdain. It's like the build-up and then the taking of a huge dump and then not being able to flush it. So now you have to live with it stinking up the house. Not to mention the damage it does to you inside. It's not worth it.

Every time you see another hypocrite, those emotions swell up inside you -- creating more gas and unpleasant aromas in the air issuing forth from their gaping, stinking, lying pieholes, and we have to take it all in. The result? Another dump will have to be taken -- one that you know won't be able to flush. So you end up expending a great deal of emotional capital, and for what? People whose DNA just ain't quite done. Someone whose parental units' DNA couldn't complete the empathic genetic sequence.

The only consolation I take away from it all, is that I'm a firm believer in Social Darwinism. And in so doing, I realize that we all have our purpose in life, even though it may not always be readily apparent to us.

- So I have to believe that when the time comes, all those who can't make the next evolutionary leap, well they'll make good fertilizer and soil nutrients instead. So we end up with them anyway. It's all star stuff.....



I know. That pic is pretty contemptuous of Congress. I'm a work in-progress.....

[20score]

10. Great points and well said. I do take that approach when I’m feeling my most relaxed.

In fact, that’s how will look at creationists, warmongers, bigots, etc., and then I vacillate back to anger at other times. But you’re correct, they’re not evolved, and it’s useless energy that is expended only to hurt myself.

My only counterpoint to your well thought out points, is that public shaming may change minds. Reactionaries, by definition don’t think things out. But when something affects them they are sometimes forced to examine their ideals. I may be wrong, but minds are changed all the time. I just go for the multi-pronged approach. Sometimes I try to educate, sometimes shame.

But I’m certainly willing to entertain more ideas. It’s just that this is so important. When governments watch everything we do, freedom of the press, or most freedoms for that matter, are none-existent.

[DeSwiss]

11. Good luck to the both of us!

- We're gonna need it!