AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Word of mouth only gets you so far in this day and age, because they'll be checking your mail as well. And you'd have to be very clever about it, because if any one you're in contact with slips up and they find out they were involved in "terrorist activity" they'd investigate the entire network of people more thoroughly.

I think you underestimate how dependent people are on other's to enable their actions. Very few people will attempt to organize a protest when they think they're alone in their thoughts.

Well you know what they say about need being the mother of all invention. I never said it would be easy, or simple, just that it's definitely not impossible. I don't know much about how technology works, but some people managed to figure it out (again, anonymous vs the government). People are surprisingly inventive and resilient, especially when rustled about something, even a something that's barely even a threat.

Why would you even want to reinvent a new way of communication just for the sole purpose of having a protest work maybe once and then the government probably takes control of that too? And actually yeah, through encryption and what have you you can already bypass government surveillance but most people aren't clever enough to figure that stuff out, thus making large scale protests and winning sympathy for a cause much harder if not impossible. Why would you ever want to make it so hard to communicate freely though? It's a basic civil right that society has struggled thousands of years for to maintain.

You have absolutely no faith in people. You're argument is essentially that people are too stupid, disorganized, and lazy to be able to pull anything like a revolution off, so why should we risk putting ourselves in a situation where we'd have to. If that were actually true, then what fear does the government have to avoid implementing all of these laws and acts to push us all down? Morality? Again, not their most stereotypical attribute. Besides, if you were to join a government foundation, you'd realize they were just as disorganized as us common folk. Remember that it's civilians who become government employees. Yes, there are all of these technologies, but in the end we're just humans typing at keys. The NSA agents are going to have the same lack of cleverness that would plague any normal protester. Yes, there are incredibly stupid people out there, but there are well more than enough intelligent individuals out there as well, individuals who don't work for the government.

When I made the comment about need being the mother of invention, that's because that necessity has a way of bringing motivation out of people. It's the same deal with procrastination. The due date looms over your head, and all of a sudden that ten page paper doesn't seem so hard, and the next thing you know you were able to crack that thing out in just 2 hours...and that's when we talk about the ones society deems "lazy." History is full of these stories. People overcoming these impossible obstacles that then seem trivial 50 years later.

No I'm saying why put ourselves in a situation where it would be much harder, should we have to? And we will have to at one point, history tends to repeat itself.

I'm very much aware that people are able to organize protests, but that was in times where the government wasn't capable of controlling the main means of communication. If you want a similar example, look at China where they have a similar system to what the US government is working towards. There are a billion people there and a whole lot of them are not pop flyin' with the way things are going, but it is incredibly hard for them to get anything done because the government cracks down instantly on any figureheads.

Also the government is just as disorganized as the people? What? Just... you are at least aware there's a hierarchy and rules in a government yes? I mean, I know you're in the military so you should be familiar with these things.

Because while we've been talking about revolution, and overthrowing the government for most of the night, I still feel there needs to be some level of colaboration and trust between the people and its government. If we don't have that trust, then we might as well skip this whole debate and go right into a revolution right now. This new technology is invaluable for catching potential attacks before they ever happen, which would save countless of lives before they ever even came into any tangible danger. If we don't have the trust in our government to use it for its intended purpose, and all we think is going to happen is they'll abuse it, then what we need to do is stop arguing about it altogether and make to where we DO trust who's in our government, which has only ever happened right after a major revolution. I'm not saying blind faith, I'm saying some faith, because the bottom like is that this technology is supposed to be used for good. In school, if your teacher does something you know will fuck everyone over, do you fight the thing she does, or do you fight her? You fight her because if you have no trust that what she does is for your greater good, then just fighting the single event will become a waste of your time when the next single event comes up to replace it.

Also, I'm saying that the government is just as disorganized as us because the people who make up those jobs are just as human as we are. They get up earlier than they'd like to drive in rush hour to get to work, just like we do as civilians. They drink 8 cups of coffee just to keep from murdering everyone around them, just like we do. They hate their jobs just like we do. They come home some days feeling like they should have chosen some different path just like we do. Every office drone has gone through this, just as every government worker has gone through this. Even in the military it's like this. That's not to say they're terrible at their jobs, but that they're human like us. There's a saying that the ones who don't want war the most are the ones most prepared to fight it...and that's true. We train our military to fight for war, both foreign and domestic, but we also pray to god it never has to happen. As horrible as it is to say, if a revolution were to break out, I'd be called up to fight against it, whether I agree with it or not, whether the other people in our unit agree with it or not, and we would fight against it, because that's our duty. And while we'd be proficient at it, there'd be one advantage on the revolutionary side; they'd be the only side who wanted it to happen.

Then it's the revolutionary war all over again, where you have the yankees fighting their hearts out against a government that just want the people to comply. It's the same principle behind our current war. There are people in caves and primitive weaponry fighting off a country that puts more cheddar and effort into its military than any other country in the world, and this has gone on for a good part of a decade. The revolution starts at the motivation of the people, where what motivates them is what leads to their victory. They want to fight. We don't. And while our superior technology gets us so far, it's no longer a war of rifles and artillery, but one where we fight for the hearts and minds of their people. Because at the core of it, it turns out motivation alone is able to fend off the most funded military forces on the planet.

You speak of trust when the only reason you even know your government is doing this is because someone leaked it against their will? You speak of trust when they lie to your face, obscure their inner workings and protect themselves from democratic criticism by invoking obscure legal loopholes? You speak of trust in a supposedly democratic system where you have only two real choices, both controlled by corporate interests? Trust in a government that operates torture prisons despite vowing to close them down? No people should fully trust their government, and no people should allow their government to take away their own liberties for any reason, but I see little reason why the American people should trust their government at all. What has your government done to earn your trust? Did they prevent the economic crash? Did they protect you from terrorist attacks? Do they protect your liberties, or do they seek to take them away?

Perhaps it is as you say then, if there is no more trust, perhaps it is a time for a revolution, or at least for change.

Reyo, if things continue like this, then a revolution IS inevitable. It began with Occupy but it won't end there. The new generation is coming into their own and bringing power with it.

The difference is that the revolution will not be bloody, not likely at least. It will be fought in the public opinion, on the Internet, through protests and demonstrations.

People should not be afraid of their government, government should be afraid of its people.

I'm not saying what should or shouldn't happen as far as a revolution, or trusting the government. No, nobody should fully trust their government, but if you don't trust them at all, then why are they still your government? All I'm saying is that a revolution is not only possible, but it seems like a good chunk of the populous has already mentally, and ohysically prepared for it.

The left needs to make a resurgence in america if that's ever gonna happen. All you have now are republicans and crypto-fascists

The funny thing is the ones who I said were mentally and hysically preparing themselves for revolution WERE the republicans.

Right around the time Obama took office...

you don't actually know anything about america do you

because that's like the most uninformed idea of how america is since ever

how do you think a democratic president was elected if everyone is republican

I'm saying the democrats are right wing and the republicans are insane. And there is no left in america, at least not in a large, organized sense.

[quote="Reyo"] All I'm saying is that a revolution is not only possible/quote]
It's possible now because the system wasn't in place or implemented to it's fullest yet. Again, why would you even ever want to make it harder for people to freely communicate? You're not going to stop terrorism doing that because the real extremists are far more willing to use all means necessary to organise.

It'd be possible even with the implementation of the technology for the reasons I've given. And, again, everything is under the assumption that the government IS going to misuse it to start peeping on everyone in the shower to take note of their naughty bits. I know no one trusts the government, but honestly it's just silly to walk around playing these games. Nothing is ever going to get done if we're too afraid of the misuse of new technology to give it a chance to benefit our lives. You remember when the government was going to use our genome to engineer human killbots? Or when sustained spaceflight meant the Russians were going to nuke us from orbit? Nuclear energy is still a hot button topic (since, apparently, all a terrorist has to do is bomb a power plant (from orbit) to make it a nuclear bomb). We managed to get the genome, but we still can't go to the next step for the same reason. The only thing out of the three we do have for certain is sustained spaceflight, and that produced more knowledge and understanding of our universe than it did nukes from orbit. We're still easing into nuclear energy.

Besides, it's much too difficult for us to rally with it in place, yet terrorists are more than capable? Under what principle? They want it more? For one, I'm unsure of the comparison levels between rallies of people and their abilities to organise, and second, that just proves the earlier point I was making that motivation can do a shitton to circumvent all of these impossibilities. Yes, the technology would make it harder to organize were a revolution required to take place, but it would make it equally harder for domestic terrorism to take hold, and so far the only one of the two that's actually a tangible threat is the domestic terrorism.