Comments on: A Typical Job Application http://anadder.com/a-typical-job-application Thu, 09 Sep 2010 06:18:42 +1000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Post-Stalinist Dirty Laundry (Part 2) -- a Nadder! http://anadder.com/a-typical-job-application/comment-page-1#comment-28827 Post-Stalinist Dirty Laundry (Part 2) -- a Nadder! Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:02:58 +0000 http://anadder.com/?p=1912#comment-28827 [...] working. For of course, the notion of privacy especially in terms of your career is nonexistent (see a previous post). So if you get fired because of a Transgression against Party Lines, every future employer will [...] [...] working. For of course, the notion of privacy especially in terms of your career is nonexistent (see a previous post). So if you get fired because of a Transgression against Party Lines, every future employer will [...]

]]> By: michael http://anadder.com/a-typical-job-application/comment-page-1#comment-22445 michael Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:34:11 +0000 http://anadder.com/?p=1912#comment-22445 Takis, thought you might be interested in the new tightening of immigration policies for UK academia in action: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1243 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1244 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1245 That's seriously messed up. Takis, thought you might be interested in the new tightening of immigration policies for UK academia in action:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1243
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1244
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1245

That’s seriously messed up.

]]> By: Takis Konstantopoulos http://anadder.com/a-typical-job-application/comment-page-1#comment-18251 Takis Konstantopoulos Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:52:49 +0000 http://anadder.com/?p=1912#comment-18251 Michael: As far as I know, there is a difference between me posting something on the Internet and an organization, like Facebook, which collects, *organizes*, and uses users' information for a variety of purposes. Currrently, to "connect to friends", but, in the future, who knows? I read a couple of days ago (but can't find the source at the moment) that Canada took issue with Facebook because the latter keeps organized permanent records of all its members. As for my sentence about evil and democracy, I didn't really mean something profound. I meant that, in a police state everyone knows that the government is acting against people. Whereas in a democracy it may take a little while for people to find out about some evil. Michael: As far as I know, there is a difference between me posting something on the Internet and an organization, like Facebook, which collects, *organizes*, and uses users’ information for a variety of purposes. Currrently, to “connect to friends”, but, in the future, who knows? I read a couple of days ago (but can’t find the source at the moment) that Canada took issue with Facebook because the latter keeps organized permanent records of all its members.

As for my sentence about evil and democracy, I didn’t really mean something profound. I meant that, in a police state everyone knows that the government is acting against people. Whereas in a democracy it may take a little while for people to find out about some evil.

]]> By: michael http://anadder.com/a-typical-job-application/comment-page-1#comment-17709 michael Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:28:57 +0000 http://anadder.com/?p=1912#comment-17709 Takis, what did you mean by it being harder to see in a democracy? Or is it just that in the police state the evil is already here so it's not coming? Police states aren't a thing of the past, I think the closest at the moment to the society described in this post might be North Korea. I think it also has something to do with how pure the socialism is, N Korea is probably the only one of the old communist countries left where there's no capitalist enterprise. Which makes every employee a government employee -- and that's the key to the type of monitoring we're talking about. Not sure how Facebook specifically is relevant, it's no different to you posting anything on the net since it all becomes a matter of permanent unexpungable record. (And yet the internet makes this type of police state almost impossible to run.) Takis, what did you mean by it being harder to see in a democracy? Or is it just that in the police state the evil is already here so it’s not coming?

Police states aren’t a thing of the past, I think the closest at the moment to the society described in this post might be North Korea. I think it also has something to do with how pure the socialism is, N Korea is probably the only one of the old communist countries left where there’s no capitalist enterprise. Which makes every employee a government employee — and that’s the key to the type of monitoring we’re talking about.

Not sure how Facebook specifically is relevant, it’s no different to you posting anything on the net since it all becomes a matter of permanent unexpungable record. (And yet the internet makes this type of police state almost impossible to run.)

]]> By: michael http://anadder.com/a-typical-job-application/comment-page-1#comment-17708 michael Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:24:24 +0000 http://anadder.com/?p=1912#comment-17708 Phaedrus, like the teabaggers who compare Obama to Hitler, I've seen plenty of such rhetoric and I suspect you have too (although people rarely word it as blatantly as the teabaggers). The point was to suggest that the difference between a police state and a democratic state with government infringement of civil liberties is: 1. a difference in degree to an extent that's hard to even fathom for people who've lived in democratic states [with government infringement of civil liberties] all their lives 2. a difference in <em>kind</em>. The HR form shows that a totalitarian state presumes to own the whole person and there's not even a question of any part of it being otherwise. I think keddaw's example of the Y/N database is the closest to this mentality of all the examples cited: a complex impersonal machine which combines the presumption that any part of one's life can spill over into any other with arbitrariness. Phaedrus, like the teabaggers who compare Obama to Hitler, I’ve seen plenty of such rhetoric and I suspect you have too (although people rarely word it as blatantly as the teabaggers).

The point was to suggest that the difference between a police state and a democratic state with government infringement of civil liberties is:
1. a difference in degree to an extent that’s hard to even fathom for people who’ve lived in democratic states [with government infringement of civil liberties] all their lives
2. a difference in kind. The HR form shows that a totalitarian state presumes to own the whole person and there’s not even a question of any part of it being otherwise.

I think keddaw’s example of the Y/N database is the closest to this mentality of all the examples cited: a complex impersonal machine which combines the presumption that any part of one’s life can spill over into any other with arbitrariness.

]]> By: Phaedrus http://anadder.com/a-typical-job-application/comment-page-1#comment-17622 Phaedrus Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:28:21 +0000 http://anadder.com/?p=1912#comment-17622 In all of my reading I don't know of anyone who said that the Bush administration was even roughly the equivalent of the USSR. What I did read was that we were headed in that direction. The conflagration of disagreement with treason, the arrest of people at public events for having T-shirts or bumper stickers that criticize the president. The claims of executive power to indefinitely detain citizens without judicial oversight. The assignment (for the first time ever) of the regular Army to US soil. Pervasive and unregulated data collection on citizens. None of these actions were performed at the levels seen in the Soviet Union, but I don't know anyone who said they were, and your creation of such a straw man seems an attempt to dismiss them. I hope it is not. In all of my reading I don’t know of anyone who said that the Bush administration was even roughly the equivalent of the USSR. What I did read was that we were headed in that direction. The conflagration of disagreement with treason, the arrest of people at public events for having T-shirts or bumper stickers that criticize the president. The claims of executive power to indefinitely detain citizens without judicial oversight. The assignment (for the first time ever) of the regular Army to US soil. Pervasive and unregulated data collection on citizens.
None of these actions were performed at the levels seen in the Soviet Union, but I don’t know anyone who said they were, and your creation of such a straw man seems an attempt to dismiss them. I hope it is not.

]]> By: Takis Konstantopoulos http://anadder.com/a-typical-job-application/comment-page-1#comment-17611 Takis Konstantopoulos Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:04:44 +0000 http://anadder.com/?p=1912#comment-17611 While this is something of the past (USSR police state), we nowadays have to face (and react to) an almost voluntary submission of personal data for big data bases which are there to stay permanently and used for who-knows-what purposes. I am talking about CCTVs, the Internet, recorded phone calls, etc, etc. Young people do not value privacy at all: they are ready to submit all kinds of data to a big brother like facebook. In the UK alone, as commented above, there is one CCTV per 14 people. Staggering number. And, <a href="http://randomprocessed.blogspot.com/2009/09/professors-in-uk-are-required-to-be.html" rel="nofollow">as I commented a couple of days ago</a>, the government is asking us, professors, to act as police agents to monitor overseas students with visas and have them expelled if they miss 10 classes. There is a difference with a police state like USSR and a democracy like USA and the UK: it is much harder to see the evil coming in the latter case. While this is something of the past (USSR police state), we nowadays have to face (and react to) an almost voluntary submission of personal data for big data bases which are there to stay permanently and used for who-knows-what purposes. I am talking about CCTVs, the Internet, recorded phone calls, etc, etc. Young people do not value privacy at all: they are ready to submit all kinds of data to a big brother like facebook. In the UK alone, as commented above, there is one CCTV per 14 people. Staggering number. And, as I commented a couple of days ago, the government is asking us, professors, to act as police agents to monitor overseas students with visas and have them expelled if they miss 10 classes.

There is a difference with a police state like USSR and a democracy like USA and the UK: it is much harder to see the evil coming in the latter case.

]]> By: keddaw http://anadder.com/a-typical-job-application/comment-page-1#comment-17609 keddaw Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:49:38 +0000 http://anadder.com/?p=1912#comment-17609 The UK government are (were?) trying to implement a national database who wants to work with vulnerable people - mainly children. Details on this database would include any criminal record along with any innuendo or suspicion about the person. The database would be used to give a simple YES/NO response as to whether someone was fit to work with children. e.g. If you had a conviction for dangerous driving you'd be banned from working with children with no explanation saying you are safe to work with children but shouldn't be allowed to drive them anywhere. There has been (finally) a public outcry at the assumption that everyone is a danger to children unless they have passed this database check that costs money and has to be repeated at regular intervals. Also, in London there are more CCTV cameras than any city in the world. Crime has been solved due to these cameras, at the rate of one crime per 1,000 cameras per year. The UK has about a quarter of all CCTV cameras in the world, we are the most watched nation on earth. We also have terrorism laws that are being used by local councils to detect fly tippers (rubbish dumpers). We have police who cover up their badge numbers during demonstrations so they cannot be identified. We can also be arrested for filming police. We can be stopped and searched by police for no reason in some areas, in others they have to ask for permission, but if you refuse that is suspicious behaviour and they can then search you. And Australia has the firewall stopping access to sites that the government deem unsuitable. We are on a slippery slope. We have people scared of their governments (and their state police) when it should be governments that are scared of their people. The UK government are (were?) trying to implement a national database who wants to work with vulnerable people – mainly children.

Details on this database would include any criminal record along with any innuendo or suspicion about the person. The database would be used to give a simple YES/NO response as to whether someone was fit to work with children. e.g. If you had a conviction for dangerous driving you’d be banned from working with children with no explanation saying you are safe to work with children but shouldn’t be allowed to drive them anywhere.

There has been (finally) a public outcry at the assumption that everyone is a danger to children unless they have passed this database check that costs money and has to be repeated at regular intervals.

Also, in London there are more CCTV cameras than any city in the world. Crime has been solved due to these cameras, at the rate of one crime per 1,000 cameras per year. The UK has about a quarter of all CCTV cameras in the world, we are the most watched nation on earth. We also have terrorism laws that are being used by local councils to detect fly tippers (rubbish dumpers). We have police who cover up their badge numbers during demonstrations so they cannot be identified. We can also be arrested for filming police. We can be stopped and searched by police for no reason in some areas, in others they have to ask for permission, but if you refuse that is suspicious behaviour and they can then search you.

And Australia has the firewall stopping access to sites that the government deem unsuitable.

We are on a slippery slope. We have people scared of their governments (and their state police) when it should be governments that are scared of their people.

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