"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Basically, if we wanted to eliminate terrorism, we would have severely curtail freedom. And there aren't nearly as many terrorists as people think. More people die from car crashes, drug overdoses, etc. But changes in the law, the way police and law enforcement do things, could cause a loss of the liberties and freedoms we currently enjoy.
" some terrorism as opposed to the curtailing of freedoms that would come from eliminating" [1]
is preferable ?
I completely took it to mean: "I would prefer to live in the Islamic State, than in the USA with mass surveillance."
Okay, well I'm undecided as to whether [1] would be preferable or not in the way it's phrased. What I have thought about tho is:
- Yes we could eliminate terrorism, and it would take a lot of extreme measures ( that the West would be unlikely to get away with )
- But why should we eliminate terrorism, since from a purely political standpoint, it is quite useful. From any sufficiently emotive or divisive issue political motivation and utility can be extracted. For instance, the fear of terrorism helps the State advance legislation that it probably would not be talking about if we did not have terrorism. So the funny paradox I see is that, at this stage of human development, our States can actually benefit from using the spectre of terrorism to develop and advance themselves. Please take this in no way to mean justifying terrorism in any way...just to say that, IMHO, real politik dictates that terrorism has political benefits for the very State it is supposed to politically disadvantage.
If you want to say that the state can get away with things it couldn't before because of a war on something it can't win, I'm with you. The "war on drugs" is about as useful as waiting for Godot. But make no mistake, nobody thinks its about drugs.
But overall, you seem to be taking these arguments to extremes that weren't really needed, and I'm not sure why. Nobody said anything about living in the Islamic State, and anyone who would take it that way I think has some serious thinking to do about their perspective.
Would you rather live in a European country where terrorist attacks happen on a semi-regular basis and are in the news, or would you prefer North Korea where the state is very strong and terrorism is unheard of?
You could just as easily say Paris v Warsaw, or Berlin v Shanghai.
TL;DR - comparison with NK is unfair since NK is very hostile to all foreigners and has few attractive economic reasons to live there, it doesn't offer much to potential expats / migrants. But Warsaw or China or HK, or SG have strong policies that seem to have stifled terrorism ( for now ). The fear of "police state == (NK or Burma)" is overblown. You can have strong policies and still have many attractive qualities.
Sorry, I feel the above isn't very clear, but it's the best I could do right now. Thanks
I mean, I like Singapore, but I'm not a fan of having one party that runs everything, the draconian drug laws and wide application of the death penalty. It's also worth pointing out that large numbers of the wealthy have left HK (and been replaced by transplants from China) and a similar trend has been happening in SG for decades
Using AI model's to monitor all 1-1 conversations in the world is too dangerous of a power - it increases the risk for tyrany much more than it decreases the risk of terrorism.
I have something that might not be that relevant. Consider China's control of conversations on Weibo as a microcosm of "all 1-1 conversations". Assume they are using some sort of AI there ( there's a good argument for any sufficiently large bureaucracy being AI-like ). Is it really so bad? They've tracked huge GDP growth for 70 years and very low civil conflict, and much harmony, I think, from some points of view, definitely.