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A comment on NSA Said to Have Used Heartbleed Bug for at Least Two Years (2014). Parent comment

Re:NSA Said to Have Used Heartbleed Bug for at Least Two Yea... by thaumaturgy on Friday September 20, 2019 @10:12PM (#21033064)
It's not a matter of supposing that certain things may be happening, or even that they probably are. It's a matter of believing with certainty that they are, without concrete evidence and sometimes even when there's evidence to the contrary.

It's a pernicious bug in certain kinds of psychology that makes it quite hard for someone to tell the difference between nightmarish fantasy and reality. I don't want it.

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Re:NSA Said to Have Used Heartbleed Bug for at Least Two Yea... by bostik on Saturday September 21, 2019 @05:33AM (#21034358)
> It's a pernicious bug in certain kinds of psychology that makes it quite hard for someone to tell the difference between nightmarish fantasy and reality. I don't want it.

When reality has repeatedly put nightmarish fantasy to shame - mostly for lack of imagination on fantasy's part - it's not unreasonable to question the line between optimism-laced skepticism and naivety.

People used to have dreams they aspired to. Now we have nightmares we want to see happen. I don't want it either, but apparently society at large does.

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Re:NSA Said to Have Used Heartbleed Bug for at Least Two Yea... by javajosh on Saturday September 21, 2019 @02:53AM (#21033923)
Well said. Of interest to me is why these beliefs? Without evidence, one is capable of believing anything to be true. So why believe conspiracy at all? What psychological and/or aesthetic need are these specific beliefs satisfying?
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Re:NSA Said to Have Used Heartbleed Bug for at Least Two Yea... by colordrops on Saturday September 21, 2019 @03:33AM (#21034022)
Because there is already endless concrete evidence that the elites and establishment are out to fleece the common person, and when someone has their bubble burst on this fact, they start looking everywhere for where they might be screwed.
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