Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

When the war on drugs will inevitably be over in US, within a decade or so (the trend towards it is growing), by then there will already be two new wars started to "replace" the war on drug for anyone who benefitted from it (such as the police, private prisons [1], etc): the War on Pirates, and the War on Child Porn. If not both, they'll just use whichever works best. The real agenda behind it will be the same either way.

Then you can start expecting SWAT teams raiding people's homes for downloading songs illegitimately (and yes, you'll even see more dogs and even innocent people shot in the process - just like in that "parody" video where the SWAT team shoots the kid who was downloading songs in the head at the end, which I can't find right now).

Some of these are not felonies yet, but they're working hard [2] to "fix" that "problem". Current and future surveillance technologies, used by either NSA, FBI, DHS, or even the police will make that ever easier and more "tempting" to do.

[1] http://www.republicreport.org/2012/marijuana-lobby-illegal/

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/unauthorized-stream...

I also think we can expect that things which are today 100% legal, like free software on hardware under the user's control, will be targeted too. In this area I expect anti-gun-like retoric: "with so many important aspects of society happening online, we cannot allow potential criminals and terrorists access to tools that can do so much damage". (~)

The future was supposed to be amazing. What happened?

(~) I finally see the pro gun rights people's point of view. I'm disappointed in myself that it took a "me-relevant" analogy for me to understand.

Perhaps we as a community need to dig our well before we're thirsty and start putting tech-literate, sane-minded, ethical politicians in the seat of power before the new batch of liars and crazies get there. After all, the media is the driving force behind it and we're able to harness online media channels that're rapidly becoming more relevant than the traditional broadcast media platforms of yesterday.

>The future was supposed to be amazing. What happened?

People didn't care about politics. That's what happened. Politics is about who gets to decide how this future gonna be.

You can build all the flying cars and robots you want as a scientist, but if you don't try to influence politics (and not just by voting every 4 years or "writing to your senator"), you can still end up a slave.

You bring up an interesting point. "Winning" the War on Drugs doesn't mean that all those enforcers go away to write their memoirs and join each other in bars to talk about the good old days. There's a whole infrastructure -- courts, police, private contractors, manufacturers and salesmen -- entire bloody skyscrapers full of policy and bureaucracy that simply will not go idle just because the war was declared "won" and it's time to go home.

The immediate aftermath of a war can be just as horrifying as the conflict itself. And we know that it's important to plan the results you want out of a war (because somebody sure is).

So what do idle and technically unskilled hands /do/ for a living? My guess is that they won't change job descriptions very much, and since opportunities for helping Grandma across the street are relatively limited, they'll just be enforcing different stuff.

What stuff is that going to be?

You missed the biggest businesses in this "war" - the private prison companies.

> just like in that "parody" video where the SWAT team shoots the kid who was downloading songs in the head at the end

IT Crowd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg

Why? In most European countries, there are no endless wars on stuff.. Maybe it's Anglo-American culture? But even then, the culture can be changed, and over a generation or so.

So I wouldn't say it's inevitable. The same goes for surveillance. Many people think that due to technology, surveillance is simply inevitable. But 50 years ago, there already was a technology for suppressing free press, which was exercised in totalitarian regimes around the world. Still, democratic countries didn't have censorship of the press.

So there are optimistic precedents - existence of technology doesn't always mean that government is going to misuse it. Though probably not without a fight, anyway. I would end with modification of the famous slogan: "Think optimistic, act pessimistic!" We should assume better future is possible, but act under assumption that it's not going to happen (by itself, that is).

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