[hodwik]

The government can tap pretty much any call, and has been collecting meta-data on all calls, and the public does not seem to mind.

I think you're overestimating how much the public's indifference has to do with computer illiteracy.

That's like saying gun control advocates only argue as they do because they don't understand guns. It's a really silly argument.

[AnthonyMouse]

> That's like saying gun control advocates only argue as they do because they don't understand guns. It's a really silly argument.

It's a completely valid argument in both cases. Banning only the scary-looking guns has no productive effect. And if you ask normal people whether they think government employees should be able to read steamy messages between husband and wife, the answer is going to be no.

Also keep in mind that push polling is a thing. Every time you hear a statistic like "only 27% of Americans oppose mass surveillance," expect that the question was whether the government should be able to tap your phone if it was the only possible way to prevent a terrorist attack that would kill you.

If you ask whether large numbers of government employees and contractors should be able to know everything about your business and sex life if it would have the same effectiveness in catching terrorists as a variety of alternative methods that would shovel fewer tax dollars into the pockets of large government contractors, you get a different answer.

[mindslight]

> And if you ask normal people whether they think government employees should be able to read steamy messages between husband and wife, the answer is going to be no.

Disagree. The person imagines a constrained government, which would only be reading private messages when there is reason for suspicion. The only time another human would be invading their privacy is in an exceptional situation that happens to others (since they themselves are good), which can be just-worlded to the required degree. And of course mass media distorts their priors to think that suspicion strongly implies guilt - a TV show would be quite boring if there were no wrongdoing.

I suspect tech is so (relatively) resistant to mass surveillance because we've perceived how horribly wrong group dynamics go and, rather than accepting being compliant herd followers, found our own outlets and created our own kingdoms. We are the outliers - we will never have the majority on our side.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The person imagines a constrained government, which would only read private messages when there is reason for suspicion.

That's the point. People who support mass surveillance or encryption bans only do so because they're uninformed (or have been purposely misinformed by others). You teach regular people how it actually works and they change their tune.

[griffinmb]

My parents are okay with mass surveillance. I've tried running them through how it actually works, but it turned out that they really don't seem to care about this kind of privacy. They are very much about the idea that "if it even saves just one person" it's worth it.

On the subject of encryption bans and backdoors, I explained that this would make it easier for them to be the target of hacks and fraud. This concerned them, but ultimately they are under the impression that the people handling it know more than me and I can't be correct.

I don't think they are particularly out-of-the-ordinary, so I don't think the solution is a simple act of informing people. I think people who do care about this stuff largely need to accept the possibility that this isn't important to the majority of the population, and that it never will be (no matter how informed the public is). Instead, we need to continue build the tools and the infrastructure to secure ourselves regardless of policy and legislation.

[thatcat]

>even if it saves one person its worth it did you explain that encryption saves people too?

[griffinmb]

The problem with the encryption conversation, is that they believe people more knowledgeable than myself are dealing with it. I demonstrated its importance, and they see how necessary it is.

But when I say the kinds of changes being proposed would fundamentally undermine the security encryption provides, they think I'm wrong. Like most of the current presidential-hopefuls, they believe in a magic-bullet that will give the government access but no one else. They think someone smarter than me will implement it, and that my concerns are misplaced.

Again, I don't see this as a strange viewpoint. I think, to some degree, it's what most people believe.

[Grishnakh]

Your parents sound like Hillary, Cruz, Bush, or Rubio voters.

[mindslight]

Except the chance of a human seeing those messages is still constrained. I don't think your 'average' person is creeped out by a computer analyzing their messages. To the extent some might be, they have so little digital autonomy (gmail etc) that the only way they can change that is to avoid electronic communication for the things they'd like to keep private. And the majority are clearly not doing that for the bulk of their communication.

[hodwik]

People in tech are suspicious of mass surveillance because most people in tech got here by way of Science Fiction, which was in a dystopian phase when we were highly impressionable.

[Retric]

Banning only the scary-looking guns has no productive effect.

That's rather disingenuous, I am all for banning people buying howitzers and other artillery even if there just big guns. Yes, you can make them with a decent machine shop, but just because some nutjobs are highly capable does not mean they all are.

[monocasa]

I think he's talking about "assault weapon" bans. I don't think whether or not a rifle has a pistol grip is going to b the determining factor in preventing a mass shooting.

[Retric]

<Playing devil’s advocate or in this case Angel’s advocate?>

It is easier to carry out a door to door mass shooting with a pistol grip. This is why assault weapons have them in the first place. Sure, it might only save a few lives, but that would be meaningful for those who lived. ;0

</enough derailing>

IMO, none of that stuff was going to get passed, it's all about the political football. I am starting to think encryption may be the same game as it's a great way to drum up donations.

[Grishnakh]

You have a point there: pistol grips do have a small but useful function.

Now, change it to "bayonet mounts", which is another feature that was listed on the "Assault Weapons Ban" law. How does having a bayonet aid someone in a mass shooting? In fact, when has a mass shooter ever had a bayonet mounted on his rifle? I'm not even sure why they bother with them any more; I've never seen any pictures with US military servicemen in combat in the last 20 years with bayonets mounted in their M-16s or M-4s.

Another thing was flash suppressors. How is banning those going to prevent mass shootings? The whole point of a flash suppressor is so the enemy on a battlefield can't tell where gunfire is coming from exactly. Someone walking into a movie theater isn't all that worried about return fire, and in a room that size when he enters through the emergency-exit door, it's not like he's going to be well-hidden.

But seriously, the whole thing is pretty dumb IMO. They tried to ban very, very minor features (pistol grips, flash suppressors, barrel shrouds, etc.), but ignored the things that really made these weapons good at shooting lots of people, namely semiautomatic operation and easily-swapped magazines. If you want to make mass shootings hard, ban magazine-fed ammunition and semiautomatic operation. Of course, that'll bring you right back to Old West 6-shooters (well, modern .357 Magnum revolvers would still be legal too, but you could also ban that style of revolver where the cylinder is easily opened and reloaded with a speedloader; the Old West revolvers didn't have that, you had to reload them one at a time, very slowly). But of course they know that'll never work since people have had semiauto guns for a century or more now and aren't going to turn them all in, so they go for a feel-good measure that'll make ignorant anti-gun voters happy without actually changing anything substantive.

[15charlimit]

"Assault weapons" are a fictional category consisting of "scary looking" cosmetic features on guns that are mechanically identical in every way to the oft-mentioned "normal hunting firearm" that politicians are always careful to claim they have no interest in banning.

[Retric]

Historically, "Assault weapons" is a useful category. They where designed for close combat where shooter mobility was more important than holding a lower prone position.

Granted, it's like banning the ergonomic snow shovel. Sure, it's slightly better, but it's generally not a huge difference.

[Grishnakh]

>Also keep in mind that push polling is a thing. Every time you hear a statistic like "only 27% of Americans oppose mass surveillance," expect that the question was whether the government should be able to tap your phone if it was the only possible way to prevent a terrorist attack that would kill you.

Yep, this is why so many polls are BS: the questions are worded in such a way to coerce people to answer a certain way, or options are left out.

It may not even be intentional; if you use the OKCupid dating site, they have thousands of questions you can answer so that it can match you up with people. I think a lot of these questions (probably most) were actually submitted by users, and many times they have terrible choices. For instance, there's one question about dogs: it asks if you want to own a dog or not. The choices are (I don't have the exact Q in front of me here) "yes, I do or would love to own a dog!", or "No, I dislike dogs". WTF? If you pick the latter, it makes you look like you hate dogs. But what if you like dogs just fine and are generally an animal-loving person, but you just don't want to own and care for a dog? I like horses well enough too, but that doesn't mean I want to buy a horse farm and fill the barn with horses. I think iguanas are cute, but I don't really want one as a pet. I think parrots are beautiful and interesting animals, but I really don't want to live with all that squawking (plus I think they should be left in the wild). But somehow because I don't want to take care of a dog, I'm suddenly a dog-hater according to this poll question.

The way a poll question is designed really reflects a lot on the bias of the person writing the poll; the only way to mitigate it is to have every poll question thoroughly scrutinized by a diverse committee. But they never are, they just run the poll, collect the data, and assume it to be gospel truth.

[al3xnull]

Apologies if this devolves, but I have to comment: Except that many gun control advocates do argue as they do because they don't understand guns and the processes around them. Not so silly.