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I'm not really arguing for or against the government really, just examining the disconnect between how we see progress and what it actually looks like. Putting aside the government stuff, think about the Xbox One. We freaked out at the idea of a remotely controlled box with an always on camera and microphone, as well we should have. But think i think about how the kind of things we picture in utopian societies, how many of us though that being able to turn on our devices with a word would be a thing we'd have in The Future, and of course now that we can have that, we realize that that would mean having our devices listening to us all the time, because of course they would. Listening to what we're saying so as to recognize voice commands is something the device would logically have to do in order to work, otherwise how would they know we're telling it to turn on? Magic? So we balked at the idea, even though that's yet another Jetsons idea that'll never happen (see flying cars), because we weren't comfortable with Microsoft being in our homes to that extent. So i'm not trying to argue for the gov't's policies, but i'm curious what would happen if one day we were, and this trend continues, and we someday evolve into a  society that's "post-privacy", if that makes any sense, and whether that's necessarily a bad thing

Right, so I've been listening to the cracked podcasts for a while now, but there's this one that really gave me pause,
Episode 4: Loss of Privacy
http://podbay.fm/show/689900475/e/1378710167?autostart=1

In it, they discuss the degree to which people have given up their privacy compared to people twenty years ago. Not only in terms of the NSA wiretaps, but also on Facebook, Twitter, the Xbox one fiasco we had recently. they discuss this trend of us gradually giving up more and more privacy in exchange for services in the context of generations: folks who grew up during the Cold War are generally terrified of this trend, people born post Cold War don't seem to understand why this is a problem, as they've never been told why they should be afraid of this, or suffered any consequences from this, and in fact have access to a lot of cool stuff from their perspective because of it. But this makes me think, what if the big scary things we dread happening(In this case The NSA, or more generally The Machine) will always be less omnipotently powerful than we imagine it to be, because it still relies on flawed human beings to make decisions and get things done. Fear makes the things we dread seems far more of a threat than they really are, kinda like how Resident evil bosses look scary, yet they have giant red exposed organs that are really easy to shoot. this isn't to say that everything is peachy because Facebook completely makes up for the the invasion of privacy, but in the video, they mention how there's such a thing as too much intelligence: the NSA has a virtually unlimited capacity to gather our information, but a limited capacity to make sense of it. Intelligence agencies have always had this problem of making sense of information, so the challenge for them is not to keep tabs on us, but to quickly figure out whose information to disregard so they can get to the stuff they want.

So i guess the question this is all leading back to is this: Does this new age of information present a mixed bag of consequences, including for those who would try to oppress others? Does the reality of these trends lie somewhere between Jetsonian utopia and Fallout dystopia?

I mean, really. You can't experience assburgers fully until it's filled with dicksausage.

If you're looking for a concealable self-defense tool, i would look into Cold Steel's Pocket Shark
http://www.coldsteel.com/Product/91SPB/POCKET_SHARK.aspx

They're hard, heavy and blunt enough to jam in an attackers eye or neck, they can be used the same as a kubaton for grapples and locks, plus they can be easily carried in a pocket or sleeve. Plus they're really nice permanent pens, so there's that.

Also, the site sells sword canes, just saying.

I would disagree, sure the traits an organism is born with are variable, but the process of natural selection is pretty nonrandom. How likely your genes are to being reproduced is directly related to how those genes help you survive and mate. in this metaphor, the improvisational riffing is the variable gene element, whether or not the resulting sound is pleasing as music determines whether or not the riff gets reproduced in later attempts.

Dynamite

assburgers are so much better than dicksausage

Oh god i just noticed that mufasa's outline looks like a giant dick in that photo

If not, how the hell did we miss him?

PROVE ME WRONG PD! PROVE ME WRONG!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBSPTUTY8fc#t=154

I forget, didn't we make him a saint some years back?

whatever that is, sign me up

I fear i have created a monster....awesome. :P

Myturnmyturnmyturnmyturn!
Why did the Sumerian civilization collapse? Cancer. They refused to switch over to using the much healthier e-ziggurats.

This thread is a toolbox.

I haven't declared any thread to be a toolbox in a long time, and it feels good.

I've literally never heard the term toolbox like that before.

Finally, a thread that EVERYTHING is wrong with!

thanks, i try!

Finally, a thread that EVERYTHING is wrong with!

NOPE.

Holist hasn't derailed it yet.

well, following that TRAIN of thought, i wanted to see whether anyone else shared my love of terrible cringeworthy puns.

There was this one guy, RWHN, who loved them.  He loved them so much that we all hate them.  Forever.

See, now this makes ME sad.

Finally, a thread that EVERYTHING is wrong with!

thanks, i try!

Finally, a thread that EVERYTHING is wrong with!

NOPE.

Holist hasn't derailed it yet.

well, following that TRAIN of thought, i wanted to see whether anyone else shared my love of terrible cringeworthy puns.