Re: Live Q&A with Edward Snowden: Thursday 23rd January, 8pm GMT, 3pm EST
Posted by
Marcus G. Daniels on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Live-Q-A-with-Edward-Snowden-Thursday-23rd-January-8pm-GMT-3pm-EST-tp7584887p7584903.html
On 1/26/14 4:16 PM, Owen Densmore
wrote:
- Deadly Embrace: The idea that if we only go at it
long enough, we'll agree somehow. In math, convergence.
Judging from the length of this type of thread, I think they
are divergent.
Divergent is ok, even a goal of conversation. Note that this
thread was a tangent. The connection was RMS's suggestion that NSA
and FBI employees consider their obligations w.r.t. to domestic
threats to the U.S. Constitution. I'm pretty sure RMS's
boilerplate header is not intended as humor. Now, take it back to
Snowden and the merit of technical vs. philosophical discussion.
Here again is someone with technical competence (in his domain) and
a apparently a philosophical axe to grind. (Ok, Mike Rogers, et.
al. try as hard as they can to convince us that he has no such
technical competence and no philosophical axe to grind; that he is
merely a spy. Whatever.) Contrast that person against the
nameless NSA employee that has a technically enriching job doing
encryption or data mining or quantum computing and doesn't want to
be bothered with the Why of their job. That they keep their head
down does not imply they have more a professional focus or
competence. It could make them _more_ dangerous because they have
no set of values or ethics that drive their decisions. Too much
mercenary.
The objection I have is to people that optimize only on dimensions
that are given to them. "Tool" is the word that comes to mind.
Especially when there is no interpolation or memory or direct
dissection of evident contradiction or ambiguity.
Marcus
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