Shimon Peres Visits Silicon Valley

14 responses to “Shimon Peres Visits Silicon Valley”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Mar 6, 2012 at 11:23 pm

   Please rise for the President of Israel
   

   The rush of the press corps
   

   Makeshift barricade blocking the rear of the Four Seasons Palo Alto
   

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2. 

   born1945

   Mar 6, 2012 at 11:53 pm

   And some of that land is being "enriched" by Intel which is investing huge sums of money in upgrading its facilities there as they are In Hillsboro, Oregon, near my home.

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3. 

   scleroplex

   Mar 7, 2012 at 12:30 am

   very cool.
   but i still cannot believe he himself believes this – "“What is the difference between democracy and dictatorships? Dictators blind the people. Technology made the world transparent, so the dictators can’t do it any more. The people control the government.”"

   he’s old enough to know better.

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4. 

   linux-works

   Mar 7, 2012 at 12:34 am

   "Technology made the world transparent, so the dictators can’t do it any more. The people control the government.”

   uhm, are we living in the same world?

   this is not how I see things. 100% the opposite, in fact.

   if anything, I see governments (all of them) being afraid of the information flow (to/from people, directly) and they are doing all they can to control and limit its inherent freedom.

   perhaps he’s so insulated from reality that he cannot see beyond his golden walls? read the news and all you see are crackdowns on internet freedoms from this and that government. they are all afraid of what freedom really means. wikileaks is a prime example.

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5. 

   Astrocatou

   Mar 7, 2012 at 1:40 am

   blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2012/03/06/isreali-president-sh…

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6. 

   solerena

   Mar 7, 2012 at 1:57 am

   [http://www.flickr.com/photos/47907743@N00] Big brother is problematic… but with all said and done you need to see it from a different angle… strangely, but very recent events in Russia prove his point. Violence is not a solution, we have to develop other more sophisticated and intelligent ways of doing things… plus revolutions do not really change the culture in each individual country and create more problems… there got to be another way.

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7. 

   linux-works

   Mar 7, 2012 at 2:38 am

   as long as we separate how we *wish* people to be; vs what exists in the real world. sure, we can dream. but lets realize what is dream and what is real.

   IRL, government has always been a control-freak. the leveling effect that direct person-to-person communication gives *is* scary to all governments. show me one that does not fear the open-ness of a fully unfiltered internet.

   as someone who works in ‘internet products’ (routers, switches, gateways) I can assure you that you can’t sell (or exist very long as a major comms equip vendor) if you don’t install spy-holes (so to speak) in your firmware. hey, its even at the hardware level these days (DPI).

   you think this firewalling and ‘smart content-based triggering’ at the hardware level is JUST for troubleshooting? don’t be a fool, please.

   every country (I’m guessing; I certainly don’t have priv’d info!) has major firewalling and lots of control-freaks running things. all up and down the layers, too; from core router stuff thru last mile.

   do not kid yourself. we are wire-tapped at every level and this is not just because companies want it. its MOSTLY because countries want it! think about that. the sunnyvale company that got caught selling their firewall/DPI hardware to various M.E. countries was not an exception, my friend; they’re the rule. these companies profit from the paranoia inherent in all ruling entities. some silicon valley companies are making big coin off this, too.

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8. 

   Chucil

   Mar 7, 2012 at 4:14 am

   Thank you! Mr. President has great sense of humor — the egg and the stone. Google translate says "מאחלים לכם להישאר בריאים", which is from "Wish you stay healthy". Now Mr. President and Lauren Bacall can become facebook friends.

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9. 

   normal distance

   Mar 7, 2012 at 8:01 am

   the wise honourable man ..

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10. 

    scleroplex

    Mar 7, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    transparency is always nice.

    in india transparency has been under severe threat from the Congress Party for decades.
    including now, despite the internet.
    Google and FaceBook should know not to count on the Indian judiciary to protect transparency or the rule of law. They never ever have.

    transparency is also what revealed the serious negotiations between shimon peres and saddam hussein back in the 1980s to finance an oil pipeline along the jordan river. it’s detailed in ken timmerman’s book on iraq.

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11. 

    Aris Jansons

    Mar 7, 2012 at 6:39 pm

    Nice to see Mr Peres in good shape.

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12. 

    seatonsnet

    Mar 8, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    Sorry, but I’m kind of disappointed in Peres’s pearls of wisdom. As to technology "freeing the people", the Israelis are world leaders in electronic surveillance and a great market for those sinister little hummingbirds with video cameras you featured a couple of days ago. This is really turning into a "global village"… and if you’ve ever lived in a village, you’ll know what an oppressive lack if of privacy and intimacy that means.

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13. 

    linux-works

    Mar 8, 2012 at 6:33 pm

    extrapolate further: suppose the will of the people was more direct and we could vote on issues and take the politicians out of the loop.

    this argues for ending their jobs, as a whole.

    not one of them would be onboard with this idea!

    but in fact, the day of some ‘leader’ speaking for me are numbered. probably not in our lifetimes, but I can see a point where people do have more direct say in their laws and enforcement. I don’t expect the ‘old guard’ to let that happen any time soon. keeping exclusive control over the power they wield is WHY they all took office (lets be honest, here, shall we?)

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14. 

    lubbe036

    Mar 25, 2013 at 5:56 pm

    Thank you for using creative commons! We are using this image on our social sciences website to illustrate a post on the history of Israel and how if affects today’s conflicts. You can check it out at thesocietypages.org/ssn/2013/03/25/obama-arab-israeli-rel… where it is attributed and linked back to this page. Thanks again! Carolyn Lubben

    Reply