I would add another criteria to a religion (worthy of being followed). It must be more beneficial than harmful to humankind.Are humans more beneficial or more harmful to humankind?
I would add another criteria to a religion (worthy of being followed). It must be more beneficial than harmful to humankind.Are humans more beneficial or more harmful to humankind? That remains to be seen. Though we may not be around for the ultimate verdict.
I suppose its reassuring that Europeans still have some respect for freedom and privacy even if many Americans have rolled over and sold their freedoms for a false sense of security.
Odd isn’t it that after all these years its Europe that is standing against the tyranny of the surveillance state and the U.S. which had always held itself up as the land of the free has possibly become the greatest threat to freedom.
As I see it, the problem is with our rapidly growing technology. Just about all governments tried to spy on other governments, and people got mildly annoyed when a Mata Hari (sp?) would show up, or when it was found that someone had planted bugs in another country’s embassy, but these were just single examples so not as upsetting. Now, we have the ability to do wholesale, high speed spying, as do most of the other advanced countries. One example is how angry many U.S. companies were when it was found that China had hacked into their research and stolen many product secret ideas.
It happens that Snowden reported on U.S. behavior. I wonder what each of the other countries is doing.
Yes, the government had extreme powers to break through our privacy, but with the rapid advances of technology, I wouldn’t be surprised that in ten or fifteen years, everyone will have that capability, which, of course, will drive government officials crazy for them all to lose all their privacy. 
Occam
Occam. Read “The Circle” by Dave Eggers if you want to see a little thought experiment on the very idea you propose.
I suppose its reassuring that Europeans still have some respect for freedom and privacy even if many Americans have rolled over and sold their freedoms for a false sense of security. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/24/world/europe/europe-us-surveillance/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 Odd isn't it that after all these years its Europe that is standing against the tyranny of the surveillance state and the U.S. which had always held itself up as the land of the free has possibly become the greatest threat to freedom.Maybe. IMO, the Europeans are mainly pissed because we spied on them, not necessarily because of some principle of democracy. It's totally understandable for them to be pissed about us spying, of course. Statecraft in action. http://www.europeandignitywatch.org/day-to-day/detail/article/double-standards-on-tolerance-promoted-in-european-parliament.html Not all Europeans are above spying, it seems.
I suppose its reassuring that Europeans still have some respect for freedom and privacy even if many Americans have rolled over and sold their freedoms for a false sense of security. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/24/world/europe/europe-us-surveillance/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 Odd isn't it that after all these years its Europe that is standing against the tyranny of the surveillance state and the U.S. which had always held itself up as the land of the free has possibly become the greatest threat to freedom.Maybe. IMO, the Europeans are mainly pissed because we spied on them, not necessarily because of some principle of democracy. It's totally understandable for them to be pissed about us spying, of course. Statecraft in action. http://www.europeandignitywatch.org/day-to-day/detail/article/double-standards-on-tolerance-promoted-in-european-parliament.html Not all Europeans are above spying, it seems. I'm sure there are some in Europe who are as willing to accept a loss of personal privacy in exchange for the illusion of security. I listen to a number of tech and science podcasts, some of which originate here and some in England. When Snowden started releasing his stuff there were debates on these podcasts about the balance between privacy and security. While I only have the sample of a couple dozen commentators on these site and as tech geeks they may not represent society as a whole, the net impression i got was that the Europeans were far more offended at what the U.S. was doing. This was before anything came out about us spying on their leaders. Because we more or less control the internet this whole NSA thing is even scarier for the rest of the world.Nearly everything that moves around the internet has to travel through a root server that is on U.S. soil and controlled by us. Some countries have already started talking about redesigning the internet to remove such a crucial part from U.S. control because we have lost the trust of the international community.
Just saw a tv newscast about cutting social programs in order to balance the nations bloated budget.
I find it disgusting that “the war on poverty” has morphed into “the war on the poor” and the tem “fat cats” has morphed into the term “fat kids”, you know the free healthy lunches for poor hungry kids at schools designed to provide enough energy to be able to learn.