Beware, pokemon go has ties to the CIA, allegedly

theres like this huge patreon banner on there lol

nah but really, sure, yeah, this medium is dangerous

 

//opinion
While an individual is dependent on a government, the government has little reason to care about an individual.

A country acts as a superorganism. People are its cells, with specific roles. For example, police and army could be treated as immune system. The government - country's "brain" is interested in protecting existence of the country, not individual people, because survival of an individual does not significantly affect survival of the country (same thing happens with human body - death of an individual cell does not significantly impact survival of the organism). The moment an individual cell does something that can possibly harm the whole organism, it is taken care of by "immune system". All human laws pretty much prevent destabilization of the country as a whole.

The reason why it is important to watch out for small things like privacy/security issues, because accepting too many of those may lead to situation, where interests of your country no longer match your interests as individual, and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

@neginfinity that's a great analogy. And while arguing theoretically, it's easy to simply imagine that you only want the best for society, and that in principle it's society as a whole that really matters and not just little me blah blah, but if/when the system doesn't take care of you, it's a different story. All the collective ideas that you integrated from the world around you, into your mind and your code of ethics suddenly work against you.

There's nothing wrong with thinking of the collective good, and wanting the collective good, in fact its a sign of a healthy character - but one should not confuse the definitions of collective and individual interest.

 

Guys, these are all masterplans of illuminati!! Don't you believe? Well let me explain.
If we consider the positional value of letters of "Pokemon go", add them together:
16-15-11-5+13+15+14+ 7+15 = 111

If we do the same for Unity:
unity
21+14+9+20+25 = 89

nintendo
14+9+14+20+5+14+4+15 = 95

cia
3+9+1 = 13

illuminati
9+12+12+21+13+9+14+1+20+9 = 120

(8 x 9) from unity is 72 and (9x5) from nintendo is 45. 72 - 45 = 27. CIA always divide and rule!
So 27/(1 x 3) = 9

Now add this to "pokemon go" 's value yields 111+9= 120!!!!!!!!!!!
Plus the game's asset is being processed in GPU in the form of triangle. Everywhere in the game, there are eyes and eyes, cute little eyes but "eye"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Look, if you're going to make sarcastic conspiracy theory, at least put some effort in it.

 

Lol this thread took a bit of a turn yeah ... mind you I don't really think pokemon is a problem, I'm just using it as an example to enjoy a good theoretical argument

That said, someone chasing pokemon around the city has got to be one of the most breathtakingly ridiculous things I've ever seen.

 

@kaiyum

comments like this add add nothing to this world, except noise - which is useless.

You simply make fun of "cartoon imagery" that only exists in your mind, not in reality.

Comparing your answer to this thread is like saying that anyone who thinks there has ever been a single conspiracy, also thinks earth is flat?

You are not informed or just not interested about topic, instead spitting out something you think is amusing to yourself, and what being informed is, is endless debate, depending on what kind of bubble / level of society you live in.

Pokemon Go simply can be put in slot that is "grey area", a tool for potentially bad or abusive use in wrong hands, no one here probably has said that it is a operation that for sure does something harmful for people on purpose - only that there is a potential.

 

@Billy4184 - yeah, bit like the Roman Empire?

 

Et tu? What are they teaching you guys in school over there?

This whole thread is useless noise, and really adds nothing to the world.

 

@eses something like that, though I'm not very well versed in Roman history. The idea came from a very good book I read "The decay and the restoration of civilization" by Albert Schweitzer. I found an excerpt on the net that I think pretty much sums it up:

"Where the collective body works more strongly on the individual than the latter does upon it, the result is deterioration, because the noble element on which everything depends, viz., the spiritual and moral worthiness of the individual, is thereby necessarily constricted and hampered. Decay of the spiritual and moral life then sets in, which renders society incapable of understanding and solving the problems which it has to face. "

@BoredMormon come on now, you're telling me this is less fun than arguing over what 'AAA' means?

 

The whole discussion forum has gone to custard lately. Might be time for me to take a break and go be useful.

 

@BoredMormon - I didn't / wouldn't take anything I was thought in school by it's face value except practical skills like math, reading, language. History and reality is always written by the winners. So, practical skills = teaching, the rest = potential indoctrination, until you've done your own reading, not just taken it as it was told.

"This whole thread is useless noise, and really adds nothing to the world."

Already out of your comfort zone? Well I too think that this thread isn't producing anything.

Too different opinions and world views, have to agree to disagree!

Let's talk Unity stuff in other threads instead.

 

Just when it was getting interesting?

I'm doing some modelling right now, this is a good distraction to keep my mind off the rather mundane task.

 

Wouldn't call it useless, checking different opinions is interesting.

Also, there are things to learn. For example, your opinion on role of governments was interesting. It is interesting to see how people are trying to ride the popularity wave (linked blog clearly tried to hijack pokemon go popularity). Also, thanks to this thread, I know now that there are people who seriously believe that LHC's purpose is to summon Shiva by opening a wormhole. Kinda reminds me of a teacher I knew - completely normal and smart dude, except he believed that there's alien spaceship orbiting jupiter and they can talk to him via telepathy.

 

Speaking of hijacking on Pokemon Go's popularity.

Yeah, I think my opinion on governments has very much been colored by my up bringing. The NZ government is pretty friendly. And our country is small enough that most people actually know at least some of the politicians personally. So its much easier to consider them as 'that guy from round the corner that I voted for' as opposed to a faceless, shadowy group trying to control everything.

The stereotypical American attitude always fascinates me too. In many ways it seems like the country has never forgiven the colonial powers for the way they governed in the 1600s. Then again, our split from Britan was pretty amicable. Ours went something like 'Hey guys, we want to form our own government and rule ourselves' and the UK was like 'Sure thing guys, lets just be friends' and we were like 'Okay'. When you don't really have a history or experience of governments being evil, its hard to comprehend the idea. Let alone factor it in as a dominant theme driving politics.

Its interesting. Intelligence does not actually make one immune to delusion. In fact, intelligent people can often create stronger, more convoluted delusion then their peers. The question of 'who is really delusional' is on best left to philosophers to argue over.

 

I'm sure the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA would LOVE to know just how many pokemon, how many, and what their levels are, I've caught so far. It will (probably) help them in their quest for global pokemon domination!

In all seriousness, from what I've read here the site is a joke. If any of what I've read is true, then its definitely a joke.

Thinking that Pokemon GO may be sending your location and AR pictures to the CIA or whatever government agency is stupid and foolish.

Why? If those agencies want your information (even your location information) all they have to do is tap in to Facebook's servers or whatever other company has your information. If anyone has paid any attention to the news about the NSA's capabilities since 2013 you would now that agency or your local police can just set up a Stringray to find you/tap your phone. I'd assume most pokemon are caught outside, so uploading pictures of where you're at via nefarious means seems pretty useless, considering there's google street view for virtually every location near a road on earth.

I really, really, dislike it when a person makes unfounded claims which are easily disproved, but then we get people who chime in with equally paranoid bs. This "conspiracy theory" is absurd!

Please don't perpetuate myths.

 

I thought the whole point of the thread was that Russia didn't want it over there? Which kind of makes sense. It's not like any american agencies can do any surveillance there without running a huge risk.

The rest was just a bit of a tangent, don't take it too hard. We've all got to do something while our computers write games for us!

 

I remember a time, pre snowden, where nsa surveying everyone was just a conspiracy theory

That they are overwhelm with the data NOW does not mean they will be in the future, do quantic computing also is a conspiracy? Because for looking at pattern in big data, it seems a good candidate, and it's official the NSA is looking at it.

So the thing is, do pokemon go has tie to CIA, in reality it doesn't need. We are on a path of social engineering through big data, we can already do a lot of stuff even with anonymous data, and it's not just the nsa, it's private company, and knowledge will diffuse itself if fancy discoveries are made. Whatever idea is born from Niantic shenanigan will find a way elsewhere, for good and bad uses. Your individual data would just be just a drop in an ocean, it will give better data to profile you using other mean. After all it is a very good crowd control experiment.

 

"are on a path of social engineering through big data"

Long long down that road already.

Anyway PokemonGo sure has been providing some good lolz

https://twitter.com/hashtag/PokemonNo

 

"Let me A/B tests your fears and mental well being by controlling notification"
- Facebook

 

The best thing I have seen with pokemon Go so far is my intern at work rigging up a raspberry Pi3 to act as a wireless access point connecting to any open network with internet access in the area so his phone can save on data plan bandwidth while he bikes around town. (he mounts it to his bike, and it has a bigger antenna)

He calls it his "warbike" lol. We also setup a security scanner on it

 

Sounds more like a 'pikerbike'

 

Oh, the irony!

Yah....
There was a US presidential poll, where 13% of those surveyed preferred "A Giant Meteor hitting the earth" over Hilary and Trump...
Take poll results with a grain of salt.

 

Just to clarify, the US is a republic not a democracy. Those are two different political systems.

 

I've heard this before. But I'm not especially convinced it means anything. A republic simply means 'not ruled by a hereditary monarch'. A democracy means 'leaders are voted in'. The two terms are not mutually exclusive. China is a republic, but not a democracy. The US is a republic and a democracy. NZ is a democracy but not a republic.

Pretty much no true democracies exist in the world. Most 'democracies' use representational democracy, where the populace votes for representatives, who then vote on the issues. In the sense of how the word is used in the rest of the world, the US is a democracy.

 

The term I see a lot of "representative democracy". It's not just anarchy, despotism, feudalism, monarchy, republic and democracy anymore! What the US has is also leaning a bit towards fundamentalism in some states. So I guess it's the lawful evil of governments.

 

The US is a Democratic Republic, so we are all correct!

 

Don't forget federalism. Them republicans would get awful sore if you left that out.

 

I just listed the Civilization series mainstays

 

Dictatorship is the best possible government provided that the dictator is infallible and listens to advice and has zero corruption. Sadly that's kind of impossible.

Back when I used to run an endgame guild, I tried a few models for S***s and giggles. Democracy failed the hardest, with a measurable loss in progression and a lot more unhappiness, while dictatorship made it all purr along perfectly. But that was only because I had the best interests being aligned with what they wanted (progression).

 

Ah sh*t, I missed a Civ reference? Damn... now I feel inferior.

Okay, since you know so much! How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

 

Speaking of Civ I'm past Immortal and on Deity at the moment. Haven't quite cracked that on 5. I disable all victory conditions apart from domination as taking over the world by force is so sweet.

 

That's an ecumenical matter.

 

Isn't Singapore the closest to that ideal?

And if we forget the western bashing, it has worked very well in china considering when I was a kid they were dirt poor and suffered great famine ... then are now fearful power equivalent of the US ... similarly Putin hijacked Russia and help the country having a better profile, though we start crippling them fast. What would happen if Sankara was still alive? Not that i support dictatorship...

But then south Korea and japan raised themselves from bad economic situation using democracy ... It doesn't seem mandatory. It seems to be a factor of good politic (building infrastructures).

 

But if we look at how fast progression is, it's clear that dictatorship actually sort of gets things done. The UK is the equivalent of a dog chasing it's tail politically. It has gone nowhere, achieved very little (other than give up things at a slow rate).

 

Yep. Dictatorship is the best possible system, when dictator is talented and benevolent. The whole point of other systems is to prevent appearance of malevolent dictator.

 

And let's face it, it doesn't even do that well.

When describing the 'best possible' system I'm actually a big fan of looking at the Civ model. Different government systems are appropriate for different population sizes and tech levels.

A modern democracy is hardly appropriate for a village of only a few hundred people. Or for a time when communication between places took months or years.

And I'm willing to bet that democracy won't last more then a few centuries either. I can't predict what comes next, but democracy has a myriad of flaws that are unlikely to make it succesful for a space faring population.

 

Chinpokomon! ;-)

 

"Putin, who has promised to destroy the New World Order in 2016, believes the augmented reality smartphone game is a case of wolf in sheep’s clothing." - Yeah right....

Now, I cannot really shake the suspicion that the claim, even though it based most probably on zero evidence and made with clear goals in mind, is not untrue. If something can be tapped into by the CIA or NSA, they will try to do it. With, or without the consent of google, the Pokemon dev or whoever else is involved.

Same will the russian, chinese, or any other secret services around the planet. None of them can be trusted. Period.


Now, what I find hilarious is that Putin is voicing these concerns... not going into what he does or what he stands for now, but he was a KGB Officer before starting his political career. Of course, you could say that is what gives him more insight into how the US secret services might think and act... but it also proves that given the opportunity, he will do the same. Maybe the russians already did hack into Pokemon Go? Maybe he wants to ban it in russia so only foreigners get spied upon, and not russian citizens?

That is why Steins;Gate is such a hilarious Anime Series... not going into Plot details, but how they built in the CERN and the LHC as bad guys and some deus ex machina to enable future tech to work is pretty cool.
Especially when you know the people working at CERN and see what a disorganized bunch of nerds they are... well, like any university or academic institution really.

LHC - Bringing you miniature Black Holes since 2010, made in switzerland.
Finally my little country has a lasting impact on the world!

 

Sadly, the best possible way to make a society function like swiss clockwork and progress technologically in leaps and bounds is to go to war. Capitalism tried to replace war with market competition, but failed to give people a sense of identity and belonging. It's still the best replacement though imo.

In the same way, the best government is one that is threatened by revolution. Democracy tried to replace violent revolution with a 'soft' revolution through voting, but fails to give people a true measure of those they vote for - since before this candidate would have had to establish their credentials through success in revolution, whereas now they just have to babble for a while and appeal to people emotionally.

All of nature's machinations are being replaced with far less efficient (though less costly in human terms) methods. I wonder what will be the outcome.

 

What about AI overlord? people vote measure, ai execute, democracy without the power clique.

 

Make it an AI dictator, remove voting, and it will work. Anything less than that and a power clique will simply manipulate crowd to make AI overlord do what the clique wants.

 

Well it will A/B testing like facebook then lol, you need to poll the population in some sort of way. Looks like we are going for big mother instead of big brother!

 

Wouldn't it be just the thing people need?

A machine can be made made immortal and devoid of human flaws that ruin human governments. Being an AI (and not a biological system), it wouldn't have a reason to desire anything and will be content with serving the population forever, plus in a hundred years or more it'll accumulate expertise beyond anything a human ruler would be able to achieve.

 

Why would you want to be ruled by an AI overlord when you can become a cyborg yourself?

Tbh I don't think any AI would be suitable to rule the population - there's nothing equal about two different people, who they are, what they want and what they are capable of. Society will always need to be ruled unfairly, and the only place from which people will accept unfairness would be from other humans.

 

The thing is how do you deal with "governance", what happen if the AI set out to protect health, he would ban smoke, sugar, and meat and leave us with healthy goo. Is that something we want? What define teh best interest of each? How do the system balance the need of the society with the need of the individual, by that I mean what kind of wacky optimal conclusion it would conclude? drugging everyone into perpetual happiness, removing the brain? reducing people to meat sack genetically? surely we would be happy as individual, we would be design by the machine to be happy, is that what we want?

Also I have this theory of the maslow ladder of society, ie that the less the lower need are satisfied, the closer society is to individual because they have shared need, but the higher the need the more individual those need become, isolating us from each other. Basically everyone as a need to survive and can relate to that, but not everyone as the exact same aspiration! Hence why many (imho) of tyrannical government put pressure on lower need so people are distract from their higher need.

 

Those options aren't mutually exclusive. Cyborg will still have a human brain and will be not much better than a human ruler.

IMO, such system wouldn't do that, because it would realize that population won't like it and would instead seek a way to keep sugar/meat available while reducing their health impacts.

It is my opinion that humans utlimately are not very suitable for ruling at the country level, due to short lifespan, ambitions and character flaws. On the other hand a machine will want nothing and could aim at something like allowing every citizen to reach their full potential. Of course, if someone managed to find a perfectly selfless individual, and increase his or her lifespan to something like a thousand years, while also improving their brain capacity, that could work too. But I think that building an AI governor is more realistic than that.

 

That's assuming the AI isn't programmed with bias and that intelligence align with common sense ...

 

@neginfinity I think you're making the mistake of believing that people want to simply live out their lives in a vaccuum of fairness and equality. I don't think that's exactly true - much of what life means to us has to do with what we are and how we relate and compare with other people. Human life, like any animal life, is a quest for domination, social or otherwise, and the more that modern society contradicts these instincts, the more that it will deprive people of their 'drive'.

The idea might sound disappointing to some people, but it seems to me that there is a balance of injustice which is constructive to society, and moving further toward or further away from true justice is detrimental. As an example, capitalism has proved itself successful where all else failed not because it is a system of equality but because it is a system of explicit inequality. It allowed more capable people to exercise their capabilities for their own benefit, and even to some extent the benefit of society at large, where, had circumstances been different, they may have been exercised destructively.

 

If you read my previous post, you'll notice that it says absolutely nothing about fairness or equality.

I simply believe that a human is a bad choice for a ruler, because there's a high probability of them being corrupted or of their judgement being affected by some evolutionary leftover mechanism. Also, human lifespan is too short, plus humans have to waste time sleeping and eating. A machine would have no evolutionary leftover mechanisms and no needless desires. With lifespan and mental capacity greater to what a human can have, it would most likely be able to design society structure in such way that everybody will be able to coexist.

"Biological quest for domination" and "justice" has absolutely nothing to do with it. Besides, one could argue that following biological impulses could eventually lead to self-destruction for a civilization (for example, population grew explosively in last 300 years or so, yet biological programming remained the same, which can lead to St. Mattew's island scenario).