Slashdot Mirror
The True Story of Website Results
Henry V .009 writes: "Salon is running a story on a dot.com called Website Results. Maybe you've heard of them. Viral Spyware makers. My God, these people are sick. Interview question: 'Imagine there's a peasant somewhere halfway across the world. If you could push a button and kill the person without getting caught, would you do it for a million dollars?' 'For them, it was yes, in a heartbeat.'"
If you could push a button and get a first post for a million dollars, would you do it?
-- Adam
that sounds like a great thing to put on your computer. Viral - having something to do with a virus. Spyware - well, that just explains itself.
Great Linux Site
push a button and bankrupt Salon dot com would I?
Yes.
If you could push a button and halfway around the world a starving child would get a meal, would you do it? Wait, that's not very intertaining...
In today's business climate, where major corporations can swindle shareholders out of billions of dollars, what's a faraway peasant worth to them?
Yes, corruption is evident, even in geek industries.
if its Scelson, or one of his ilk...
The three men ran the company like a cult, according to former employees, with most staffers routinely working 16-hour days without bonuses or overtime. Employees were afraid to openly question management, to blow the whistle or to quit.
.com's invented this kind of behavior. Companies have been abusing employees since before the .com era. 16 hours a day without bonuses or overtime? Boo-hoo, our servicemen do that shit everyday.
Give me a break, people act like
Nike MD - There are 20 000 peasant children on the other side of the world - with a single signature you can enslave them until their fingers fall off, then throw them in the sea!
Walmart MD - But I get some running shoes too right?
Nike MD - Yeah!
Walmart MD - Pass the pen!
If you could push a button and kill the person without getting caught, would you do it for a million dollars?'
Why is that sick? Who wouldn't?
ok... why am I not suprised? This whole fucking world is going down the shitter, and there's nothing we can do. ;)
It's not like killing a peasant is going to matter as much as killing someone's grandmother
return 0;
}
Isn't this a Twilight Zone episode:
BUTTON, BUTTON
Doesn't TV teach us anything?
Imagine there's a peasant somewhere halfway across the world. If you could push a button and kill the person without getting caught, would you do it for a million dollars?' 'For them, it was yes, in a heartbeat.
...
Someone has played too much Black&White
Seriously, I don't know anyone that gets joy out of knowing the fact that they killed someone. Even the psychotic elements among us wouldn't get any enjoyment if they don't have the thrill of doing it by hand.
So, then, the people that would push the button are not evil monsters, more like people with a George Jetson complex... Those that will just push a button because it is there.
It's really not in the psyche to associate a button with a life. Even if it was a button on the wall of your living room, few people would go out of their way to avoid hitting it.
Now, pass the soilent green...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I can't imagine any conceivable situation in which someone would be put in a situation where a million dollars would be tied to pushing a button and killing someone. Especially if it's as easy as pushing a button -- why pay someone a million dollars for something you could just as simply be yourself?
Salon uses too many $5 words and opening paragraphs that are completely tangential to the story. Karma to anyone providing a real description of the issue.
So the founders of a company that writes viral spyware, forges search engine hit results, and attempts to earn money by outright lying and deception happen to be violent amoral pieces of tripe with no real place in society?
:)
My, I'm shocked.
Ahhhhhh!!!!!! What the heck! It must just be too early in the morning for most of you. More than half the posts already have said basically, "So what, wouldn't you do it too?" or "What's so wrong with that?" How is it that we find it so easy to place a value on a human life? If asked the question, "What is my life worth to you?", can you really respond to me with a dollar amount?
It's one thing to offer your life for anothers and that's regarded the greatest gift a man can give, but to put a price on someone? Come on people, I know it's just a web forum so I can't reach around the world and smack you up side the head, but have a little class...
I disagree. While we are certinaly are not worshiping him here at slashdot, I, and hopefully others out there, certinaly wouldn't want him dead. I would play a million dollars to have him removed from power and forced to work as a goat head in Elbonia, but certinally not killed.
you liberal fool. if Nike weren't employing the peasant children, they'd be either working elsewhere for 1/10 the pay, or starving along with their families who no longer have supplemental income. ever stop to think that if there were better jobs around there, that people would take them?
i'm getting a little sick of spoiled Westerners applying their rosy ideals to a completely different world. "Twenty cents a week?? But how can they afford latté??"
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Imagine there's a peasant somewhere halfway across the world. If you could push a button and kill the person without getting caught, would you do it for a million dollars?'
If not, at what price would you? Oh, so you've got morals, ay? What if you had no money, and your family and kids were starving to death? It's winter, you don't make enough money at your job to give your kids any shelter or food, and they're out hiding in the dumpster behind McDonald's trying to fend off frostbite while getting some free food. Would you do it then?
--
Better yet, for a little irony: what if the person at the other end of the button was Jack Valenti, George Bush, Osama bin Laden? Would your views be different then?
--
Every man has a price; You just have to find that price.
A million dollars is a lot of money.
I'm a good and moral person,
Possible ways to justify it:
Maybe the peasant was a bad guy
Or, somebody else will do it anyway
Or, I'll donate part of my million dollars to charity/healthcare
Ah Morality. The taking of innocent life can be morally justified if one has the will to do it. It all comes down to a mathematical equation.
Morals are a bullshit waste of time because they can be worked around.
And you would never hear from Penna, Osborn and Smith... never again..
:) .. I am sure we would all love to watch that episode..
How many slashdotters would like these three to be on a reality show, only if its on a swamp infested island with crocodiles, poisonous snakes and a couple of Raptors thrown in for good measure
Rapid Nirvana
What I did read was about very dishonest business practices, fraud, potentially mail fraud if invoices were mailed, threats, etc.
I read an article about some muscle heads that probably used lots of steriods and who suffered from the effects of that drug.
I read about the need for the FBI / local police to open an investigation and put these bastards in jail, sure they ripped off other dot-coms, but the moral decay in corporate America must be stemmed.
I read about why we are headed for a depression because of the complete dishonesty that exists in the stock market / CEOs / Boards and how investors should stop putting money into the markets, cause their collapse and force the government to act and put these people in jail.
But no mention of pushing a button.
Tournament Management Online &
Even that is too good for bill
just force him to answer windows support calls for eternity
I read things like this, and while a part of knows that it is part of life and you will always have some brutus type exploit others, another part of me reads this and thinks it's not very diffierent to the cold blooded murderous crap that OBL came up with. I would love to have one of the muscle bound baboons that ran this show in my sights when he walked up the driveway asking why I couldn't bother to turn up at his sleeze parlour. And I'd love to see his muscles stop my bullets when he tried to punch my door down.
Pushing a button to kill a peasant halfway around the world?
No Thanks.
I'll just stick to Black and White, where I can throw my peasants as I please. Its definitely more fun when you roll them down a hill to your waiting creature.
Lightning bolts and floods work well also.
Actually I remember reading about a test where students were asked to torture someone who they couldn't see, but only here the results. If I remember correctly most of them pushed the button given the right pressure.
an other alike question could be: would you eat meat of you had to kill and butcher the cow yourself..
As it seems, as long as the receiving end is anonymouse and unseen, many people can get themself to do things which they wouldn't consider when they were there in real life.
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
There is no way i would ever work for people like those three. During the interview process you should know something isn't right when they want you to move into their apartment complex and the fact that they had two apartments used just for weight lifting isn't a good sign either.
The only reason they were able to do the damage they did was because people were willing to work for them. And don't give me any of that "I had bills to pay" story, it was the late 90's, tech work was easier had then a job at Denny's.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
bucku ck
duck
huck
luck
muck
puck
suck
tuck
y
There are some missing, can you find them?
Checking my history books (even and especialy recent history) doesn't give me the idea that religion (as practished and not as a theory on how to run a society) has anything to do with accepting or refusing to push that button.
Especialy religiouse people seem to be able to do the most gruesome things when given the right reasons.
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
(Spoiler below)
The person debates whether or not to push the button for quite awhile, and finally gives in to temptation. As the stranger departs, the person asks the stranger where he's going. The stranger replies, "To find someone who doesn't know you."
Ehmmmm, that's really sick....can't we be humane, and make him clean toilets or something like that?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
When I viewed the article, there was a big Salon ad intruding on the article's words. It showed a big mug of a guy with the enticement to click the ad for a video. The guy looks mean...
Poor ad. I kept envisioning the guy in the ad punching through the door and slamming his fist into the wall over someone's head.
Nah, I didn't click-through.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
And you Americans accuse OBL of being a sick fuck? I don't normally think or say things like this, but reading the replies here makes me think that every one of you who replied "who wouldn't?" deserved to be in that fucking tower when OBL's goons trashed it last year. The peasants on the other side of the world getting their revenge on psychopathic bastards like you.
Unfortunately, it's not just the employees and customers of Website Results that suffer. It's the thousands upon thousands of frustrated computer users around the world that have their browsers behave in inexplicable and maddening ways. It ruins the browsing experience for them, drives them away from buying over the web, and lessens the value and inherent public trust of all of our jobs as a result.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Why aren't these people in jail?
I'm surprised Real Media fired the founders. Most of their products are viral marketing themselves. It highjacks filetypes, forces you to upgrade, pops up ads constantly, they sell your usage info to the highest bidder, and attatch their fingers into any program they can get(Netscape Download Manager).
One would think they'd PROMOTE people like that.
Hi, remember me? I'm not married, I don't have any kids, and I'd blow your head off if someone paid me enough.
-- Martin Blank
~~ What's stopping you?
Wow, that's weird. I have a sixteen hour working day (including travel, to be fair, but as I've been refused a laptop so I can work on the train I have to work over the weekend and most evenings at home). I have to mail my manager when I arrive and leave each day. (We have web access to mail, but none of us believe management won't doublecheck with reception or door swipe records.)
In theory we have a bonus system, but quarterly objectives are routinely sabotaged to ensure that it's impossible to meet them (and the 'bonuses' are so small as to be laughable anyway.) Overtime? In IT?? Are you kidding?? I'm a programmer, system and network admin; we don't get overtime! (anyone out there *ever* got overtime for programming?) In theory we can question management at regular "all hands" meetings: in practice, asking an awkward question would be an instant CLM (if not marking you to be first in line come the next round of downsizing.) Oh, and whistleblowing? My employer (before my time) blatently stole GPL'd code which is still plainly visible when the product starts up. It's been made very clear to me that if this info leaks, my feet won't touch the floor. Which is why I can't even name the corporation. Let's just say they're a well-known, significant, global, software/hardware/services corp., and most Slashdotters would have heard of them.
I haven't been physically intimidated, but with the economy in this state, who needs it?
BTW if anyone from the FSF or EFF is reading this and would like to get in touch, please reply to this post.
This is based off of memory, but I feel that I can sum up this story pretty well. A couple in financial straits is deciding what to do to pay the bills, when there is a knock at the door. In the doorway is a man with a box. On top of the box is a button. The man states that for a million dollars all they need do is press the button. The only hitch is that someone they don't know will die.
The man leaves them with the box stating he'll be back when they decide what to do. The couple struggle with the decision. They examine the box and see no wires, just a button. The money would solve all their problems, but can they take a chance that someone would die if they press the button. After spending several days thinking about it, the couple finally presses the button, the rationale being that since they really don't know the person and they can't be sure they will die it's okay.
Immediately, there's a knock at the door. The mysterious man is back with a briefcase of money. Inside, true to his word is a million dollars. As he takes the box back, the distressed couple asks if a person really died. Yes, he replied, but you have your million dollars.
But what about the box? What is to become of it? "Oh, don't worry. I'm just going to give it to someone you don't know," he remarks and leaves.
Exactly, it's not about the value of life.
I'd be more apt to say it's about the value of money. Let me explain:
Would I kill someone in my family for any amount of money? No, not a chance.
What about some random stranger? Depends:
If I'm making enough money to live comfortably, no.
If I'm not making much money, but I don't have any family (ie: just taking care of myself), no.
If my family is in dire need of money, possibly.
If I have to physically murder the person, and have a serious possibility of getting caught: I dunno, depends on how much I need the money, and what I have to do.
If I have to physically murder the person, and most likely won't get caught: Depends on my mood, and what I have to do.
If I just have to hit a button, and have never seen or known the person before, and ave no way of getting caught, Chances are Yes.
It doesn't make me less of a moral person; it's just human nature. And my family and kids come before anybody else. If somebody else's death does not affect me in any way, what's stopping me from killing him?
As a side note, I read an interview with a professional hitman once. He explained that when he killed people, he did not want to know anything about them (their name, their family, etc), because he might not want to kill them. OTOH, if he only knows what they look like and where they are, it's "just a hit". He'd fall into the zone before taking the hit, and wouldnt remember anything about it afterwards.
By committing an homicide, you become just like them. Stop the violence.
Only if the Peasent is Bill Gates or Steve Balmer... okay, maybe Larry Elison too.
so they were going to make a knock off of the 1989 Dolph Lundgren marvel comic adaptation bomb in their apartment?
or a sequel?
maybe if they got louis gosset, jr. to reprise his role...
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
So how come these muscled baboons act like psychopaths? Are they in for the money - is this "just" an excess of capitalism - or is it purely sadism?
Anyone with a clue?
Never work for someone you can't beat up...
If the humor is that weak, and over-ridden by the tasteless crap, change the channel. Or better yet, turn off the TV for that half-hour.
;^)
Personally, I thought a few things in the earlier episodes were funny, barely. But the constant trash and disgusting crap turned me off to it right away. So I have never been a fan, even though my step-son and his friends (teenagers) love it. It's not so bad I don't let him watch it, but I keep my young daughter away from it as much as I can. That and Barney.
Ezekiel 25:17
From: Pulp Fiction Soundtrack
Performed by: Samuel L. Jackson
Written by: Quentin Tarantino
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides
by the inequities of the selfish,
and the tyranny of evil men.
Blessed is he,
who in the name of charity and goodwill,
shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness
for he is truly his brother's keeper
and the finder of lost children.
And I will strike down on thee
with great vengence and furious anger,
those who attempt to poison
and destroy my brothers.
And you will know
my name is The Lord
when I lay my vengence upon thee.
Bang, Bang...you're dead. What's wrong with this picture?
(Off-topic) I used to work at 24/7 Media, also now known as 24/7 Real Media when Real Media and 24/7 Media merged at the beginning for 2002. I worked in the Broadband and Professional Services. Never really knew what the parent company did up in New York except that they paid my paychecks. Pretty crazy ship they ran up there though from what I can tell. I was laid off from BPS on December 14th, 20001 along with 25 other individuals out of a group of 93 that worked out of the Bethesda area. Over all though TFSM (24/7 Media) was a pretty crazy company... :-)
It's a nasty way of asking the question, "What's more important to you, the life of a stranger that you'll never otherwise come in contact with, or a million dollars?"
...just my 2 gil.
You comment is written in flamebait-style, but it doesn't change the fact that I think you're right.
Too bad I don't have mod points....
Look familiar?
*********
You've received this message because while visiting
a 24/7 Media, Inc. partner website, you opted in to
receive special online offers and discounts.
*********
Flowgo is another one. I get loads of complaints from users who claim never to have opted-in to their junk lists.
I think it's just what you're looking for :)
It's a spoof btw. Damn creepy if you ask me.
I'm sure my actions as a a global consumer kill at least 1 peasant a year. From pollution, to sweat-shop labor, deforestation, and a whole host of other capitalistic by-products, i don't think a lot of us can claim innocence.
The only difference is that i don't get the million dollars.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
Does this work on other Slash sites? If so, what browser is required?
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
I don't know who you know, but my sister in the Air Force gets paid to sit on her ass and play Quake all day (shes a computer technician)
Her husband in the army gets paid to pretend that he hurt his leg in a bar brawl.
They get free housing, food, and free tuition to any college they want.
I don't think that's too "demanding".
Isn't this what police and people in the military do for their jobs? We pay them money, and they kill other people so we can retain our standard of living?
It is amazing that people will abhor this kind of a test and then do far worse without even thinking about it.
Every time you buy a cheap product that was made by workers who are put in daily peril of death, you trade a dollar for one-in-a-million chance of killing a worker.
For a real eye-opener that goes far beyone fast-food, read Fast Food Nation (isbn: 0395977894). It's not an easy read, but its quite an eye-opener. A lot of reviews are linked here. Now I understand what some of the protests are about. It makes it hard to go shopping without thinking.
See a therapist. Seriously.
Now now now, lets not kill the messenger. Capitalism just brings the scum out of the woodwork, as does religion or anything similar.
--
I suppose this depends on your definition of evil.
From J. Michael Straczynski's notes on the episode Intersections in Real Time:
The interrogator looked like an ordinary person.
Exactly. The banal face of evil. You look at most of the guys who ran Treblinka, or Bergen-Belsen, and they're largely ordinary looking guys, who could be accountants or repair men or car salesmen. They're *us*...and this was designed to remind us of that. The evil, mustache-twirling villain is too easy, and too far from the truth of it.
This was one of the elements that made the episode interesting for me; most SF tends to ignore the darker sides of the common person. They deal with the big bad guys, the evil federations and Darth Vaders and all the other major forces out there, but all too often the real damage is done not by the single Evil Leader, but by the ten million people who *follow* him, the bookkeepers who track the bodies and the trains and the pain by placing the right figures in all the right columns, who make the trains run on time, who run the gulags, who build the new state empires that will be built with slave labor, any or all of whom could say, as many have, "I was just doing my job."
Not so much "following orders," we've heard that before, applied to the military...but just "doing my job." To the interrogator, he was simply doing his job, and doing it to the best of his ability. It is something he does, then he goes home to his wife and kids, and has dinner, and sits out on the porch trying to forget what he does because he thinks he *has* to do it...assuming he thinks about it at all.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
And ask: Wheres the cash and wheres the button? We live in a lottery world. The only chance the "average" person has of hitting it "big" is to win the lottery. Thats what the Stock / Dot.BOMB situation reflected. Everyone went crazy and wanted to be millionaires. All by selling a product that the average consumer could not hold touch see or smell. All they could do was look. So, I ask again....wheres the button?
You keep going until you die..."Me".
Or better yet, turn off the TV for that half-hour.
:)
On the contrary, that is one of the few times that my TV is deliberately on, outside of construction/repair programs on Discovery/TLC, and Law and Order.
The deep satire (suicide-bombing sea monkies, Janet Reno as the Easter Bunny tossing grenades to get back immigrant children, etc.) is actually quite good if you can stomach the grotesque effects and follow the details. It's just that they used to walk a very fine line, and now they seem to have transcended polite society altogether.
I don't have kids yet (coming soon) but I wouldn't let them see this stuff until they are at least 14, and then for a couple of years with my guidance (dicussing the social and political ramifications of what they have seen). Yes my Children are going to be sheltered geeks, but smart dammit, or I will consider myself a failure.
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
The lesson I learned? When companies screw you over go get a lawyer and sue the hell out of them FAST while they still have money to lose. They'll stop victumizing us when we decide to stop being victums. If some a-hole punched a hole in the wall above my head at a meeting I'd have to smile and think "That just cost you a cool quarter million".
The question did specify any condtions such as starving children, etc. Therefore, the question is "Would you do it right now, sitting in your job interview in your good suit in your highly technologically advanced society?" Are your children currently starving? If they are, maybe you should spend less time on /.
... Now... shit... now I do it just to watch their fuckin' expression change." HAND.
Also, since you think it is moral/ethical/whatever to anonymously murder complete strangers, you must therefore accept that it is moral/ethical/whatever for complete strangers to anonymously murder you. I would be surprised if this were the case.
On the hitman side, I think Virgil in True Romance said it best - "Now the first time you kill somebody, that's the hardest
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
How many people would push the button with no financial incentive at all, just for the visceral experience in and of itself. Think about it, a button, by the sidewalk with a sign that says, 'Push this and someone dies.' I wonder how many people would.
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
Two of the guys running this show:
Penna & Osborn => banner snoop
Pretty much says it all...
I read the article and added it to my ".com stories to get sick from" and decided that maybe the internet would be a better place if the people out to make money would just pack their bags and go away. I could do just fine surfing around looking at not-for-profit sites that people run as a hobby and maybe pour a hundred bucks or so a month into. And there would always be USENET, IRC, P2P and other ways to hang out.
I think there may be a place for selling goods and services online -- but marketing and advertising is where the devils congregate...And the second a legit business gets into bed with the devil -- they become evil by association and deserve to spend the rest of their misserable existence with toothpicks holding their eyelids open as they watch their stock go to 0.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Why all this hatred toward Bill? Hell, most of us here owe him and his minons our jobs. So get over it. God I am SOOOOOOOO tired of all this MS hatred.
Capitalisms only connection to the discussion is that it allows them to get on the Internet and post inane statements.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
Read the friggin article, for god's sake. It's interesting, it's about technology and misuse of technology, and it has little to do with that damn button.
Evil is the money of root.
Stick "Search Engine Optimization" into google and neither these boys nor 24/7 Real Media are in the top 50. Hmmmm....
Baz
What can I say? "Small hands make good stiches."
Psychology 101 -- in the early 60's, Stanley Milgram wrote the book on how depraved people can be.
http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm
What he was really studying was the varying levels of conformity (or conformability) in various cultures, and how willing people are to follow orders, even when those orders are morally wrong.
One simple rule for its versus it's
Better yet, for a little irony: what if the person at the other end of the button was Jack Valenti, George Bush, Osama bin Laden? Would your views be different then?
or your mom, wife, daughter, father, sister, brother, son, etc.
You don't know until after it's too late.
Nice shot buddy.
Yeah, it's not easy. IF YOU'RE FIVE.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Fine, replace materialism with capitalism. My point stands.
How is it that we find it so easy to place a value on a human life? If asked the question, "What is my life worth to you?", can you really respond to me with a dollar amount?
You're right: it's incredibly difficult to put a dollar value on a human life. What you've missed though, is that that value is still less than a million dollars. I mean c'mon, it's a million bucks we're talking about here!
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
From what I've heard, they participate in a 'wellfare-to-work' program and are eligable for money from the government. Their employees don't seem like typical
It seems to me like a front to buy primo old city real estate with government money. Does anyone here know anything more about this company?
A question to anyone who sees it... I was once asked this in a college discussion class:
/. has to say.
"You are sitting at a console with two buttons. One button will kill every person in Alaska. The other will kill your entire semi-immediate family (parents, siblings, grandparents, children). You must push a button or all of them will die. Both would be quick, clean deaths. Suicide is not an option thereafter (my own addition). Which do you choose?"
This is the way I look at it:
If all of the people in Alaska die, their families in other states would be devastated. There would be great suffering -- hundreds of thousands of people - gone. Friends, brothers, husbands (on oil commute, etc.) would all be gone. This, to a degree no less than a few thousand suffering, is guaranteed.
If you kill your family, you and those left in your family and all of your friends would mourn. Then there is the issue that YOU killed them -- not only would there be a horrible sense of guilt, your family and friends might blame you as well.
Comparing the two, if you choose to kill Alaska, you are saying that you value your own guilt complex and your family more than the suffering of thousands.
If you kill your family, you are saying that you would rather live knowing you caused the least suffering possible, which a great deal would be put on you.
Remember, this assumes that you know nothing of Alaskans except they're not a bunch of Nazis and that you love your family. I think you can grasp the philisophical aspects quickly -- this is a general question, don't nit pick. =P
I was personally shocked by the result in my class - 14/16 of the people in the class said they would kill all of Alaska. I choose my family.
I would like to hear what
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Does anyone remember Plato's Republic and the story of the invisibility ring? He felt that a person's true nature would be revealed if he could act with total anonymnity. Some folks are good, some folks are bad. Now we have the technology, so it is no longer a gedanken experiment.
I would push the button, hell I would do it for free. This doesn't really make me unmoral /immoral / or EVIL as everybody is up in arms about, it makes me apathetic or uncaring.
Whats the difference between pushing this button and not give them money when you walk by them on the street. Having spent some time in 3rd world countries (4 years), you get pretty damn desensitized (?sp) to starving ppl and beggars really quick. Theoritically me not buying them a meal or giving money to them as I walk by is directly causing their death. This is no different than pushing a button (though less personal..think the difference between a bomber pilot and a trooper killing a guy w/ a pistol), the end result is the same, you directly killed the person.
Just because you can rationalize it doesnt' make it any less a *wrong*.
De Oppresso Liber
The company is still issuing happy talk press releases, but most of the press releases that mention them mention lawsuits. "... Files Suit Against Merrill Lynch and Henry Blodget on Behalf of Investors of 24/7 Real Media, Inc."
I would never press a button knowing it would kill an unknown person halfway around the world.
:-)
On the other hand, if I KNEW who I'd be killing, and his name was Osama bin Laden, than damn skippy I'll press that button for a million bucks. Hell, I'll do it for free!
We will NOT switch to Garderburgers!
work for these goons. I am always amazed at people that will blindly work for criminals.
If you are going to take the risk, get some freaking reward. I can't stand people that will faithfully work for some asshole, even when they know they are getting screwed.
If you are going to work for criminals and low-lifes, be a criminal or a lowlife. Don't just do their bidding. Crime does pay, but only if you are a criminal.
Oh, and if you work somewhere where they want you to live in the same apartment complex they live in, don't do it. And if they ask you to drink the Kool Aid, don't do that either.
Gene pools are wonderful things, aren't they? ...And to think that these guys probably left the pool without the dubious honour of entering the hall of fame.
You get interviewed and show up to work in someone's apartment. You see two or three no neck dudes with roid range towering over you telling you to do shit. Nobody really knows how you're making money and all the conversations are about (more or less) breaking the law. Your job is how to steal from customers and lie about it. Your boss tells you your new job is to produce a 'movie' in the apartment. Days go by when the bosses arent't around and when they are they're threatening to kick you ass and fuck your shit up.
So tell me why you work for this operation again? Are you so fucking deluded about making a krazillion dollars that you will literally eat shit, give head and fork over your lunch money to a psychopath to get it?
As evil as these overlords are - if you take away their business, they are still rich, the people are still poor the only difference is the evil overlords have no reason to keep the poor people alive anymore.
Schnapple
"I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image."
-- Stephen Hawking
No further commentary. Make the connections to the article, resp the interview question about that button yourself.
+++ath0
But then they might have a reason to abandon the land they stole from the poor people, stop polluting their water supply and stop supporting the corrupt governments and dictatorships which prevent the poor people from organizing to improve their situation.
We have a few "red buttons" on telephones in the miltary -- called "'priority', 'flash' and 'flash override'". The premise is that if you have an *important* phone call to make and all the outgoing trunks are busy, you can knock some other random person of the line and then you can make your call.
The person who gets bumped will never know who bumped them. By pressing the button you are guaranteed to bump someone.
A *lot* of people use one of those "red buttons" in situations where it is not necessary -- so much so that it must be restricted to those that prove they have a need for it.
So yes, people will and have pressed the red button. A lot of people.
Even a poor warlord will know that he's probably better off as a poor warlord than an ex-warlord (and, probably, soon-to-be-killed-warlord), unless he's got somewhere to run. It's not like a despot can expect a whole lot of forgiveness and understanding from, well, anybody, short of extraordinary circumstances like a clear need for national amnesty and reconcilliation like in South Africa -- and that need won't necessarily be granted in the ex-warlord's lifetime.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
In high school, I used to lift weights. Did a little in college. Now my body has gone wayyyyy to pot. Just to show that I'm not anti-weight lifting.
But, did anyone read the whole article? Did you catch the narcicissm (sp?) of the primaries? Did you read the last page, and the page about the meetings? If these guys are punching walls and acting this belligerent, it sounds like a couple of guys may have been abusing steroids.
If so, I just hope their peckers shrivelled up.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Nice to see someone knows their Psychology!
I think the whole thing is a case of odd behavior caused by steroid use. The Schwarzenegger film, the workout equipment, the obsessive workout schedule, angry physical outbursts. I would love to see before and after pictures of those guys. I bet they were using steriods.
The next time someone says "... on steroids", this is what they're talking about!
jeff
Please tell me this the sequel to The Firm and not real life.
Would you press that button ?????
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
If you look at these fine folks website, you'll see the domain is located in the United Arab Emerates
Your sig here!
Imagine you're a peasant halfway around the world and you are given the opportunity to receive a million dollars for pressing a button on a simple black box. The only caveat is that pushing that button results in some sleaze-ball dot-com millionare in the U.S. dying a painful death. Would you do it?
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
"would you claim you'd push the button so that we'll give you the job?"
On the other hand they also implicitly asked: "would you work for complete slimeballs?" :-)
... to a particular gay porn picture that he loves so much. Access his site and then tell him what you think at alex@coreweb.net . I'm sure he's also looking to hook up and personally show you his entire gay porn collection, which I understand includes many self portraits.
Its like those 'too good to believe' get rich quick schemes that con greedy prats to blow wads big time.
IE, its natural justice & serves the bastards right.
These people complaining about Website Results are like the greedy pensioner who gets on telly complaining about being ripped off his life savings on some silly over-the-top get-rich-quick scheme. Or like those who lost out over Enron or Worldcom that now want socialist regulations to protect their share trades.
AFAIC people who buy shares deserve to get burnt every so often, IE good onya Worldcom & AA.
I actually matriculated on economics & one of the few things I remember is that only when a prospectus is 1st floated is buying shares a true capital investment. Otherwise buying shares (that already existed) is just an exchange of ownership & adds nothing to the productive output of an economy. Just as stamp collectors buying/trading stamps at philatelic meets adds nothing to productive output of those stamps.
All increasing share prices mostly indicate is increasing demand, caused by increasing share prices, IE basically a pyramid scam, which is exactly what the dot-com boom was.
A genuine invester doesn't give a fuck what the value of a share is, as long as the company is doing well & paying dividends, because the value of shares is irrelivent unless you are selling them.
I've got shares in Telstra & I haven't checked their value in years. I know that as Telstra has a virtuall monopoly of most sectors of telecommunications in Oz, they'l always be profitable & pay dividends. So I have no intention of selling them, so why should I care what they're worth. Our family also owns Royal Dutch shares purchased for 500 guineas back in the 1920's, fuck knows what they are worth today. Royal Dutch became the senior partner in a merger with Shell Oil arround the same time. Now if Shell or Telstra went bust due to bad accounting, etc, I wouldn't like it but I wouldn't complain about it, I'm already ahead anyway.
Really at the end of the day, as far as the community is concerned the only thing that matters is the productive output of the company relative to its consumption - Profit is the shareholder concern, productive output is the community concern. Now in the rational world output - consumption = profit, but in our mixed semi-capitalist economies (basically the best there is but not perfect & definitly not rational) that isn't always so. Whether expences are amortized over one year or many years is irrelivent as far as the productive output of the company is concerned, so it makes no difference to the greater community. Even if the company goes bust & the assets are lquidated & taken over by others, the assets will still be 'doing their stuff' so to speak, just for someone else, well that is unless the company decides to burn their assets in a big bombfire. So as far as the community is concerned, companies going bust is mostly irrelivent.
Sure the shareholders get a bum rap but that was their gamble, & every dollar they lose will be made up by some bugger buying up the assets at firesale prices, etc. My responce is 'Who cares?' Again it's another case of natural justice for shares to crash every so often. If people don't want to risk investing on shares that crash they shouldn't buy shares.
Now when it comes to employee entitlements (paid long service leave, acrrued annual leave, etc) & employee superannuation funds (pension plans), if voters arn't willing to vote in a govt that is prepared to start a govt run insurance scheme to cover employee entitlements 'n super (like many European countries have) from corporate collapses, then the public gets what they deserve.
Mindyou, due to tax reasons, there are profitable companies, like MS, that don't pay dividends & just re-invest profits back into the company, knowing that shareholders are better off tax wise on capital gain not dividend income. This is the attitude that fueled the dot-com boom - 'if we don't need to pay dividends, then why make a profit, all we have to do is pump the media with press releases on increasing virtual market share to increase the demand for our shares, because that what shareholders want, not dividends.'
Socialist regulations are JUST not need to protect capitalists - people will always being greedy enough to risk their dollars - look at the billions traded on the (by Western standards) virtually unregulated Hang Seng (well not so unregulated now, but you know what I mean, past tense up to about 1990). If they don't like it there's alway honest hard toil. See what I'm mean. I'd imagine that if thousands of day traders stopped & went back to productive honest toil it would add to the productive output of the country.
Well that's enough ranting, the basic jist is that there's more important things to protect with regulations than corporates & philatelic collectors/cum share traders.
So good-onya, the Website Results triumpherate, hopefully they'l spend some of their ill-gotten gains on soil-regeneration & reforestation, there's hoping.
The question was originally posed by Orson Welles, in the Third Man. It occurs in the famous Ferris Wheel scene. Orson slides open a door at the top of the Ferris wheel. Joseph Cotten uncomfortably grabs hold of a rail as Orson speaks.
Martins: Have you ever visited the children's hospital? Have you seen any of your victims?
Harry Lime: Victims? Don't be melodramatic, Holly. Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving - forever? If I said you could have twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money - without hesitation? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax. It's the only way to save nowadays.
http://remus.rutgers.edu/~rhoads/PerilsofObedience . tml
What if you knew you'd be killing someone who wanted to die? Someone with terminal cancer, or severe depression, or whatever. You wouldn't know why, you'd just know that they wanted to. Then what?
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
For shame!
Perhaps you would rather have your dollars taxed by George W. Bush, so he can go "finish the job" in Iraq, where his father's policies have already contributed to the deaths of half a million children. That's just what the middle-eastern tinderbox needs.
When I read posts like the parent comment, I sometimes wish for additional nuclear proliferation. If the more of the third world got the bomb, perhaps they would all the sudden be our close personal friends like Pakistan is all of the sudden. Those nukes have sent more US aid to Pakistan than all the charity commercials on television.
I just wanted to kill someone in a far away land! Now I've got an invisible "toolbar" embedded in Explorer!
Besides what it revealed about human nature, this experiment is arguably more famous for its long effects on psychological testing itself. Milgram's study became the center of the first real discussions about the ethical responsibilities of psychological researchers with regard to their subjects (some of the subjects suffered from long term traumatic episodes due to thir participation). It led to the ethical codes of conduct followed today.
Ironically, this experiment would not be allowed to be performed today for the same reasons we would forbid the Nazi hypothermia experiments (an example of the behavior Milgram's study was investigating).
BbT
This article accurately describes just about every Internet salesman I've ever known.
These guys were definitely sampling the elephant hormones. This is typical of a type-a on Steroids...
I had a friend who would get like this. Feel the need to punch holes in walls, faces...etc. When he cut off the 'roids, he wasn't nearly as a sadistic.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Actually, from what I can tell, most people in developed countries (who I assume is everyone here with their computers and internet) kill people across the world all the time from the safety of their TV sets. If you pay your taxes, and pay someone to fight in your stead, then you're already killing people. How'd you think your computer parts keep getting cheaper and cheaper every year? (you'll notice Moore's 18 month law doesn't apply to Africa) And if you were one of the US citizens who paid their taxes over the phone or computer this year, then it all really was a click away, so don't get so high and mighty. This may be the information age, but the world's still run with guns and missiles.
We don't have a lot of choice, do we? My grandfather was killed in an industrial accident because Purina Foods was too damned cheap to put a door on an elevator (yes, kiddies, that's why we have OSHA).
So are you going to quit buying Purina? I haven't. WTF else can you feed a dog but table scraps?
Tyson Foods (yeah, the same people having "accounting problems" now) killed 25 workers in an Alabama factory HORRIBLY, they all burned to death because the fire doors were locked to keep them from stealing drumsticks.
There is no way to survive in the industrialized world without dealing with these lowlifes, because they OWN the industrialized (as well as third) world.
Um, rhetorical what?
-steve
springfield fragfest
Don't use IE. All these spyware manufacturers are aimed sqaurely at intentionally insecure IE and its ActiveX controls. Use Mozilla or Opera.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
You don't have to put a dollar amount on a human life in order for the answer to the question to be "yes, where do I sign up?" You merely have to define an equivalence between lives.
Actually, if we look at the only equivalence, we see that you don't ever want to kill that hypothetical peasant.
In the long run, in any society, how you treat others is how they treat you. To quote the old cliche, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. When you don't value other people and debase them, don't be surprised when you are debased and considered of no value. And I don't know about you, but for me the last minute of my life is just as precious as the first: I wouldn't give any of it up.
Therefore, since I don't want to be struck down by some dolt half the world away being offered $1M, I wouldn't push the button under any circumstance.
Do you like Japanese imports?
Make him reboot for everybody. "Hello, Bill? My computer needs to be rebooted for some darn silly reason. I know it's 2:00 in the morning. Get your sorry butt down here."
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
My job would exist without him. I don't owe him SHIT!
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Is it because the name was changed from Churchill to Shaw?
Are you happy now?
Actually he hasn't. But when you read the headline how did you feel? A bit of elation perhaps?
How many people do you know that Osama Bin Laden has killed personally? As in, he pulled the trigger himself?
If you don't personally know anyone he has killed and you've never actually seen him kill someone why would you be able to "kill him in a heartbeat"?
Where I'm going with this is the success of the military and media in managing to focus everyone's anger on just ONE man. There are THOUSANDS of men like bin Laden and killing him won't make one iota of difference. Sure, he is a figurehead for many terrorists. But figureheads can be replaced as fast as you kill them and killing them can sometimes make their appeal even greater. (The Martyr Effect)
Imagine that you'd been living in the wilderness for the past three years. You emerge back into society to find people wanting to personally kill someone they'd never met and who had never personally theatened them. You'd think everyone had become homicidal maniacs. Justification through "He attacked all America" or "He has Ultimate Responsibility" does not change the fact that he will, in all likelyhood, never personally threaten you.
You want to kill Osama bin Laden because the information you have been given tells you he is guilty of killing thousands.
Who made you the executioner?
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
E-mail alex@coreweb.net and ask him why he likes gay porn so much and insists on sharing it with everyone.
First person to source this quote gets a no-prize
Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Would you feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you 20,000 pounds for every dot that stopped moving, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax. It's the only way to save money nowadays...
Experience is a hard school, but fools will learn no other.
1.777's. It was two 767's not two 777's.
2.If you'ld have read the article you'ld have noticed that the guy put his fist through the door in a rage of whatever induced fury. It also says that the other baboon was even worse. I would have warned him once and stepped back. When he walked in through the door I would have shot him in the chest with the whole mag. Perhaps I would have asked him a question or two about peasants in far away countries or the value of steroids vs. 9mm ammo before he breathed his last.
+5 funny!
mod that shit funny. I just spit rum out my nostrils.
I think the button anecdote demonstrates exactly how cruel these guys would be for money. While people can argue (correctly) that spam and other nasty things happen to computers and not people, their statement shows their total disregard for life, something that even almost all of us can agree is sacred and special. Mostly, the button reinforces a stereotype that we would all like to hold - that spammers are bad, bad people. This bunch certainly is, and it can all be encapsulated by the button.
Imagine there's a peasant somewhere halfway across the world. If you could push a button and kill the person without getting caught, would you do it for a few barrels of oil?
Enough said, I think.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Decisions like this are made, differnt kind of box.
(Rant: Got an ethical problem with that? Fine! Then why not just allow embryonic stem-cell research, which would allow you to grow the desired organ without having to deal with the human life support system surrounding it!)
Yeah, that's it. Let me ask you - what is worth more; money and wealth, or an interesting and traditional way of life?
We Organ leggers are real entrepeneurs; true adventurers, really independent of the authority and the system. It's a glamorous and rewarding life of furniture chewing villainy - how many of you can say you've ever been "Foiled!" in your line of work? Could you have gotten away with it, if not for those meddling kids?
I'm opposed to technology that "benefits" us by taking away the richness of our culture. Organ legging is an art form - however much we could extend our lifespans by making it obsolete, I don't think it's worth it.
Towards that end, stem cells researchers are generally in excellent health - they exercise, they stay fit, they don't get HIV. Therefore, to better the public interest, we're offering a discount on their organs.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Same. I'd kill my family (I hope none them are /.ers).
Having said that, I think Alaska would be pretty nice if it were depopulated - it'd give the bears/otters/mooses(meece?) more room to move.
Did you even read the article? You're killing someone else, NOT the messenger.
:) -- for the humor impaired
Interesting perspective. You might find this article interesting; it goes into both the reasons Islamic nations should want to build nuclear weapons (international prestige) and argues the notion of such nations using nuclear weapons irrationally ignores the realpolitik motivations of most state leaders.
Perhaps not thousands but certainly more than a handful. And if you take the word "millionaires" out of the above sentence there are probably more than a few thousand who fit the description. Motivation, brilliance, and determination are not uncommon characteristics of people in the Islamic world, and, sadly, the same is true of an intense fear and hatred of America. The final characteristic, "lack of morals," is of course a Western judgement. Thankfully, most Muslims probably still don't share the moral code that condones attacks on civilians, but far too many of them do, and every American bombing run and IDF incursion likely creates more who share such a code. It doesn't help when the US military admits that they keep accidentally destroying civilians but that they don't care, as they did today when they admitted to bombing a wedding party.
Don't get me wrong, I think bin Laden's moral code is several steps closer to lunacy than any of the Palestinian suicide bombers, for example, or than anything we might be creating by bombing weddings in Afghanistan. But the point is there are probably more than enough true loonies around who will be ready to lead the rest of the incensed Islamic world to more horrific martyrdoms long after bin Laden is destroyed. The only real long term solution is to destroy the support base for such loonies, by actually addressing that festering anger against America. If America simply were to strive to live up to some of its own rhetoric regarding democracy, freedom, human rights, that simple step would make a huge difference.
.... you would do a great philosopher.
Well put.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Your delusory dreams: "starving people will kill".
Reality: we have seen many famine situations in Africa, widespread murder for whatever food is available has never happened.
Idiot.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There are tools, both legal and personal to get away of such situation.
I have worked in many companies, only people that are not confident about their abilities (normally poorly skilled) or with no self respect would tolerate a situation like what you describe.
Sorry to be blunt, but people like your bosses get away with it because employees lack self respect. I have left a couple of excellently paid jobs to go and flip burgers whne basic principles where compromised.
And regarding the software you mention, if is is so blantlantly ovbious that they are stealing GPLed code, how it comes no body else has noticed it?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
May I remind the people that are so suprised that someone would do that for money of the (I think) 50's experiment where they made people 'electrocute' others. Test subjects thought they were testing others with a stress test, when infact they were themselfs being tested to see how far they would go inflicting pain on others. Most of them went to the point where they electrocuted people at a voltage that would be deadly in real life. The person that they thought they were electrocuting screamed and pleaded (these were hired actors) and in the end fell silent... they still turned up the voltage. These were ordinary people. It was not just one who did it either. They tried this with numerous people and only a few refused to go on when they heard the screaming. More then 90 percent of the people (also on slashdot) would inflict harm on another human being- just because someone asked.
But a poor warlord will soon be an ex-warlord anyway because he won't be able to pay his goons and buy weapons for them.
duhh pussy boy take ur hand off ur cock then we will fight duhhh *humps dog*.
WTF I bet you're a gimp or a fatass, you MORON.
who's the "brave little shit"? You're posting as anonymous coward.
The True Story of Website Results by timothy with 666 comments on Monday July 01, @09:12AM