totalitarianism

Traitor, hero or some of each?

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Government surveillance is a public service; E. Snowden is a self-serving traitor.

vs.

Government surveillance is evil; E. Snowden is a heroic champion of our individual freedoms and dignity.

xkcd atheists & fundmenalistsMaybe we should adopt a perspective superior to either of those.

The truth may well lie somewhere between two poles. At least if you acknowledge that we conduct healthy societies and polities in the tension between ideals of perfect security and perfect freedom, perfect harmony and a Hobbesian state of … Read more

Safe and cosy

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Posted from under my bed: Totalitarianism rools, OK! Don’t see any way around it, given the politics of fear combined with the ever-more extensive collection and storage of data subject to interpretation by ever-more sophisticated programs.

Alternatively, doesn’t it give you a cosy feeling to know that the Powers That Be are doing such a good job of protecting us from all that bad stuff out there? Especially when we know these Powers are so enlightened and so consistently benign. … Read more

Central irony of our age?

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The central irony of our age: a powerful totalitarian drift promising individual empowerment. (Epigrams’R’Us, eh?)

Individually and collectively, we blithely speed towards a precipice. Or so it seems, of this jet-lagged morning, just back from a computer-, Internet-, and phone-less island sojourn.

Are we modern folk evolving as mere arms & legs for our smartphones? The reality of current tendencies may be even more sinister than that. I’m too sleepy to develop that notion any further just now. Here’s just … Read more