cahth3iK

cahth3iK

  • Commented on The sky's gone dark
    Socially the effect on mentality might be a soft version of what happens in "The City and the Stars": the idea of space travel becomes impossible because space is prohibitively hostile. Might not be very much of a change from...
  • Commented on The sky's gone dark
    Did you set up this scenario just so that we can sit in a circle and fantasise about the SR-71 making a come-back? Hmmm, if very low orbit is saturated enough, inter-continental ballistic missiles and perhaps even long-range submarine-based ballistic...
  • Commented on Ia, Ia, Google Fthagn
    The topic seems be be yielding lots of fear and conjectures. Let me recapitulate: we are discussing a situation where people are - subjected to an authority that is totalitarian in nature and whose decisions are absurd, cruel and unfathomable...
  • Commented on Crib Sheet: The Rhesus Chart
    Stuff that went into The Rhesus Chart: well, I did a whole bunch of background reading about the culture of banking for Neptune's Brood Any good books you'd recommend?...
  • Commented on On the lack of cultural estrangement in SF
    A bit more pessimistically: we are talking of the change in mentality between 1914 and 2014, I wonder how much the mentality of the average person would have changed between 1814 and 1914. For some people, there will be very...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    I just don't understand you. You have protested of being scandalised by things like mass surveillance or the aggression against Iraq; yet it stands to reason that these are two of the foremost consequences of the servility of the UK...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    When you dismiss mass surveillance with a "so what", you are attacking Human Rights. Your view of the light bulb ban is probably a good illustration of the magnitude of our difference. I see incandescent light bulbs as an abomination...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    As for files on me, of course they have (...) So? The corruption is publicly visible in the restriction of sale of goods Right. Of course if you consider industrial standards as evil and Human Rights as something moot,...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    What's wrong with being a larger, more populous version of Norway? Oh, nothing. If your Norway is large and powerful enough to maintain its economy, its social model, its security, and promote its values. Else you are in "denial-of-history"...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Utter rubbish. The arrests in NI were not "political" (in the "I disagree with their ideology"), they were counter-terrorist (in the "they are killing people, robbing, extorting, and threatening violence"). Well, it always starts like that, does it not?...
  • Commented on Who ordered THAT?!?
    the de facto nation state with strong central governments required the Industrial Revolution. As writer/historian Shelby Foote noted, before the Civil War the "United States" was a plural entity, the war made it singular. Might be true for the USA,...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Oh for goodness' sake. Since 2000, the UK has taken part in an illegal war of aggression and been complicit in systemic torture. It derives important revenues from parasitic financial activities that harm the world economic fabric, while victimising its...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Ah, I see. Actually it was a semantic problem, but on "tradition", not "secret police". I'd say that the existence of the SDS gives a template to organise a secret police service, and in that sense there will be a...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    I cannot guarantee that the European Union would remain free of corruption, no. On the other hand, I can guarantee that countries with decaying economies and less than 100 million inhabitants will be protectorates of someone else and cannot have...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Well what is it you call "secret police" then? To me, "secret police" means "any organisation operating under secret rules and assuming duties typically in the purview of the police". Examples: an intelligence agency working properly is not secret police,...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    We don't have a tradition of secret policemen What? Have you missed out entirely about the Special Demonstration Squad? Just for the record, the British secret police was providing material to the French police about French anarchists operating on French...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Hmm, I don't know if you remember, but ECHELON. That was way before 9/11, and there was already quite some amount of anger directed at the UK for harbouring the European chapter of that endeavour. In fact, there were talks...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Quite. There are two unspoken hypothesis behind my "only chance": "we" refers to all the people in the European Union, many (most) of whom are not Anglo-Saxon and thus would be considered Untermenschen even if the UK joined a union...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    The EU is not particularly corrupt. There are problems, but they exist because were are presently in the process of building the thing. I still fail to understand what you want; a proud Britain standing alone, beacon of democracy? That...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Since a strong, federal European Union could grow corrupt, we have to surrender our lives to foreign super-powers among which the best practices torture, arbitrary executions, unlimited detention without trial, and does not recognise us human rights? And you think...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    You don't get high-end mathematicians, or do ragged-edge electronic development, on the cheap; you start with M.Sc and Ph.D Right... and how much do you suppose a post-doc is worth? They are paid less than mid-ranking non-commissioned officers....
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    I am talking of security clearances for "secret", "top secret" or above. Yes, I too know people cleared for such documents too and who are neither spies nor soldiers, but they do orbit the security apparatus....
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    The number of people currently holding security clearances in the USA is 3.5 millions. That means that a significant percentage of the US population works for the security sector (for any person holding a security clearance, several colleagues do not)....
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Meanwhile there is the slight problem that the entire "Euoropean justice" so-called system is deeply inimical to Common Law. ZOMG!!! Almost the entire European Union drives on the wrong side of the road! We must correct this problem or...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    That is already the case. Are you by any chance thinking of Julian Assange as a case showing faults with the European warrant?...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Spirit of habeas corpus? The Habeas Corpus is typically Anglo-Saxon law. I fail to understand why the European Union, which is overwhelmingly using the Roman legal system, should use such idiosyncratic standards as measuring sticks for fundamental rights. Especially in...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    Incidentally, both Ted R & cath3iK are wrong about the "class" system - this would have been true in 1945-7, yes, but it is presently dead, except in the minds of some deluded people still trying to fight the...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    I think that your faith in the US Constitution is misplaced. We have seen that when confronted with texts that directly contradict their intended policies, US politicians resort to secret interpretations of the law. They blur things so that nothing...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    The question is not if quaint artists who do not annoy anybody get shot, but whether things that sting a bit are allowed to get any traction. What happens with The Death of Klinghoffer is an example of the sorts...
  • Commented on Unwelcome reality excursion
    At the risk of sounding a bit harsh, I think that the UK is a satellite of the USA pretty much as the DDR was a satellite of the USSR. The way the GCHQ implements US surveillance policy is telling:...
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