Comments on: America’s downfall: Hey teachers, leave us laptops alone!

By: Alex Barrera

Alex Barrera — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 03:20:20 +0000

I’m sure Canada will start to see an exodus of talented people in the next few years. Some companies are starting to move their R&D centers to Canada. For example, Microsoft is starting to move their people from Seattle to some other centers in Canada. I suppose that the US either starts reacting or this would be a common practice in the next years. I haven’t been to Canada (yet, as I was planing a trip to Vancouver) so you probably know more than me about this, but you guys should start building good tech hubs to try and keep all that brain power (hopefully you can tell me that there are some already!).

By: buckpost

buckpost — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:54:06 +0000

I’m sure Canada will be happy to accept super-smart people if the U.S. doesn’t want them. It would a way for us to reverse the brain-drain that takes our best and brightest.

By: Ervin Sholpnick

Ervin Sholpnick — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:09:21 +0000

I like beans

By: Alex Barrera

Alex Barrera — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:12:27 +0000

First of all, thanks for the comment @1, much appreciated. There is indeed a war on privacy that has been going on for some years now. What really strikes me is that people don’t seem to care until something ugly happens to them.

Even in Europe we are seeing weird bills being approve like in Germany and more recently in UK about being prosecuted if you distribute software that might be used for dubious activities. As far as I know, you’ll be prosecuted in UK if you don’t hand in your password!

What is sad like you point out, is that you have to modify your behavior to look “less suspicious”. That’s amazing! What’s funny is that humans are so subjective, we are very inefficient in identifying suspects. For example, if you have a big beard and have a nice tan, you’ll be stopped at the security check for sure. And now they’ve installed personal that is “able” to identify “stressed” people? It’s going to be funny how that works out.

I didn’t want to make this post about a foreigns point of view on the matter so I’m really glad you gave your point of view. Specially about it not being an airport problem anymore, but a problem that affects US residents at large.

@Elad, thanks for the pingback. Great video! Starbucks police? that was funny!

By: America, Corporations and the Police State « Philosophical Musings

America, Corporations and the Police State « Philosophical Musings — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 09:20:21 +0000

[...] — Elad @ 9:20 am There’s growing talk about how America is becoming a police state. Here’s just one little example that I ran into [...]

By: noonespecial

noonespecial — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:46:32 +0000

I’m an American. I agree with everything you said but I don’t think you’ve taken it far enough! There as an absolute war on individualism and privacy going on right now in the USA. I remember exactly the first time I ever felt a real fear of the authorities and modified my behavior in order to seem “less suspicious” even though I was doing nothing wrong. It happened 2 years ago in an airport taking a domstic flight.

I’ve felt that and acted this way one other time in my life. Visiting east Berlin before the fall of the wall.

But don’t think its just airports. Things have degraded so far that local police can sieze your computers, cars, cash, whatever simply because of the suspicion of drug possession or dealing. You WILL NOT get these things back if you are not charged or later proven innocent. The police auction these things off to fund themselves after searching them for evidence of ANY crime, related or unrelated to the arrest.

The war on drugs, the war on terror.. what they mean is the war ON YOU.