Comment by simonw

If it was his job to downplay the risk's then he absolutely deserved at least this.

Google or any other US company will not be defending your's or anyone's else's data. It's not only that they doesn't want to(which they dont) but they simply can't.

You must comply with the law and you do not want to currently piss off anyone's at the top.

It was probably a decade ago and I recall using something within Google that would tell you about who they thought you were. It profiled me as a middle eastern middle aged man or something like that which was… way off.

The research that kicked off Google was funded by US intelligence orgs.

Stop pretending like Schmidt was or is "one of the good guys." They all knew from day one what the score was.

> Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions.

> But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks

I feel that as the consumer surveillance industry took off, everyone from those OG Internet circles was presented with a choice - stick with the individualist hacker spirit, or turncoat and build systems of corporate control. The people who chose power ended up incredibly rich, while the people who chose freedom got to watch the world burn while saying I told you so.

(There were also a lot of fence sitters in the middle who chose power but assuaged their own egos with slogans like "Don't be evil" and whatnot)

It wasn’t a stunt and there was nothing questionable about it. I’m amazed by how easily people shit all over journalists - it really has to end because it is precisely how truth dies.

Here’s a question - since you have such strong feelings did you write the editor of the piece for their explanation?

OG = Original Gangster?

Having met him one time he seemed like just a really intense dude who embodied the chestnut “the CEO is the guy who walks in and says ‘I’m CEO’.” I dunno if there’s more to it than that.

[flagged]

i hate defending thiel since hes literally destroying society, but he didn't get mad at gawker just for outing him

he got mad at gawker for deliberately outing him right as he went to meet the saudis for negotiations. a country that literally executes gay people. at best it strained the negotiations and made things awkward, and at worst could have put him in peril.

you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor.

Remember this when considering seeking medical help for an embarrassing symptom.

Well in my case I was referring to actual vocal conversations I've had with humans, either in person or on MS Teams.

I suppose that there could be an extremely elaborate LLM to control humanoid robots to try and fool me, but I do not believe that's the case.

I mean, tens of millions of people voted for this. So even if social media sentiment is mostly bot-driven, it's provably backed up or supported by what real people deeply believe and want and will continue to vote for in mid-terms.

[flagged]

> I think having a chance at stopping mass government slaughter

This would be questionable 100 years ago, let alone today's technology. Civils just can't organize efficiently, and "heads" (like someone locally coordinating civils) can be cut off easily by a central force (like it's just a drone strike away). The only real power is that a sane military will not turn against their own people. You don't need weapons for that.

> I think having a chance at stopping mass government slaughter like in Iran and Syria is overall better than the downside.

That won't stop the mass government slaughter, if anything it will accelerate it.

You don't need gun freedom to avoid mass government slaughter like in Iran. I live in France and I feel safe even though I can't defend my home with a gun. The door is pretty strong and if I go outside I know that the worst thing that can be against me is a knife or a dog, something I never saw used against someone with my own eyes, only in the newspapers.

What is required is a constant fight against obscurantism. It's a cultural battle.

Apparently even if you legally own a gun they'll shoot you just for owning it anyway, so I'm not sure that will help.

> Bottom line is that human nature has not changed. Some of us westerners take comfortable lives for granted because we’ve been lucky.

Which I bet our luck has run out. This year and the next 5 or 10 years from now, its going to be really bad.

I don't even trust local state governments at this point.. It all seems like a big ploy on the people to keep the grift going.

> Another opinion that I’m sure will get me downvoted is that this is the primary reason I support gun ownership by private citizens. I think having a chance at stopping mass government slaughter like in Iran and Syria is overall better than the downside.

it's starting right now, brother. time to put your money where your mouth is.

we'll see how many of these 2nd amendment uber alles types are actually chickenhawks real soon...

> Every single one of the tens of millions of people who have illegally immigrated to the United States over the past few decades is a criminal who can be legally deported.

There are an estimated 100K illegal immigrants in Minnesota,[1] and about 2M in Texas.[2] With 900K in Florida, 350K in Georgia, 325K in North Carolina, etc. [3]

Why doesn't ICE concentrate on fishing where the fish are… but of course that would mean doing stuff in red states.

[1] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-...

[2] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-...

[3] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-unauthorized-immigra...

The "crime" is the same severity as driving drunk or bringing a gun into a restroom in a National Park.

Are you saying it's OK for Federal officers swarm your house without a warrant, and then just shoot you for that?

> Every single one of the tens of millions of people who have illegally immigrated to the United States over the past few decades is a criminal who can be legally deported.

I 100% agree with this sentiment and that is why I strongly support speeding the asylum application process through redirecting immigration enforcement funding to bolstering the courts. Our backlog should be 0 before we start knocking door to door and stopping people for the suspicious behavior of being brown at Home Depot.

Without going into a long tangent talking about each point, I would like to point out that ICE doesn't actually seem terribly concerned with whether or not the people are illegal aliens or criminals. The last two people they murdered were US citizens, there are many US citizens, some natural born, that have been detained.

If they have access to all this information that was volunteered, then why are they so utterly incompetent at actually deporting illegal aliens?

That said, the disturbing part of Palantir and ICE isn't just that they are reading my driver's license or my legal status, it's the fact that they know everything.

You are absolutely, unequivocally incorrect that anyone in any significant numbers wants "open borders". I know this is a meme, but it's a meme that isn't true.

Does it actually work like we hope it does?

That assumes that the people who enforce the law want good people to be police officers, and that has never been the case. It is certainly not the case with our current ICE officers.

The only thing that changes behavior is consequences.

People do not have justifications for most choices. We watch YouTube when we would benefit more from teaching ourselves skills. We eat too much of food we know is junk. We stay up too late and either let others walk over us at work to avoid overt conflict or start fights and make enemies to protect our own emotions. If you want to know why Americans are allowing themselves to be gradually reduced to slavery, do not ask why.

I sometimes imagine that HN was a professional collective. Maybe working with the supply chain of foodstuffs. Carciogenic foodstuff would be legal. Environmental harzards getting into foodstuff would be legal. But there would be a highly ideological subgroup that would advocate for something that would very indirectly handle these problems. And the rest of the professional collective are mixed and divided on whether they are good or what they are actually working towards. A few would have the insight to realize that one of the main people behind the group foresaw these problems that are current right now 30 years ago.

That people ingest environmental hazards and carciogens would be viewed as a failure of da masses to abstractly consider the pitfalls of understanding the problems inherent to the logistics of foodstuffs in the context of big corporations.

What point do you think you're making?

EU is literally debating about "Chat Control". Its purpose is to scan for child sexual abuse material in internet traffic. But its at the cost of breaking end to end encryption.

Yes, that is indeed the point.

Absolutely - there are quite a few attempts in this direction.

It's a hell of lot harder to enforce...

I need to get this super power.

I am lucky to get to vote for people that don't believe in a religious ethno-state.

Which posts are people being jailed for?

In the US if you make a social media post threatening the president you are breaking the law and can be sent to jail just as much as if you said it

No they're not. An incredibly small number of people might get arrested if policing cocks up. Nobody is being jailed.

Challenge.

Laws cannot an action a crime after it was committed. However,

- Civil rules can and do impact things retroactively

- Laws may not make something illegal retroactively, but the interpretation of a law can suddenly change; which works out the same thing.

- The thing you're doing could suddenly become illegal with on way for you to avoid doing it (such as people being here legally and suddenly the laws for what is legally changes). This isn't retroactive, but it might as well be.

It is _entirely_ possible for someone to act in a way that is acceptable today but is illegal, or incurs huge civil penalties, tomorrow.

> Laws can not be applied retroactively.

I would not be surprised if SCOTUS disagrees at some point.

> Laws can not be applied retroactively.

I mean, I've read stupid takes on this website but this really takes the cake

despots don't care about the law

> The NSA knowing your search history is no big deal (as long as you're not looking for anything illegal)

Until someone at or above the TSA decides they don't like you. And then they use your search history to blackmail you. Because lots of people search for things that wouldn't be comfortable being public. Or search for things that could easily be taken out of context. Especially when that out of context makes it seem like they might be planning something illegal

Heck, there's lots of times where people mention a term / name for something on the internet; and, even though that thing is benign, the _name/term_ for it is not. It's common for people to note that they're not going to search for that term to learn more about it, because it will look bad or the results will include things they don't want to see.

> People are unafraid of the government knowing certain things because they believe it will not have any real repercussions for them.

A very famous quote: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

Many people - particularly white people, but let's not ignore that a bunch of Black and Latino folks are/have been Trump supporters - believe that they are part of the in-group. And inevitably, they find out that the government doesn't care, as evidenced by ICE and their infamous quota of 3000 arrests a day... which has hit a ton of these people, memefied as "leopards ate my face".

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/29/trump-ice-ar...

When someone said "I got nothing to hide" I always took it to mean "I will tell the nazis when they come which house to look in".

It's good to know in advance who they are.

Generally speaking, I think the point of statements like this is to shoot down the trite and thought-free cliche "if you have nothing to hide". And the point is rarely to convince the person you're speaking to, it's usually to get people who might otherwise be swayed by hearing the trite and thought-free cliche to think for a moment.

If you're talking directly to one person and trying to convince them, without an audience, there are likely different tactics that might work, but even then, some of the same approach might help, just couched more politely. "You don't actually mean that; do you want a camera in your bedroom with a direct feed to the police? What do you actually mean, here? What are you trying to solve?"

Option A: "Yes!", which tells you you're probably talking to someone who cares more about not admitting they're wrong than thinking about what they're saying.

Option B: "Well, no, but...", and now you're having a discussion.

Generally speaking, people who say things like "if you have nothing to hide" either (charitably) haven't thought about it very much and are vaguely wanting to be "strict on crime" without thought for the consequences because they can't imagine it affecting them, or (uncharitably) have attitudes about what they consider "shameful" and they really mean "you shouldn't do things that I think you should feel shame about".

I usually just quote Snowden instead:

    “Ultimately, arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”

Quite. I think a lot of Americans are acculturated (partly via movies and TV) to constant one-upmanship and trying to end disagreements with zingers. Look how many political videos on YouTube are titled 'Pundit you like DESTROYS person you disapprove of!' You see the same patterns in Presidential 'debates' and Congressional hearings. It's all very dramatic but lacking in real substance.

"I've got nothing to hide." is a rather extreme statement. The people who say it don't mean it literally. But saying something they don't mean aren't really helping their points across. I think OP’s retorts are simply to show how absurd the “I’ve got nothing to hide” claim is, regardless of how effective the retorts are.

Law enforcement are civilians like you or me. It was a big mistake to grant them special rights. If they can arrest people then it should be legal for you and me to arrest a LEO. Why should any person have special rights in a Democracy?

It's amazing how quickly the party of small government, states rights, and the 2nd amendment quickly turned against all their principles. It really shows how many people care more about party than principle.

I assume the NRA are out in droves at a US citizen being executed for carrying a gun?

A lot of American Christians aren't hyper committed to the specific theology of whichever flavor of Christianity they belong to, and will often sort of mix and match their own personal beliefs with what is orthodoxy.

That said, I'm ex-Catholic, so I don't feel super qualified to make a statement on the specific popularity of predestination among American evangelicals at the moment.

That said, in a less theological and more metaphorical sense, it does seem that many of them do believe in some sort of "good people" and "bad people", where the "bad people" are not particularly redeemable. It feels a little unfalsifiable though.

I don't believe there is any sort of conservative intellectual movement at this point. The right believes they have captured certain institutions (law enforcement, military), in the same way they believe the left has captured others (education/universities, media), and will use them to wage war against whichever group the big finger pointing men in charge tell them to.

Some, probably; not all (and certainly not the current president, who in his more senile moments muses about how his works have probably earned him hell [0]).

But the same observation applies to lots of other attitudes, too—like “might makes right” and “nature is red in tooth and claw” or whatever else the dark princelings evince these days. I feel like “logic matters” mainly pertains to a liberal-enlightenment political context that might be in the past now…

Does reality always find a way to assert itself in the face of illogic? Sure! But if Our Side is righteous and infallible, the bad outcomes surely must be the fault of Those Scapegoats’ malfeasance—ipso facto we should punish them harder…

https://time.com/7311354/donald-trump-heaven-hell-afterlife-...

Calvinistic predestination is a TULIP sense (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints) is an extreme minority position, like 7% to 5% of the American Church (Reformed Camp)

No, none of that is true.

Remember, Republicans represent half the country, not some isolated sect living in small town Appalachia.

You should lookup 'Supply-side Jesus' to get a better understanding of American Christianity.

Republicans are overwhelmingly Christian, and even though Calvinism, or its branches, may not be the religion a majority of Republicans “exercise”, predetermination is a convenient explanation of why the world is what it is, and why no action should be taken - so it gets used a lot by right wing media, etc.

It's something they say in sociology 101 at colleges in the US and some people occasionally believe it.

This is true.

Yet law enforcement officers are some of the most resistant to the idea, and Trump and DHS are extremely resistant to the idea of utilizing them for ICE and CBP, and have even cut funding for it.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-moved-cut-funding-ice...

When we know that the body cams are frequently used in a way that benefits the people wearing them, I find it quite telling when those people are railing against the idea and those in power actively work to block it.

You're saying a proposed bill which hasn't passed is comparative to recent events in the US or am I reading too much between the lines?

Last I checked millions of europeans are living in a functioning civilization. I've lived in Europe. It is ok.

Don't confuse "GDP not as big as ours" with "totally non-functional."

China can

Yes, things are different in totalitarian states.

> I think the claims made my these surveillance/advertising companies are likely as overstated as Musk's last decade of self-driving

They are not overstated, and they are far worse.

It’s funny when Facebook thinks you’re interested in aquariums and shows you aquarium ads when that isn’t your thing at all.

It’ll be a lot less amusing when Palantir thinks you’re interested in bombing government buildings.

They don't sell the data, they sell access to that data

[dead]

Of course. All of Graeber is fantastic and I’m trying to get an audience with Wengrow

You just described the Bill of Rights. Constitutions should be structured around that.

I was referring to principle, not ICE in its current state.

since you can’t turn ICE around overnight, I don’t think Americans should authorize ICE more data and power NOW.

[flagged]

[flagged]