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Oscar for "Salvation" - the role of information

Posted By: svilo
Date: Saturday, 23 January 2010, at 8:20 a.m.

In Response To: Oscar nomination for a backgammon thriller movie (svilo)

KKK derived its power in keeping information away. this is from Steven Levitt - a bright US economist:

Random quotes: And there are few incentives more pow¬erful than the fear of random violence—which, in essence, is why ter¬rorism is so effective.

Coincidentally, in Birth of a Nation, a former Confed¬erate soldier is inspired to start the Klan when he sees a pair of white children hide under a sheet to scare a group of black children.)

This did not happen because Kennedy was courageous or resolute or unflappable, even though he was all of these. It happened because Kennedy understood the raw power of information. The Ku Klux Klan was a group whose power—much like that of politicians or real-estate agents or stockbrokers—was derived in large part from the fact that it hoarded information. Once that information falls into the wrong hands (or, depending on your point of view, the right hands), much of the group’s advantage disappears.

As Supreme Court Jus¬tice Louis D. Brandeis once wrote, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent, de¬pending on who wields it and how. Information is so powerful that the assumption of information, even if the information does not actu¬ally exist, can have a sobering effect. Consider the case of a one-day-old car.

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