When we hear these stories, we never hear about the end result. We only hear about the act. It's like hearing a gun was fired. It was fired, but what did it hit?
The data that is in these databases have a high probability to be abused. Blackmail and intimidation are easy to hide. What number of the people that had their location data exposed through this database were shot soon after? What number of people had their identity stolen? What number of people lost their jobs? What number of people had their families or friendships destroyed by secrets being spilled?
The dots are never connected beyond the admission of violations.
The redcoats couldn't see the travel of every single person. They couldn't stop every person carrying a letter that had met with a certain person. They couldn't arrest everyone that had read a certain article or newspaper.
The tyranny possible today is far worse than the tyranny of a few hundred years ago
Many women with life threatening conditions get stuck waiting for the inevitable because they have already created evidence by going to a doctor. If anything happens to the baby without evidence of natural causes, they can be prosecuted. This has put women in a tough place.
To be fair, this entirely depends on the breed in question. There are some breeds that are known to have weak bloodlines, and some breeds that are better.
It is also dependent on the breeder. Breeders that "cheap" out will be more likely to have inbred dogs since it can cost money for a good stud.
I wouldn't be surprised. There are a large number of historical examples of human experimentation before 1975 when the Church committee did it's work.
I think these shady agencies figured out a new way to hide this kind of research after that date in ways that have made it much harder to show the world the truth.
Like every other tech company on the planet. Its a huge problem that society can't even begin to study because all of it is done in secret. It's also kept secret because the damage it would do to tech companies and the government would be huge
Kinda odd that this article is coming out with so many deaths of important crypto people. 3 Dead in November of last year, and a recent one a few days ago.
This is close, but the specific verbiage that US leaders hoped for is that China would liberalize and transition to a democracy. In the 2010s, it became clear it wouldn't happen when Xi stepped into the position that he is in today.
The US likes dealing with democracies because the US has so much know how in how to influence elections. The government and CIA has a long history of meddling in elections to get the outcome that is most beneficial for the US.
Ultimately, this has built up many dictatorships around the world that violently suppress political opinions that are detrimental to the US national security.
If you don't know what was going on the middle east with iraq, libya, and syria, read this[1]. After 9/11, before the dust settled, the US wanted to force a regime change in 7 countries that they had no proof was related to 9/11. The US decimated an entire region and sent them back to the stone age for unstated reasons. Please note, all of those countries were not democracies, so they couldn't meddle in elections for more favorable leaders.
China and Xi have been smart enough to avoid a revolution/coup to become an American colony.
Different leaders have different policies thus the US is a true democracy and is moral? Just because the Overton Window[1] is large in the US doesn't mean that political dissenting opinions are not suppressed.
Consider the Twitterfiles, the government is actively censoring speech critical of the FBI and politicians. Think of the Hunter Biden laptop story, do you think that if that speech was not censored that different policies would be supported by the masses and that they would elect different representatives?
People need to know information to make good decisions. If they don't know the information, obviously, they won't consider that in the decision making process
To be fair, a multi-polar world with the level of technology that we have today is unprecedented. I don't think nations would resort to fighting in the past. It would be more similar to the cold war. Tensions, posturing in hot zones, and occasional proxy wars.
Its not like US hegemony has brought about peace. In fact, the US has intentionally provoked wars in nations that needed a regime change. Iraq War brought ISIS. ISIS brought terrorist attacks to EU and US.
Political instability in Africa has caused genocides. Often with a connection to US decisions. South American regime change doesn't happen as often as it did in 70s to 90s, but that was the source of a lot pain for people.
I don't think we know the full extent of what the US does with our data in the cloud.
Congressman trying to re-authorize PATRIOT Act was spied on by the FBI [1]. Google fired employees for abusing personal info [2]. Facebook fired employees for abusing privileges [3]. Twitter insiders spying for Saudi Arabia [4]
Democracy works when the desires of the people get enacted into law. We see more and more that it is not happening. Instead, more power is consolidated to the rich and powerful. How is that happening in a "democracy"?
I think that behind the scenes in the US, a dictatorship of intelligence agencies, wealthy businessman, and monopolistic companies have been developing over the last 20 years. The government and congress is not the boss, but the oligarchs are. They run the show, and its as much of dictatorship as anywhere else in the world. The US propaganda is not calling it that though.
Big tech has ingratiated themselves with congress by hiring friends and family, donating liberally to political campaigns, and staying involved in Washington with think tanks.
In part, the campaign against Tiktok is a campaign for SF based big tech to hold the monopoly on people's attention. As a newer startup, Tiktok has not entrenched itself the way that other tech companies have in DC yet.
I can't help but wonder if other countries are watching these proceedings and wondering about their own national security. The US is concerned about misinformation, blackmail, and influence campaigns, but is the US using the data that FANG has access to do it to other countries? Are they just trying to keep a monopoly on that power?
We can see hints that the US is using these platforms to do that. Imagine the negotiating power the US has to go into a trade deal negotiations with another country. Run an influence campaign to sway the other country's population to accept a bad deal. Use democratic processes to get someone elected who will sign off on the bad deal. End up profiting enormously.
Having free access to show propaganda and misinformation to most of the world is an enormous power.
Extraordinary rendition has no laws backing it. The US government simply ignores any cases with a "State Secrets" statement. This is a known practice that happens in the US and other countries.
How many other extraordinary practices without a legal framework does the US government have?
Biden chose to have private intelligence groups monitor social media because they circumvent people's rights. What other rights do they abuse?
Overuse of useEffect is my number one pet peeve for juniors. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a total mess of manual data passing between 3 components with so many if..else cases to handle all the weird stuff.
I catch it in code review and show them that when you delete all of it without useEffects and useStates that it just works. Its an antipattern that turns the code into a giant ticking time bomb if you don't manage all of it out.
Which is why it would be nice for the Supreme Court to confirm GPL's enforceability. It hasn't been tested in courts, but it would be insanely powerful for the open source community to begin enforcing it.
It would extend the right to repair to the software that we write.