[x86_64Ubuntu]

Revolution? You don't really understand revolution if you think the Stingray is going to be the cause of it. Look at what the East German Stasi was able to get away with, and there wasn't a world shattering revolution there.

I wish people would leave the drama to the Young and the Restless and stop implying that the misdeeds of the NSA and other law enforcement in their current state will lead to revolution. You still have clothes, you still have food, the power structure at hand is stable, the key pieces of uncertainty that can foment a revolution are missing. More importantly, you can talk about revolution on a public forum without getting your door reduced to splinters.r

[HelloMcFly]

The casualness with which people seem to expect revolution shows a profound lack of historical appreciation for past revolutions. Life isn't a utopia, but that's not the revolution threshold.

[mikeash]

We value freedom, and therefore we think that people rebel when their freedom is sufficiently curtailed.

Most people value wealth and security, and they only rebel when those are threatened. And not just a little bit: they have to be threatened to the extent that it looks like a worthwhile tradeoff to risk pain, privation, and death just to improve your lot. They really couldn't care less about freedom as long as their lack of freedom doesn't impact their wealth and security too much.

[opendais]

This + a stable Democracy really has a natural safety valve every 2 years. Elections. That, and as long as people can leave the US permanently relatively easily...the people who would seriously consider "revolting" and be effective...they end up in other countries.

If things get bad enough, people will keep kicking out incumbents until things stabilize.

That said, voter suppression is getting worse...not better. So that may slowly close off the safety valve.

Personally, I plan to stick around until/unless I think the chance of me getting arrested is greater than that of being hit by lighting. Then, I'm going to bounce and find another country.

[logfromblammo]

The problem is that going to another country does not put you beyond the reach of the US Government if you are an American. Even if you move your body, it's still difficult to exit the system.

Elections don't seem to be working very effectively. Too many incumbents are gerrymandered into unassailable districts, and are barely challenged in their primaries.

I would also like to have a contingency country, but practically every one that I would be inclined to pick is cheering the US on as it reshapes itself into a police surveillance state.

[opendais]

This is about a revolution level event, not whether you think the process is working.

It provides enough of an escape valve that if enough people who want to revolt feel that way, things would chance before violence started.

You can also renounce your US citizenship which is what truly leaving permanently entails.

[logfromblammo]

Renouncing one citizenship without first acquiring another is a great way to destroy your own freedom of movement and generally undermine your own quality of life. Stateless persons are usually treated according to the amount of wealth they possess. As someone not particularly rich (by Western standards) getting free of the US requires chaining yourself to a less objectionable regime. As might be expected, the countries that people want to live in have stricter immigration requirements.

The "just leave" escape valve is thus not very effective whenever the pressure builds too quickly. Besides that, the smartest and wealthiest people leave first. Anyone left behind is less able and possibly less willing to defuse the crisis.

For most people, they have significant investment in their local community, with financial, social, and reputation capital built up over many years. Abandoning that represents a huge loss, and would require a proportionally large threat to even be worth considering.

I don't expect emigration to change anything, unless some other country miraculously changes its policy to out-freedom the US, and thereby suck all of its brains out.

[opendais]

Renouncing your citizenship and finding citizenship in another country is still easier, safer, and cheaper than starting a revolution.

Anyone capable of organizing and running an effective revolution is capable of leaving the US with less risk & effort.

That is the point you are missing. This is about a revolution & revolutionaries, not "is this easy for anyone? is this best for everyone?"

[reirob]

I guess it is quite difficult to find shelter in another country in order to be safe from extradition to USA. Look what happens with Snowden and Julian Assange.

Sure it depends on how bad USA wants you to come back.

[opendais]

I doubt the US would try to extradite me. I'm not profiting on copyrighted materials or divulging state secrets.

But if I got into a situation like the Goldman Sachs programmer who they are re-trying in state court? I'd say f it and leave the country.

[pjc50]

Indeed. If you want to know what a revolution looks like, look at the middle east. It's incredibly violent, most people are deprived of luxuries and often essentials as well, and there's no guarantees that the good guys will win or even survive.

Meanwhile people underuse the democratic avenues available. No, not street protest but the boring incrementalism of consensus, local politics.

[contingencies]

Revolution? You don't really understand revolution... the key pieces of uncertainty that can foment a revolution are missing.

Just last week we saw https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7929817 in which an ex CIA Open Source Intelligence expert shared his view. He explicitly stated, to the UK public in widely read media:

The preconditions of revolution exist in the UK, and most western countries. The number of active pre-conditions is quite stunning, from elite isolation to concentrated wealth to inadequate socialisation and education, to concentrated land holdings to loss of authority to repression of new technologies especially in relation to energy, to the atrophy of the public sector and spread of corruption, to media dishonesty, to mass unemployment of young men and on and on and on. [...] Preconditions are not the same as precipitants. We are waiting for our Tunisian fruit seller. The public will endure great repression, especially when most media outlets and schools are actively aiding the repressive meme of 'you are helpless, this is the order of things.' When we have a scandal so powerful that it cannot be ignored by the average Briton or American, we will have a revolution that overturns the corrupt political systems in both countries, and perhaps puts many banks out of business. Vaclav Havel calls this 'The Power of the Powerless.' One spark, one massive fire.

This speaks to me because personally I was physically in Tunisia for the revolution and it was a powerful feeling. As an obviously foreign anglo-Australian, isolated in the far west of the country where large scale street-level ferment began (weeks before it reached western media), I never felt threatened or unsafe at all. I have also lived in the US .. during which time I saw how much debt and fear, particularly over money and healthcare, ruled the lives of many, how pervasive the systemic imbalances were (homeless alcoholic recent war veterans at the supermarket, through 70% foreclosure rates - that's 70% of all houses in in my suburb), and how inept the response was (ask Google to close the foreclosure map, minor but media-heavy changes to healthcare, etc.)

[aagha]

Sarcasm: Whew. Thank GOODNESS for the Arab Spring. So much democracy arose from it. Those revolutions brought about so much change and made things so much better!

[hga]

As far as I know Tunisia, which is all contingencies is talking about, is doing pretty well.

[pstop]

I have clothes, therefore I should accept whatever I'm told to accept. I'm glad the founding fathers did not think as you. They revolted over taxes on tea, freedom and privacy was paramount. I understand revolution perfectly, and I fear a government that has absolute power, which is any government when you don't have privacy and the government has all your secrets. I fear that far more than I fear any terrorist boogey man.

[aet]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

[CaptainZapp]

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

What has that to do with his comment?

For starters he was referring to the East German Stasi.

Nothing to do with Nazis, Hitler, or the third Reich.

In addition: Many people think that whenever Nazi (or equivalent) is mentioned you lose according to Godwin's Law.

This is not so, however, when the reference is actually related to the discussion. For example: You may bring up Nazis in a discussion about totalitarian regime, or Fascism, without falling into Godwin's Law trap.

And to conclude: In a discussion about a device, which enables snooping on a large scale a referenced to the GDR's stasi is certainly not out of line.

[danudey]

The Stasi were active in East Germany, which was essentially a Soviet puppet state, after the end of WWII, so Godwin's law doesn't really apply here (since the Stasi specifically and the leadership of East Germany in general were neither Hitler nor Nazis).