if they really are spying on you

[RainbowSingularity]

what should you do ?

who are they ?

are they good or evil ?

how do you know ?

do they ever stop ? (what if they dont ?)

conversational piece

who watches the watchers
how much power is too much power ?
when does the drive for bloody vengeance in the name of someone else take over the psyche & become pure evil looking for self justifications ?

thoughts
comments
funny storys
& jokes welcome

 

[James R]

what should you do ?

What are my options?

who are they ?

Well, it really depends on what you mean by people spying on you. For example, do the trackers that record your activity on internet sites (e.g. for advertising purposes) count as people spying on you?

are they good or evil ?

That might depend on why they are doing it and what they aim to achieve, don't you think?

how do you know ?

How do we ever know whether people are good or evil?

do they ever stop ? (what if they dont ?)

They must sleep sometimes...

who watches the watchers

That's a large and important discussion. My personal opinion is that not enough people watch the watchers.

how much power is too much power ?

At the point where self-interest no longer needs to care about the interests of other people, because it can get away with not caring.

when does the drive for bloody vengeance in the name of someone else take over the psyche & become pure evil looking for self justifications ?

Perhaps if you could give a specific example of the kind of thing you want to discuss?

 

[RainbowSingularity]

What are my options?

many
however it is outcomes i am interested in
& outcomes are complex & tricky to achieve

what you mean by people spying on you

people who have the ability to collect data & utilize it to gain personal information on you as a profile & work with that information against your permission & against your interests(as a weapon).

this in modern todays world would probably include most large corporations because they have legal access to a large amount of data, enough to run computer algorithms on to track & trace specific people of their choosing in real time
regardless of what those people thought was or was not possible

& i am referring to who watches the watchers as a concept of moral authority & license to freely remove other peoples rights without legal formal order through what has been democratically defined as a legal system.

they operate outside the law

are they good or evil ?

That might depend on why they are doing it and what they aim to achieve, don't you think?

lets say for example just as a hypothetical example for convenience but believable

(me being them)
i knew there was a terrorist
who was going to blow up a plane over a major large city(killing maybe 2000 people)
& my only chance to get them was while they are riding on a school buss full of children
is it morally acceptable as a form of good versus evil, to say it is "good"
to blow up the buss full of innocent children just to ensure the 1 terrorist is killed to prevent them killing maybe 2000 people ?

its not quiet the mess of the run-away tram scenario(which is more an ego thing)

going to leave it there for now
will come back to the rest later


at what point does license become license to sacrifice citizens for a cause ?

 

[James R]

lets say for example just as a hypothetical example for convenience but believable

(me being them)
i knew there was a terrorist
who was going to blow up a plane over a major large city(killing maybe 2000 people)
& my only chance to get them was while they are riding on a school buss full of children

How would you know that was your only chance to get them?

But, let's assume that they are holding the remote detonator control for a bomb on the plane and that this has somehow been verified. Let's also assume there are, say, 20 kids on the bus. Also assume that we can target the bus accurately with a missile, and we can guarantee that won't trigger the plane bomb. And assume that there's no other way we could kill the terrorist or talk him down, or whatever. (We need to make a lot of assumptions here, don't we?)

Then it would seem to come down to a choice of killing 22 people (including the bus driver) vs. doing nothing and having ~2000 people die (probably including at least 20 kids?). It would seem that, in this particular scenario, with all of these assumptions, that pushing the button to take the bus out would be a morally valid choice. Greatest good for the greatest number, and all that.

The problems start when we allow one or more of our assumptions some latitude. Maybe the terrorist can't detonate the bomb remotely. Maybe the bomb will detonate regardless of what we do to with the bus. Maybe we could kill the terrorist (only) using a trainer sniper. Maybe we can open a dialogue with the terrorist. Maybe we can defuse the bomb on the plane. Maybe we can evacuate the city. Is there time for any of these things? Are they possible? It will depend on the particular circumstances, which have not been fully specified.

One last point: my analysis here assumes a consequentialist moral framework. But I don't think that my own moral decision making is purely consequentialist, in reality. And your moral decision making may prioritise other factors. For instance, you might hold that its always wrong to actively kill innocent kids, even if more innocent people will die because you failed to kill them.

 

[Michael 345]

How would you know that was your only chance to get them?

But, let's assume that they are holding the remote detonator control for a bomb on the plane and that this has somehow been verified. Let's also assume there are, say, 20 kids on the bus. Also assume that we can target the bus accurately with a missile, and we can guarantee that won't trigger the plane bomb. And assume that there's no other way we could kill the terrorist or talk him down, or whatever. (We need to make a lot of assumptions here, don't we?)

Then it would seem to come down to a choice of killing 22 people (including the bus driver) vs. doing nothing and having ~2000 people die (probably including at least 20 kids?). It would seem that, in this particular scenario, with all of these assumptions, that pushing the button to take the bus out would be a morally valid choice. Greatest good for the greatest number, and all that.

The problems start when we allow one or more of our assumptions some latitude. Maybe the terrorist can't detonate the bomb remotely. Maybe the bomb will detonate regardless of what we do to with the bus. Maybe we could kill the terrorist (only) using a trainer sniper. Maybe we can open a dialogue with the terrorist. Maybe we can defuse the bomb on the plane. Maybe we can evacuate the city. Is there time for any of these things? Are they possible? It will depend on the particular circumstances, which have not been fully specified.

One last point: my analysis here assumes a consequentialist moral framework. But I don't think that my own moral decision making is purely consequentialist, in reality. And your moral decision making may prioritise other factors. For instance, you might hold that its always wrong to actively kill innocent kids, even if more innocent people will die because you failed to kill them.

Trolley problem

 

[Jeeves]

S

who are they ?

spy agencies, foreign and domestic; law enforcement agencies; advertisers; lobbyists - and maybe my dead in-laws.

are they good or evil ?

almost certainly

how do you know ?

twitter

do they ever stop ?

Of course not: they have unlimited funds for housing and feeding the computer banks.

(what if they dont ?)

They will, when the power (either kind) runs out.

who watches the watchers

other watcher: They all watch one another. Mostly China.

how much power is too much power ?

any at all is too much; beyond that, it just keep getting hairier, scarier and more grotesque.

when does the drive for bloody vengeance in the name of someone else take over the psyche & become pure evil looking for self justifications ?

i don't know. Fortunately, the question is off topic.

comments

i refuse to answer on the grounds that i don't like to be called Debbie.

 

[sideshowbob]

what should you do ?

We should do what the animals do when we watch them: change our behavior completely so they can't tell what we're really like.

 

[Jeeves]

We should do what the animals do when we watch them: change our behavior completely so they can't tell what we're really like.

I act5ually do that sometimes on Google. I look up all kinds of information that doesn't relate to my life or interests. It doesn't cut down on the number of ads they shove at me.

 

[gmilam]

I doubt anyone is spying on you in particular. IMHO, it's all marketing departments trying to figure out what ads to show you. I mean, nobody is providing these "services" out of the kindness of their hearts. They are businesses trying to make money. And they make money by selling advertising. The only real online privacy you have is the anonymity of the needle in the haystack.

 

[RainbowSingularity]

How would you know that was your only chance to get them?

argument sake movie plot concepts

they suddenly appear accessible when they appear on the buss
so they see them
& think WOW there they are we can hit that
but its a buss full of school kids (say a proper buss maybe 5o to 60 kids 8yo to 16/17 yo (full school age)

we can spice it up a bit & make a combo money
with maybe a couple of kids on who might be children of a large city mayor & some local foreign govt children with a couple of celebrity's
so it has a few flags & billions in private family money in it

does that change things ?
do those children suddenly take on bigger better human rights protection values & worth of lifes ?

thats an interesting debate but not the one im referring to

keeping in mind my question is not soo much around the specific numbers
but around the comparative values of life

if it was a buss full of senators 50 they would probably be quite happy to sacrifice thousands of civilian lifes instead
(im well aware of their moral values)

my question is around their moral judgement & valuation process
not their existing levels of basic principals

the authority they have & utilize as their primary valuation system to compare life forms
in a life & death manner
like an executioner who is not sure who the victim is but will just do the job & follow orders & claim they are above the law
even though they know the victim is most likely innocent
i.e human religious sacrificial morality

 

[RainbowSingularity]

I doubt anyone is spying on you in particular. IMHO, it's all marketing departments trying to figure out what ads to show you. I mean, nobody is providing these "services" out of the kindness of their hearts. They are businesses trying to make money. And they make money by selling advertising. The only real online privacy you have is the anonymity of the needle in the haystack.

im a dirt poor in debt no body
so anyone spying on me would have to be clinically insane

 

[sculptor]

...
the authority they have & utilize as their primary valuation system to compare life forms
in a life & death manner
like an executioner who is not sure who the victim is but will just do the job & follow orders & claim they are above the law
...

eg:
Illinois death penalty suspended, commuted, abolished---"The system was broken" too many innocent people being put to death.

 

[Jeeves]

m a dirt poor in debt no body
so anyone spying on me would have to be clinically insane

No, they're just doing their job. Anyway, it's not any 'one' spying on you; it's a battery of computers monitoring internet traffic, cell phones and and webcams, waiting for flagged ISP's and trigger words - different ones for each of their clients. They don't do anything with the information, just pass it on to the sorting computer that sends the compilations out to the client computers. Odds are, no human ever gets a sight or whiff of your particulars.... unless one of the clients is a forger of official documents and needs an ID of your specifications, or a fake testimonialist fishing out some random identity to put on a good review of their client's product or a bad one of their competitor's.
As for the various government agencies - Hey, even a dirt poor in debt no body can be a terris or sassan or sumpun!

 

[Luchito]

If someone is spying on you, then do crazy stuff to please his morbosity. Don't worry what the spy will think about you, you are the target already, so make the situation a bustled party.

 

[O. W. Grant]

- Why toilet paper is two- ( three-, ...) ply?
- The second ply goes in your dossier.

- - -

They know that I know that they know that I know. I rely on them. They are my backup.

 

[Dicart]

Communist Party members could face invasive AI profiling to assess whether they need 'further education'

A new artificial intelligence tool has been developed in China that helps authorities monitor how loyal members of the Communist Party are to the government.

According to the Institute of Artificial Intelligence in Hefei, the 'Smart Political Education Bar' analyses users' brainwaves and deploys facial recognition to "discern the level of acceptance for ideological and political education".

p:nth-of-type(2)","sizes":[[8,8]],"hideOnSensitiveArticle":true,"relativePos":"after","additionalClass":"in-article","name":"div-gpt-ad-vip-slot","type":"VIP","bidders":{"ozone":"1420432301"}}" data-gpt-placeholder="" data-response-start="1442" data-type="gpt" style="display: block; height: 8px; max-height: 8px;">
A video explaining how the tool works was reportedly taken off of Chinese social media on Sunday, shortly after being announced.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/news/chinese-government-uses-mindreading-ai-27401940

In China there is no conspiracy, all is officialy done.