Slashdot Mirror

Here's the thing - we're all gonna die in the end, so all these fights against proprietary formats won't mean jack.

In that case, so is replying. Yet you seem to care enough about justifying your position (perhaps to yourself) to reply, so don't give me this nihilistic bullshit.

In life we pick the battles we can fight. These are potentially important issues, but basically given you're effectively saying about 90% of people are part of the "problem", I don't give a fuck anymore.

When 90% of the people are part of the problem is when I absolutely do care.

Take another battle I've picked: Religion. There's a small minority which does some really crazy shit. And they get away with it in the name of "religious tolerange", because a majority of the world believes enough crazy shit of their own that it takes a lot to make us as a culture say, no, you can't let your child die because you'd rather fucking pray than get help.

Easily 80-90% of the US population is religious, which makes it a safe bet that you are, too -- probably also Christian, probably believe faith is a virtue. If so, merely by supporting the idea that faith is a virtue, you are encouraging yourself and those around you to turn off their critical thinking and skepticism when the situation calls for it. That kind of thinking leads to atrocities. Never mind that merely by calling yourself "Christian", you lend credibility to these fuckwits.

Am I going to win? Not really. I do hope to reinforce separation of church and state, to promote actual science education instead of "Intelligent Design", and to establish some basic rights the religious would deny, like the right to marry. I'd love to see people tolerate less of the extremists. I really doubt I'm going to see the religious become a minority in my lifetime.

But you know what? I'd like to think that when I'm lying on my deathbed, I lived for things that matter. I'd like to think that I'd still be the kind of person who would be ashamed to think I gave up because it was too hard, or because there were too many people who disagreed with me.

Life shouldn't have to be some damn crusade.

You're right, it shouldn't. But this is the world we live in, and there are some issues which tend towards exactly that -- either you're a good little worker propping up the status quo, or you're actually helping to move things forward.

And life should be meaningful -- and it's up to you to find that meaning. Maybe you honestly don't care, but that's not what I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is that you do care, you're just too lazy to do anything about it anymore.

Yet somehow, you're not too lazy to post, and to try to justify how much you don't care. That says a lot.

Arguably they should both be stopped... but I'm not going to take to the streets defending my dearly-departed foreskin or the King of Thailand's hat.

Suit yourself, but some people are taking the streets in defense of their dearly-departed foreskins. Check here.

The MGM bill would get snuck into a stimulus bill one of these days.

If a child it taught to be freaked out about nudity it teaches them to hate themselves and their sexuality as well as causes a crap load of social and mental problems in them as an adult. It was proven that puritan lifestyle is detrimental yet idiots in this country force it upon everyone they can.

That is what is truly sad.

I am truly grateful to whoever it is that put the MGM bill in their signature. I would not have known about it otherwise, and started asking questions like, why is this still done? What would sex be like if I had those extra ten to twenty thousand nerve endings? Why would doctors go to jail if they mutilated a female infant's genitalia, but boys are fair game?

You hit the nail on the head: this country was founded by a bunch of Puritans, who mostly hated themselves and their sexuality.

I mean, c'mon, "it's tough to clean so we should remove it" -- it's also tough to clean behind the ears, but advance the idea that we should cut off our children's ears to keep them clean and it would be ridiculed like the absurd proposition it is. But instead they fall back on religion to continue their campaign of scarring the helpless for life.

I agree with you. It is truly sad that Congress can raise a shitstorm and pass laws banning the Internet, but can't be bothered to pass laws banning monsters with knives. The latter most definitely affects our children, whereas the former is questionable at best.

I think the notion of prosecuting the sharing of lyrics is quite ridiculous and actually could be harmful to the record labels. Often if I hear a song, I will attempt to find the name of the song by typing the lyrics into Google and doing a search. In the results several web sites come up with the full song and the author and title of the song. Then I can go purchase the song from itunes or whatever. I will now no longer be able to find the names of the songs that I have heard easily.

I think the music industries attempt to cripple technology is also insane. File sharing and other other innovations should not be hindered for they do have legitimate uses, and people should have the right to make as many copies of something that has legally come into their posession as they wish for their private use.

The music industry is partly itself to blame for the illegal sharing of music online. For years they refused to allow consumers to for a reasonable way purchase and download music online, which is what people wanted. So many resorted to peer to peer networks, which are not specifically designed for illegal sharing and have many legitimate uses. Some are finally starting to wake up and realise that if they provide a reasonably priced service, people will not have as much of an excuse to resort to sharing music, and people will have a legitamate way to download music without infringing.

-----
Stop male and female genital mutilation of children and unconsenting persons --
http://mgmbill.org/faq.htm

Do NOT cut a part of your baby's dick.

Circumcision must be outlawed

Hear, hear! My parents decided to have me mutilated, and it sucks.

This is hideously off topic, but your sig is... well, in-your-face.

Your sig is: Circumcision must be outlawed

Now, I understand this is a contentious issue, and all, but I'm coming from the standpoint that I happen to like my circumcised penis, I'm perfectly happy with it, and I just shake my head in wonder at the rhetoric on the site you link to. What is the big deal?

: To keep in proper Slashdot tradition
: of likening everything to computers,
: it's like hacking your body. :)

Hacking a body? You mean, getting innapropriate access to someone's body and causing damage to it? Sounds more like circumcision .