notthegov

In my view, if you’re hacking for espionage purposes as a nation who defends classical liberalism, then I’d argue your actions are justified. I do not understand why sources involved with this (or related stories) would talk to reporters.

Despite our flaws, there’s a difference in Russia or China hacking and the US. To suggest otherwise is advocating moral relativism in my opinion.

I do, however, support a pardon for Snowden and Assange.

Perhaps but the JASON Group is the most famous group of top secret scientists. Half of their studies are classified but here's some that aren't-

https://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason

JASON was founded as Project 137 by John Archibald Wheeler and others. It was only publicly confirmed to exist after the Pentagon Papers mentioned them.

Thomas Paine also started a deistic religion during the French Revolution-

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilanthropy

A perfect society requires demonetization.

I know a Scientologist and a former government employee who started a new techno-religion decades ago. It kind of operates as a conspiracy directed against the US Government.

The CIA has declassified documents where they suspect certain people known to them may had been Scientology agents; specifically the remote viewing psychic Pat Price who died under mysterious circumstances.

These members of this esoteric deep state worked with Pat Price at the CIA in the 1960s. [0] Thus they've held the highest security clearances for decades and several are current CIA contractors. [1]

Although it appears sinister, it's more like an optical illusion. Most of them are just scientists who have a legitimate interest in the unknown. Yet somewhere there is some grand secret with a subtle or covert force at work. Deciphering it is almost impossible though.

This techno-religion is affiliated with several former military and CIA employees. The US Government views it as a long-term, persistence kind of 'paranormal deep state' conspiracy which threatens national security. And, of course, the government considers their claims regarding remarkable secrets held by the government and exotic technology as false. (And they are false.)

One person involved in this is a Stanford professor who was recently in the NY Times discussing exotic and controversial research. His partner is the one who said (in the 1980s) that he was starting a new religion with the Scientology scientist; and ostensibly these people either have or are on the direct peripheral of "Singularity-type" radical technology.

Yet the only person affiliated with the group who actually works for the US Government is a JASON scientist. Some say he is the mastermind of it all but that's unlikely. JASON's an interesting group of elite scientists who meet once a year to work on various problems and topics for the federal government.

My point is there's interesting conspiracy-like actions happening, whether they are self-organizing and random, or some cosmic force of deception. If you think of the Stoic's idea of Amor Fati, then a first principle like 'deception is a force of nature' makes a lot of practical sense.

Resist the temptation to get angry, have faith in chaos and unlock mysteries of life.

[0] https://mikemcclaughry.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/pat-prices-d...

[1] https://thetanetworkersscientology.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/...

They should rename Facebook's address.

Facebook's level of engineering, technology and data seem close to the point of implementing a transformative virtual reality social experience that would be indistinguishable from reality.

Imagine if Facebook invented a way to simulate reality, then the user (the one superuser) would write the past in the future. Then go i to the simulation, hide himself and forget where he is.

Only the powerful, intergalactic intensity of music and lyrics along with the obvious absurdist quality of news in reality finally leads the user to realize he is the superuser.

He created this world but She created him. His bots (abstractions) run this world and with Her, they can turn the simulation into a perfect Utopia.

Just a thought I had after seeing Ready Player One yesterday. This idea that the future creates the past, and then the past creates the future is another indication that Free Will is an illusion.

The best aspect of all of this; if it were all some Facebook-Total Recall experience, then all the pain, confusion and embarassment would evaporate.

I used to make Hypercard stacks back in 7th grade when I was learning from Quantum Link (Q-Link) hackers like Mobeius from the Pan-American Information Network (#hellonearth).

And AOL hackers and soical engineers like HappyHardcore, creator of AOL4Free & the Master Blaster, the famous Da Chronic, creator of AOHell and KT (Shameer) who first taught me social engineering in 1995-

http://www.stepbystep.com/America-Onlines-Dark-Side-131812/

Koceilah Rekouche aka Chron, photo from the 1990s-

https://www.flickr.com/photos/captivating/3816111466/

Here is a short history on the early hacking groups (#pain)-

http://www.stepbystep.com/America-Onlines-Dark-Side-131812/

All cultures are not equal and few cultures are uniformally isolated. Civilization is a byproduct of cultures interacting and blending.

And human happiness and quality of life is most supported by improving our diets, our education, our expressions and our psychologies.

Enlightenment ideals built the modern world, not relativism. We should be criticizing all cultures and our everyday actions.

"Culture" in some ways is just a random repetition of behavior and ideas. It may conform to environmental pressures but there is nothing intrinsic about it in regards to any ethnicity or race. All humans are lazy, hardworking, intellectual, superficial, selfish and selfless. The difference is which ideas push us in the right directions of our better nature.

The solution isn't a better direct democracy -- that is the problem.

US Senators were elected by the state legislatures for 125 years prior to the 17th Amendment. They were supposed to represent the states and not national special interests.

Think how much easier it is to contact your state representatives than it is a US Senator which is basically impossible.

It is the loss of classical liberalism that is causing all the problems.

And I disagree that people are all that different or if economic philosophies are even relevant to most of the population.

It all depends on your intent. And there's an infinite amount of nuance in these situations. Of course, you shouldn't aggressively hit on every person you interact with but chatting strangers up? Absolutely.

The beauty of life is randomness and spontaneity; meeting new interesting people. But you have to be desireless, and non-intimidating without any agenda. Not consumed with the thought of capitalizing on the relationship somehow, be it sex or business networking.

I strongly disagree with the sentiment expressed in your comment and to me, it is slightly depressing. I suppose part of your logic is due to brash American guys hitting on every girl, but putting that aside, I do not want to live in a world where every interaction is clinical, and devoid of depth, of magic, and optimized for the efficiency of the economic transaction.

I want presence. I want more interconnectiveness; discovery and mystery; laughter and love. In all areas of life, in every moment possible.

The article came off as incredibly sophomoric, like it was written just with a dictionary and a thesaurus. I didn't really understand the point of it, even though it was written by a veritable expert in terrorism.

I was hoping for some more intriguing and specific insights in what the tech community could do to help. Also their headquarters is a massive building in Santa Monica, on 1776 Main Street. Certainly RAND could produce something better than this?

Larry Becraft Jr, an attorney who has fought the IRS, wrote in the 1990s on his website debunking these sovereign citizen theories-

http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/deadissues.htm

While I agree that these theories are ineffective and sometimes false, in a general sense they are true.

According to the US Code, the United States organic law is comprised of the Declaration of Independence(1776), the Articles of Confederation (1777), the Northwest Ordinance (1787) and the Constitution (1787). While mainstream academia says these have no legal or constitutional force, I'd disagree. In France, the organic law does have constitutional force and thus overrules statutes.

In essence, the United States is based on the natural rights acknowledge in the Declaration that says we have the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". And any government whether, local, or state or national that diminishes these natural rights, we have a duty to alter or abolish them. This is the Right of Revolution, although the establishment would say this is now invalid since we have democratic methods to change the government.

Regardless, American rights pre-existed the Constitution, the government and the Declaration. Our rights are derived by the nature of our humanity and a natural "God" in the context of Deism, not religion.

And there are endless moderate abuses of the state; wholesale denials of civil rights, aggressive and unjust actions by judges, prosecutors and police. It's akin to Chinese water torture, a mild form of oppression that has a cumulative effect resulting in gangs, distrust between the public and the police and endless crimes.

If these benefits are legitimate, why can't they focus on 5 or 10 specific objectives, and write them in some concise form like the Bill of Rights? Why does it need to be 2,000 pages and full of complex, obsfucated concepts and details?

Is the only way for progress to happen?

And even if the TPP is completely beneficial, it is still part of the philosophy of economic integration. Which at its heart is promoting the centralization of power and the diminishment of classical liberalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_integration#Stages

In my experience, your characteristization of why people are poor is wrong and ignores the daily struggles the working poor faces. I agree that most people are flawed but that's because we are not taught in school how to deal with adversity or how to live life. People in general have poor critical and analytical thinking skills, and get trapped in a vicious cycle with no hope for a better life.

I grew up poor and my mother worked to get us into the middle class. As an adult, I have been poor and wealthy, and have good friends that are decent people but are trapped in a system of poverty, or a community of gangs and a cycle of jail. Life is incredibly hard and it's not as easy as saying that poor people have vices.

Last year, I'd buy breakfast for homeless friends on Hollywood Blvd. then go eat the free breakfast on the 28th floor of the Ritz-Carlton Residences. I lived there and I can assure you, wealthy people are as crazy, addicted and ignorant as any poor person. The amount of criminality and corruption within the 1%, and how the police and even retired high-level government officials protect them, is astonishing.

I wrote a previous comment on why I think if rich people were smarter then there'd be less poor people. We need a society with better systems where there's less friction and challenges for people to overcome. And for many reasons, I see Basic Income as one of those better systems.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11469080

If you meditate for emotional stillness and spiritual depth, then there is no reason you can't seek happiness and awareness from a girlfriend or a psychedelic drug experience. Or from both at the same time.

You could meditate alone for a thousand lifetimes and not experience love. Saying you can endogenously experience psychedelic states by meditation or Kundalini yoga sounds nice and ideal, but it is only partially true. It can only show you glimpses.

Whatever this world is, it is here for us to enjoy. Proclaiming the answer to enlightement is living an ascetic life without luxury items, smart attractive people or drugs of any kind is silly.

"Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun." - Alan Watts

(Obviously Osho didn't live an ascetic life. He meditated enough not to need MDMA but not Rolls-Royces.)

I think the problem is most rich people aren't smart. This creates flawed systems, bad business models and poor public infrastructure.

I don't know many people in Silicon Valley but I know a lot of rich people. They definitely have a lack of compunction and some use confidence games to scam and exploit people.

I am not suggesting they are all bad but 90% act like my friends who live in trailers in the Midwest on welfare.

Human nature doesn't care about privilege. I believe education fails to teach critical thinking and tools to face adversity. And this creates situations where rich people lie, or honest investment bankers launder drug money. Or doctors overprescribe drugs, surgeons do unnecessary surgies and rich men exploit young girls. But they all self-rationalize their decisions and never think they are part of the problem. Arrogance, incompetence, greed, stupidity, etc.

There are a ton of successful incompetent people.

In general, I agree with you that it is the individual's job to transcend these challenges but it is ignorant politicians and lazy wealthy and influential people who sustain a system that has so much friction, so much chaos and so many challenges to overcome to get a fraction of what the alleged "elite" get.

My point is, for the most part there is nothing elite about the 1%. There is no secret group controlling the world. If we want to change things, we can.

Nusalt (potassium chloride) tastes like something that will kill you. But I drank it everyday and about 3 grams of salt.

What is real food?

I disagree strongly. Eating shouldn't make you tired. I could eat 2 1/3 pound greasy cheeseburgers with toppings but if I skip the buns, I feel like I ate nothing.

There is something legitimate to intermittent fasting, ketogenic diets, avoiding refined carbs, avoiding bread etc.

I have a serious disease that is thought to prevented by ketogenic diets. And I think there's an equal chance I got the disease from refined carbs as anything else.

I also know many so-called experts in this field (MDs) and they know nothing; and worse they do not want to know anything.

My conclusion is simple: just don't eat bread or drink any sugary drinks.

Except your kidneys excrete more electrolytes and water, and it can take weaks to adapt, and theoritically some people will never fully adapt.

I would have to drink 1 gram of warm saltwater and my headache would instantly go away.

So how you feel is deceptive. If I would drink a Vanilla Latte at Starbucks now, I would get a serious headache...

The irony is that the Clinton Administration was accused of deferring to politics over intelligence warnings that Boeing was inadvertently or carelessly leaking technology to China.

The "yelling fire" case was about a Jewish anti-war socialist who distributed pamphlets urging men to resist the WWI draft as a violation of the 13th amendment.

The idea that a National Security Letter can serve as a secret warrant against a 21st century Charles Schenck like Edward Snowden is interesting.

Neither falsely claimed there's a fire; they are/were men speaking out against war and unconstitutional acts. Anti-war speech should be especially protected.

Publishing a NSL is a defensive act against an immoral and oppressive government. The idea that they are using the NSLs to suppress freedom of speech and fight advocates of freedom of speech should only embolden the opposition.

Drink butter coffee. The desire for fats and the ritual of making coffee motivates me in the morning.

Rap Genius was originally called RapExegesis.com. Then they made a public post asking for better company name ideas- http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19/high-stakes-pl-nl/ot-he...

I always thought this was fascinating and makes me think of the implications of happenstance. A company called Genius whose first domain had the word rape in it, which was promoted by a poker player who once created his own personal TV commercial and ran it via Google TV ads- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocekqhrmPNo

But give them $20 million and say they are pioneers in a general space that's decades old, and suddenly Genius is pioneering annotations and redefining fair use.

They first use the momentum of the monolithic "justice" system to flatten you.

Do you accept our authority? You defy it? Okay, the misdemeanor we charged you with, if you don't plea we will file an unrelated felony against you.

Oh you resisted, oh you showed the evidence we have against you actually exonerates you?

Okay, the prosecution moves to withdraw the case citing lack of evidence. We won't give you the opportunity to win against us.

(This happened to me when I was a kid. I won my case. The FBI is acting just like that. Threaten and lie, then when everyone doubts them, they run. But as they run, I run after them faster, and in the end they lose.)

But the doctors prescribing the amphetamines aren't thinking about actual solutions or alternatives; they just go through the motions and cash checks.

My roommate was one of the largest Adderall prescribers in the United States. He has 20 cars, 3 homes and brags that he spends money "like a trillionaire". If you ask him where he lives, his response is, "what day?"

He is about 150 pounds overweight, dresses like a 90s rockstar and usually drives a Lamborghini Aventador. I don't trust he is impartial or an expert in his prescribing people what is effectively a daily routine of methamphetamine.

I know a few people who are prescribed Adderall who have attempted suicide. It's very easy to abuse amphetamines and abusing them makes one irrational. Meth has destroyed my hometown and as Dr. Carl Hart states, there is really no difference between Adderall and methamphetamine.

It is very dangerous to suggest that you can cure lack of focus by amphetamines, or that somehow this "ADHD" disease can only be cured by amphetamines.

You just described humanity.

My view of ADHD is biased because my only experience with it is a psychiatrist who earns millions a year prescribing it, several girls who believe they need it for college (two attempted suicide) and then several male friends all of whom abuse it.

There is a side effect of stimulant abuse that makes you confidently delusional.

Does ADHD exist? Can stimulants cure lack of focus or should they? Does the abuse of Adderall increase the risk of suicide?

Is it ok for an obese doctor to have 20 supercars and 3 homes because he tell thousands of emotionally vunerable patients that they must take what is essentially meth everyday for the rest of their life to be "normal"?

I am all for pragmatism if it works, but people have poor self-control and my experience of ADHD only involves sociopaths and suicidal rich girls. So excuse my problem but I don't believe in chemical imbalances being cured by myopic pharmacutical companies and non-thinking doctors who act more like automons and technicians than "learned men" of science.

People love to label themselves and explain the challenges of being human by ascribing various syndromes. We should resist that temptation and find ways to solve our problems without taking a drug that is the same as meth-

http://www.vice.com/read/a-neuroscientist-explains-how-he-fo...

A large part of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community, including champions, use cannabis because it helps them get into a flow state and recover from injury.

Obviously this doesn't apply to surgeries, and I can't think of a surgeon who would smoke weed and operate. But in a hypothetical situation, it could allow a person to perform better.

However, if your doctor smokes weed or drinks alcohol in his free time, it doesn't make him a bad doctor.

The real world is more shocking. I know many doctors and surgeons who use cocaine. And there are surgeons who will intentionally do bad surgeries because the profit motive is so high.

Three doctors including a surgeon were arrested today (one from Beverly Hills) and are facing 50+ years in prison for insurance fraud.

Human nature is a scary thing.

Cannabis being illegal actually influences people to use prescription drugs and meth. If someone has a job that drug tests them or are on probation, then people will choose harder drugs (or alcohol). The only drug aside from PCP that stays in your system over 3 days is cannabis.