World's Biggest Comspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True

  On 7/14/2013 at 8:22 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

government / corporations / organised religion aren't evil per se. they're just incompetent, selfish and corrupt.

two components of evil right there.

and it's not that we're paranoid, it's that you are naive.

Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.

*wise and knowing look*

Lots of banned profiles in this thread. Conspiracy? I guess we will never know how sup's essay turned out. Maybe he crashed his car into a tree at 200mph on his way to hand it in.

Isn't plural of theory >>> theories?

  On 7/14/2013 at 8:22 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

it disgusts me that people think their boring lives are significant enough to warrant government attention. i'm not saying what they're doing is good, i'm just saying people are paranoid. i'm pro snowden and all that, i just get so sick of the fear. what people don't realise is that the government / corporations / organised religion aren't evil per se. they're just incompetent, selfish and corrupt.

 

EDIT: capitalism *jazz hands*

Sorry to jump on the pile here, but you're missing the point!

1. Some people in the government are good, most are kind of mediocre, and some are evil, power-hungry sociopaths. Sort of like everywhere else.

2. It's often the most power-hungry that find ways of being in power.

3. Surveillance like this has historically been used to crush dissent domestically. It's telling that, even with PRISM in place, great extra care was taken to spy on Occupy, which has been the closest thing to a "resistance movement" since Vietnam.

So what most people are worried about, or at least what I am worried about, is that: the government is becoming increasingly unpopular and powerful, at a time when it's already ruled by special interests. The fact that this spying tool exists absolutely chills opposition, free thought, journalism. Your feeling that "it doesn't matter what you do because you don't matter" [paraphrasing] - what about the people who do matter? Who want to matter? This country was founded on freedom, dissent, and happiness. If one good-hearted activist or journalist is hurt because of PRISM, we're losing our reason to exist. Someone will use this massive capability for evil. It's just a matter of time.

How about starting from a position where "good" and "evil" are things from fairy tales and religion, and reality has 50 shades of grey? And how about, instead of piling up against government (which is mostly playing in the hands of those special interests), actually helping government getting rid of the influence of those special interests? (without labelling those special interests good or evil, btw). It's the "democratic" system which, to me at least, needs a good defence against "undemocratic" influences. The Bushes and Obamas are products of this democratic system. Not the "evil" minds behind it all. There aren't any. No matter how hard the Cheneys and the Kochs may try. (as proven by the outcome of the last election)

corruption and selfishness do make things bad for other people, but they don't care because they are corrupt and selfish. This is evil. I don't know what's the big deal about labelling it as such. If a grandmother baked her granddaughter an apple pie, that would be termed as a good. Well then ripping off millions of home owners on their morgages, or suppressing the leaders of democratic dissent, by putting them on watch lists and no fly lists, that can be termed as evil. Easy peasy. Why do we have to be so tolerant of these cunts, and tip toe around defining what they are, they sure as hell don't give a fuck about us.

because there is no such thing as good and evil? examples of "pure" corruption and selfishness (which fit the disney definition, so to speak) are as rare as that guy who locked up 3 women in his house for 10 years. to a certain extent everyone is corrupt and selfish, so where do you draw a line?

To put labels like good and evil on politics and politicians, is like saying those people are as crazy as that man. Call me stupid, but if the koch brothers honestly think they're "fighting" for a good cause, would it make them "evil" if their actions had the opposite effect? My only point is, "no, that wouldn't make them evil". the point is, they're somehow in a position where they can have more power over political decisions than some average joe without a big bank account. that needs to change. people are what they are. you can't solve problems by simply shooting all the "evil" people. even if you could label them as such. which i think "you can't".

just like bankers aren't bad people individually either, if you catch my drift. no matter what their score is on some test for sociopaths.

  On 7/14/2013 at 1:37 PM, Timothy Forward said:

Lots of banned profiles in this thread. Conspiracy? I guess we will never know how sup's essay turned out. Maybe he crashed his car into a tree at 200mph on his way to hand it in.

We all know that sup is still here and posting frequently. It's pretty much an unspoken subject.

  On 7/14/2013 at 6:51 PM, goDel said:

because there is no such thing as good and evil?

say that to the religious institutions.

  On 7/14/2013 at 6:51 PM, goDel said:

to a certain extent everyone is corrupt and selfish, so where do you draw a line?

here

  On 7/14/2013 at 6:51 PM, goDel said:

because there is no such thing as good and evil? examples of "pure" corruption and selfishness (which fit the disney definition, so to speak) are as rare as that guy who locked up 3 women in his house for 10 years. to a certain extent everyone is corrupt and selfish, so where do you draw a line?

 

To put labels like good and evil on politics and politicians, is like saying those people are as crazy as that man. Call me stupid, but if the koch brothers honestly think they're "fighting" for a good cause, would it make them "evil" if their actions had the opposite effect? My only point is, "no, that wouldn't make them evil". the point is, they're somehow in a position where they can have more power over political decisions than some average joe without a big bank account. that needs to change. people are what they are. you can't solve problems by simply shooting all the "evil" people. even if you could label them as such. which i think "you can't".

just like bankers aren't bad people individually either, if you catch my drift. no matter what their score is on some test for sociopaths.

sure. good and evil are relative terms like most other ethically/morally oriented adjectives.

sure the problem is systemic, but that doesn't excuse the individuals that operate within that abused system to perpetuate and in many cases exacerbate the cycle of abuse. On a relative scale, I would think, or at least hope that a man who scams people out of billions of dollars is guilty of a greater "evil" than a lower-class guy who lied on his tax returns one year. If someone murders someone else, we bring up the systemic problems: he was a abused by his parents, he was thrown out of school, he was refused welfare, had a mental disease, etc. etc. but ultimately the man was guilty of a murder, and he will most likely in some form be held responsible for it.

And then that obviously proceeds to "how does society as a whole know what a greater good or evil is?" and ultimately the systemic problem is humanity itself. Then everyone's head explodes and we can finally live in the ether in peace.

  On 7/14/2013 at 8:37 PM, spratters said:

 

  On 7/14/2013 at 1:37 PM, Timothy Forward said:

Lots of banned profiles in this thread. Conspiracy? I guess we will never know how sup's essay turned out. Maybe he crashed his car into a tree at 200mph on his way to hand it in.

 

 

We all know that sup is still here and posting frequently. It's pretty much an unspoken subject.

 

Shhh

so are we gonna sit here like a bunch of idiots and try to define the idea of "evil", or are we gonna move on and talk about real shit?

like...the secret space program, the high tech surveillance grid (which goes far beyond the recording of our phone calls), fluoridation of our water supply, the genetic manipulation of our food and the ecosystem itself, the geoengineering program (chemtrails), corporate and political globalization, ufos, exploding cancer rates, etc

cmon cowards, do your worst

  On 7/16/2013 at 12:33 PM, Jody Dark said:

so are we gonna sit here like a bunch of idiots and try to define the idea of "evil", or are we gonna move on and talk about real shit?

 

like...the secret space program, the high tech surveillance grid (which goes far beyond the recording of our phone calls), fluoridation of our water supply, the genetic manipulation of our food and the ecosystem itself, the geoengineering program (chemtrails), corporate and political globalization, ufos, exploding cancer rates, etc

 

cmon cowards, do your worst

My pineal gland is acting up again.

OH, and all that other stuff is fucked too.

Do you guys ever just drive around, and you look out your window and think. This all seems looks like a giant failed experiment?

The alleged email provider of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has suddenly shut down, leaving just an ominous message in its absence.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/08/snowdens-alleged-email-provider-shuts-down-warns-against-trusting-u-s-companies/

2012 happened

  On 7/14/2013 at 4:15 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

that the US government is spying on every single citizen in the United States and many other countries around the world, storing it's phone calls, and internet history by working with corporations in a text-book fascistic way to obtain the data without a warrant or judicial oversight

 

what was once a paranoid tin-foil 'theory' is now provable and fact

Grade-A bump, would sift to find again.

probably should go into the right thread about it but this one got bumped so..

somehow it re-piqued my interest so i've been reading a lot about the snowden ordeal yesterday, turns out that most of it is typical greenwaldian hyperbole mixed with wishful thinking, half-truths and and attempt to find some semblance of facts to fit into his grand theory of "america is a satan", there was absolutely no evidence so far than any of that data collecting stuff is illegal.

the best piece of tldr about it actually comes from david simon (very interesting exchanges in the comment section as well): davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/#comments

  On 8/9/2013 at 12:01 AM, o00o said:

The alleged email provider of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has suddenly shut down, leaving just an ominous message in its absence.http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/08/snowdens-alleged-email-provider-shuts-down-warns-against-trusting-u-s-companies/

On a side note, I'm still wondering how congress could have decided to keep the program after all the info that has leaked. ( and considering they would have known there was more information going to to be leaked - more information which could drive their voters to having a different opinion)

On one side I wonder which big money interests like to have programs like these. You could argue it's the tech industry. But the tech industries, like Google and Yahoo for instance, mostly have spoken publicly against it. So I don't think there has been a large silicon valley lobby for the nsa programs, so to speak. And the defense industry is pretty unlikely to spend millions on this legislation as well, I believe. They're mostly in it for the ability to sell more stuff like guns and bullets, and there's not much of that here. So the question remains what party would be willing to spend millions on lobbying? Because the thing is, without lobbying, would congress have voted to keep the program in the air? I'm tempted to think no, butthe recent outcome might actually be a good representation to how the us thinks about the nsa programs. For a change.

So to end on a positive note, because the voting was pretty close: perhaps people and companies should be leaking more info like this in order to have the next vote have the right outcome.

  On 8/9/2013 at 5:13 AM, eugene said:

probably should go into the right thread about it but this one got bumped so..

somehow it re-piqued my interest so i've been reading a lot about the snowden ordeal yesterday, turns out that most of it is typical greenwaldian hyperbole mixed with wishful thinking, half-truths and and attempt to find some semblance of facts to fit into his grand theory of "america is a satan", there was absolutely no evidence so far than any of that data collecting stuff is illegal.

 

the best piece of tldr about it actually comes from david simon (very interesting exchanges in the comment section as well): davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/#comments

I did a quickscan of the page but couldn't find the name of the application analysts at the nsa run. You know, that app where those people have instant access to all the info. This app was a fundamental part of the leak, and, imo very convincing. And i can't find any mention of it. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places, but without addressing the existence of such application, I consider this wall of text a huge pile of wankery punditisms.

  On 8/9/2013 at 8:22 AM, goDel said:

 

  On 8/9/2013 at 5:13 AM, eugene said:

probably should go into the right thread about it but this one got bumped so..

somehow it re-piqued my interest so i've been reading a lot about the snowden ordeal yesterday, turns out that most of it is typical greenwaldian hyperbole mixed with wishful thinking, half-truths and and attempt to find some semblance of facts to fit into his grand theory of "america is a satan", there was absolutely no evidence so far than any of that data collecting stuff is illegal.

 

the best piece of tldr about it actually comes from david simon (very interesting exchanges in the comment section as well): davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/#comments

I did a quickscan of the page but couldn't find the name of the application analysts at the nsa run. You know, that app where those people have instant access to all the info. This app was a fundamental part of the leak, and, imo very convincing. And i can't find any mention of it. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places, but without addressing the existence of such application, I consider this wall of text a huge pile of wankery punditisms.

 

i guess you mean xkeyscore ? yeah it's a later reveal.

it's a tool for analyzing data from what i read and understand, only greenwald and his cult interpreted it as "listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents. And it's all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst.".

even if there is a hint of such capability, how the heck does he come to a conclusion that it's inherently used in an illegal way ? it's like a law-free police baton with which a policeman can hit anyone with complete impunity.

:sup:

  On 8/9/2013 at 2:16 PM, eugene said:

 

  On 8/9/2013 at 8:22 AM, goDel said:

 

  On 8/9/2013 at 5:13 AM, eugene said:

probably should go into the right thread about it but this one got bumped so..

somehow it re-piqued my interest so i've been reading a lot about the snowden ordeal yesterday, turns out that most of it is typical greenwaldian hyperbole mixed with wishful thinking, half-truths and and attempt to find some semblance of facts to fit into his grand theory of "america is a satan", there was absolutely no evidence so far than any of that data collecting stuff is illegal.

 

the best piece of tldr about it actually comes from david simon (very interesting exchanges in the comment section as well): davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/#comments

I did a quickscan of the page but couldn't find the name of the application analysts at the nsa run. You know, that app where those people have instant access to all the info. This app was a fundamental part of the leak, and, imo very convincing. And i can't find any mention of it. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places, but without addressing the existence of such application, I consider this wall of text a huge pile of wankery punditisms.

 

i guess you mean xkeyscore ? yeah it's a later reveal.

it's a tool for analyzing data from what i read and understand, only greenwald and his cult interpreted it as "listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents. And it's all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst.".

even if there is a hint of such capability, how the heck does he come to a conclusion that it's inherently used in an illegal way ? it's like a law-free police baton with which a policeman can hit anyone with complete impunity.

 

Not entirely sure what you mean, But Snowden was one of the people actually working with that tool. Don't you think he knows what he could and couldn't do with such an app? It's a mining tool giving access to all kinds of stuff. Snowden apparantly says any analyst using that tool could get any info that's kept in the database without someone watching over his shoulder. And any info that's been kept inside the database is basically anything online. As soon as digital information crosses the US border, it is copied into the NSA database. So that basically means anything posted here is in the NSA database, for instance. If they would be interested. But I wouldn't be surprised if they did indeed copy everything (copy now, think about how to use it later...).

it really doesn't matter what snowden says, it's the official documents that he can bring to back his claims that are important. the powerpoints about xkeyscore are very vague, lacking context and are too open to interpretations.

secondly, it doesn't make sense that something like this would be completely open to any agent. it's something so basic that even the tiniest shops and firms have different restriction for different users and computers on a network. besides there's always law and common understanding of institutions even without technological restriction.

regarding nsa having copy of the whole internet, where did you get this notion from ?