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0 pointsPavlovsCat12y ago0 comments

Here's an idea: don't make babies before you found an ethical way to provide for them? You make it seem like people just wake up one day with families and a job at the NSA as the only option.

As general rule: if you could say it in defense of being a member of the Waffen-SS, it's probably not a very solid argument. Everybody has their sob story, but long after those people are dead others will STILL have to deal with the messy, fucked up and stupid structures cowards erected. And with that in mind, my sympathy kinda fades.

And that your friends would do it is no argument either, people always seem to have this idea that they themselves (or their friends) are special and ought to not be criticized. Everybody is so fucking magical when it's about them. Contrast this with how we talk and think about people of the past, of other countries or other social groups.

Also there are the people blown up by drones, or the ones threatened with it http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/will-nsa-whistleblower-edwa... (because who needs trials when you have "intelligence") Those don't even get to the point of worry about job security, and they don't seem to even figure into any of this.

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rmrfrmrf12y ago

1. Omniscience is a commodity now? Please let me know where I can find out all of the information (past, present, and future) about every company I may want to work for -- maybe this database you have access to also has information on what my salary will be a few years from now so I can plan out exactly how many children I want to have. This knowledge base you have access to also lets me know if and when I will lose any job I'm holding at any point in the future, right? I wouldn't want something, uh, unexpected, to occur after having children. Those pesky things -- you just can't seem to take them back!

2. The "ethics" of the NSA can be changed by Congress at any time. Why direct your energy at relatively low-level employees when you (assuming you're a US citizen) have the power to effect change top-down?

3. Vice is not a reputable source. It's actually comical that you'd use them of all publications as a source considering that their claim to fame is conspiring with one of the most totalitarian regimes in history (NK) for press and pageviews.

infinity012y ago

Your points may be valid for the typical company, but recent revelations show that these sort of morally questionable roles are apparently quite widespread even down to rank-and-file level within the NSA. The scale and depth of these roles are also another thing that sets it apart from the typical company job, so making excuses about your children are less passable here.

P.S. a tip for PavlovsCat if you're still reading this thread, quote less. It's an implicit appeal to authority (a fallacy) and it makes you sound like you don't have your own ideas.

PavlovsCatOP12y ago

P.S. a tip for PavlovsCat if you're still reading this thread, quote less. It's an implicit appeal to authority (a fallacy) and it makes you sound like you don't have your own ideas.

Thanks, I know it's meant well, but I disagree that it implies appeal to authority; simply ignore the author name and source and notice how the words stand on their own... anything else is a strawman, not any appeal I am actually making. I'm just a quote geek and like tipping my hat that way, when I remember someone having said what I'm getting at in a beautiful or precise fashion. How that seems doesn't really bother me too much: if someone is open to the point I'm making, they will hardly mind a quote; if they're not, even my nickname might be an excuse, or the time of day.

I just love quotes, I even collect the from perfectly "normal" people including HN. Like finding shells on the beach and going "look! someone said this! :D". I also collected quotes them mostly because they fit to what I was thinking (at the time), instead of, say, adapting what I'm thinking to random stuff random people said throughout history. Things aren't this or that way because Chomsky says so, but rather Chomsky is a genius for some of the things he says, and what ultimately matters are those things.

Having own ideas is nice, but noticing that your own ideas are similar with stuff that's been said a million times before, or is currently being said by others, is also nice. Many, if not most ideas aren't really new anyway, they get rediscovered and rephrased all the time.. what matters is if and how we implement them. I think Goethe said something about that :D

Wanna know my favourite quote?

"I saw a human pyramid once. It was totally unnecessary." -- Mitch Hedberg

You can put that on my tombstone, to date I found no better summary of my experience on Earth.

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