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Showing posts with the label capitalism

Privacy does not imply secrecy

The debate around surveillance, government overreach, NSA, Prism, XKeyScore has been split in two categories. Well, three actually. The first will be the government, which feels that all this is justified, because "think of the children." They justify the stripping away of the civil liberties of not just their own citizens, but those all across the world for the purpose of supposedly protecting their own. Cluck cluck. The other two camps are the people who are subject to this surveillance. One camp argues that they have "nothing to hide." The other camp argues for increased encryption, and these are camps that will create PGP keys, hold keysigning parties, encrypt everything lest the government gets their data. I think both camps miss the point. Privacy is not the same as secrecy. I know what you do in the toilet, that does not mean that you will leave the doors open, or let the toilet walls be made with glass. Humans have evolved to respect privacy, the confide...

The Failure of Capitalism

Warning: This post is meant for a rational audience who likes to wrestle with controversial points of view. If you are not amongst the rational category, please stop reading immediately . The author is not responsible for any results/consequences of reading this blog. The free market economy is touted as perhaps the best thing that happened to mankind since the invention of the wheel. The market is the place where we trade, where we can exchange goods and services for those which we cannot produce or are outside our skill sets. Money is just a way to facilitate trade, and is not an actual commodity. Or is it? Apparently, we can put a price on money. But it's not just about money. The free market is said to offer us ultimate choice; a scenario where the consumer is king; the ultimate in stable equilibria; and an invisible hand that always promotes the good of mankind. However, capitalism, like other systems is an idealistic model, and the systems which we have in place are a po...