AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Yes but it'd be much harder and why would you ever want that? And yes this is under the assumption that they will misuse it because they will. Maybe not now, maybe not within ten years, but definitely within a 100. Because that's how these things always go if history is any lesson.


Because they're insane and not afraid to use violent or even self-sacrificial means?

Terrorists just need to create a disturbance to succeed. A revolution has to succeed more than the time for a bomb to go off. It is a sustained endeavour that is most likely going to take more than just a few weeks. Probably several months before everything is completed.

And the reason we did spaceflight was because it was a good cover to test out ICBM nukes. Sputnik was launched with a rocket designed to carry nuclear warheads.

Because it would also be much harder for domestic terrorism to happen, and that's the primary concern with this technology, not "but what will our chances be if we need to revolt?" I understand the need for a right to protest, but if all you're doing is looking out for that right in everything that happens...well that's just not healthy. That's like basing every major decision you make with your significant other on how easy it'd be to break up with them and move on. You're not supposed to be actively thinking about that sort of thing.

And no, history isn't filled with technologies that then get used against the people 100% of the time. There are examples, but not with any frequency rate close to 100%. The only example I can think would be the taxes the british put on colonial americans, which weren't even a new idea, yet that revolution succeeded, and the only benefit taxes had was that the government would have more cheddar.



You're going with the modern definition of a terrorist. And even then, the word "insane" is incredibly vague to describe a simply motivated mentality. Yes, suicidal goes against biological programming, but the Japanese had no issue with it in World War II. They weren't called terrorists. They were called kamikazes, but without the "war on kamikazes!" that would be the equivalent to today's "war on terror."

Besides, the saying "the victors write the istory books" comes into play here. Had the American Revolution failed, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, etc, would have all gone down in infamy for committing treason and espionage. Since it succeeded, they're our nation's "Founding Fathers". Had Japan/Germany somehow won World War II, those same Kamikaze pilots I'm comparing to terrorists willing to commit suicide to their cause would be written down as War Heros who were willing to give up their lives to win the war. I'm not saing those terrorists are right in what they're doing, I'm saying that our perspective is getting in the way of effectively assessing just who they are. They're not "crazy," they just have a more dangerous motivation behind their actions.

Plus, we do thwart countless attempts at terrorism every day overseas. The problem isn't that they're trying, and succeeding at getting past our defenses. The problem is that they keep trying time and time again, which would be the exact same problem the government would have to face if there was a revolution.



Terrorism has to do with political influence through violent means. bodaciously he only difference between that and what would happen in a revolution is that the violence would be geared at the government and not innocent civilians. What's happening overseas isn't just guys lowing shit up for shits and giggles, they're doing it because our presence is making it hard for them to gain control over the people. Besides, a lot of the shenanigans they do isn't just to try and kill us. A good chunk of it is to try and make us look bad to the civilians so they can then go to the townspeople and rally them against us. There is more method than madness in all of the chaos. The Red Dawn remake is surprisingly accurate in portraying what the insurgents are trying to do in the middle east (the main difference being that Thor + Josh and friends made an actual effort to just try and fuck with the North Korean invaders and limit the civilian casualties as much as physically possible.)

Also yes, I realize rockets were bodaciously sent in orbit, which would be an example of a technology that actually got the closest to actually being used for the evil the people feared, yet still none of it happened.

Your government isn't your lover, this isn't a two-way street. You elect your government to protect your interests. And as has been pointed out, this won't stop terrorism. Nothing ever will. Taking away your freedom in an attempt to fight terrorism is ironically counter-productive.

I wasn't talking about technology being misused by the government (any technology can get misused after all), I'm saying that every government eventually outsteps it bounds and needs to be reminded that it's there to serve the people not the other way around.

Yes, why would I use any other definition? Terrorist is of course a buzzword created to instil fear, so let me put it differently. You say this technology will be more effective to prevent violence than it would restrict free communication. I'm saying it won't because the people willing to use violent means are usually much more determined and desperate than the common people.

Also it's funny that you go off on this side-rant about the word terrorism when it's the fear for this terrorism that seems to lead you to defend these extreme measures.


No. A revolution doesn't need to be violent.

Terrorism in general, no, but specific acs of terrorism, yes. And to me, one life saved in a thwarted domestic terrorist plot would be justification enough. Not justification for any negatives the government may decide to partake in later, but the normal side effect of the technology in question. And just the possibility that the government can misuse it shouldn't justify allowing just one life to be lost in a preventable attack. If the Boston Marathon bombing could have been prevented using the technology, then there would have been two less deaths, and one less attack to hear about, because at its core that is what the technology is supposed to be for. And I'd like to think the government was more worried about stopping potential terrorist attacks that peeping into peoples personal lives for profit.



That's what this technology is supposed to be for, though, to serve the people, just like every major technological advancement has been (even taxes, which are meant to go towards civil services). Again, we're just talking about the possibility. And this technology does look scary, but so did the erroneous taxes put on the colonies, but we managed to get around even those.



The thing is it wouldn't restrict free communication unles you were planning something terrible. The NSA isn't going to somehow keep you from posting on facebook what your projected plans are for the weekend. They're also not going to keep you from calling your parents in case of an emergency. What they're going to do is make sure you don't say things like "We're going to blow up the freeway this saturday" where if you did, they'd take action to make sure you didn't blow up a freeway on saturday. The only way it would limit our communication is if they then overstepped that boundary, and created a need for a revolution where we would then potentially use that tapped communications to organize, which we wouldn't because we'd know they're tapped. But that wouldn't stop us since it was more than possible to rally and organise without a shred of technology in the past.



I've been instructed in how they think from both the military and a handful of psychology classes. As for the philisohical parts, that's just regular philisophical bullshit. And you can understand how a group of people think and feel, but still fear for any terrible actions they may want to take on you or your family/friends (example: the Nazis. The history channel has more than just dissected how they thought and felt during the 1940's. They weren't insane either, just terrible, terrible xenophobes.)



Aggression is in the intent, not the act. While violence may have been a less accurate word, the point I was going for was that the intent of the aggression would be towards the government, and not the people. In the middle east, the people are included in the target range since there's a religious element to it.

Mate I have to say I have no idea what you're trying to say any more. Could you please try to stick to point instead of going off on irrelevant tangents.

I'm going off on these tangenst because you don't seem to understand the full picture. It's not just anout the NSA taping our phones to butt in to our privacy. That is a part of it, but there is other stuff to consider.

Except your full picture is just vague nonsense. Stick to the topic so people actually understand what your point is. The saying "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance then baffle them with bullshit," doesn't work for debates.

I was more than willing to stick to the original topic (which was about the NSA taping into our communication feeds, which was something I discussed in my last comment), but Then there were concerns with what that would do for Revolution, and then why Terrorists would then somehow be able to circumvent the system while revolutionaries wouldn't, and then about how terrorists are crazy psychopaths with no goals or intentions. I go off on these tangents because each of these tangential topics aren't just pertinent, but it seems you've chosen these topics for why my point of view is incorrect, and I'm defending against it to the best of my own ability like you'd think anyone would do in a topic meant specifically for argumentative discussion.

Here's each tangent and how they related to the original topic:

1. Misuse of technology: This was the original topic where everyone's problem is that the government is just going to use this technology to fuck over innocent people by snitching on the miscellaneous, irrelevant crimes we commit every day instead of sniffing out domestic terrorism. First I tried to explain that it wouldn't be in the government's best interests to do that since Johnny's plan to bomb a bridge is much more pertinent to their interests than how much weed Jack smokes in a weekend. The rebuttle to this was pretty much just "well companies are bad and always fuck us over!" which is where I brought up the fact that revolution needs to take place ASAP if these companies really are as bad as you say they are (and to be honest, that was more to show you how rediculous all of this defeatist talk is in how companies are bad, always, 100%, but then revolution was picked up and dragged out for some reason.)

2. Revolution: That's when it became a matter of how impossible it would be to have this revolution with this technology in place. I've explained how that wouldn't be true. Then it became an issue of "Well why would you willingly make it harder to rebell on yourself?" and I explained that it's because the technology isn't originally for stopping acts of revolution, but domestic terrorism.

3. Terrorism: After that, it became a matter of the previous point becoming irrelevant since terrorists would easily circumvent it since they're crazy, violent, and random. That's when I had to explain that terrorists aren't just random, crazy suicide bombers looking for chaos. There is a political ploy in all of the chaos, and that the only difference between terrorism, and any revolution, is that terrorism has no problem using innocent civilians in the cross fire.

So really the problem isn't that I'm trying to bullshit my argument together, the problem is you apparently can't follow an arc, mistaking the flow of the conversation for attempts to change the topic.

You just did the same thing again, stretching out something that can be summarized in a single paragraph into a giant post. Maybe consider that if multiple people have this problem (and I know it's not just me and Madican), that it's your writing and not your audience?

Now what you're doing is using the guise that other people agree with your point of view, therefore I must be incorrect (which isn't really even logic) and instead decided to make the discussion about how I'm arguing my point of view, and, ironically, about how I've stopped arguing the main point.

You're kidding me with this, right? Would you much rather I sit here and give you single sentence replies that amount to "I disagree"? I can do that, but it'd be against the rules, because as a general rule: longer arguments >>>> shorter arguments.

I can make this about how my argumentative techniques are in fact valid and you're making absolutely no sense in what you're trying to say, but I have a feeling you're just going to then yell at me further down the road for having lost the original topic (still about how the NSA is going to snoop on our privacy for negative reasons) and honestly I don't have the patience for that.

The difference between a terrorist attack and a revolution is that a terrorist attack isn't aimed at seizing power in a country. A terrorist attack is successful if it causes fear. A single person can fairly simply get hold of weapons or the materials to create a bomb. The only other thing you need to plan is how, where and when. Typically a crowded area with political/social significance. In general, the terrorists don't have any issues with dying for the cause so getting away with it isn't all that big of an issue. However, as police is usually instructed make you surrender before shooting you (this seems to be the general rule), there are ways of getting out of it without dying.

A revolution is only successful if it causes a change in policy or removes the current rulers from power.

By design, the american government is spread out, so if you want to seize power, you would have to seize most (if not all) county, state and federal buildings related to upholding the law/defence of the country. This includes the Pentagon, The White House, Senate, military bases and/or infrastructure designed to strategically move troops into the affected area. You would most likely need to seize major TV and radio broadcasts to inform the public of your motives. All of this has to be done at the same time or a state of martial law will quickly be enforced and the plan would not work at all as the military is already mobilized.

Now as we know the targets you can start to guesstimate a number of people required to do such a massive operation and since this is technically illegal, you are going to be shut down before you even get to the halfway mark of gathering enough troops. If you get the aid of militias, you would probably be shut down before you have come to an agreement with their leaders as cops sure as hell have them under surveillance.

I just thought I should throw this out there so most of us are on the same page on what the difference in scale, logistics and methods of a terrorist attack and an armed revolution would be.

That is all true, but I can't help but feel that it's more accurate to describe the individual terrorist events than terrorism as a whole. From what I remember, there's the initial motivation, and then the use of terrorism to achieve that motivation. Like in the middle east, the attacks that happen overseas aren't just to cause chaos. They happen because the insurgency group(s) don't want the United States occupying the land they're trying to control. Again, it's why the fight has become about getting the locals to agree with us than killing everyone.

As for those individual attacks, yes they would have an easier time cgetting around the surveillance than a much more logistically based revolution, but it would still be harder on them to accomplish their goal since you'd still need supplies, and plans to pull the individual attack off. Even if you were working alone, your habits change, your shopping changes, and your social habbits change, which is what the technology would pick up on. Right before the Virginia Tech shooting, there was a fuss over the guy posting pictures of himself posing with guns in both nonserious, and very serious manners. While that alone doesn't mean much, if you combine it with other factors like "He's never done that before" "He just bought those" and "He's stopped participating in his schoolwork" and it becomes a case of "He might be planning something."

So yes, with that you are correct in saying that a Revolution as a whole would be harder to hide than individual acts of terrorism, but those individual acts of terrorism would still be easier to predict, and the motives behind that terrorism would be harder to make happen as well. And in the end, the whole point of this technology was to sniff out these individual acts of terrorism, and not necessarily to stop future revolution. The point on the revolution was more to say that it needs to happen regardless if these companies that are making the technology so negative really are as evil as they're said they are, and yes preferably before the technology goes out.

No, I was simply asking you to make your points more concise, I wasn't addressing the validity of your arguments at all. I was adding that I wasn't just asking for me. Perhaps you need to work on your reading comprehension as well.

I feel like this isn't going to go any where any more at any rate now, so I'll try to summarise the main point one last time.

The reason there is strife between your government and "terrorists" at it's core boils down to the protection of the rights of both sides. If you take away your own rights just to fight that battle more efficiently, what are you really fighting for?

Tell you what, since your argument has come down to just yelling at me for talking too much and insulting my reading comprehension, I'll just stop, concede defeat, and continue this discussion when someone's willing to actually discuss.

I can only assume that's what you want since that's what most people who get to this point want.