Google Joining Fight Against Drug Cartels 253
Several readers sent word that Google has announced its intention to start fighting drug cartels and other 'illicit networks.' According to a post on the official blog, the company thinks modern technology plays a key role in helping to 'expose and dismantle global criminal networks, which depend on secrecy and discretion in order to function.' They're holding a summit in Los Angeles this week, which aims to 'bring together a full-range of stakeholders, from survivors of organ trafficking, sex trafficking and forced labor to government officials, dozens of engineers, tech leaders and product managers from Google and beyond. Through the summit, which lasts until Wednesday, we hope to discover ways that technology can be used to expose and disrupt these networks as a whole—and to put some of these ideas into practice.'
Next? (Score:5, Insightful)
War on dissent and alternative information sources.
Re:Next? (Score:5, Insightful)
War on dissent and alternative information sources.
The war on drugs, as well as all other wars, only profit the profiteers. The wars are a lost cause. The first casualties in any conflict are truth and innocence.
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War on dissent and alternative information sources.
The war on drugs, as well as all other wars, only profit the profiteers. The wars are a lost cause. The first casualties in any conflict are truth and innocence.
“The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself.”
Google will be no an exception.
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“The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself.”
Google will be no an exception.
You're suggesting Google will inevitably start trafficking in sex workers and organs?
Re:Next? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's happening in Mexico however, is nearly a civil war. A REAL war. And Google should be commended for trying to help. The people of Mexico are suffering greatly due to our own greed, and addiction. It's a terrible thing.
what's really happening in Mexico (Score:3, Insightful)
In Mexico it's mostly fighting between cartels and it is NOT even near a civil war, so that statement is greatly exaggerated. Sure, if you count the killings all these years the numbers seem high (40,000+ dead, lost count already), but this is a country with 90+ million people and the cartels are not killing each other outside the streets of every city, one has to keep in mind that the trouble spots are very localized. As a regular citizen you just do not see that on your everyday life. Still it is indeed a
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And Google should be commended for trying to help.
Trying isn't enough. The only way to stop the drug cartels is to decriminalize drugs; and it will still be an uphill battle after the decriminalization. Until this happens everything else will just help to escalate the violence even further. There's ample proof for this from all around the world. Google should be condemned for participating in the abject farce that is called the war on drugs.
Re:Next? (Score:5, Interesting)
And Google should be commended for trying to help.
Trying isn't enough. The only way to stop the drug cartels is to decriminalize drugs; and it will still be an uphill battle after the decriminalization. Until this happens everything else will just help to escalate the violence even further. There's ample proof for this from all around the world. Google should be condemned for participating in the abject farce that is called the war on drugs.
I agree that Google should not be commended for trying, but not for the reason you mention. I see it as vigilantism and orchestrated vigilantism is a clear evil in my mind (opposed to non-orchestrated: i.e., you happen to see a mugging and interfere, but you're not going around scaling buildings in your Batsuit looking for muggings to interfere with).
For some reason the governments of the world all think they're entitled to use Google as a tool for 'justice.' I appreciate Google's openness about what information they give out, and I appreciate a lot of the charity and projects they undertake in the name of positive social change, but a business has no place enforcing the law. In any instance. Corporate prisons and mercenaries are examples of the malfeasance. Businesses lack the moral authority that the government has to enforce the law.
Concerning decriminalization: If you think cocaine should be decriminalized then you know very little about it. Perhaps if marijuana was decriminalized then enforcing cocaine prohibition wouldn't be so difficult. But cocaine isn't just highly addictive, it also causes direct damage to one's body. There's a reason crackheads have rotten teeth, deviated septums, and emphysema. For reference: Amy Winehouse. I agree that laws that target the users and give them prison time (such as Reagan's War on Drugs) are detrimental to society, but the government has a responsibility to fight trafficking. The only reason cocaine is so expensive is because the government fights trafficking. If cocaine became inexpensive and readily available in the U.S. it would do horrible things to society. The healthcare and prisons systems wouldn't be able to handle the burden.
Re:Next? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that chronic cocaine usage has some serious medical side effects; and cocaine is still relatively harmless compared to other synthetic drugs like methamphetamine. I don't believe that decriminalization would necessarily increase chronic usage of these though. You can buy heroine and cocaine with practically no risk from law enforcement in any major European city and our healthcare and prison systems seem to be able to handle the the burden quiet fine. From the outside the situation in America regarding prisons and healthcare looks worse.
The number of users to me seems to be more correlated with certain social factors regarding the users than with the legal status of the drugs. If you want to decrease overall usage of cocaine, et al. decriminalization is essential to be able to tackle those factors effectively.
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For all of the massive efforts over a period of decades, cocaine is cheaper than ever. When crack hit the streets, prices fell off of a cliff. I certainly don't think cocaine should be recommended in any form, but I don't think it should be illegal for adults either.
The sad fact is that some people will freely choose to do things that can only lead to their demise. Laws against it so far have only done harm. They take a person who has a really bad habit and rip away whatever support structure they might hav
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If you think cocaine should be decriminalized then you know very little about it.
If you think that decriminalizing drugs causes drug use rates to increase rather than decrease signifigantly, then you know nothing about decriminalizing drugs that is actually correct.
You'd be better off wholly ignorant than believing things that are the opposite of true.
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There, fixed that for you.
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The war on drugs, as well as all other wars, only profit the profiteers. The wars are a lost cause. The first casualties in any conflict are truth and innocence.
Michael Douglas, in his role as Judge Robert Wakefield in the film Traffic [imdb.com] , said it best:
"If there is a war on drugs, then many of our family members are the enemy. And I don't know how you wage war on your own family."
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The war on drugs, as well as all other wars, only profit the profiteers. The wars are a lost cause. The first casualties in any conflict are truth and innocence.
Michael Douglas, in his role as Judge Robert Wakefield in the film Traffic [imdb.com] , said it best:
"If there is a war on drugs, then many of our family members are the enemy. And I don't know how you wage war on your own family."
Very effectively, as a matter of fact. [wikipedia.org]
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Exactly. The only way to win the war is to legalize drugs. The problem is, there are lots of really big players who don't want to see that happen.
The war on drugs is used to federalize police forces, basically side stepping the US Constitution. Police don't want to see unneeded funding go away.
The Federal Government uses drugs as a leveraged tool with cartels to obtain favors. This in part is what the illegal Gun Walker program was about. The Cartels don't want the war to go away as they are more or less in
Who are the real "Drug Cartel" ? (Score:5, Interesting)
When people read "drug cartel" they think of "illicit drugs", such as cocaine, meth, ice, and so on
But who _are_ the real drug cartel ?
Ever been to hospital lately ?
Ever wonder why the hell everything there is so expensive ?
Doctors of course wants to get their fair share and over-charge the patients, but, if we dig deep enough, we see a culture of vulture in the medical industry - and the "LEGAL DRUG" industry is a very essential part of the Culture of Vulture
They always paint the picture of "It takes so and so billions to carry out the research" so "we need to charge so much and so much for the drugs to recover our cost"
Really?
The legal drug industry is a MULTI-TRILLION DOLLAR industry, dominated by several oligopolies, and because of it, drugs that would have cost mere cents to produce are being sold for hundreds and hundreds of dollars
No matter how big Google is, Google still can't take on the true "Drug Cartel". They are just too powerful !
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Drugs aren't the reason hospitals are so expensive. Hospitals mostly just pass on the cost of drugs to their patients (via their insurance companies). If two drugs cost $10 and $100, and the hospital wanted to charge you $100 to put a pill in a cup, you would likely be billed $110 and $200, respectively. The reason hospitals are so expensive ($100 to put a pill in a cup is not unheard of) is that they spend money on stuff (like medical equipment) that is overpriced and then need to bill it out. Hospitals
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you would likely be billed $110 and $200, respectively
There's a second, more subtle problem here. In many cases, you wouldn't get the option of the $100 pill. The hospital will intentionally give you the more expensive treatment due to coercion, kickbacks or other under-handed tactics by the pharmaceuticals.
Similarly, no pharma company will likely ever release a $10 pill that did the same job as one of their own $100 pills. Most of the cost of pharmaceuticals is fixed (the R&D costs -- they're probably exaggerated, but still going to be huge compared to
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Would US drug prices go down if our pharmaceutical companies had to actually compete instead of hiding behind international borders that seizes foreign drugs as contraband?
Re:Who are the real "Drug Cartel" ? (Score:5, Informative)
Comparing medical drug monopolies in the US to cartels in mexico displays a shocking ignorance. You may use phrases like "these monopolies are killing us" metaphorically, but in Mexico it isnt so metaphorical. Whens the last time these "vultures" killed several reporters for reporting on them? Whens the last time they killed local police with explosives?
The utter lack of perspective from so many in the first world is a little depressing. You realize how great your life is in the US, that you can actually GO to a hospital, that you dont have to worry about a drug cartel firebombing your house? That we have freedom of the press here?
But no, the monopolies here-- not the cartels in mexico-- are the REAL monsters, what with their high prices and all.
Re:Who are the real "Drug Cartel" ? (Score:4, Informative)
1) The global prescription drug revenue is not even $1 trillion
Oh, this _is_ cute !!
First of all, the total expenditure of LEGAL drugs is MUCH MORE than mere "prescription drugs" bills
For example over-the-counter non-prescription drugs, such as Aspirin, are still being made by oligopolies of the Legal Drug Industry, such as Bayer
Although there are generic brands of Aspirin, Bayer is still raking in truckloads of $$$ from Aspirin
Another example - Many drugs expenditures are not included under your "under 1 trillion dollar global prescription drug expenditure" category because they are being used in hospitals (for example, anesthesiological drugs that are being used in surgical theatre), by military medics in conflict areas around the world, prescription drugs that are being sold to American buyers in border towns in Mexico, and so on
And secondly, your "under one trillion dollar" figure is suspicious, at best - because the figure you quote is only from USA/Europe/Japan.
You have conveniently omitted the figure from countries such as India, or the whole African continent, or China, or Latin America
Those countries may not be spending as much on "prescription drugs" simply because a lot of those so-called "prescription drugs" are not classified under the "prescription" criteria in many countries around the world.
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Here you go [dailyfinance.com]
Global pharmaceutical sales are expected to grow by 5% to 7% in 2011 to around $880 billion, compared with a rise of 4% to 5% this year, thanks to robust growth in emerging markets, especially China, as well as new innovative treatments, according to IMS Health. The headwinds pushing back against that growth include budget pressures in the developed world and patent expirations.
The 17 so-called "pharmerging countries," which include such nations as Brazil, Russia, India, Venezuela, Poland and the Ukraine, are forecast to see their pharmaceutical spending grow at a 15% to 17% rate in 2011, to between $170 billion and $180 billion overall. Especially impressive is the rise in what is now the world's third-largest pharmaceutical market: China. Spending there is predicted to grow by 25% to 27% to more than $50 billion next year.
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Let me repeat:
A. Many so-called "prescription drugs" are NOT classified as "prescription drugs" in many countries, including China
B. In countries such as China, one can purchase "prescription drugs" (those that _have_been_classified_ as prescription drugs) without any prescription, thus, such sales do not end up under your "under-one-trillion prescription drug expenditure globally" figure
Ok, I take it back (Score:4, Funny)
After a brief but extensive search online, I take back the "multi-trillion dollar industry" remark.
The LEGAL DRUG INDUSTRY just broke the ONE-TRILLION-DOLLAR MARK on 2012
Based on the following report:
http://www.imshealth.com/portal/site/ims/menuitem.d248e29c86589c9c30e81c033208c22a/?vgnextoid=4d47d1822e678310VgnVCM10000076192ca2RCRD&vgnextchannel=437879d7f269e210VgnVCM10000071812ca2RCRD&vgnextfmt=default [imshealth.com]
In 2011, the global sale of pharmaceuticals totalled 956 billion dollars, and it was predicted (back in 2011) that the figure to hike another 70 billion dollars or so, for 2012
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Do you also take back your snide remarks? And just how does one do a brief but extensive search?
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I'm glad you cited a reliable source on this matter.
I'm not glad I had to be exposed to the neologism "pharmerging economy". *shudder*
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For example over-the-counter non-prescription drugs, such as Aspirin, are still being made by oligopolies of the Legal Drug Industry, such as Bayer
Although there are generic brands of Aspirin, Bayer is still raking in truckloads of $$$ from Aspirin
You are basically getting mad at Bayer because people prefer Bayer asprin over generic? Wow, just wow. Somehow we went from a country founded on the principles of democracy and capitolism, to one where offering a product to consumers at a price they like is an abominable thing.
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You are basically getting mad at Bayer because people prefer Bayer asprin over generic?
Indeed. Not to take sides in the GP's debate with another poster, but that particular example serves only to really demonstrate that people are susceptible to marketing efforts with years of momentum and plenty of money behind them. It doesn't follow that oligopoly power is preserving Bayer's financial benefits from producing aspirin - given that making aspirin is simple enough that we did it in sufficient yields and pu
Re:Who are the real "Drug Cartel" ? (Score:4, Insightful)
2) Drugs cost money to develop, show efficacy in clinical trials, etc. Most drugs going through the pipeline are duds. For the ones that do work we have patents. And once those 20 years are up, those drugs become generic and cheaper. The generics work, and most people should be opting for them. If they aren't they're just being sheltered from the true cost of the name-brand drugs. Or do you think drugs like atorvastatin just came out of nowhere?
For starters, healthcare would be cheaper because there would be no patents on drugs, there would be no mandatory medical licensing and there would be no need for the currently absurd amounts of malpractice insurance.
1. Drug patents - Intellectual property is incompatible with libertarianism. Instead of recovering R&D costs through artificial government enforced monopolies, R&D would be paid for by private investors and charity. Americans donate something like 300 billion dollars to charity each year. Much of the cost for new drugs is spent jumping through FDA hoops. Historically, the first to market with new drugs retain something like 80% market share even when competitors make generic versions. The FDA has the incentive to keep new drugs off the market because if the FDA makes a mistake, it gets bad press. Whereas the millions that die each year because they are denied safe and effective drugs by the FDA go unnoticed (kind of like how jobs that are lost make the papers but the jobs that are never created go unnoticed).
2. Licensing - While it seems wise to let doctors regulate doctors (who else would be a better expert than existing experts), putting existing firms in charge of regulating the competition is a terrible idea. Because new regulations typically apply only to new licensees, the current firms can make unreasonable rules to prevent new competition. There's no incentive to improve the standards and every incentive to make them stricter than necessary. Current absurd standards involve language requirements for doctors in a bid to keep out foreign competition. Being able to speak English has no bearing on medical expertise. Translators are a lot cheaper than English speaking doctors.
3. Malpractice Insurance - Removing an infected splinter recently cost a close relative around $800, a procedure that should have cost closer to $80. Why? Because if anything were to go wrong, the doctor could be sued and therefore has to charge more to cover insurance premiums. Allowing individuals to sign waivers allowing minimal or no insurance coverage would put the choice where it belongs, with the risk taker. You can pay $800 if you want that kind of security or you can pay $80 if you are willing to take the risk that removing a splinter could turn into a life-threatening catastrophe.
This is merely scratching the surface of the reasons that the American medical system is a joke. For deeper analysis of the FDA, check out Mary Ruwart's interviews and website. She was a pharmaceutical research scientist for Upjohn Pharmaceuticals for 19 years. Robert Murphy has a concise article called "Flower Power" on how occupational licensing hurts us all. Finally, a good read is Richard Epstein's article "Medical Malpractice: The Case for Contract" for obvious reasons.
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1. Financing is one thing, but your rant about the FDA is way off the mark. You think unregulated greed is going to give you better results? That they're not going to lie about their efficiency, downplay side effects and sacrifice lives for the sake of profit - all actual medical effects of course not guaranteed and no liability for harm in the small print. How's that strategy been working out for your banking sector?
2. Have you any idea how many fucked up doctors there are out there who shouldn't be allowe
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and let's get rid of licensing for medicine, after all it's not like society already found out what happens when you do that and passed all sorts of licensing requirement laws to keep it from happening again, and lets leave malpractice victims to be supported by public assistance, then cut public assistance too.
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it does not cost $720 to insure for a $80 procedure
Well, it can cost less or it can cost more. It depends on what the $80 procedure does and has for risks. I could buy a really run down car for $80, but a year of auto insurance on that car could be in that neighborhood even if I never drive it.
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Clinical trials and research many times done on the taxpayer's dime at publicly funded universities and colleges. Often further funded by government (tax payer) grants. Pharma is a racket and if our elected officials and the agencies that were supposed to regulate the industry weren't so deeply in bed with Big Pharma, there would be prison sentences for things like saying it's OK to give pregnant women dugs that weren't even tested on pregnant women. That is just a single example of the corruption and decei
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Clinical trials and research many times done on the taxpayer's dime at publicly funded universities and colleges.
No it isn't. Typically, publically funded research identifies the targets, drug companies makes the potential drugs and pays for the clinical trials.
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Drug development costs money, yeah, but why does Pharma inflate R&D costs? Lobbying for the patent system maybe?
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/biosoc/journal/v6/n1/abs/biosoc201040a.html [palgrave-journals.com]
It's actually 43.4 Mio on average and not 802 Mio.
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Market cap
Market cap isnt what a company is worth, nor its profits, nor its assets. If you want proof of that, consider what the market cap of Facebook was 2 months ago. Though the market cap DROPPED $30bn, they potentially made as much as $45bn on the IPO; it is conceivable that you could get more from your IPO than your market cap is several weeks later.
Really, market cap is kind of a worthless measure of reality. All it is is "heres what society collectively thinks about the worth of the company", but it can be
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And yes Facebook recently dropped, and it is worth less.
Again, it has no appreciable impact on facebook. Once it has sold all the shares it intends to sell, the changing share price doesnt impact their income or expenditures-- as far as I am aware). All that it impacts is the sale of shares. You buying 50,000 shares a broker only helps facebook if they're the ones selling those shares. Their bottom line will remain unaffected otherwise.
Re:Next? (Score:5, Informative)
'expose and dismantle global criminal networks, which depend on secrecy and discretion in order to function.' [independent.co.uk]
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1227431--hsbc-laundered-billions-of-dollars-for-mexican-drug-cartels-senate-investigation-finds [thestar.com]
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/21434-dea-laundered-money-for-colombian-narco.html [colombiareports.com]
At 300 Billion in annual illegal narcotics business? You can bet the real profiters own banks. And won't be targeted by Google's little step into untrustworthyness.
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According to a post on the official blog, the company thinks modern technology plays a key role in helping to 'expose and dismantle global criminal networks, which depend on secrecy and discretion in order to function.'
Not just about drugs, and its kind of crappy that youd take potshots at them for trying to go above and beyond "just profit".
Honestly, as corporations go, Google tends to be the lease onerous "big guy", ESPECIALLY in regards to "alternatives". Who else would offer 8 zillion ways to get your information out of their services and into someone elses? Who else would actually let you opt out of their bread and butter advertising services?
This may come across as shillish, and if you think so so be it, but its a
Google chose the wrong motto (Score:3)
Google at first was a pretty simple nice company.
Then they started tying all their lines together even where the fit was poor, just so they could cross-correlate everything for more advertising dollars. Not that I have anything against making money, that's what businesses are for, but they seemed to lose track of their original purpose.
Now they are entering the holier-than-thou stage. A short while ago they decided to ban all weapon-related items in their shopper. Not the search itself, not yet, just the
Don't be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
One innocent person spied on, arrested or charged with the help of Google to advance this "don't be evil" agenda is one too many.
You can't be evil to fight evil. You're passing ones and zeroes back and forth for crying out loud...
Re:Don't be evil (Score:4, Insightful)
One innocent person spied on, arrested or charged with the help of Google to advance this "don't be evil" agenda is one too many.
You can't be evil to fight evil. You're passing ones and zeroes back and forth for crying out loud...
This is absurd. Obviously every human system for making decisions is going to make errors; those errors will be both type I (false positive) and type II (false negative). While it's up for debate what the acceptable ratio of those errors is when making laws or punishing lawbreakers, it's pretty clearly false that even one false positive is more evil than any number of false negatives. For a tongue-in-cheek historical overview of the arguments over *what* the ratio is, see N Guilty Men [ucla.edu].
None of this is to impute that we are giving criminal defendants a fair shake or that the system as a whole could do better (which I think, by the way, there are reforms that would reduce both type I and type II errors simultaneously, thus convicting more of the guilty and acquitting more of the innocent). Nor do I dispute that we should err very strongly on the side of acquitting the guilty rather than punishing the innocent -- the magnitude of the error is not nearly the same. But to get any useful traction on the problem, you can't start with "it's evil to have a system that convicts even a single innocent suspect" because that ignores that such a system would have to acquit so many guilty suspects to get the 0% error rate (if not all of them). Instead, you have to do the hard work of looking at each particular policy and judge whether, taken as a whole and including the effect of wrongful conviction, unpunished crime, criminals that go on after one offense to violate the rights of more victims and so forth, the policy is a net positive or a net negative.
The same extends to Google's program here -- maybe it's evil, maybe it's not, but it certainly doesn't merit such a judgment based on the existence of even a single false positive.
Vacation plans (Score:5, Insightful)
Google execs better change their plans if they were going to vacation in Mexico any time soon.
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...or nearly any where else in the world.
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Oh shit... this is their excuse? (Score:5, Interesting)
So now they are siding with the "war on drugs" in order to push their means and methods which are considered by many as questionable of not simply creepy and discomforting? What's next? "Think of the children" and "fighting terror"?
Google. You're a commercial interest whose product lies in the information you collect so you can sell more advertising and marketing services. I will not forget that. You have not forgotten that. Why do you want everyone else to forget that?
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2 words: power grab.
planting seeds for more power, politically, later on (or even right now).
you and I see what google is and what they are really about but they have been successful in conning people into thinking they are some benevolent entity, out to fight the good fight, for The People(tm).
people believe that shit! give a shiny thing and quite a lot will follow you and even offer loyalty to you.
I do think google has gotton too large and too powerful. and that is always, *always* a bad thing (for gove
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The cartels are PART of humanity... just not the part you want to believe exists. Think on it.
This is all well and good.. until... (Score:3, Interesting)
... the same technology is aimed not at sex, drug, organ, or baby traffickers, but rather ordinary citizens trying to organize against an oppressive government.
Google supposedly abandoned China over censorship. This is far and away more dangerous than mere filtering of words.
--
BMO
Let me guess (Score:2)
Wall Street doesn't count as a "criminal network", does it?
Mixing up their criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not lump drug trafficking in with sex and organ trafficking. The latter are heinous atrocities, the former is a contrived product of repressive government policy.
Drug trafficking would never have become a problem if governments hadn't created the giant void in the market that allowed them to exist in the first place. People want to get high, they will do so whether the nanny statists like it or not.
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Drug trafficking would never have become a problem if governments hadn't created the giant void in the market
New results in from Portugal [businessinsider.com] confirm what people who can do math have been saying all along.
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Actually, let's. Regardless of the how and why, the people running the drug trade right now are grade-A assholes. They are the kinds of assholes who are traffickers by nature, and if you legalized drugs they would move on to trafficking something you like less.
If you think they're just misunderstood freedom fighters, go hang around in a Mexican border town sometime.
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We can lump them together because they have a common solution. Legalize and regulate everything and the profit motive for the criminals go away. Pouring money/resources into a technology war is another waste. As long as they are illegal and money is to made ($billions$), people will get hurt.
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Except governments.
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except insomuch as legalization would help bring them down.
Yeah, I think that was his point. "Bring them down rapidly" would be more accurate. We tried this in the US with Prohibition - the booze gangs all evaporated (or started racing NASCAR). Legalization works.
Re:Mixing up their criminals (Score:5, Interesting)
they are the same
The three crimes you listed are all illegal and we all know the law is an ass, but that's were the similarity ends. The third is a victimless crime which leaves a lot of people like me scratching their heads as to WHY it is illegal in the first place. Laws are supposed to be made to benifit "the people", prohibition benifits nobody except the well organised thugs on both sides of the "war". We learnt that lesson with alcohol and it still baffles me that just after dismantiling alcohol prohibition because of it's detrimental effects on society, they turn around and do it again! As one would expect the same "cure" has caused same social tragedy as it did the first time around, this is evidenced by the fact that the US has 500K prisoners held for drug offences, whereas the EU with almost twice the population has a mere 600K prisoners held in total (that's all offrenses, not just drug offences). This is the primary reason why the US has the highest per-capita incaceration rate of ANY nation on the planet, including China and Saudi Arabia.
Full stop. (Score:2)
This is an attempt to legitimize any incursion into privacy they want. No adversary so sophisticated as the drug cartels will engage in illegal activity out in the open, so to speak. It is entirely trivial to deploy tools for securing communications. The only logical conclusions to this initiative are: infringements upon the rights of innocents, and prohibitions on cryptography and anonymity.
End drug cartels by legalizing drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
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What gets me the politicians who want to spend money on keeping cartels out and securing the border and all that, but then never mention the elephant in the room that is the connection between prohibition, the cartels, and the other boarder problems caused by the cartels. The government creates one problem, then instead of proposing an end policies that create that problem, which cost loads of money (and of course has that toll on life and liberty), they want to spend more money attempting to fix some of
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To be fair, we do reward them for behaving that way, and tend to vote against people who speak about most issues realistically. How many people do you think are going to vote for Gary Johnson as next president, compared to Obama or Romney?
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"Drug use increased, with drugs taking the place of alcohol. Worker productivity did not increase." See http://www.historicpatterson.org/Exhibits/ExhProhibition.php [historicpatterson.org].
Prohibition never ends, it finds next-best option (Score:2)
Prohibition never ends; the sweet spots merely change. The government grants black marketeers an oligopoly on many products; if we revoke the charter for one of them (e.g. alcohol) then the oligopoly just moves on to whatever had been the second-most profitable one.
Or they diversify, using all their government-enforced exclusive rights. That way, if the populace decides to revoke other charters, they'll already be configured to adapt to
Bye bye civil liberties (Score:5, Interesting)
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Google sells people, more data more money (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a PR and marketing strategy. Google relies on selling people to companies however this hegemony is threatened by lawmakers whom may constrain what google collects. By saying that we might be able to win the war of drugs if you let us collect more data on people is a simple strategy and the government is so silly that they'll buy it.
They want people to associate limitations on google's ability to collect data with crime.
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Then Facebook should be leading the charge. Google doesn't need Internet addicts to the degree that Facebook needs them, since Google can already gather data using various others means, including those pesky images you have to decode to sign on to a lot of online services.
We what the internet to improve productivity! (Score:4, Funny)
The internet is great for all businesses, but it better not improve the productivity of :
- drug traffickers,
- child predators
- religious fundamentalist (except Christians of course!)
- unauthorised file sharing
- white power groups (except those in the Southern USA, where it is a tradition).
- anti governmental uprisings (except in Egypt and Syria - those uprisings are OK)
- or scammers and spammers (except those Himalayian Gojo berries and commercial Vitamin pills - those are real businesses)
- those promoting the views on "Global Warming/ Climate change", on either side of the debate
- school kids who "dis" their school
- People who believe that endless economic growth is impossible and ultimately unsustainable - the end is near!
U.S. Government, big drug cartel (Score:4, Insightful)
Federal agencies get funding from illegal narcotics when congress says no to programs, that's why our troops in Afghanistan protect drug lords, fields, shipments. Some federal reserve banks launder money for the cartels, that also big business. The victimless crimes that keep at least a third of the prison population are also fodder for the huge business of the prison systems. Therefore, the price of narcotics must be kept high and so the "war on drugs" escalates. We fight both sides of the "war on drugs", it's big money and agenda driver.
Why Do We Need To Stop Drugs? (Score:2)
If the US really wants to win the War On Drugs... (Score:4, Insightful)
...Just legalize them. ALL of them. Deal with the people who can't deal with drugs as a health care problem, exactly the way alcoholism is addressed.
How big a problem is bootlegging since Prohibition was repealed?
legacy (Score:2)
Since the government can't stop the violence, the Coalition and Alliance were granted police powers by the government.
At some point, they will have no need for the government.
So which cadre is Google? the Coalition, or the Alliance? Does it matter? ;^)
Since Google's war on spam and malware... (Score:2)
Drugs existed before the internet.... (Score:2)
Google (Score:2)
Safety of employees (Score:2)
It sounds courageous but this last step is a doozy. Not well thought out at all. Why on Earth did Google do this so publicly?
Think about it from the perspective of someone who wants to work at Google, "geek heaven".
If they are going to take on big rich gangster cartels like the Zetas who apparently own a whole country and love making examples of ordinary people even reaching into the U.S.A., they become targets too. Big soft squishy targets, very public, scattered in low security offices and conferences all
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. This seems really suicidal on their part.
Especially the owners.
This could be legalized and it would weaken the cartels but also allow them to transition to legal businesses.
Doing it this way tho... going to end badly.
Wow. (Score:2)
Have to admire that they are so well off and they are willing to risk very violent deaths at the hands of the cartels.
And it won't have the slightest effect on availability of the drugs.
Hazardous Duty Pay (Score:3)
What about Google employees with family in Mexico? (Score:2)
How many Google employees have family members in Mexico? Probably not many, but there have to be some. If this anti-cartel initiative actually starts to be successful, how long before Los Zetas go after these family members?
The Mexican cartels don't seem to have much force projection ability into the US (all the killings are on the Mexican side of the border) – maybe this is because they know most US cops wouldn't look the other way like Mexican ones do, or they don't have as many connections and sour
Like Viagra? (Score:2)
Which drug cartels? The ones that make many $billions off their government-enforced monopolies ("patents"), one of the main drivers of bankrupting medical expenses?
A "drug cartel" is like a "religious cult" or a "freedom fighter": the definition depends on which tribe you belong to, pointing at the others.
The way to fight drug cartels, like any cartels, is to stop creating artificial supply/demand shortages with a "Drug War". And treat people who do drugs but can't handle it for their actual medical problem
Cartel's exist because people like to buy drugs (Score:2)
Prohibition fails. Google are just supporting the problem, not the solution. They should be advocating decrimilization and treatment as an illness, not as a crime.
This means the death of Google (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
when filtered incorrectly...
Re:If we start filtering... (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. Prohibition always works. Worked great for booze - works great for weed, heroin, cocaine and meth.
Re: (Score:2)
The only reason prohibition DIDN'T work was because the enforcement was half-assed enough to let the mafia move in.
All the government did was give the black market a monopoly.
Also, it's kinda hard to outlaw something that the whole fucking population craves.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:If we start filtering... (Score:4, Informative)
Caffeine would be the most prevalent.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Are you ignorant enough of history to think that Obama entered office in January 2007?
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/technology/29google.html?_r=1 [nytimes.com]
The "miserable failure" here is you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
2. stop indexing stuff related to illegal keywords!
What, exactly, are these?
Explain. Give 5 examples and the law that says they're illegal.
>more farcical stuff I shall not even deign to ask you to back up
>making the searching for certain terms a red flag
You're quite the totalitarian bootlicker.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
The whole thing looks like a bad 90's spam filter.
Re: (Score:2)
What's the point?
ignore do not follow links
Then that defeats the whole purpose of it in the first place. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear," though, right?
That'll scare anyone without TOR into not even searching for it in the first place.
No, at most, it'll scare people into using something like TOR or not using Google.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations [wikipedia.org]
I see nothing there that inspires confidence.
Surely you don't need a tinfoil hat to read plain old Newspeak?