Firstly, let me define "Universal Basic Income" as getting a living wage, no matter what, job or no job. You have the ability to have rent, food, and health care, no matter what. A negative tax.
Sure, the poor should support a guaranteed living wage, because that makes sense for them.
But what about corporations and the rich? Intuitively it may seem like of course they should not support it, but there's a giant glaring problem which is not being taken into account: automation. Within the next 20 years, about 40% of all jobs will be made obsolete by better, cheaper, faster technology. And that figure will only continue to rise. Truly no job is safe. No matter how creative or artistic what you do is, no matter how necessary you think you are to your job, the reality is, you probably aren't. This means that a LOT of people will be without a job in the very near future, yet the world will still expect them to be able to pay their bills.
That fills the powder keg for a very large revolution. The decreasing middle class, and the increasing gap between the rich and poor, combined with the world view that the poor should still pay for themselves even when there are truly no jobs available, means that unrest will turn into revolution, and the entire current system will simply collapse. Which of course it must, because it simply can't sustain itself.
Unless of course the wealthy and the corporations realize that it CAN sustain itself if the poor have enough to get by and thus are too complacent to revolt. It's in their long term best interest to pay the taxes to pay the poor so that the poor can live comfortably enough to not be starving and thus revolt and destroy the system.
That being said, I don't think it will happen. Individual immediate self-interest will override and the Nash equilibrium will be that the system falls apart, and a revolution of sweeping reform and Constitutional amendments will happen-- and that's the best case scenario.
I currently view myself as an "voluntaryist" -- a sort of pseudo anarcho-capitalist, and I would be ok with the current corporatocracy and even a large chunk of the government itself falling apart so much that we had to rebuild from scratch. But I feel compelled to point out that corporations and governments should actually campaign for basic income. They might not realize it, but it is in their best interest.
If they want to maintain the status quo, they need to make it *possible* to maintain the status quo. And having half the population revolt because they're starving because you expect them to have money when there aren't any jobs left -- that's a sure-fire way to ensure the status quo gets left behind. (Which of course it should...)
Basic income isn't a political view within the current system. It's the only possible way to keep the current system from collapsing.
But then again, many of us, myself included, would be happy to see the old world systems die the fiery death they should... Whatever happens, it'll certainly be interesting to see how it all plays out!
Monday, September 1, 2014
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Life is OK
The past few years have been a little difficult, but just free-form writing things down seems like a good therapeutic way to get things out, so I figured what better way to update my blog! I also just finished writing my reasons why the whole NSA spying scandal is such a big deal, so that should be the other post listed here on blogspot. I might also post that to facebook.
Anyway, the poker team broke apart in late-mid 2012, which really sucked. There was also a handful of shitty things that happened, which involve other people so I'm not really comfortable talking about, which happened about the same time. I had a mini mental breakdown and also got really depressed for a while, but for at the minimum the past few months, I've definitely been over that and reasonably happy just trucking along. I certainly feel mentally "hardened" which is neat and useful but also a bit scary and depressing. It's good feeling like you can get through tough times, but it's a bit darker of a world to live in knowing such tough times are possible. Oh well-- like I said, I'm on the other side of all of it and feeling pretty happy on a day to day basis.
When team broke apart, my playing bankroll instantly got cut down to 1/4 of what it was previously, but I dumped a fair bit into bitcoins, which even though they've been volatile, have definitely gone up since I bought them, and I've also been playing a lot. I signed up to deal at the World Series, but the pay was so bad, the other dealers so annoying, that I quit after a few weeks. Before the Series, I had about $30K actual cash on hand (that figure is including bitcoin value) from saving up over the years in addition to paying my bills, but bitcoin prices have dropped a bit since then and my 5-10 and few buyins worth of 10-20 shots all went terribly, so with all that combined, I'm back down to just below $20K. That's certainly good enough for 2-5 live and 1-2 or even 2-4 online, but now that I'm on my own again and going bust is an end-of-the world disaster, my bankroll-nit ways are creeping back up again, so I've mostly been playing 1-2 live and microstakes for bitcoins on Seals, since my VPN Stars setup was just such a giant pain. I've also been tilting almost every session lately, which makes it so I really just can't play. While I've had tilt issues in the past, I've never had them this bad and they've never been this hard to get rid of. Before, I used to feel it creeping up on me and recognize the itch to start making bad calls and reckless plays, and I could outright push it away or at least recognize it and walk away. Now, it's more akin to an alien hand syndrome where I am simply overcome and make atrocious plays and can't stop myself. I've always prided myself on sort of being a consummate professional, and this is just outright embarrassing. It also puts me out of work. Which is really really bad.
With that, and having much less money that I thought I would at this point in time, I'm really feeling frustrated and antsy. I see so many people I know with families and nice homes and doing well. I see poker friends with less money taking shots and doing well at higher stakes. I am happy for them, but I also feel-- not jealous of what they have, but sort of ashamed that I've lost the courage to take the shots and risks necessary to get there myself. I also feel like I'm not where I should be at this point in my life. And it's weird because I'm completely comfortable and happy where I am, but I feel a lot of pressure from family and society that I should be doing more and doing different things. So I feel kind of lost and not sure what to do and not sure what to feel, and I feel bad that I don't know how I "should" feel. (And then of course I have an itch that I should be doing something more beneficial to the world than playing a fucking card game.) So lately I've been feeling very directionless.
I've also been spending more time trying to learn to program in Java, specifically for Android apps, because I think that's the most useful, and it'll teach me Java anyways, which is transferable. I have an idea for a relatively simple app, but even getting started on it is just taking forEVER. I knew I'd get stuck at the first step and it'd be a much longer road than I'd anticipated, but I'm stuck before I've even taken the first step. It's insanely frustrating to get in a jam so early, and a BIG jam too. And I don't even know enough to fix it yet, so diagnosing and fixing it is ENORMOUSLY more complicated for me than it would be for anybody else. Such is life. This is the best way to learn.
Anyway, as depressing as all this may be, it is all background noise to my day to day life, which on the whole has been fairly pleasant. I may not have accomplished much in the past few weeks, but I had a nice break-- took a hiking trip to Zion in Utah, I've caught up on some reading, learned more about Android and Java, and made a video for facebook friends about how to protect their e-mails in the wake of all the NSA. I also, at the recommendation of a friend, started a few episodes of House of Cards on Netflix. It's an excellent show but the idea that things work that way -- not even that they necessarily do, but the very idea that it's perfectly possible and plausible-- is disturbing and bothersome beyond measure. And it would make complete sense that it works that way too. So while I enjoy the show, it still really bothers me. I just don't "get" politics-- in any form. I speak plainly; I say what I mean and mean what I say; I give the whole truth. If I defend an idea or person or thing I need, I explain the situation fully and expect the logic behind my reasoning and humanity of the other person to prevail. I view my interactions as economic win-wins, and I don't try to benefit by concealing things. I simply view it both as unethical and also unnecessary and more trouble than it's worth. So interacting with people who DO conceal things and play politics-- be it business/governmental politics or the more common social maneuvering -- that kind of thing is entirely foreign to me, and I just don't interact with people who act that way with me. Poker, for all its frustrations and downfalls, allows me to not rely financially on others for getting by in life, which means I have no incentive to deceive them (not that I would anyway). So all of the people in my life know that I am just straightforward with them. And I expect the same of them. If you don't value me enough to be honest and straight with me, then our relationship really can't be that close or valuable can it? Anyway, ya, fuck Congress if it operates like House of Cards. Jesus.
So I guess I don't have much going on in the way of actual news. And I'm not really sad or anything on a day to day basis. (I was going to say I'm not depressed on a day to day basis, but I think I might actually be!...) I'm just trucking along, for the most part pretty happy, but frustrated with my place in life but still not sure what I even really WANT in life. But I'll be OK. I'll figure it out-- I always do.
Anyway, the poker team broke apart in late-mid 2012, which really sucked. There was also a handful of shitty things that happened, which involve other people so I'm not really comfortable talking about, which happened about the same time. I had a mini mental breakdown and also got really depressed for a while, but for at the minimum the past few months, I've definitely been over that and reasonably happy just trucking along. I certainly feel mentally "hardened" which is neat and useful but also a bit scary and depressing. It's good feeling like you can get through tough times, but it's a bit darker of a world to live in knowing such tough times are possible. Oh well-- like I said, I'm on the other side of all of it and feeling pretty happy on a day to day basis.
When team broke apart, my playing bankroll instantly got cut down to 1/4 of what it was previously, but I dumped a fair bit into bitcoins, which even though they've been volatile, have definitely gone up since I bought them, and I've also been playing a lot. I signed up to deal at the World Series, but the pay was so bad, the other dealers so annoying, that I quit after a few weeks. Before the Series, I had about $30K actual cash on hand (that figure is including bitcoin value) from saving up over the years in addition to paying my bills, but bitcoin prices have dropped a bit since then and my 5-10 and few buyins worth of 10-20 shots all went terribly, so with all that combined, I'm back down to just below $20K. That's certainly good enough for 2-5 live and 1-2 or even 2-4 online, but now that I'm on my own again and going bust is an end-of-the world disaster, my bankroll-nit ways are creeping back up again, so I've mostly been playing 1-2 live and microstakes for bitcoins on Seals, since my VPN Stars setup was just such a giant pain. I've also been tilting almost every session lately, which makes it so I really just can't play. While I've had tilt issues in the past, I've never had them this bad and they've never been this hard to get rid of. Before, I used to feel it creeping up on me and recognize the itch to start making bad calls and reckless plays, and I could outright push it away or at least recognize it and walk away. Now, it's more akin to an alien hand syndrome where I am simply overcome and make atrocious plays and can't stop myself. I've always prided myself on sort of being a consummate professional, and this is just outright embarrassing. It also puts me out of work. Which is really really bad.
With that, and having much less money that I thought I would at this point in time, I'm really feeling frustrated and antsy. I see so many people I know with families and nice homes and doing well. I see poker friends with less money taking shots and doing well at higher stakes. I am happy for them, but I also feel-- not jealous of what they have, but sort of ashamed that I've lost the courage to take the shots and risks necessary to get there myself. I also feel like I'm not where I should be at this point in my life. And it's weird because I'm completely comfortable and happy where I am, but I feel a lot of pressure from family and society that I should be doing more and doing different things. So I feel kind of lost and not sure what to do and not sure what to feel, and I feel bad that I don't know how I "should" feel. (And then of course I have an itch that I should be doing something more beneficial to the world than playing a fucking card game.) So lately I've been feeling very directionless.
I've also been spending more time trying to learn to program in Java, specifically for Android apps, because I think that's the most useful, and it'll teach me Java anyways, which is transferable. I have an idea for a relatively simple app, but even getting started on it is just taking forEVER. I knew I'd get stuck at the first step and it'd be a much longer road than I'd anticipated, but I'm stuck before I've even taken the first step. It's insanely frustrating to get in a jam so early, and a BIG jam too. And I don't even know enough to fix it yet, so diagnosing and fixing it is ENORMOUSLY more complicated for me than it would be for anybody else. Such is life. This is the best way to learn.
Anyway, as depressing as all this may be, it is all background noise to my day to day life, which on the whole has been fairly pleasant. I may not have accomplished much in the past few weeks, but I had a nice break-- took a hiking trip to Zion in Utah, I've caught up on some reading, learned more about Android and Java, and made a video for facebook friends about how to protect their e-mails in the wake of all the NSA. I also, at the recommendation of a friend, started a few episodes of House of Cards on Netflix. It's an excellent show but the idea that things work that way -- not even that they necessarily do, but the very idea that it's perfectly possible and plausible-- is disturbing and bothersome beyond measure. And it would make complete sense that it works that way too. So while I enjoy the show, it still really bothers me. I just don't "get" politics-- in any form. I speak plainly; I say what I mean and mean what I say; I give the whole truth. If I defend an idea or person or thing I need, I explain the situation fully and expect the logic behind my reasoning and humanity of the other person to prevail. I view my interactions as economic win-wins, and I don't try to benefit by concealing things. I simply view it both as unethical and also unnecessary and more trouble than it's worth. So interacting with people who DO conceal things and play politics-- be it business/governmental politics or the more common social maneuvering -- that kind of thing is entirely foreign to me, and I just don't interact with people who act that way with me. Poker, for all its frustrations and downfalls, allows me to not rely financially on others for getting by in life, which means I have no incentive to deceive them (not that I would anyway). So all of the people in my life know that I am just straightforward with them. And I expect the same of them. If you don't value me enough to be honest and straight with me, then our relationship really can't be that close or valuable can it? Anyway, ya, fuck Congress if it operates like House of Cards. Jesus.
So I guess I don't have much going on in the way of actual news. And I'm not really sad or anything on a day to day basis. (I was going to say I'm not depressed on a day to day basis, but I think I might actually be!...) I'm just trucking along, for the most part pretty happy, but frustrated with my place in life but still not sure what I even really WANT in life. But I'll be OK. I'll figure it out-- I always do.
NSA Flagged Word List for e-mails, texts, other communications
This is compiled from multiple sources and may contain duplicates...
Rewson, SAFE, Waihopai, INFOSEC, ASPIC, MI6, Information Security, SAI, Information Warfare, IW, IS, Privacy, Information Terrorism, Terrorism Defensive Information, Defense Information Warfare, Offensive Information, Offensive Information Warfare, The Artful Dodger, NAIA, SAPM, ASU, ASTS, National Information Infrastructure, InfoSec, SAO, Reno, Compsec, JICS, Computer Terrorism, Firewalls, Secure Internet Connections, RSP, ISS, JDF, Ermes, Passwords, NAAP, DefCon V, RSO, Hackers, Encryption, ASWS, CUN, CISU, CUSI, M.A.R.E., MARE, UFO, IFO, Pacini, Angela, Espionage, USDOJ, NSA, CIA, S/Key, SSL, FBI, Secert Service, USSS, Defcon, Military, White House, Undercover, NCCS, Mayfly, PGP, SALDV, PEM, resta, RSA, Perl-RSA, MSNBC, bet, AOL, AOL TOS, CIS, CBOT, AIMSX, STARLAN, 3B2, BITNET, SAMU, COSMOS, DATTA, Furbys, E911, FCIC, HTCIA, IACIS, UT/RUS, JANET, ram, JICC, ReMOB, LEETAC, UTU, VNET, BRLO, SADCC, NSLEP, SACLANTCEN, FALN, 877, NAVELEXSYSSECENGCEN, BZ, CANSLO, CBNRC, CIDA, JAVA, rsta, Active X, Compsec 97, RENS, LLC, DERA, JIC, rip, rb, Wu, RDI, Mavricks, BIOL, Meta-hackers, ?, SADT, Steve Case, Tools, RECCEX, Telex, Aldergrove, OTAN, monarchist, NMIC, NIOG, IDB, MID/KL, NADIS, NMI, SEIDM, BNC, CNCIS, STEEPLEBUSH, RG, BSS, DDIS, mixmaster, BCCI, BRGE, Europol, SARL, Military Intelligence, JICA, Scully, recondo, Flame, Infowar, FRU, Bubba, Freeh, Archives, ISADC, CISSP, Sundevil, jack, Investigation, JOTS, ISACA, NCSA, ASVC, spook words, RRF, 1071, Bugs Bunny, Verisign, Secure, ASIO, Lebed, ICE, NRO, Lexis-Nexis, NSCT, SCIF, FLiR, JIC, bce, Lacrosse, Flashbangs, HRT, IRA, EODG, DIA, USCOI, CID, BOP, FINCEN, FLETC, NIJ, ACC, AFSPC, BMDO, site, SASSTIXS, NAVWAN, NRL, RL, NAVWCWPNS, NSWC, USAFA, AHPCRC, ARPA, SARD, LABLINK, USACIL, SAPT, USCG, NRC, ~, O, NSA/CSS, CDC, DOE, SAAM, FMS, HPCC, NTIS, SEL, USCODE, CISE, SIRC, CIM, ISN, DJC, LLNL, bemd, SGC, UNCPCJ, CFC, SABENA, DREO, CDA, SADRS, DRA, SHAPE, bird dog, SACLANT, BECCA, DCJFTF, HALO, SC, TA SAS, Lander, GSM, T Branch, AST, SAMCOMM, HAHO, FKS, 868, GCHQ, DITSA, SORT, AMEMB, NSG, HIC, EDI, benelux, SAS, SBS, SAW, UDT, EODC, GOE, DOE, SAMF, GEO, JRB, 3P-HV, Masuda, Forte, AT, GIGN, Exon Shell, radint, MB, CQB, TECS, CONUS, CTU, RCMP, GRU, SASR, GSG-9, 22nd SAS, GEOS, EADA, SART, BBE, STEP, Echelon, Dictionary, MD2, MD4, MDA, diwn, 747, ASIC, 777, RDI, 767, MI5, 737, MI6, 757, Kh-11, EODN, SHS, X, Shayet-13, SADMS, Spetznaz, Recce, 707, CIO, NOCS, Halcon, NSS, Duress, RAID, Uziel, wojo, Psyops, SASCOM, grom, NSIRL, D-11, DF, ZARK, SERT, VIP, ARC, S.E.T. Team, NSWG, MP5k, SATKA, DREC, DEVGRP, DSD, FDM, GRU, LRTS, SIGDEV, NACSI, MEU/SOC,PSAC, PTT, RFI, ZL31, SIGDASYS, TDM. SUKLO, Schengen, SUSLO, TELINT, fake, TEXTA. ELF, LF, MF, Mafia, JASSM, CALCM, TLAM, Wipeout, GII, SIW, MEII, C2W, Burns, Tomlinson, Ufologico Nazionale, Centro, CICAP, MIR, Belknap, Tac, rebels, BLU-97 A/B, 007, nowhere.ch, bronze, Rubin, Arnett, BLU, SIGS, VHF, Recon, peapod, PA598D28, Spall, dort, 50MZ, 11Emc Choe, SATCOMA, UHF, The Hague, SHF, ASIO, SASP, WANK, Colonel, domestic disruption, 5ESS, smuggle, Z-200, 15kg, DUVDEVAN, RFX, nitrate, OIR, Pretoria, M-14, enigma, Bletchley Park, Clandestine, NSO, nkvd, argus, afsatcom, CQB, NVD, Counter Terrorism Security, Enemy of the State, SARA, Rapid Reaction, JSOFC3IP, Corporate Security, 192.47.242.7, Baldwin, Wilma, ie.org, cospo.osis.gov, Police, Dateline, Tyrell, KMI, 1ee, Pod, 9705 Samford Road, 20755-6000, sniper, PPS, ASIS, ASLET, TSCM, Security Consulting, M-x spook, Z-150T, Steak Knife, High Security, Security Evaluation, Electronic Surveillance, MI-17, ISR, NSAS, Counterterrorism, real, spies, IWO, eavesdropping, debugging, CCSS, interception, COCOT, NACSI, rhost, rhosts, ASO, SETA, Amherst, Broadside, Capricorn, NAVCM, Gamma, Gorizont, Guppy, NSS, rita, ISSO, submiss, ASDIC, .tc, 2EME REP, FID, 7NL SBS, tekka, captain, 226, .45, nonac, .li, Tony Poe, MJ-12, JASON, Society, Hmong, Majic, evil, zipgun, tax, bootleg, warez, TRV, ERV, rednoise, mindwar, nailbomb, VLF, ULF, Paperclip, Chatter, MKULTRA, MKDELTA, Bluebird, MKNAOMI, White Yankee, MKSEARCH, 355 ML, Adriatic, Goldman, Ionosphere, Mole, Keyhole, NABS, Kilderkin, Artichoke, Badger, Emerson, Tzvrif, SDIS, T2S2, STTC, DNR, NADDIS, NFLIS, CFD, BLU-114/B, quarter, Cornflower, Daisy, Egret, Iris, JSOTF, Hollyhock, Jasmine, Juile, Vinnell, B.D.M., Sphinx, Stephanie, Reflection, Spoke, Talent, Trump, FX, FXR, IMF, POCSAG, rusers, Covert Video, Intiso, r00t, lock picking, Beyond Hope, LASINT, csystems, .tm, passwd, 2600 Magazine, JUWTF, Competitor, EO, Chan, Pathfinders, SEAL Team 3, JTF, Nash, ISSAA, B61-11, Alouette, executive, Event Security, Mace, Cap-Stun, stakeout, ninja, ASIS, ISA, EOD, Oscor, Tarawa, COSMOS-2224, COSTIND, hit word, hitword, Hitwords, Regli, VBS, Leuken-Baden, number key, Zimmerwald, DDPS, GRS, AGT. AMME, ANDVT, Type I, Type II, VFCT, VGPL, WHCA, WSA, WSP, WWABNCP, ZNI1, FSK, FTS2000, GOSIP, GOTS, SACS STU-III, PRF, PMSP, PCMT, I&A, JRSC, ITSDN, Keyer, KG-84C, KWT-46, KWR-46, KY-75, KYV-5, LHR, PARKHILL, LDMX, LEASAT, SNS, SVN, TACSAT, TRANSEC, DONCAF, EAM, DSCS, DSNET1, DSNET2, DSNET3, ECCM, EIP, EKMS, EKMC, DDN, DDP, Merlin, NTT, SL-1, Rolm, TIE, Tie-fighter, PBX, SLI, NTT, MSCJ, MIT, 69, RIT, Time, MSEE, Cable & Wireless, CSE, SUW, J2, Embassy, ETA, Porno, Fax, finks, Fax encryption, white noise, Fernspah, MYK, GAFE, forcast, import, rain, tiger, buzzer, N9, pink noise, CRA, M.P.R.I., top secret, Mossberg, 50BMG, Macintosh Security, Macintosh Internet Security, OC3, Macintosh Firewalls, Unix Security, VIP Protection, SIG, sweep, Medco, TRD, TDR, Z, sweeping, SURSAT, 5926, TELINT, Audiotel, Harvard, 1080H, SWS, Asset, Satellite imagery, force, NAIAG, Cypherpunks, NARF, 127, Coderpunks, TRW, remailers, replay, redheads, RX-7, explicit, FLAME, J-6, Pornstars, AVN, Playboy, ISSSP, Anonymous, W, Sex, chaining, codes, Nuclear, 20, subversives, SLIP, toad, fish, data havens, unix, c, a, b, d, SUBACS, the, Elvis, quiche, DES, 1*, N-ISDN, NLSP, OTAR, OTAT, OTCIXS, MISSI, MOSAIC, NAVCOMPARS, NCTS, NESP, MILSATCOM, AUTODIN, BLACKER, C3I, C4I, CMS, CMW, CP, SBU, SCCN, SITOR, SHF/DOD, Finksburg MD, Link 16, LATA, NATIA, NATOA, sneakers, UXO, (), OC-12, counterintelligence, Shaldag, sport, NASA, TWA, DT, gtegsc, nowhere, .ch, hope, emc, industrial espionage, SUPIR, PI, TSCI, spookwords, industrial intelligence, H.N.P., SUAEWICS, Juiliett Class Submarine, Locks, qrss, loch, 64 Vauxhall Cross, Ingram Mac-10, wwics, sigvoice, ssa, E.O.D., SEMTEX, penrep, racal, OTP, OSS, Siemens, RPC, Met, CIA-DST, INI, watchers, keebler, contacts, Blowpipe, BTM, CCS, GSA, Kilo Class, squib, primacord, RSP, Z7, Becker, Nerd, fangs, Austin, no|d, Comirex, GPMG, Speakeasy, humint, GEODSS, SORO, M5, BROMURE, ANC, zone, SBI, DSS, S.A.I.C., Minox, Keyhole, SAR, Rand Corporation, Starr, Wackenhutt, EO, burhop, Wackendude, mol, Shelton, 2E781, F-22, 2010, JCET, cocaine, Vale, IG, Kosovo, Dake, 36,800, Hillal, Pesec, Hindawi, GGL, NAICC, CTU, botux, Virii, CCC, ISPE, CCSC, Scud, SecDef, Magdeyev, VOA, Kosiura, Small Pox, Tajik, +=, Blacklisted 411, TRDL, Internet Underground, BX, XS4ALL, wetsu, muezzin, Retinal Fetish, WIR, Fetish, FCA, Yobie, forschung, emm, ANZUS, Reprieve, NZC-332, edition, cards, mania, 701, CTP, CATO, Phon-e, Chicago Posse, NSDM, l0ck, beanpole, spook, keywords, QRR, PLA, TDYC, W3, CUD, CdC, Weekly World News, Zen, World Domination, Dead, GRU, M72750, Salsa, 7, Blowfish, Gorelick, Glock, Ft. 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Meade SEAL Team 6 Honduras PLO NSA terrorist Ft. Meade strategic supercomputer $400 million in gold bullion quiche Honduras BATF colonel Treasury domestic disruption SEAL Team 6 class struggle smuggle M55 M51 Physical Security Division Room 2A0120, OPS 2A building 688-6911(b), 963-3371(s). Security Awareness Division (M56) Field Security Division (M52) Al Amn al-Askari Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI) Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti Federalnaia sluzhba besopasnosti GCHQ MI5 Kill the president
Waihopai, INFOSEC, Information Security, Information Warfare, IW, IS, Priavacy, Information Terrorism, Terrorism Defensive Information, Defense Information Warfare, Offensive Information, Offensive Information Warfare, National Information Infrastructure, InfoSec, Reno, Compsec, Computer Terrorism, Firewalls, Secure Internet Connections, ISS, Passwords, DefCon V, Hackers, Encryption, Espionage, USDOJ, NSA, CIA, S/Key, SSL, FBI, Secert Service, USSS, Defcon, Military, White House, Undercover, NCCS, Mayfly, PGP, PEM, RSA, Perl-RSA, MSNBC, bet, AOL, AOL TOS, CIS, CBOT, AIMSX, STARLAN, 3B2, BITNET, COSMOS, DATTA, E911, FCIC, HTCIA, IACIS, UT/RUS, JANET, JICC, ReMOB, LEETAC, UTU, VNET, BRLO, BZ, CANSLO, CBNRC, CIDA, JAVA, Active X, Compsec 97, LLC, DERA, Mavricks, Meta-hackers, ^?, Steve Case, Tools, Telex, Military Intelligence, Scully, Flame, Infowar, Bubba, Freeh, Archives, Sundevil, jack, Investigation, ISACA, NCSA, spook words, Verisign, Secure, ASIO, Lebed, ICE, NRO, Lexis-Nexis, NSCT, SCIF, FLiR, Lacrosse, Flashbangs, HRT, DIA, USCOI, CID, BOP, FINCEN, FLETC, NIJ, ACC, AFSPC, BMDO, NAVWAN, NRL, RL, NAVWCWPNS, NSWC, USAFA, AHPCRC, ARPA, LABLINK, USACIL, USCG, NRC, ~, CDC, DOE, FMS, HPCC, NTIS, SEL, USCODE, CISE, SIRC, CIM, ISN, DJC, SGC, UNCPCJ, CFC, DREO, CDA, DRA, SHAPE, SACLANT, BECCA, DCJFTF, HALO, HAHO, FKS, 868, GCHQ, DITSA, SORT, AMEMB, NSG, HIC, EDI, SAS, SBS, UDT, GOE, DOE, GEO, Masuda, Forte, AT, GIGN, Exon Shell, CQB, CONUS, CTU, RCMP, GRU, SASR, GSG-9, 22nd SAS, GEOS, EADA, BBE, STEP, Echelon, Dictionary, MD2, MD4, MDA, MYK, 747,777, 767, MI5, 737, MI6, 757, Kh-11, Shayet-13, SADMS, Spetznaz, Recce, 707, CIO, NOCS, Halcon, Duress, RAID, Psyops, grom, D-11, SERT, VIP, ARC, S.E.T. 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Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Coast Guard (USCG), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Border Patrol, Secret Service (USSS), National Operations Center (NOC), Homeland Defense, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Agent, Task Force, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Fusion Center, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Secure Border Initiative (SBI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Air Marshal, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), National Guard, Red Cross, United Nations (UN), Domestic Security, Assassination, Attack, Domestic security, Drill, Exercise, Cops, Law enforcement, Authorities, Disaster assistance, Disaster management, DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office), National preparedness, Mitigation, Prevention, Response, Recovery, Dirty Bomb, Domestic nuclear detection, Emergency management, Emergency response, First responder, Homeland security, Maritime domain awareness (MDA), National preparedness initiative, Militia, Shooting, Shots fired, Evacuation, Deaths, Hostage, Explosion (explosive), Police, Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT), Organized crime, Gangs, National security, State of emergency, Security, Breach, Threat, Standoff, SWAT, Screening, Lockdown, Bomb (squad or threat), Crash, Looting, Riot, Emergency Landing, Pipe bomb, Incident, Facility, HAZMAT and Nuclear, Hazmat, Nuclear, Chemical Spill, Suspicious package/device, Toxic, National laboratory, Nuclear facility, Nuclear threat, Cloud, Plume, Radiation, Radioactive, Leak, Biological infection (or event), Chemical, Chemical burn, Biological, Epidemic, Hazardous, Hazardous material incident, Industrial spill, Infection, Powder (white), Gas, Spillover, Anthrax, Blister agent, Exposure, Burn, Nerve agent, Ricin, Sarin, North Korea, Health Concern + H1N1, Outbreak, Contamination, Exposure, Virus, Evacuation, Bacteria, Recall, Ebola, Food Poisoning, Foot and Mouth (FMD), H5N1, Avian, Flu, Salmonella, Small Pox, Plague, Human to human, Human to ANIMAL, Influenza, Center for Disease Control (CDC), Drug Administration (FDA), Public Health, Toxic, Agro Terror, Tuberculosis (TB), Agriculture, Listeria, Symptoms, Mutation, Resistant, Antiviral, Wave, Pandemic, Infection, Water/air borne, Sick, Swine, Pork, Strain, Quarantine, H1N1, Vaccine, Tamiflu, Norvo Virus, Epidemic, World Health Organization (WHO and components), Viral Hemorrhagic Fever, E. 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Team, NSWG, MP5k, SATKA, DREC, DEVGRP, DSD, FDM, GRU, LRTS, SIGDEV, NACSI, MEU/SOC,PSAC, PTT, RFI, ZL31, SIGDASYS, TDM. SUKLO, Schengen, SUSLO, TELINT, fake, TEXTA. ELF, LF, MF, Mafia, JASSM, CALCM, TLAM, Wipeout, GII, SIW, MEII, C2W, Burns, Tomlinson, Ufologico Nazionale, Centro, CICAP, MIR, Belknap, Tac, rebels, BLU-97 A/B, 007, nowhere.ch, bronze, Rubin, Arnett, BLU, SIGS, VHF, Recon, peapod, PA598D28, Spall, dort, 50MZ, 11Emc Choe, SATCOMA, UHF, The Hague, SHF, ASIO, SASP, WANK, Colonel, domestic disruption, 5ESS, smuggle, Z-200, 15kg, DUVDEVAN, RFX, nitrate, OIR, Pretoria, M-14, enigma, Bletchley Park, Clandestine, NSO, nkvd, argus, afsatcom, CQB, NVD, Counter Terrorism Security, Enemy of the State, SARA, Rapid Reaction, JSOFC3IP, Corporate Security, 192.47.242.7, Baldwin, Wilma, ie.org, cospo.osis.gov, Police, Dateline, Tyrell, KMI, 1ee, Pod, 9705 Samford Road, 20755-6000, sniper, PPS, ASIS, ASLET, TSCM, Security Consulting, M-x spook, Z-150T, Steak Knife, High Security, Security Evaluation, Electronic Surveillance, MI-17, ISR, NSAS, Counterterrorism, real, spies, IWO, eavesdropping, debugging, CCSS, interception, COCOT, NACSI, rhost, rhosts, ASO, SETA, Amherst, Broadside, Capricorn, NAVCM, Gamma, Gorizont, Guppy, NSS, rita, ISSO, submiss, ASDIC, .tc, 2EME REP, FID, 7NL SBS, tekka, captain, 226, .45, nonac, .li, Tony Poe, MJ-12, JASON, Society, Hmong, Majic, evil, zipgun, tax, bootleg, warez, TRV, ERV, rednoise, mindwar, nailbomb, VLF, ULF, Paperclip, Chatter, MKULTRA, MKDELTA, Bluebird, MKNAOMI, White Yankee, MKSEARCH, 355 ML, Adriatic, Goldman, Ionosphere, Mole, Keyhole, NABS, Kilderkin, Artichoke, Badger, Emerson, Tzvrif, SDIS, T2S2, STTC, DNR, NADDIS, NFLIS, CFD, BLU-114/B, quarter, Cornflower, Daisy, Egret, Iris, JSOTF, Hollyhock, Jasmine, Juile, Vinnell, B.D.M., Sphinx, Stephanie, Reflection, Spoke, Talent, Trump, FX, FXR, IMF, POCSAG, rusers, Covert Video, Intiso, r00t, lock picking, Beyond Hope, LASINT, csystems, .tm, passwd, 2600 Magazine, JUWTF, Competitor, EO, Chan, Pathfinders, SEAL Team 3, JTF, Nash, ISSAA, B61-11, Alouette, executive, Event Security, Mace, Cap-Stun, stakeout, ninja, ASIS, ISA, EOD, Oscor, Tarawa, COSMOS-2224, COSTIND, hit word, hitword, Hitwords, Regli, VBS, Leuken-Baden, number key, Zimmerwald, DDPS, GRS, AGT. AMME, ANDVT, Type I, Type II, VFCT, VGPL, WHCA, WSA, WSP, WWABNCP, ZNI1, FSK, FTS2000, GOSIP, GOTS, SACS STU-III, PRF, PMSP, PCMT, I&A, JRSC, ITSDN, Keyer, KG-84C, KWT-46, KWR-46, KY-75, KYV-5, LHR, PARKHILL, LDMX, LEASAT, SNS, SVN, TACSAT, TRANSEC, DONCAF, EAM, DSCS, DSNET1, DSNET2, DSNET3, ECCM, EIP, EKMS, EKMC, DDN, DDP, Merlin, NTT, SL-1, Rolm, TIE, Tie-fighter, PBX, SLI, NTT, MSCJ, MIT, 69, RIT, Time, MSEE, Cable & Wireless, CSE, SUW, J2, Embassy, ETA, Porno, Fax, finks, Fax encryption, white noise, Fernspah, MYK, GAFE, forcast, import, rain, tiger, buzzer, N9, pink noise, CRA, M.P.R.I., top secret, Mossberg, 50BMG, Macintosh Security, Macintosh Internet Security, OC3, Macintosh Firewalls, Unix Security, VIP Protection, SIG, sweep, Medco, TRD, TDR, Z, sweeping, SURSAT, 5926, TELINT, Audiotel, Harvard, 1080H, SWS, Asset, Satellite imagery, force, NAIAG, Cypherpunks, NARF, 127, Coderpunks, TRW, remailers, replay, redheads, RX-7, explicit, FLAME, J-6, Pornstars, AVN, Playboy, ISSSP, Anonymous, W, Sex, chaining, codes, Nuclear, 20, subversives, SLIP, toad, fish, data havens, unix, c, a, b, d, SUBACS, the, Elvis, quiche, DES, 1*, N-ISDN, NLSP, OTAR, OTAT, OTCIXS, MISSI, MOSAIC, NAVCOMPARS, NCTS, NESP, MILSATCOM, AUTODIN, BLACKER, C3I, C4I, CMS, CMW, CP, SBU, SCCN, SITOR, SHF/DOD, Finksburg MD, Link 16, LATA, NATIA, NATOA, sneakers, UXO, (), OC-12, counterintelligence, Shaldag, sport, NASA, TWA, DT, gtegsc, nowhere, .ch, hope, emc, industrial espionage, SUPIR, PI, TSCI, spookwords, industrial intelligence, H.N.P., SUAEWICS, Juiliett Class Submarine, Locks, qrss, loch, 64 Vauxhall Cross, Ingram Mac-10, wwics, sigvoice, ssa, E.O.D., SEMTEX, penrep, racal, OTP, OSS, Siemens, RPC, Met, CIA-DST, INI, watchers, keebler, contacts, Blowpipe, BTM, CCS, GSA, Kilo Class, squib, primacord, RSP, Z7, Becker, Nerd, fangs, Austin, no|d, Comirex, GPMG, Speakeasy, humint, GEODSS, SORO, M5, BROMURE, ANC, zone, SBI, DSS, S.A.I.C., Minox, Keyhole, SAR, Rand Corporation, Starr, Wackenhutt, EO, burhop, Wackendude, mol, Shelton, 2E781, F-22, 2010, JCET, cocaine, Vale, IG, Kosovo, Dake, 36,800, Hillal, Pesec, Hindawi, GGL, NAICC, CTU, botux, Virii, CCC, ISPE, CCSC, Scud, SecDef, Magdeyev, VOA, Kosiura, Small Pox, Tajik, +=, Blacklisted 411, TRDL, Internet Underground, BX, XS4ALL, wetsu, muezzin, Retinal Fetish, WIR, Fetish, FCA, Yobie, forschung, emm, ANZUS, Reprieve, NZC-332, edition, cards, mania, 701, CTP, CATO, Phon-e, Chicago Posse, NSDM, l0ck, beanpole, spook, keywords, QRR, PLA, TDYC, W3, CUD, CdC, Weekly World News, Zen, World Domination, Dead, GRU, M72750, Salsa, 7, Blowfish, Gorelick, Glock, Ft. Meade, NSWT, press-release, WISDIM, burned, Indigo, wire transfer, e-cash, Bubba the Love Sponge, Enforcers, Digicash, zip, SWAT, Ortega, PPP, NACSE, crypto-anarchy, AT&T, SGI, SUN, MCI, Blacknet, ISM, JCE, Middleman, KLM, Blackbird, NSV, GQ360, X400, Texas, jihad, SDI, BRIGAND, Uzi, Fort Meade, *&, gchq.gov.uk, supercomputer, bullion, 3, NTTC, Blackmednet, :, Propaganda, ABC, Satellite phones, IWIS, Planet-1, ISTA, rs9512c, Jiang Zemin, South Africa, Sergeyev, Montenegro, Toeffler, Rebollo, sorot, Yucca Mountain, FARC, Toth, Xu Yongyue, Bach, Razor, AC, cryptanalysis, nuclear, 52 52 N - 03 03 W, Morgan, Canine, GEBA, INSCOM, MEMEX, Stanley, FBI, Panama, fissionable, Sears Tower, NORAD, Delta Force, SEAL, virtual, WASS, WID, Dolch, secure shell, screws, Black-Ops, O/S, Area51, SABC, basement, ISWG, $@, data-haven, NSDD, black-bag, rack, TEMPEST, Goodwin, rebels, ID, MD5, IDEA, garbage, market, beef, Stego, ISAF, unclassified, Sayeret Tzanhanim, PARASAR, Gripan, pirg, curly, Taiwan, guest, utopia, NSG, orthodox, CCSQ, Alica, SHA, Global, gorilla, Bob, UNSCOM, Fukuyama, Manfurov, Kvashnin, Marx, Abdurahmon, snullen, Pseudonyms, MITM, NARF, Gray Data, VLSI, mega, Leitrim, Yakima, NSES, Sugar Grove, WAS, Cowboy, Gist, 8182, Gatt, Platform, 1911, Geraldton, UKUSA, veggie, XM, Parvus, NAVSVS, 3848, Morwenstow, Consul, Oratory, Pine Gap, Menwith, Mantis, DSD, BVD, 1984, blow out, BUDS, WQC, Flintlock, PABX, Electron, Chicago Crust, e95, DDR&E, 3M, KEDO, iButton, R1, erco, Toffler, FAS, RHL, K3, Visa/BCC, SNT, Ceridian, STE, condor, CipherTAC-2000, Etacs, Shipiro, ssor, piz, fritz, KY, 32, Edens, Kiwis, Kamumaruha, DODIG, Firefly, HRM, Albright, Bellcore, rail, csim, NMS, 2c, FIPS140-1, CAVE, E-Bomb, CDMA, Fortezza, 355ml, ISSC, cybercash, NAWAS, government, NSY, hate, speedbump, joe, illuminati, BOSS, Kourou, Misawa, Morse, HF, P415, ladylove, filofax, Gulf, lamma, Unit 5707, Sayeret Mat'Kal, Unit 669, Sayeret Golani, Lanceros, Summercon, NSADS, president, ISFR, freedom, ISSO, walburn, Defcon VI, DC6, Larson, P99, HERF pipe-bomb, 2.3 Oz., cocaine, $, imapct, Roswell, ESN, COS, E.T., credit card, b9, fraud, ST1, assasinate, virus, ISCS, ISPR, anarchy, rogue, mailbomb, 888, Chelsea, 1997, Whitewater, MOD, York, plutonium, William Gates, clone, BATF, SGDN, Nike, WWSV, Atlas, IWWSVCS, Delta, TWA, Kiwi, PGP 2.6.2., PGP 5.0i, PGP 5.1, siliconpimp, SASSTIXS, IWG, Lynch, 414, Face, Pixar, IRIDF, NSRB, eternity server, Skytel, Yukon, Templeton, Johohonbu, LUK, Cohiba, Soros, Standford, niche, ISEP, ISEC, 51, H&K, USP, , sardine, bank, EUB, USP, PCS, NRO, Red Cell, NSOF, DC7, Glock 26, snuffle, Patel, package, ISI, INR, INS, GRU, RUOP, GSS, NSP, SRI, Ronco, Armani, BOSS, Chobetsu, FBIS, BND, SISDE, FSB, BfV, IB, froglegs, JITEM, SADF, advise, TUSA, LITE, PKK, HoHoCon, SISMI, ISG, FIS, MSW, Spyderco, UOP, SSCI, NIMA, HAMASMOIS, SVR, SIN, advisors, SAP, Monica, OAU, PFS, Aladdin, AG, chameleon man, Hutsul, CESID, Bess, rail gun, .375, Peering, CSC, Tangimoana Beach, Commecen, Vanuatu, Kwajalein, LHI, DRM, GSGI, DST, MITI, JERTO, SDF, Koancho, Blenheim, Rivera, Kyudanki, varon, 310, 17, 312, NB, CBM, CTP, Sardine, SBIRS, jaws, SGDN, ADIU, DEADBEEF, IDP, IDF, Halibut, SONANGOL, Flu, &, Loin, PGP 5.53, meta, Faber, SFPD, EG&G, ISEP, blackjack, Fox, Aum, AIEWS, AMW, RHL, Baranyi, WORM, MP5K-SD, 1071, WINGS, cdi, VIA, DynCorp, UXO, Ti, WWSP, WID, osco, Mary, honor, Templar, THAAD, package, CISD, ISG, BIOLWPN, JRA, ISB, ISDS, chosen, LBSD, van, schloss, secops, DCSS, DPSD, LIF, J-Star, PRIME, SURVIAC, telex, Analyzer, embassy, Golf, B61-7, Maple, Tokyo, ERR, SBU, Threat, JPL, Tess, SE, Alex, EPL, SPINTCOM, FOUO, ISS-ADP, Merv, Mexico, SUR, blocks, SO13, Rojdykarna, RSOC, USS Banner, S511, 20755, airframe, jya.com, Furby, PECSENC, football, Agfa, 3210, Crowell, moore, 510, OADR, Smith, toffee, FIS, N5P6, EuroFed, SP4, shelter, Crypto AG Croatian nuclear FBI colonel plutonium Ortega Waco, Texas Panama CIA DES jihad fissionable quiche terrorist World Trade Center assassination DES NORAD Delta Force Waco, Texas SDI explosion Serbian Panama Uzi Ft. Meade SEAL Team 6 Honduras PLO NSA terrorist Ft. Meade strategic supercomputer $400 million in gold bullion quiche Honduras BATF colonel Treasury domestic disruption SEAL Team 6 class struggle smuggle M55 M51 Physical Security Division Room 2A0120, OPS 2A building 688-6911(b), 963-3371(s). Security Awareness Division (M56) Field Security Division (M52) Al Amn al-Askari Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI) Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti Federalnaia sluzhba besopasnosti GCHQ MI5 Kill the president
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Why Privacy Matters
The NSA spying ordeal, UK destroying the Guardian's disk drives (useless as that was), and in general the US's and all the other Five Eyes nations' responses to the Snowden leaks is not merely "bad" -- it is outright evil.
Even if you don't mind nor care about the spying, or are bothered but not enough to do anything, I want to explain why it's such deep concern to me. I recognize that I live in one of the safest places on the planet, am better off than the vast majority of the world, during the most prosperous and safest times in the whole of human history, and that there are hundreds of people in the world dying every day simply because they don't have clean drinking water. This spying thing isn't the most pressing concern for most people. I get that. But for the "civilized" world, and those who aren't focused on more pressing concerns, this spying and the reaction of governments to it should be considered an egregious violation. It is evil. I have a big problem with it and you should too.
First, and least important, there's its (lack of) usefulness. There's evidence showing that it's mostly useless, which is good because if it was REALLY effective, there might actually be merrit to saying we should just let it happen. But that's not the case, and I point out the problems with that in another facebook post where I talk about the actual real world effectiveness of a 99% effective terrorist-finding algorithm... In short, terrorism is such a small problem that inconveniencing or harming people over finding and thwarting it does *significantly* more damage to innocent people than *actual terrorism*.
But let's forget about the uselessness and even the possibility that the spying and other anti-terrorism efforts do more harm than good. Let's, for the moment, assume they do a little bit of net positive. Now we can get closer to the heart of the issue, because the problem with all the spying is NOT its (lack of) effectiveness...
Maybe you are gay in Russia or large parts of Africa and the Middle East, and being found out means fines, imprisonment, or worse. Maybe you are a political dissident, not even necessarily planning revolution or violence-- just trying to have an intelligent discussion about cause and effect and social policy and the possible merits of aspects of Communism in the USA in the 50's.
These are the main examples people give when defending privacy-- that the laws and morals of a place may not be ethical and that privacy is necessary because it protects people from injustice in unjust places. This may be political climate, corruption of local powers (police, businesses, whatever), or it may simply be an individual who doesn't wish for his medical history or religious or political views to be known by the world, even if he's got nothing to hide from the powers that be.
But it goes a bit further. You might not be a dissident or have anything to hide-- but the problem is that may not be true *in the future*. Back to my 50s USA Communist example-- lets say you were advocating Communism in the 30s and that was all well and good, and heck in the wake of the Depression, many might have agreed with you. Suddenly 20 years later you are before a judge as a possible threat to national security for something that you were never trying to hide.
But none of this is the real problem.
You read that right, none of that is the problem, not by a long shot.
The problem with the NSA scandal and the way it has been handled lies at the core of why privacy for individuals is so important: being spied upon fundamentally alters the way you think. You begin to censor yourself without any coercion besides knowing that you are being watched. The very thoughts you have and your reactions to them change. The owner of Groklaw.net, who is shutting the site down, analogized it to having your home being broken into even if nothing was stolen. Knowing a stranger had seen your family photos, riffled through your things, had been in your home-- had penetrated the very area that you go to in order to be safe... suddenly the world seems a lot scarier.
The same goes for your phone, e-mails, internet activity, et cetera.
You may not be planning a terrorist attack, but are still curious about how nuclear bombs work, because heck, it's kind of fascinating to think about a chain reaction of one molecule bombarding others and releasing energy and particles that continue bombarding and so forth. Or you may want to write a story that involves a bomb and you want to get the details right.
Then you remember. They are watching. Merely typing in Google what you are about to type will almost certainly flag you somewhere. You aren't doing anything wrong, but *They* don't know that. Is it really worth getting on a database somewhere, potentially putting your family through an annoying situation? Maybe bombs *aren't* that interesting. Maybe your story *shouldn't* have that it in.
Suddenly, instead of being safe in your own person and in your own *MIND*, you have become a prisoner. It's not overt. You aren't getting rounded up. Heck, YOU aren't even doing anything wrong, or at least not something that the government in your physical location *thinks* is wrong. But still, that nagging feeling. That little bit of anxiousness.
And that's just for people in FREE countries who are under the least authoritarian regimes in all of history.
This is why privacy for individuals is so so very important and worth protecting at heavy cost, and why transparency in institutions like businesses and governments is so so important and worth demanding and fighting for at even heavy cost. Accountability and transparency so the individual knows what is going on and what to expect and that violations of laws and trust are rightly punishment-- those things are what allows the individual to be free. Privacy for the individual and transparency of institutions are ends in themselves certainly-- they protect us in a *provable* and *verifiable* way that, but additionally, they are ends to even more important means-- they actually enable true and genuine freedom, both in terms of physical safety as well as psychological well being.
So what does it do to a citizen of the USA or the UK when the President goes on Leno and says no spying is occurring when we have hard data that says it is? What does it make us think and feel when James Clapper and others outright lie to Congress and are not punished? What does it do to us when the UK destroys the hard drives at the Guardian? When Manning and Snowden and Assange are on trial or hunted? When the Manning prosecutor is pushing for the death penalty for aiding the enemy?
This is why I am such a staunch advocate of utilizing encryption and other privacy tools. It's not so much about "fuck the Man" (although, FUCK the Man!) as it is about trying to preserve freedom and safety, of my person and my mind, and also showing others how to preserve THEIR safety and peace of mind. Privacy for the individual and transparency of institutions are not merely ends of themselves, they matter because actually being free is only possible with them. And I'm grateful for people like Glenn Greenwald, who committed the egregious crime of domestic journalism.
Even if you don't mind nor care about the spying, or are bothered but not enough to do anything, I want to explain why it's such deep concern to me. I recognize that I live in one of the safest places on the planet, am better off than the vast majority of the world, during the most prosperous and safest times in the whole of human history, and that there are hundreds of people in the world dying every day simply because they don't have clean drinking water. This spying thing isn't the most pressing concern for most people. I get that. But for the "civilized" world, and those who aren't focused on more pressing concerns, this spying and the reaction of governments to it should be considered an egregious violation. It is evil. I have a big problem with it and you should too.
First, and least important, there's its (lack of) usefulness. There's evidence showing that it's mostly useless, which is good because if it was REALLY effective, there might actually be merrit to saying we should just let it happen. But that's not the case, and I point out the problems with that in another facebook post where I talk about the actual real world effectiveness of a 99% effective terrorist-finding algorithm... In short, terrorism is such a small problem that inconveniencing or harming people over finding and thwarting it does *significantly* more damage to innocent people than *actual terrorism*.
But let's forget about the uselessness and even the possibility that the spying and other anti-terrorism efforts do more harm than good. Let's, for the moment, assume they do a little bit of net positive. Now we can get closer to the heart of the issue, because the problem with all the spying is NOT its (lack of) effectiveness...
Maybe you are gay in Russia or large parts of Africa and the Middle East, and being found out means fines, imprisonment, or worse. Maybe you are a political dissident, not even necessarily planning revolution or violence-- just trying to have an intelligent discussion about cause and effect and social policy and the possible merits of aspects of Communism in the USA in the 50's.
These are the main examples people give when defending privacy-- that the laws and morals of a place may not be ethical and that privacy is necessary because it protects people from injustice in unjust places. This may be political climate, corruption of local powers (police, businesses, whatever), or it may simply be an individual who doesn't wish for his medical history or religious or political views to be known by the world, even if he's got nothing to hide from the powers that be.
But it goes a bit further. You might not be a dissident or have anything to hide-- but the problem is that may not be true *in the future*. Back to my 50s USA Communist example-- lets say you were advocating Communism in the 30s and that was all well and good, and heck in the wake of the Depression, many might have agreed with you. Suddenly 20 years later you are before a judge as a possible threat to national security for something that you were never trying to hide.
But none of this is the real problem.
You read that right, none of that is the problem, not by a long shot.
The problem with the NSA scandal and the way it has been handled lies at the core of why privacy for individuals is so important: being spied upon fundamentally alters the way you think. You begin to censor yourself without any coercion besides knowing that you are being watched. The very thoughts you have and your reactions to them change. The owner of Groklaw.net, who is shutting the site down, analogized it to having your home being broken into even if nothing was stolen. Knowing a stranger had seen your family photos, riffled through your things, had been in your home-- had penetrated the very area that you go to in order to be safe... suddenly the world seems a lot scarier.
The same goes for your phone, e-mails, internet activity, et cetera.
You may not be planning a terrorist attack, but are still curious about how nuclear bombs work, because heck, it's kind of fascinating to think about a chain reaction of one molecule bombarding others and releasing energy and particles that continue bombarding and so forth. Or you may want to write a story that involves a bomb and you want to get the details right.
Then you remember. They are watching. Merely typing in Google what you are about to type will almost certainly flag you somewhere. You aren't doing anything wrong, but *They* don't know that. Is it really worth getting on a database somewhere, potentially putting your family through an annoying situation? Maybe bombs *aren't* that interesting. Maybe your story *shouldn't* have that it in.
Suddenly, instead of being safe in your own person and in your own *MIND*, you have become a prisoner. It's not overt. You aren't getting rounded up. Heck, YOU aren't even doing anything wrong, or at least not something that the government in your physical location *thinks* is wrong. But still, that nagging feeling. That little bit of anxiousness.
And that's just for people in FREE countries who are under the least authoritarian regimes in all of history.
This is why privacy for individuals is so so very important and worth protecting at heavy cost, and why transparency in institutions like businesses and governments is so so important and worth demanding and fighting for at even heavy cost. Accountability and transparency so the individual knows what is going on and what to expect and that violations of laws and trust are rightly punishment-- those things are what allows the individual to be free. Privacy for the individual and transparency of institutions are ends in themselves certainly-- they protect us in a *provable* and *verifiable* way that, but additionally, they are ends to even more important means-- they actually enable true and genuine freedom, both in terms of physical safety as well as psychological well being.
So what does it do to a citizen of the USA or the UK when the President goes on Leno and says no spying is occurring when we have hard data that says it is? What does it make us think and feel when James Clapper and others outright lie to Congress and are not punished? What does it do to us when the UK destroys the hard drives at the Guardian? When Manning and Snowden and Assange are on trial or hunted? When the Manning prosecutor is pushing for the death penalty for aiding the enemy?
This is why I am such a staunch advocate of utilizing encryption and other privacy tools. It's not so much about "fuck the Man" (although, FUCK the Man!) as it is about trying to preserve freedom and safety, of my person and my mind, and also showing others how to preserve THEIR safety and peace of mind. Privacy for the individual and transparency of institutions are not merely ends of themselves, they matter because actually being free is only possible with them. And I'm grateful for people like Glenn Greenwald, who committed the egregious crime of domestic journalism.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Life is good!
Well it's been an interesting past nine months or so. It's a bit sadder viewing the world in a slightly darker light, but I'm trying to be a bit more upbeat and less emo than my last post here made me seem! Some relationships have fizzled or been cut, but the ones I still have I think are better and stronger because they are based on mutual appreciation and both sides know the other will speak up when they want something.
I'm online, and have been trying to hone my PLO skills playing low stakes omaha, and Stars just introduced their version of Rush poker, “Zoom,” which works very well. As my former coach described it “it's brilliant; it allows one-tabling fish to multitable!” I also like it because it allows you to re-use the same old postflop moves over and over without people catching on, and you can also manipulate your stats without people looking. (Now I can ship the turn or the river light EVERY TIME completely unbalanced, and very few people will notice. I can also min 3-bet all my playable hands against middle and late openers, and then get paid huge when I re-pop aces full pot from regs who I know have their HUD running.)
And without the weight of obligations that I previously had, I have been able to steadily make my own life situation much more tolerable, and even good! I've made many new friends and poker connections, I've moved up a few levels in stakes, I have some staking offers and people who would eagerly be students, I've played in ungodly high stakes private home games... just lots of craziness, but good craziness, happening poker-wise.
I also went back to New Zealand to visit my dad, and once again, had enormous trouble with my step-mom. I thought that since I paid for the trip she would be better, seeing me able to support myself better, but that was not the case. She apparently just does not approve of anything about me or who I am as a person, and I've decided that she's just not a person I care about or want in my life. I love my dad and he deserves to be happy, and she makes him happy (apparently, some how!), so I'm grateful to her for that, but I'm done with my efforts to include her in any way, shape or form in my life. Too bad. Other than her, New Zealand was fantastic and I once again had a fantastic time.
I'm also moving to the LA area which will be good for poker and for life. There's just not much to do in Vegas, and the culture and general attitude of the people is much less appealing than the LA culture/attitude, so I'm very excited. (And LA, in turn, has worse culture and attitude than New Zealand, where being laid back all the time, not wearing any shoes, and just generally relaxing and hanging out with people constitutes a full days work. Paradise!)
So, life is generally good. Keepin' on turckin'. I'm still playing a lot of poker, but I'm at a point where I feel like I'm starting to be able to work towards a good steady life, without much stress, not having to grind on my computer 10 hours a day 6 days a week making less than minimum wage just to barely pay my expenses each month. And I really enjoy the people I've been meeting. The new poker friends I've met are really good and decent people, and networked in the poker and entertainment world like crazy, and the people outside of poker are just generally good people whom I respect and enjoy. Life is good, and looking very much like it will get even better.
I probably still won't update this blog much. I got my twitter hooked up so I can send tweets via text message, and my facebook hooked up to automagically post my tweets on my fb wall, so now that I can just post things everywhere with a single text message, I will probably update those more often (and still not post anything on here more than once or twice a year!).
So yeah, life is good!
I'm online, and have been trying to hone my PLO skills playing low stakes omaha, and Stars just introduced their version of Rush poker, “Zoom,” which works very well. As my former coach described it “it's brilliant; it allows one-tabling fish to multitable!” I also like it because it allows you to re-use the same old postflop moves over and over without people catching on, and you can also manipulate your stats without people looking. (Now I can ship the turn or the river light EVERY TIME completely unbalanced, and very few people will notice. I can also min 3-bet all my playable hands against middle and late openers, and then get paid huge when I re-pop aces full pot from regs who I know have their HUD running.)
And without the weight of obligations that I previously had, I have been able to steadily make my own life situation much more tolerable, and even good! I've made many new friends and poker connections, I've moved up a few levels in stakes, I have some staking offers and people who would eagerly be students, I've played in ungodly high stakes private home games... just lots of craziness, but good craziness, happening poker-wise.
I also went back to New Zealand to visit my dad, and once again, had enormous trouble with my step-mom. I thought that since I paid for the trip she would be better, seeing me able to support myself better, but that was not the case. She apparently just does not approve of anything about me or who I am as a person, and I've decided that she's just not a person I care about or want in my life. I love my dad and he deserves to be happy, and she makes him happy (apparently, some how!), so I'm grateful to her for that, but I'm done with my efforts to include her in any way, shape or form in my life. Too bad. Other than her, New Zealand was fantastic and I once again had a fantastic time.
I'm also moving to the LA area which will be good for poker and for life. There's just not much to do in Vegas, and the culture and general attitude of the people is much less appealing than the LA culture/attitude, so I'm very excited. (And LA, in turn, has worse culture and attitude than New Zealand, where being laid back all the time, not wearing any shoes, and just generally relaxing and hanging out with people constitutes a full days work. Paradise!)
So, life is generally good. Keepin' on turckin'. I'm still playing a lot of poker, but I'm at a point where I feel like I'm starting to be able to work towards a good steady life, without much stress, not having to grind on my computer 10 hours a day 6 days a week making less than minimum wage just to barely pay my expenses each month. And I really enjoy the people I've been meeting. The new poker friends I've met are really good and decent people, and networked in the poker and entertainment world like crazy, and the people outside of poker are just generally good people whom I respect and enjoy. Life is good, and looking very much like it will get even better.
I probably still won't update this blog much. I got my twitter hooked up so I can send tweets via text message, and my facebook hooked up to automagically post my tweets on my fb wall, so now that I can just post things everywhere with a single text message, I will probably update those more often (and still not post anything on here more than once or twice a year!).
So yeah, life is good!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
On the Resonsibility of Freedom
A lot has happened to me over the last couple of years. Although I moved back to Las Vegas in an attempt to stand on my own two feet and grow up and become free, earning my own freedom, I had only partially succeeded. And each year since I moved here, I felt like I was on pace to become fully independent and free to act and do as I saw fit, but each year, I had failed and fallen back down to approximately where I was when I got here.
My mom was paying for my health insurance, and my dad paid to have me fly to visit him and my step mom. I was still living by the grace of others, and as unacceptable as I found that state, I always felt like at the very least I was working towards breaking away from that and being able to be financially independent. In fact, in the fall of last year, I was doing so well financially that I invited an old friend of mine who wasn't doing so well to come live with me. He was making his own way, but precariously, and his options were running out where he was, so we both thought that Las Vegas would be a great place to be—he, like myself, is a poker player, and having the casinos right here, as well as a bevy of potential students from the weekly discussions groups, and cheaper rent and shared utilities— this all was a much better setup for him. And I had a new comrade-in-arms to hit the poker tables with.
However, the weeks and months went by, and he did not attempt to utilize the new options available to him, and the money ran thinner and thinner, and eventually I was covering much of his cost of living. And this was at a point when, as I said, I was still not fully covering MYSELF completely. I was frustrated with his lack of effort, but at the same time, I tried not to interfere with his life and give him leeway. After all, I remember when I was up in Seattle looking for work, and I couldn't find any, and I felt completely helpless. I didn't know what I should be doing and why what I was doing wasn't working. I felt worthless and helpless and I had no idea how to change that.
Then came April 15th.
Suddenly everything was clear.
On April 15th, 2011 the United States Department of Justice seized the internet domain names of the three largest online poker sites in the world, and froze the bank accounts of their payment processors, all at once. One of my major life-lines had been completely severed. Author and poker professional Matt Matros summed it up decently: “It almost feels as if I’ve been stripped of one of my college degrees — as if a career skill I’ve been honing for all of my adult life is suddenly useless.”
I knew why they had been shut down—most people think it was some moral/political maneuver, but that's not the case. The Southern New York DOJ is famous for its relentless pursuit of money launderers, and there's really no easier method of transferring 5 or 6 figures anonymously than losing it at a game of poker. When it comes out of the account of the “winner” it is legitimate gambling winnings that can be spent freely without needing to be further laundered. For a $20 Western Union fee going in, $3 per hand rake, and $20 more in wire transfer fees going out, I can ship you a few hundred thousand dollars, and nobody can connect us together.
Regardless of the reasons, something in my brain clicked that day. This was unacceptable. My LIFE was unacceptable. As much as poker may be a conduit for money laundering, so is cash. So is the entire city of Las Vegas. And freedom of action, civil rights, must always take precedence over all other concerns when the rights of others are not infringed upon. This is when I realized WHY I was always agitated and WHY I always felt like I was struggling and WHY I found it so difficult to move ahead in life. I allowed the immoral to supersede my own judgment. But no more.
By April 17th, I had concocted a plan to get back online. I won't go into the details, but I will soon be playing poker online again. There will be no trace of it, or connection to me, other than this blog post. I will accurately report my taxes. I will not act immorally or harm others. I will simply do that which is accepted in nearly every other country in the world. I understand the risks of this endeavor and accept the consequences of my actions.
I had decided all of this within a few days of Black Friday, and I had also decided that I needed to cut off my “friend”. As bad as I felt for him, and as much as I know how helpless I felt, there were more factors that needed to be considered. Firstly, it was not only myself and my resources that I was expending. It got to the point where I was struggling enough that I felt like I needed to go begging at my mom's feet again. Now she has always supported me and come to not only accept but like the fact that I play poker, and she has been willing to support me financially when I needed it, and happily so, with the belief—the belief that I shared—that I would get on my feet soon enough. But when my choices were going to bleed over and start affecting her, that was unacceptable.
For the previous month or two, I had explained that my financial situation was getting dire, and I would barely make it until the World Series of Poker (which has been a nice annual boost, because I know I can deal there each year if I need the money), but still the effort was not increased. I had offered to teach him to deal in time for the WSOP, I had helped find him potential students, stakes him for games, but none of it was taken advantage of. Only I was taken advantage of. And THAT was unacceptable.
When I was in Seattle, feeling helpless, my mom was frustrated with me as well. She too felt like I should be making progress, and it got to the point where she said I had to do SOMETHING even if it was work at McDonald's, and that I couldn't live with her forever. That was the jolt I needed, and about a month later I had packed up and come back to Vegas and was going to try to make a go at poker.
I was very angry at her for that for a while, because I felt like I wasn't ready. But although, as I mentioned at the start of this post, I wasn't completely on my own two feet, I was at least partly there and making a darn good attempt. And I eventually was grateful to her for forcing me to “sink or swim” because I think I would have continued wading in the kiddie pool forever if she hadn't. I owe her a lot for that jolt into action.
With that in mind, and secure in the knowledge that my “friend” was not going to do any more than he had been doing, I informed him that I was cutting him off—I was moving out. I don't know what he's going to do, and I don't know if he knows either. All I know is that I can't afford the emotions or the finances he needs for support. He has drained me, and I let him do it.
My friend, do not try to find me or contact me; I will not be there. If you are to die in the street starving, I understand that is a possible outcome. If some day you understand why I feel not that I have abandoned YOU, but that YOU have abandoned ME, and if some day you understand why and how I can care about you while still being numb to what happens to you, and if some day you are standing yourself on your own two feet and wish to meet me on equal ground, and if some day you wish to share a friendship and knowledge that is of mutual benefit, then on that day I will want to be found by you and be your friend. I understand that that day may never come and that you may always be angry at me for what has happened, and blame everything but your own choices on how your life turns out. But I hope that is not the case.
I know I am not in the wrong. I have helped two other people prior to trying to help you. They both took advantage of the opportunity and got themselves back on their feet, and I am proud of what they've accomplished and who they are, and proud to be their friend. They did not view life as endless struggle, to be lived day by day with no forethought and with only the avoidance of today's pain in mind. They did not wait until the last minute to fix problems they knew about in advance and then claim to be so unlucky as to have the problem still exist after all this time. (And no, I will not remove or edit this post.)
ANYWAY....
So I had come up with a plan to get back online, and I had decided to move out—in short, I had realized that my own inability to stand fully on my own two feet was my acceptance of that state of being, and I had decided that was no longer acceptable.
Backtrack about a year and a half.
I went to New Zealand, on my dad's dime of course, to visit my dad and my step mom and see New Zealand for the first time. (South Island FTW!) I thoroughly enjoyed the trip but having then run me around all over to make sure I got to see all of it got tiring, and I requested a day or rest and hanging around home once or twice. Additionally, I didn't sleep well a few of the days, and was thus more concerned with when we were getting to the destination rather than the scenery.
Background info: My step mom has never liked me. She tolerated me because I was my father's son, and she loves my father. But she wholly disapproves of my view on life, my ethical standpoint, my lack of religion, my poker (gambling).... pretty much everything about me and who I am as a person. That's fine. She's allowed to think and go about life however she pleases. Although I disagree, I understand WHY she feels this way because I know what her world view is, and I can see why I appear to her the way I do. And besides, she makes my dad happy, and for that, I am eternally grateful. I have basically tried to just avoid communication with her because it seems that we end up in a disagreement every time we speak, so I feel that not talking was the cleanest way to handle things.
Now then, as I said, I was very much enjoying the New Zealand trip, but I was worn out for some of it, and I guess it showed. My step-mom wrote an exceedingly vile letter (because speaking out loud was too difficult) about how ungrateful I was, and basically how I was a little punk leaching off my dad and not properly appreciating the trip which he had paid for. The other main point of the letter was that I was a poor communicator and didn't attempt to engage her in conversation. As I said above, I thought not speaking was the best way to keep the peace, but apparently, she disagreed! (You can read it for yourself, Page 1 and Page 2.)
I have written a similarly vile letter. When I was in high school, I had a long distance relationship, which is certainly odd for being in high school, and my parents were concerned about it, and I wrote a long hate-filled diatribe about them, their separation, and who are they to judge me blah blah blah. I don't have a copy of it to link to, but I would happily show it if I had it, because I am rightly ashamed of it. I also don't expect my parents to forgive me for it. I love them, and I think they understand WHY I wrote it and how confused and angry I was when I wrote it, so although it was completely unacceptable and unforgivable, I know they at least know where it came from and that I have grown past such stupidity, and that I love them and appreciate them for who they are and all they have done for me.
Similarly, I understand why my step-mom felt the way she did, and the torment boiling inside of her that forced her to express such feelings. I do not forgive her for it, since she has never attempted to understand me and my life, and why I am proud of the person I am, while I have sought to understand her and her world view. But at the very least, I do understand why she feels the way she does, and I know that from that point of view, I am a gross outsider and a freak. An immoral and disrespectful person.
Normally, I show respect when I feel it is earned... and as I've said, I'm not the fondest of her and don't respect much of the way she approaches the world. But the thing is—she had a RIGHT to expect respect.
That's important, because it's the crux of my entire problem. I was relying on my dad and in part on her, not just financially, but in many respects. And because I was dependent on her, she felt she had a right to expect certain things from me. And you know what, she's right. When I was supporting my friend, I had a RIGHT to expect him to try and break free of my support. And if my step mom is in some way supporting me, she has a RIGHT to expect things of me.
Fast forward now to a few weeks ago. I was at a game night with some friends, and the wife of one of my poker buddies, in a completely off-hand comment mentioned that she thought I was a virgin. (My ego compels me to mention that I'm not, although seeing as how my mom is the most frequent reader of my blog, I'm not sure how grateful I am about my ego's desire to put that out there. Hooray for awkwardness!)
Anyhow, prideful as I am, I was a bit upset about this, but it only took a moment to realize that she ALSO had a right to this opinion. She's a smart lady, and I value her friendship and her opinions, and if she thought this of me, it was not a fault of hers, but of mine.
The image that I project to the world clearly is not the image I have of myself. And you know what? The image I have of myself just isn't accurate. My projection is my actions and my way of presenting myself, and those ARE who I am, so it is my own image of myself that needs adjusting. And who I really am is not who I want to be and who I thought I was. This women thinks I am a soft spoken computer geek virgin, and I think I am some kind of god. The problem is, she's closer to accurate than I am.
That is unacceptable.
Because she's RIGHT to think of me the way she does, and because my step mom was RIGHT to feel the way she did, and because I am RIGHT to leave my old friend in the dust, because of the moral code which makes these values real to me—my moral code—I needed to change who I was and how I approached my life. Being dependent on anybody else for my finances, for my happiness, for my well-being, for my LIFE, is unacceptable to me and will not stand any longer.
From this point forward, I will be responsible for my destiny. My life will be my own, completely and irreversibly. If that means when I go broke I work at McDonald's, then that's what it takes. I will at the very least still have my pride and my knowledge that I am doing what it takes to EARN my own way in this world, without relying on the charity of others. If I visit my dad in New Zealand this year, it will either be on my own dime, or with the understanding that he wishes to treat me to the trip as a gift, and that I am free to enjoy the gift as I see fit, and not in any manner that he expects of me. (To be fair and clear, he DOES already feel this way—it was only my step mom who didn't.)
In a similar vein, I have recently realized that I am no longer a liberal democrat. I am an anarchist. If I felt that government COULD work, I would still be a liberal. (The people who self-identify as the American Christian Conservative Right are the most evil and vile people whose way of existing actively harms the rest of humanity, and they should be fought fervently, whether you are for or against government.) But alas, I think the red-tape bureaucracy is too ineffectual to work, and acting in accordance with my morality of self-reliance, I have realized that I must live for myself, in every respect, including politically. (I am NOT an anarcho-capitalist... I have already outlined many of the problems with capitalism and shown more reasons why if government can work, more regulation is better.)
I will from this point forward respect myself. That means not just being financially independent and free in all other respects, but treating myself with the respect I deserve. This means getting my fat butt back in shape, speaking my mind more often and clearly, and projecting to the world the person I want to be and feel that I should be.
I am a good person, and I seek to leave the world and humanity at large better than I found it; therefore, any action I take to better myself and make myself happy and achieve what I want in life is a moral action.
I can now pay my own way and stand on my own two feet, and I will make sure that is always the case. My life is my own, wholly and without reservation.
I will live for myself. I will only help others if I can afford it and if the enjoyment I get from being able to help them and see them succeed is worth the price I am paying. I will treat others with the respect they deserve in my eyes, no more and no less. I will act according to my own morality at all times and in all things. I will treat myself, my body, and my mind with the respect they deserve. I will love others for who they are and what they bring to my life and to the world, in combination with the knowledge of their love for who I am and what I bring to their life and to the world. I will choose freedom over security; I will choose my life over others' beliefs that I owe them things I do not owe. I will be free. And I will earn my freedom.
Anything else is unacceptable.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Sunday, September 5, 2010
What makes a happy society?
Many of you may have heard of a classic ethical dilemma: You are standing at the switch for a train which cannot be stopped and on whose tracks lay 5 people on the right switch, and 1 person on the left switch. The switch is currently set on the right, and the train will kill 5 people if you do nothing. The train cannot be stopped, and no outside-the-box tricks can be used. You either throw the switch or you don't. Easy... you throw the switch and let a single person die instead of many.
Now the dilemma is altered: You are on a bridge above the tracks and the train is still heading towards the 5 people. You can however throw a passerby off the bridge onto the tracks and derail the train, saving the five people. (Once again, you cannot jump off the bridge yourself or use any other tricks of logic... either you throw a passerby off and save the people—and that will work every time guaranteed—or you do nothing and the five people die.)
The second dilemma, when asked to groups of people, gave far more varied answers. Whereas the first situation was very clear, many people seem to have reservations about the second situation because we are involving a person who was not involved in the situation to begin with. What this means is that any rational discussion of ethics must concede that the optimization of the utility of an individual or group does not necessarily create the happiest society.
(It should now be noted that I consider the field of ethics to be the study of how to promote happiness or unhappiness among creatures that are capable of feeling it to any degree. Thus, ethics does not concern rocks, highly concerns humans, and to a very tiny degree concerns individual flies and bees.)
You often see in movies stories about a squadron of soldiers going into enemy territory to rescue one man, killing many in the squadron in the effort, because “we don't leave anybody behind.” In sheer numbers and utility of soldiers, this is a terrible idea. But do the soldiers perform better because they know that their buddies truly have their back when it counts? Are they more willing to die in the field knowing they were helping to save another person? Are we as a society actually better off with a mentality like this? Can we and should we be proud that damn the numbers we will do the right thing?
It may be so that society as a whole is better off (in terms of overall happiness) if we allow people to harm themselves and do things which look in theory to be awful.
But there are certainly gray areas and considerations. Take the second example of the train and standing on the bridge. How many people would have to be on the tracks for you to consider it ethical to throw an innocent passerby off the bridge? What about in the first example if the one person on the left tracks was a baby, and the five people on the right tracks were the baby's parents and grandparents begging you to let them die so that their child may live? Are we better off, happier people, if we live in a society that saves babies in that situation? I don't know, but I certainly think it's possible. And it makes for an interesting discussion.
This was sparked by none other (and really, what better source is there for ethical dilemmas...) than Star Trek. The situation proposed in the show was somewhat different, but an interesting dilemma nonetheless. Our part of the galaxy is at war with another part of the galaxy. Projections which are deemed to be 99.9% accurate state that no matter what we do, we will lose the war and be enslaved for approximately 150-200 years (before we revolt and reclaim our portion of the galaxy).
The war just cannot be won—we don't have the man power or resources. Furthermore, the projections say that if we continue fighting the war, approximately 900 billion people will die in battle. (Also, it should be noted that the enslavement will not be concentration camp type enslavement—the conquered peoples will still have a decent amount of freedom of action and not entirely unhappy lives. The conquerers really just want claim over the territory and will not interfere with day-to-day life except as it pertains to larger territorial politics.) However, there is a small group of people who can give over our battle plans to the bad guys in order to force us to lose the war sooner rather than later, at a cost of only a few billions lives (as opposed to the almost trillion lives that would be lost in a long drawn-out battle). Many high ranking people were asked about this, and they all unanimously said something along the lines of “damn the numbers, we're not going to lose this war!” indicating that they would prefer to go down fighting. One man was left to decide whether or not to stop the “traitors” from giving up our battle plans... he was left to decide whether a long war or a short war was best.
In the end he decided that part of being in a free society is the freedom of action, the freedom to fight, and that it was wrong to hand over his people to the bad guys without a fight. I think he was wrong, but only because of the size of the difference in numbers. So many hundreds of billions of people, many of them innocent civilians on other planets, are going to die just because he feels that the society is better off if people are allowed to fight.
I can see his point, but not to the tune of 898 billion extra people that are going to die. Surely at least a few billion of them would rather surrender. Who's right? (Obviously, I think I am.) It's at the very least, worth pondering how many people this situation would need to involve before the scale tips one way or the other on how much the freedom to fight and die in a lost cause is worth. And it's worth noting (and the point of this whole thing) that letting people destroy themselves can in fact make a better and happier society because it makes them feel so much better off to know that they have such freedom of action. (I'm still against hard drugs, since I feel that their addictiveness takes away that freedom, but that's a whole other blog post...)
Now the dilemma is altered: You are on a bridge above the tracks and the train is still heading towards the 5 people. You can however throw a passerby off the bridge onto the tracks and derail the train, saving the five people. (Once again, you cannot jump off the bridge yourself or use any other tricks of logic... either you throw a passerby off and save the people—and that will work every time guaranteed—or you do nothing and the five people die.)
The second dilemma, when asked to groups of people, gave far more varied answers. Whereas the first situation was very clear, many people seem to have reservations about the second situation because we are involving a person who was not involved in the situation to begin with. What this means is that any rational discussion of ethics must concede that the optimization of the utility of an individual or group does not necessarily create the happiest society.
(It should now be noted that I consider the field of ethics to be the study of how to promote happiness or unhappiness among creatures that are capable of feeling it to any degree. Thus, ethics does not concern rocks, highly concerns humans, and to a very tiny degree concerns individual flies and bees.)
You often see in movies stories about a squadron of soldiers going into enemy territory to rescue one man, killing many in the squadron in the effort, because “we don't leave anybody behind.” In sheer numbers and utility of soldiers, this is a terrible idea. But do the soldiers perform better because they know that their buddies truly have their back when it counts? Are they more willing to die in the field knowing they were helping to save another person? Are we as a society actually better off with a mentality like this? Can we and should we be proud that damn the numbers we will do the right thing?
It may be so that society as a whole is better off (in terms of overall happiness) if we allow people to harm themselves and do things which look in theory to be awful.
But there are certainly gray areas and considerations. Take the second example of the train and standing on the bridge. How many people would have to be on the tracks for you to consider it ethical to throw an innocent passerby off the bridge? What about in the first example if the one person on the left tracks was a baby, and the five people on the right tracks were the baby's parents and grandparents begging you to let them die so that their child may live? Are we better off, happier people, if we live in a society that saves babies in that situation? I don't know, but I certainly think it's possible. And it makes for an interesting discussion.
This was sparked by none other (and really, what better source is there for ethical dilemmas...) than Star Trek. The situation proposed in the show was somewhat different, but an interesting dilemma nonetheless. Our part of the galaxy is at war with another part of the galaxy. Projections which are deemed to be 99.9% accurate state that no matter what we do, we will lose the war and be enslaved for approximately 150-200 years (before we revolt and reclaim our portion of the galaxy).
The war just cannot be won—we don't have the man power or resources. Furthermore, the projections say that if we continue fighting the war, approximately 900 billion people will die in battle. (Also, it should be noted that the enslavement will not be concentration camp type enslavement—the conquered peoples will still have a decent amount of freedom of action and not entirely unhappy lives. The conquerers really just want claim over the territory and will not interfere with day-to-day life except as it pertains to larger territorial politics.) However, there is a small group of people who can give over our battle plans to the bad guys in order to force us to lose the war sooner rather than later, at a cost of only a few billions lives (as opposed to the almost trillion lives that would be lost in a long drawn-out battle). Many high ranking people were asked about this, and they all unanimously said something along the lines of “damn the numbers, we're not going to lose this war!” indicating that they would prefer to go down fighting. One man was left to decide whether or not to stop the “traitors” from giving up our battle plans... he was left to decide whether a long war or a short war was best.
In the end he decided that part of being in a free society is the freedom of action, the freedom to fight, and that it was wrong to hand over his people to the bad guys without a fight. I think he was wrong, but only because of the size of the difference in numbers. So many hundreds of billions of people, many of them innocent civilians on other planets, are going to die just because he feels that the society is better off if people are allowed to fight.
I can see his point, but not to the tune of 898 billion extra people that are going to die. Surely at least a few billion of them would rather surrender. Who's right? (Obviously, I think I am.) It's at the very least, worth pondering how many people this situation would need to involve before the scale tips one way or the other on how much the freedom to fight and die in a lost cause is worth. And it's worth noting (and the point of this whole thing) that letting people destroy themselves can in fact make a better and happier society because it makes them feel so much better off to know that they have such freedom of action. (I'm still against hard drugs, since I feel that their addictiveness takes away that freedom, but that's a whole other blog post...)
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Wow, really Fox News, really??....
For those of you not up to date, a few of the major internet providers were wanting to be able to regulate what their customers could and could not view on the internet. This included blocking certain sites, throttling torrents, etc. The FCC recently took them to court trying to legally prohibit them from doing so, and won.
The phrase "net neutrality" means quite literally keeping the internet neutral. That means unrestricted. So anybody who says "net neutrality" is referring to the concept that the internet should be unrestricted to all. If they do not mean that, they are getting the term wrong.
This is a clip from Fox News about that recent court ruling and they get it entirely wrong. They believe (incorrectly) that the FCC is trying to regulate the internet, when in fact the FCC is trying to PREVENT the internet providers like (Cox and Comcast) from regulating the internet. The FCC is trying to keep the internet free and unrestricted by stopping the corporate internet providers by blocking things from customers and/or charging for different parts of the internet. The FCC is the good guys in this one.
Fox News not only got this outright wrong, but blatantly stopped the guy from defining it and then closed the segment. They spun it off as some kind of difference of opinion, but in reality they simply got their facts completely and utterly wrong. Fox News has always been insanely biased and full of shit, but apparently they have now stopped even attempting to hide their disregard of facts and logic.
It's just... WOW. "Wow" is the only appropriate word for it. Well that and "disturbing" and "dismaying" I suppose.
Remember, BOTH people on the two "sides" of this want unregulated internet. One simply doesn't know that that's what he's getting and is upset due entirely to his own misunderstanding (and refusal to take the time to understand).
Jesus Christ. It's amazing.
The phrase "net neutrality" means quite literally keeping the internet neutral. That means unrestricted. So anybody who says "net neutrality" is referring to the concept that the internet should be unrestricted to all. If they do not mean that, they are getting the term wrong.
This is a clip from Fox News about that recent court ruling and they get it entirely wrong. They believe (incorrectly) that the FCC is trying to regulate the internet, when in fact the FCC is trying to PREVENT the internet providers like (Cox and Comcast) from regulating the internet. The FCC is trying to keep the internet free and unrestricted by stopping the corporate internet providers by blocking things from customers and/or charging for different parts of the internet. The FCC is the good guys in this one.
Fox News not only got this outright wrong, but blatantly stopped the guy from defining it and then closed the segment. They spun it off as some kind of difference of opinion, but in reality they simply got their facts completely and utterly wrong. Fox News has always been insanely biased and full of shit, but apparently they have now stopped even attempting to hide their disregard of facts and logic.
It's just... WOW. "Wow" is the only appropriate word for it. Well that and "disturbing" and "dismaying" I suppose.
Remember, BOTH people on the two "sides" of this want unregulated internet. One simply doesn't know that that's what he's getting and is upset due entirely to his own misunderstanding (and refusal to take the time to understand).
Jesus Christ. It's amazing.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Plutonomy, poker, imigration
Plutonomy/Plutocracy: goo.gl/BmdL
Poker over the past few days 4-tabling: goo.gl/cjLv
Immigration Effects: goo.gl/d3ag
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Poker over the past few days 4-tabling: goo.gl/cjLv
Immigration Effects: goo.gl/d3ag
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Saturday, May 1, 2010
How crazy would Americans today get if they heard these verdicts?
Edit: These have nothing to do with my thoughts on immigration; I just laugh thinking about how crazy people would get if these laws were recent. Also, as a note, just because they aren't recent doesn't mean they aren't Supreme Court rulings.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886)
"Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," applies to all persons "without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality," and to "an alien, who has entered the country, and has become subject in all respects to its jurisdiction, and a part of its population, although alleged to be illegally here."
Wong Wing v. U.S. (1896)
Citing the first case I listed, in the case of Wong Wing v. US, The Supreme Court further applies the citizenship-blind nature of the Constitution to the 5th and 6th amendments, stating "... it must be concluded that all persons within the territory of the United States are entitled to the protection guaranteed by those amendments, and that even aliens shall not be held to answer for a capital or other infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."
Plyler v. Doe (1982)
In Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law prohibiting enrollment of illegal aliens in public school. In its decision, the Court held, "The illegal aliens who are plaintiffs in these cases challenging the statute may claim the benefit of the Equal Protection Clause, which provides that no State shall 'deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is a 'person' in any ordinary sense of that term… The undocumented status of these children vel non does not establish a sufficient rational basis for denying them benefits that the State affords other residents."
Thanks to this page, made by the research of Robert Longley for pointing these laws out.
How outraged would modern Americans be...???
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Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886)
"Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," applies to all persons "without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality," and to "an alien, who has entered the country, and has become subject in all respects to its jurisdiction, and a part of its population, although alleged to be illegally here."
Wong Wing v. U.S. (1896)
Citing the first case I listed, in the case of Wong Wing v. US, The Supreme Court further applies the citizenship-blind nature of the Constitution to the 5th and 6th amendments, stating "... it must be concluded that all persons within the territory of the United States are entitled to the protection guaranteed by those amendments, and that even aliens shall not be held to answer for a capital or other infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."
Plyler v. Doe (1982)
In Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law prohibiting enrollment of illegal aliens in public school. In its decision, the Court held, "The illegal aliens who are plaintiffs in these cases challenging the statute may claim the benefit of the Equal Protection Clause, which provides that no State shall 'deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is a 'person' in any ordinary sense of that term… The undocumented status of these children vel non does not establish a sufficient rational basis for denying them benefits that the State affords other residents."
Thanks to this page, made by the research of Robert Longley for pointing these laws out.
How outraged would modern Americans be...???
.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Capitalism: Idea vs. Application
I saw news story about a large medical insurance company, which through a programmed computer algorithm, would search for errors in the paperwork and application process of women who just got breast cancer. This way, they could get the monthly premiums from the women up until the point at which they needed coverage, and then they could drop them via a legal technicality. The “investigative report” done on this looked into the cases of 90 women recently dropped, and found that EVERY SINGLE ONE had a policy cancellation that was ridiculous. None of the drops of the admittedly small sample of women were legitimate. Even if that's a skewed number, which it undoubtedly is, it still shows at the very least that the large majority of women who are dropped from their policy are highly likely to deserve to keep their policy. The newscaster was outraged at the insurance company. I was simply confused by his outrage.
What did he expect? Insurance companies lose money on sick patients. They are in the business of making money. Ergo, it is in their best interest to find a way to not cover people when they get sick. This is a very simple logical fact. It is also one of the LOGICAL DEMONSTRATIONS of why anarcho-capitalism (completely unregulated free market capitalism) does not work.
The idea of the completely free market is a very good one on paper; or rather, it seems like it should be. By pitting companies against each other in the marketplace of the public opinion (which translates into the public's dollars), the poor ones must necessarily fail, and the good ones will do well, which will allow them to hire people (including people form the failures), produce products cheaper, donate more to charity and public good, and generally raise the level of well-being of the society in which they are a part. And even though it leaves a disparity between the best off and the worst off, “a rising tide floats all ships.” Win-win.
That's the idea. But even on paper, it doesn't work. Even on paper, there are variables missing which pollute the idea from the inside. Those variables, along with the problems of practical application of the good aspects, are the reasons why a truly free market cannot work.
The first crack in the free market dam is that of the problem of monopoly. Once a company has passed the economist's “survival of the fittest” test, it is now dominant in its industry and it has resources and a loyal customer base which its potential rivals do not. Therefore the playing field, which initially started level, is now forever skewed. If a small company can still buck the odds and rise up any significant amount, the bigger one has the means to buy the small on out or to squash them before they present a meaningful threat.
In short, after the initial settings of the free market “game” (in the Game Theory sense), the playing field cannot ever be level again. This is why we have developed anti-trust laws against the formation of monopolies. If a company gets too big, it is required by law to break itself apart into competing factions.
This law fails in two blatant respects, and possible more. The first failure of that law is that companies will always break themselves apart in the most profitable way. They won't make the M1 division compete with the M2 division. They will simply tear off the arm that is the R&D department, and then subcontract out to that “new company” for their R&D. Now the company is legally smaller, but with no actual breaking up of the monopoly.
The second major failure of anti-monopoly laws is that there is a limit on how you can prove collusion between companies. If two companies suddenly alter their prices to maximize net profits between the two, but Company A benefits and Company B looses, but Company A sends a check over to B to more than offset that difference, it's pretty clear what's going on. But if the top oh let's say five health insurance companies slowly alter their prices and products and “happen” to meet at a optimal equilibrium, and pay each other in other ways not covered by legal regulation, they haven't broken the law and you cannot prove what their intent was. After all, companies will reach equilibrium naturally on their own. And mathematical models which estimate the time this will take only give probabilities, and the estimates can be a very wide range. It would take centuries and hundred or thousands of companies to even begin to have what might constitute statistical proof. And at what point can you say well there's enough companies that they can't stifle a new startup in that industry, so it's no big deal. It seems intuitively to me that it would be more than five or six.
Maybe they're just getting lucky. Maybe it's just a sign that the American Public is really concerned about their health when the insurance companies are showing record profits during the second worst economic crisis in the history of the United States. But I doubt it.
The second crack in the dam of the free market theory is time. Even if it could be shown that it worked on paper, (which I maintain that once all the variables are in place, it doesn't), it only works in the “long term”. Any good gambler will tell you that the long term is the only term to play for. Even if the short term sucks, you are better overall playing the correct long term strategy. The problem with this implementation into the free marketplace is that the longterm is a minimum of thousands or tens of thousands of years. And almost nobody cares about anything except the next 60 (or less).
If a drug that can cure AIDS is developed by one company, the proper strategy of selling it (or selling anything for that matter) is to sell at a price at which a large percentage of the population cannot afford it. They do a simple calculation which assume X% of people can afford the drug at the price of $Y, do some remedial calculus to find the optimal price, and maximize profit. If they sell more than that, they lose money due to the costs of overproduction; if they sell less, they lose money because they miss out on selling to people who are ready to buy and can afford it—the company is just not producing enough.
With something miraculous like an AIDS cure, this translates into an initial price which is unfathomably high, such that almost nobody can afford it without going into large amounts of debt. This is the right price because these people and their families will generally choose to go into debt if it means prolonging their life or the life of a loved one. It may take decades (or longer) before enough of the cure has gotten around to where the “correct” price is low enough that most people can afford it. And in the meantime, tens of millions of people will die horrible and painful deaths. The time it takes for the market to normalize is far beyond the scope of the individual who needs the drug. He lives and dies for the short term.
Even if it worked on paper, we must play the market for the short term. (And of course there is regulation for this type of thing--but that's my whole point, regulation is very necessary.) This is something the economists don't want to hear. It hurts us overall they cry. If 200 people needed $1 to live out their lives, and 1 person had 700 dollars, and it cost $100 to transfer 200 of his dollars across the population, even though that population is left with a net of $600 (as opposed to the previous 700), that sacrifice and redistribution is worth-while to the population at large. Even if that 1 guy is super pissed.
Now that sounds horrible and communist and blah blah blah, but the fact is that is merely a description of what taxes are. Society needs roads and schools and police and firemen, and somebody has to pay for it. And the guy making $10K a year or less just can't afford his fair share. He may be a drain and you may resent him, but don't you want to live in a society that has a minimum standard for its poor? Or do you not? The problem with those of you who do not is that if you let him die, the “poor” class doesn't go away. They have kids. And even if all the poor people died off, the class structure would simply alter to make somebody else defined as poor.
Hoarding your money doesn't help anybody or fix the problem. It takes that money out of the economy and hurts other people. That's why we have taxes. If you make $10, you have to give away $3 or $4 so that there are roads and police and schools, and if you ever lose your job and have no money, that $3 or $4 that other people pay will help you out. It's about setting a minimum standard of quality of life and being a part of a functional society.
The problem is that even that (horrible communist blah blah blah) way of doing things isn't even what happens. The richest people in the world PAY FAR LESS TAXES THAN THE MIDDLE CLASS. This is because corporate law is setup differently than the laws for people. If you are a person and you make $10, you get $7 in your paycheck, and you have that $7 to spend on food and necessities. If you are a company and you make $10, you buy your food and necessities FIRST, and then you pay taxes on what, if any, is left after you spend that $10. This is actually how the law works. I don't remember what year is was, but it was '05 or after, fairly recently, that Exxon Mobile paid NO TAXES to the U.S. government. (Edit: it was 2009)
As I explained with simple math earlier, if you take and take and take out of the pool that is the economy and don't give any back, THE POOR RUNS DRY.
There are many, many more variables and logical outlines of why unbridled, unregulated capitalism simply cannot work. Myself and other liberals get a rap about hating capitalism, but that's not true. We simply understand that it can only function and be a force for good in the world with tons and tons of regulation. We understand there is a line to be drawn, and that an ungodly amount will prevent innovation and keep companies out of the market, but we recognize that no regulation is also extraordinarily disastrous. Many people, smart people, don't. They haven't thought past the simple model and the fact that the long term is generally the right way to play the game. I like capitalism and recognize it can be a force for innovation and a tide that rises all boats, but facts are facts, and as the Freakonomics authors put it, people respond to incentives.
This is why I was surprised that the newscaster was outraged. What do you expect? This is also why all fundamental rights of man MUST BE SOCIALIZED to an extent. Not entirely, but to an extent.
Socialized health care works. Period. That's a fact. It cannot be disputed. If you disagree, you are wrong plain and simple. Please go look up all the countries in the world with socialized health care, and aggregate their social welfare statistics and length of life. I have done this. Yes, I actually did the research. So until you have, shut it.
Aren't you glad that there are police and roads and schools and on and on? Have you even taken the fucking time to wonder why ALL OF THE BASIC NECESSITIES are either run by the government or have a government component, a public option. You can use UPS and FedEx, but you have the option of using the U.S. Postal Service. You may not like the lines at the post office, but you can't dispute its cost or results. It works. And it works cheaply. Because there is no profit incentive.
Capitalism needs regulation in order to work. It just can't work left to its own devices. Nobody likes giving away their hard earned money, but that's the cost of being a part of society. There are many arguments to be made about how much regulation, but the current system doesn't work (and the system proposed by TV republicans can't work). Of course health insurance companies are going to cancel policies of sick people. Of course companies are going to try to buy lawmakers. Of fucking course. It's in their best interest. The system is fundamentally flawed and needs a complete re-haul. Basic human rights NEED a socialized component. Profit incentives need to be regulated when they interfere with the public good. Long term ideas that royally screw the short term need to be altered even if it is at some long term cost, for the well-being of current society. The fact that the rich have more power to control and buy legislation that helps them is a problem for the rest of society.
I'd be happy to hear ideas and arguments against anything I've said, but I have to be honest: I've been arguing about this sort of thing for years, and not one person has been cognizant of the facts and stayed logically consistent (and kept their position when it differed from mine). I'm open to the possibility though, so let's hear it. But don't expect any respect if you haven't done the research or fail with logic.
What did he expect? Insurance companies lose money on sick patients. They are in the business of making money. Ergo, it is in their best interest to find a way to not cover people when they get sick. This is a very simple logical fact. It is also one of the LOGICAL DEMONSTRATIONS of why anarcho-capitalism (completely unregulated free market capitalism) does not work.
The idea of the completely free market is a very good one on paper; or rather, it seems like it should be. By pitting companies against each other in the marketplace of the public opinion (which translates into the public's dollars), the poor ones must necessarily fail, and the good ones will do well, which will allow them to hire people (including people form the failures), produce products cheaper, donate more to charity and public good, and generally raise the level of well-being of the society in which they are a part. And even though it leaves a disparity between the best off and the worst off, “a rising tide floats all ships.” Win-win.
That's the idea. But even on paper, it doesn't work. Even on paper, there are variables missing which pollute the idea from the inside. Those variables, along with the problems of practical application of the good aspects, are the reasons why a truly free market cannot work.
The first crack in the free market dam is that of the problem of monopoly. Once a company has passed the economist's “survival of the fittest” test, it is now dominant in its industry and it has resources and a loyal customer base which its potential rivals do not. Therefore the playing field, which initially started level, is now forever skewed. If a small company can still buck the odds and rise up any significant amount, the bigger one has the means to buy the small on out or to squash them before they present a meaningful threat.
In short, after the initial settings of the free market “game” (in the Game Theory sense), the playing field cannot ever be level again. This is why we have developed anti-trust laws against the formation of monopolies. If a company gets too big, it is required by law to break itself apart into competing factions.
This law fails in two blatant respects, and possible more. The first failure of that law is that companies will always break themselves apart in the most profitable way. They won't make the M1 division compete with the M2 division. They will simply tear off the arm that is the R&D department, and then subcontract out to that “new company” for their R&D. Now the company is legally smaller, but with no actual breaking up of the monopoly.
The second major failure of anti-monopoly laws is that there is a limit on how you can prove collusion between companies. If two companies suddenly alter their prices to maximize net profits between the two, but Company A benefits and Company B looses, but Company A sends a check over to B to more than offset that difference, it's pretty clear what's going on. But if the top oh let's say five health insurance companies slowly alter their prices and products and “happen” to meet at a optimal equilibrium, and pay each other in other ways not covered by legal regulation, they haven't broken the law and you cannot prove what their intent was. After all, companies will reach equilibrium naturally on their own. And mathematical models which estimate the time this will take only give probabilities, and the estimates can be a very wide range. It would take centuries and hundred or thousands of companies to even begin to have what might constitute statistical proof. And at what point can you say well there's enough companies that they can't stifle a new startup in that industry, so it's no big deal. It seems intuitively to me that it would be more than five or six.
Maybe they're just getting lucky. Maybe it's just a sign that the American Public is really concerned about their health when the insurance companies are showing record profits during the second worst economic crisis in the history of the United States. But I doubt it.
The second crack in the dam of the free market theory is time. Even if it could be shown that it worked on paper, (which I maintain that once all the variables are in place, it doesn't), it only works in the “long term”. Any good gambler will tell you that the long term is the only term to play for. Even if the short term sucks, you are better overall playing the correct long term strategy. The problem with this implementation into the free marketplace is that the longterm is a minimum of thousands or tens of thousands of years. And almost nobody cares about anything except the next 60 (or less).
If a drug that can cure AIDS is developed by one company, the proper strategy of selling it (or selling anything for that matter) is to sell at a price at which a large percentage of the population cannot afford it. They do a simple calculation which assume X% of people can afford the drug at the price of $Y, do some remedial calculus to find the optimal price, and maximize profit. If they sell more than that, they lose money due to the costs of overproduction; if they sell less, they lose money because they miss out on selling to people who are ready to buy and can afford it—the company is just not producing enough.
With something miraculous like an AIDS cure, this translates into an initial price which is unfathomably high, such that almost nobody can afford it without going into large amounts of debt. This is the right price because these people and their families will generally choose to go into debt if it means prolonging their life or the life of a loved one. It may take decades (or longer) before enough of the cure has gotten around to where the “correct” price is low enough that most people can afford it. And in the meantime, tens of millions of people will die horrible and painful deaths. The time it takes for the market to normalize is far beyond the scope of the individual who needs the drug. He lives and dies for the short term.
Even if it worked on paper, we must play the market for the short term. (And of course there is regulation for this type of thing--but that's my whole point, regulation is very necessary.) This is something the economists don't want to hear. It hurts us overall they cry. If 200 people needed $1 to live out their lives, and 1 person had 700 dollars, and it cost $100 to transfer 200 of his dollars across the population, even though that population is left with a net of $600 (as opposed to the previous 700), that sacrifice and redistribution is worth-while to the population at large. Even if that 1 guy is super pissed.
Now that sounds horrible and communist and blah blah blah, but the fact is that is merely a description of what taxes are. Society needs roads and schools and police and firemen, and somebody has to pay for it. And the guy making $10K a year or less just can't afford his fair share. He may be a drain and you may resent him, but don't you want to live in a society that has a minimum standard for its poor? Or do you not? The problem with those of you who do not is that if you let him die, the “poor” class doesn't go away. They have kids. And even if all the poor people died off, the class structure would simply alter to make somebody else defined as poor.
Hoarding your money doesn't help anybody or fix the problem. It takes that money out of the economy and hurts other people. That's why we have taxes. If you make $10, you have to give away $3 or $4 so that there are roads and police and schools, and if you ever lose your job and have no money, that $3 or $4 that other people pay will help you out. It's about setting a minimum standard of quality of life and being a part of a functional society.
The problem is that even that (horrible communist blah blah blah) way of doing things isn't even what happens. The richest people in the world PAY FAR LESS TAXES THAN THE MIDDLE CLASS. This is because corporate law is setup differently than the laws for people. If you are a person and you make $10, you get $7 in your paycheck, and you have that $7 to spend on food and necessities. If you are a company and you make $10, you buy your food and necessities FIRST, and then you pay taxes on what, if any, is left after you spend that $10. This is actually how the law works. I don't remember what year is was, but it was '05 or after, fairly recently, that Exxon Mobile paid NO TAXES to the U.S. government. (Edit: it was 2009)
As I explained with simple math earlier, if you take and take and take out of the pool that is the economy and don't give any back, THE POOR RUNS DRY.
There are many, many more variables and logical outlines of why unbridled, unregulated capitalism simply cannot work. Myself and other liberals get a rap about hating capitalism, but that's not true. We simply understand that it can only function and be a force for good in the world with tons and tons of regulation. We understand there is a line to be drawn, and that an ungodly amount will prevent innovation and keep companies out of the market, but we recognize that no regulation is also extraordinarily disastrous. Many people, smart people, don't. They haven't thought past the simple model and the fact that the long term is generally the right way to play the game. I like capitalism and recognize it can be a force for innovation and a tide that rises all boats, but facts are facts, and as the Freakonomics authors put it, people respond to incentives.
This is why I was surprised that the newscaster was outraged. What do you expect? This is also why all fundamental rights of man MUST BE SOCIALIZED to an extent. Not entirely, but to an extent.
Socialized health care works. Period. That's a fact. It cannot be disputed. If you disagree, you are wrong plain and simple. Please go look up all the countries in the world with socialized health care, and aggregate their social welfare statistics and length of life. I have done this. Yes, I actually did the research. So until you have, shut it.
Aren't you glad that there are police and roads and schools and on and on? Have you even taken the fucking time to wonder why ALL OF THE BASIC NECESSITIES are either run by the government or have a government component, a public option. You can use UPS and FedEx, but you have the option of using the U.S. Postal Service. You may not like the lines at the post office, but you can't dispute its cost or results. It works. And it works cheaply. Because there is no profit incentive.
Capitalism needs regulation in order to work. It just can't work left to its own devices. Nobody likes giving away their hard earned money, but that's the cost of being a part of society. There are many arguments to be made about how much regulation, but the current system doesn't work (and the system proposed by TV republicans can't work). Of course health insurance companies are going to cancel policies of sick people. Of course companies are going to try to buy lawmakers. Of fucking course. It's in their best interest. The system is fundamentally flawed and needs a complete re-haul. Basic human rights NEED a socialized component. Profit incentives need to be regulated when they interfere with the public good. Long term ideas that royally screw the short term need to be altered even if it is at some long term cost, for the well-being of current society. The fact that the rich have more power to control and buy legislation that helps them is a problem for the rest of society.
I'd be happy to hear ideas and arguments against anything I've said, but I have to be honest: I've been arguing about this sort of thing for years, and not one person has been cognizant of the facts and stayed logically consistent (and kept their position when it differed from mine). I'm open to the possibility though, so let's hear it. But don't expect any respect if you haven't done the research or fail with logic.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
And it's JANUARY by a nose!
By a margin of about $50, January just beat out August as my worst poker month ever (professionally), with me winning just under $400 for the entire month. Ugh!
After a minor freakout, and with the help of a friend, I have reflected about how well I am doing even in the face of yet another 20+ buy-in down turn, and happy and confident, starting anew, I am rushing head first into February ready to play (and win!) my butt off. I have to put in a lot of hands because I am taking a 2.5 week trip near the end of February and my semi-pipe dream of ever moving up in stakes has still not happened, so I can't afford to be out of work very long.
So I'm playing like mad, and looking forward to an excellent month, and leaving the disgusting past few weeks behind!!!
.
After a minor freakout, and with the help of a friend, I have reflected about how well I am doing even in the face of yet another 20+ buy-in down turn, and happy and confident, starting anew, I am rushing head first into February ready to play (and win!) my butt off. I have to put in a lot of hands because I am taking a 2.5 week trip near the end of February and my semi-pipe dream of ever moving up in stakes has still not happened, so I can't afford to be out of work very long.
So I'm playing like mad, and looking forward to an excellent month, and leaving the disgusting past few weeks behind!!!
.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Man I hate bad runs
They're so mentally disturbing. With each bad day it becomes harder and harder to get myself mentally ready for the next day of play because i just expect to get pummeled. I have had one winning day in the last nine days (20K hands) that I've played. I just can't win. It really fucking stinks to work hard for over a week straight and be down $500. I'm still up $450 for the month, but I'm gonna have to dip into my bankroll/savings a little bit to pay bills which really sucks. I guess I've been running pretty well for a few months now so it's bound to happen eventually but god it just screws with my head to just lose all in after all in, small pot after small pot. You know those days where your blue line is about even and your red line goes steadily down because your semi-bluffs never hit and you opponent shows you the best hands he can have... over and over and over.
I hate it when people tell me bat beat stories so I won't ramble on about this much longer. But this is my blog and I want to vent!
I hate it when people tell me bat beat stories so I won't ramble on about this much longer. But this is my blog and I want to vent!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
I miss the good old days....
.... when 1200 hands per hour was considered a lot.
http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/rush-poker
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http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/rush-poker
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
I'll get there when I get there
About a year before I graduated college, I did something which I didn't think too profound at the time, but which has helped me a lot since then. I had arrived at school in my car, and I was stressed about potentially being late. I sat for a moment in my car, breathing consciously and attempting to relax my worrisome and useless thoughts. Then I held the 'Clock' button down for a few seconds until the time display was blinking, placed my fingers on the hour and on the minute buttons, closed my eyes, and pressed repeatedly, fast enough so that I lost count of how many times I had pressed each. I then went to class without looking at the result. For a few weeks after that, I would continually glance at my car's clock and get negative reenforcement.
Now, I only look at it when I am tuning the radio. I don't know if I'm going to be 5 minutes early or 10 minutes late. After a while, I stopped caring. Sure I might have been able to speed up a bit, run a “yellow” light, or otherwise get myself to Point B two minutes sooner, but the necessity of doing so is virtually non-existent, and the stress I inflicted upon myself by worrying about it was higher than I had known. It was extremely liberating to simply accept that I would get there when I got there. Most places have a clock, and the cell phone in my pocket has one too. I would find out what time it was soon enough.
There is a statistic listed in Poker Tracker with which I am constantly concerning myself. I worry about it and look at it constantly during my sessions. I am pretty good at getting a rough estimate of what it is and what it should be on average, but I want to know the exact details of it, to two decimals. My friend Edals told me not to concern myself with it—it is after all one of the most useless statistics there is, and it takes hundreds of thousands of hands to even begin to approximate what it's true average value should be. But I can't seem to stop worrying about it, so I took a lesson from all of my car rides over the past few years...
This morning, I configured Poker Tracker to not show me how much money I won or lost.
.
Now, I only look at it when I am tuning the radio. I don't know if I'm going to be 5 minutes early or 10 minutes late. After a while, I stopped caring. Sure I might have been able to speed up a bit, run a “yellow” light, or otherwise get myself to Point B two minutes sooner, but the necessity of doing so is virtually non-existent, and the stress I inflicted upon myself by worrying about it was higher than I had known. It was extremely liberating to simply accept that I would get there when I got there. Most places have a clock, and the cell phone in my pocket has one too. I would find out what time it was soon enough.
There is a statistic listed in Poker Tracker with which I am constantly concerning myself. I worry about it and look at it constantly during my sessions. I am pretty good at getting a rough estimate of what it is and what it should be on average, but I want to know the exact details of it, to two decimals. My friend Edals told me not to concern myself with it—it is after all one of the most useless statistics there is, and it takes hundreds of thousands of hands to even begin to approximate what it's true average value should be. But I can't seem to stop worrying about it, so I took a lesson from all of my car rides over the past few years...
This morning, I configured Poker Tracker to not show me how much money I won or lost.
.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
A belated Christmas thanks
It is right now the time between Christmas and New Year's. I am up in Seattle visiting my mom, and I have had a very pleasant and relaxing Christmas, the best kind!
I often update my blog when I'm upset or going through a rough time, because it's when I'm most upset and anxious that I feel a need to vent... so I write. But I want everybody to know that I am very happy to be back in Vegas and that things are going well. The past 8 months have been some of the most difficult and scary of my life simply because it's kind of the first time I've been out on my own, and doing that itself is scary, but doing that by gambling and on top of that being a person who is very risk-averse and likes to know what's coming up (things which I must say gambling does not promote) has made it all the more difficult.
But I am finally getting set in. It has been rocky because all of it was so new and scary, but I've been at it for a while and am now sure of my success. I am not worried, and although I haven't saved up very much, I know it's because I was so scared and not playing my best, nor was I putting in enough hands. But all of that has changed, and I am very confident that I will be playing at a limit I can make real reasonable money at within half a year. So trucking ahead, happy and confident, I would like to offer my thanks to all the people in my life who helped me get here, because here is where I want to be. It's going to be incredibly cheesy as I'm sure most spill-your-heart-out letters are, but hey it's Christmas, I'm happy, and I don't care how cheesy it is!
My parents are the first and most obvious choices. Neither my mom nor dad were thrilled when I first mentioned I had started to gamble many years ago, and my dad still tries to get me to go back to school for a degree that isn't useless, they were as supportive as they could be when I told them this was what I wanted to do and showed them that it was actually possible to make money at it. But more than their support was how I was raised. I have instilled in me a want of doing what is right for me and a want to make my own way in the world. And if I wasn't raised with the courage to follow through with my heart, I wouldn't have been raised to be happy and fight for what I want. So I am thankful not just for learning to accept what I'm doing, but for giving me to courage to do it in the first place.
The next step is the live groups I meet with in Las Vegas (rarely at the moment I'm sorry to say), the NLDG and WPDG, and in particular Jan Fisher and Linda Johnson. The live groups showed me a bunch of reasonable and responsible adults who gambled responsibly and who were able to make it a positive force in their lives. I had grown up thinking, merely by the programming of society, that gambling was wrong. Not evil, but just a vice like smoking and drinking--something that is inherently bad and has no virtue other than to entertain. And while that is true for the most part, these people showed me that not only could they gamble responsibly but that they could learn from it and use it to help themselves. Linda and Jan even organize charity events, and in that way make gambling help other people as well. Now of course it IS a vice, and it DOES harm a portion of people who can't handle it responsibly, but these people showed me that that is not a necessary outcome and that I wasn't crazy for being so intrigued by it. Jan Fisher in particular took special care to encourage me, which really helped me break out of my shell and embrace my passion, for which I am extremely grateful.
Jim Leitner, also a member of the groups, also was important in that he was the first person to introduce me to a higher level of thinking in poker. I had reached a peak in my poker knowledge before his way of looking at the game infected me with the urge to study it from new angles. Most people in the group know he's smart and better than they are at poker, but few of them realise just how MUCH better he is. I haven't seen to much of him, but every chance I get to talk with him, I learn something groundbreaking.
Finally of course, I have one of my closest friend, Erik, who is also my poker coach, and I guess somewhat of a life mentor. He has taught me how to properly think about the game, how to contextualize all my thoughts and reads and experiments, and how to better learn more. He is solely responsible for my going from an average player to an excellent player (and I am pretty damn excellent), and he has also helped me through many difficulties in my life. He is a fantastic coach and friend, and I am very grateful for all that he has done for me. (And I would put money on him over Jim Leitner in a poker match, and those who know Jim know that's saying a lot!) I lucked out amazingly in finding Erik as a coach, but hey, as I always tell him, I run like God when it comes to poker, and this is no exception.
(See I told you it'd be cheesy.)
Of course I have many other friends who have shaped me life and personality and view of the world, and I am truly thankful to have them in my life. But this is a poker blog--or at least it's supposed to be--and those people above are the ones who shaped my poker career. I am thankful to everybody good in my life, those mentioned and those not, and I hope I have been able to show my thanks and love before now. But if not, thank you all! I am very lucky to have you in my life.
And I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
.
I often update my blog when I'm upset or going through a rough time, because it's when I'm most upset and anxious that I feel a need to vent... so I write. But I want everybody to know that I am very happy to be back in Vegas and that things are going well. The past 8 months have been some of the most difficult and scary of my life simply because it's kind of the first time I've been out on my own, and doing that itself is scary, but doing that by gambling and on top of that being a person who is very risk-averse and likes to know what's coming up (things which I must say gambling does not promote) has made it all the more difficult.
But I am finally getting set in. It has been rocky because all of it was so new and scary, but I've been at it for a while and am now sure of my success. I am not worried, and although I haven't saved up very much, I know it's because I was so scared and not playing my best, nor was I putting in enough hands. But all of that has changed, and I am very confident that I will be playing at a limit I can make real reasonable money at within half a year. So trucking ahead, happy and confident, I would like to offer my thanks to all the people in my life who helped me get here, because here is where I want to be. It's going to be incredibly cheesy as I'm sure most spill-your-heart-out letters are, but hey it's Christmas, I'm happy, and I don't care how cheesy it is!
My parents are the first and most obvious choices. Neither my mom nor dad were thrilled when I first mentioned I had started to gamble many years ago, and my dad still tries to get me to go back to school for a degree that isn't useless, they were as supportive as they could be when I told them this was what I wanted to do and showed them that it was actually possible to make money at it. But more than their support was how I was raised. I have instilled in me a want of doing what is right for me and a want to make my own way in the world. And if I wasn't raised with the courage to follow through with my heart, I wouldn't have been raised to be happy and fight for what I want. So I am thankful not just for learning to accept what I'm doing, but for giving me to courage to do it in the first place.
The next step is the live groups I meet with in Las Vegas (rarely at the moment I'm sorry to say), the NLDG and WPDG, and in particular Jan Fisher and Linda Johnson. The live groups showed me a bunch of reasonable and responsible adults who gambled responsibly and who were able to make it a positive force in their lives. I had grown up thinking, merely by the programming of society, that gambling was wrong. Not evil, but just a vice like smoking and drinking--something that is inherently bad and has no virtue other than to entertain. And while that is true for the most part, these people showed me that not only could they gamble responsibly but that they could learn from it and use it to help themselves. Linda and Jan even organize charity events, and in that way make gambling help other people as well. Now of course it IS a vice, and it DOES harm a portion of people who can't handle it responsibly, but these people showed me that that is not a necessary outcome and that I wasn't crazy for being so intrigued by it. Jan Fisher in particular took special care to encourage me, which really helped me break out of my shell and embrace my passion, for which I am extremely grateful.
Jim Leitner, also a member of the groups, also was important in that he was the first person to introduce me to a higher level of thinking in poker. I had reached a peak in my poker knowledge before his way of looking at the game infected me with the urge to study it from new angles. Most people in the group know he's smart and better than they are at poker, but few of them realise just how MUCH better he is. I haven't seen to much of him, but every chance I get to talk with him, I learn something groundbreaking.
Finally of course, I have one of my closest friend, Erik, who is also my poker coach, and I guess somewhat of a life mentor. He has taught me how to properly think about the game, how to contextualize all my thoughts and reads and experiments, and how to better learn more. He is solely responsible for my going from an average player to an excellent player (and I am pretty damn excellent), and he has also helped me through many difficulties in my life. He is a fantastic coach and friend, and I am very grateful for all that he has done for me. (And I would put money on him over Jim Leitner in a poker match, and those who know Jim know that's saying a lot!) I lucked out amazingly in finding Erik as a coach, but hey, as I always tell him, I run like God when it comes to poker, and this is no exception.
(See I told you it'd be cheesy.)
Of course I have many other friends who have shaped me life and personality and view of the world, and I am truly thankful to have them in my life. But this is a poker blog--or at least it's supposed to be--and those people above are the ones who shaped my poker career. I am thankful to everybody good in my life, those mentioned and those not, and I hope I have been able to show my thanks and love before now. But if not, thank you all! I am very lucky to have you in my life.
And I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
.
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