Everything is broken

[NickStone]

The following is quite long.

https://medium.com/message/81e5f33a24e1

[GreyGeek]

As far as code being imperfect consider the shuttle code:
This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program — each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors. The upgrade of the software to permit the shuttle to navigate with Global Positioning Satellites, a change that involves just 1.5% of the program, or 6,366 lines of code. The specs for that one change run 2,500 pages, a volume thicker than a phone book. The specs for the current program fill 30 volumes and run 40,000 pages.

Only the US government could afford to code a program to such a level. Is it the only true CMM Level 5 software in the world?


From your article:

When the IC or the DOD or the Executive branch are the only true Americans, and the rest of us are subordinate Americans, or worse the non-people that aren’t associated with America, then we can only become lesser people as time goes on.

The following was posted by the brother of Pat Tillman. The question he does not ask is, "How long can the people who are in charge of this country remain in charge and the country still survive as a democracy, with the Constitution intact?

"Kevin Tillman, who was discharged in 2005, wrote a powerful, must-read document on the occasion of Pat’s birthday anniversary in 2006

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
Kevin Tillman"

[Snowhog]

Luckily this country is still a democracy.

I'd have to give a -1 to his commentary simply because of this glaring error on his part. The United States is not a democracy; never has been. It's a Republic, and there is a huge difference between a Democracy and a Republic.

[SteveRiley]

The following is quite long.

It is also depressingly true. Every.Single.Word.

[TWPonKubuntu]

It makes me want to find a deep hole and pull it in after me.
Or just stop using a computer entirely, forever, everywhere...
sigh, not going to happen.

[GreyGeek]

I'd have to give a -1 to his commentary simply because of this glaring error on his part. The United States is not a democracy; never has been. It's a Republic, and there is a huge difference between a Democracy and a Republic.

I agree, but I quoted Tillman as he wrote it. Most people erroneously believe that we live in a democracy when, in fact, we actually live in a Republic under the Constitution as the basis of our Rule Of Law. Those who disparage the Constitution as "that little book", or because it was written by DWEMs, etc...., or are busy trying to nullify parts of it are actually attacking the very foundation that allows them to say that.

[Snowhog]

Yup, totally agree. The "Rule of Law" is what sets the United States appart from many other Nations. The U.S. Constitution was artfully crafted. It was written in such a way that it would be relevent long after it was penned, and the framers knew that; they anticipated it. That politicians today are more want to treat what is the bed rock foundation of our Nation as an 'inconvenience'; a 'hinderance'; when it comes to doing what they "want" and not what the Constitution "permits" them to do, is beyond scarey. Every American citizen should be marching on Washington with "torches and pitch forks", but I fear that to many of them are simply to complacent and don't realize that, like a frog in a pot of water on the stove, they are being slowly boiled to death!

[GreyGeek]

.... I fear that to many of them are simply to complacent and don't realize that, like a frog in a pot of water on the stove, they are being slowly boiled to death!

With almost 10 million Americans receiving "disability" payments from the government, another 90 million or so on some sort of Medicade or welfare payments, and almost 20 million out of work but almost half of them getting unemployment compensation, it seems to me that there are too many getting money from the government to ever vote to end the handouts.

[dibl]

My late father, a lifelong Republican, used to say that the Democrats were in the business of bribing the people with their own money. Today I'm not sure that there's so much difference between the two parties -- they appear to be two branches of the Establishment Party, and all engaged in bribing the people with our own money. I wish we were a little more of a democracy and a little less of a Republic -- the elected officials are very hard to hold accountable. I'm 63 1/2, and I'm not taking social security until I'm at least 67. I think people should be responsible for their own selves until they are 65, at least, and not start leeching off the tax paying public.

[SteveRiley]

like a frog in a pot of water on the stove, they are being slowly boiled to death!

As my favorite columnist James Fallows likes to remind us, that's a myth.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...ying-now/7446/

[Snowhog]

Okay, bad/poor metaphore, but my point is that to many Americans are to damn complacent with what is happening to our Country by those who were elected to protect it.

[SteveRiley]

Complacent? Or powerless to effect change?

[Snowhog]

I think a large number are complacent; don't actually care. A larger(er) group may actually care, but feel they can't effect the needed change, and have therefore, given up trying.

[SteveRiley]

given up trying.

To a degree, I can't say I find (much) fault with people who've made this decision. After all, what good is law when our own Supreme Court assumes for itself the very un-Constitutional role of appointing a President?

[Qqmike]

Whatever your cause, whatever the issues and the sides are ...

(1) People have short memories (=> they forget bad things that a politician or a party causes);

(2) Many--would that be most?--people are simple. No matter what their fair or unfair status may be in life, as long as they have their candy, they are fine. And candy may be something as basic as their toys or their weekend family BBQ, booze, friends, and family.

People could organize, easily so, and storm the castle, but it would take the equivalent of a social earthquake to get them motivated enough to do so.

Who said it? Or the equivalent: The biggest threat to freedom/Democracy is apathy?