> If you want a moral crusade and a revolution, then you have to answer one key question: what makes you so right?
This is a very good question, the article asked a similar question:
>But who then decides what data “deserves” to be stolen and “liberated”?
How about we have an honest, uncensored, long running if necessary, public debate about these matters, involving academics and yes, even the public. I almost think politicians should be explicitly excluded as they are largely, let's say, "compromised", or at the very least have repeatedly proven incapable of acting like informed responsible adults.
Let's set some ground rules for discussion, such as for starters, no lying or half-truths. When someone lies, it goes on their record so their future statements can be judged based on their past actions. The concept of "character" is traditionally used to serve this purpose, but in the modern age I don't think this low tech approach is cutting it. (If we could do something just to stop the lying and disingenuousness, you'd have half the battle won.)
Lay out the options, list the advantages, disadvantages, and costs. If the various sides "can't agree" on these, fire them and get new ones. Then, let the public decide.
This probably sounds a lot like the role democracy is supposed to serve, but are there really any serious people out there that would claim the present form of democracy, in most any country, even remotely resembles in practice what it is supposed to be in theory.
All of this will require money and technology, so fund it with tax dollars. Yes, it will be difficult, it will require much discussion, compromise, and innovative thinking, but it's far from impossible.
Most things are provably true/false, or not broken down into fine enough detail.
In the minority of situations where it is genuinely indeterminate, you come to a consensus, just as happens between normal people millions of times each day on this planet.
Part of the problem is, politicians routinely pass legislation they know is wrong, knowing they can hide behind the "we didn't know, our intentions were in the right place" argument later because they know they will be let off the hook, even though everyone knows they are lying.
Governance has become such an "emperor has no clothes" scenario, where lying with impunity isn't given a second thought - no one would have believed you if you had predicted this state of affairs 100 years ago.
Processing all these lies on an ongoing basis sounds impossible, but if the media and the public actually started outing politicians and executives for their lying, they would stop doing it so much, making verification of genuine uncertainties much easier.
This is a very good question, the article asked a similar question:
>But who then decides what data “deserves” to be stolen and “liberated”?
How about we have an honest, uncensored, long running if necessary, public debate about these matters, involving academics and yes, even the public. I almost think politicians should be explicitly excluded as they are largely, let's say, "compromised", or at the very least have repeatedly proven incapable of acting like informed responsible adults.
Let's set some ground rules for discussion, such as for starters, no lying or half-truths. When someone lies, it goes on their record so their future statements can be judged based on their past actions. The concept of "character" is traditionally used to serve this purpose, but in the modern age I don't think this low tech approach is cutting it. (If we could do something just to stop the lying and disingenuousness, you'd have half the battle won.)
Lay out the options, list the advantages, disadvantages, and costs. If the various sides "can't agree" on these, fire them and get new ones. Then, let the public decide.
This probably sounds a lot like the role democracy is supposed to serve, but are there really any serious people out there that would claim the present form of democracy, in most any country, even remotely resembles in practice what it is supposed to be in theory.
All of this will require money and technology, so fund it with tax dollars. Yes, it will be difficult, it will require much discussion, compromise, and innovative thinking, but it's far from impossible.