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 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.
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
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?
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...
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.
Let's not forget the old Twilight Zone ending as well (or is it Outer Limits, or Night Gallery???)
After you push the button, the guy comes to collect the button box.
You: So now what are you going to do with the box.
Man: I'm going to give it to someone else.
You: Who?
Man: Don't worry, it's someone you don't know.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
me for a start.
Life is precious, mine, yours, anyones. The fact that anyone would be willing to kill a fellow human being for money, no matter how much, is apalling to me.
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
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
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?
The statement doesn't make the assumption of you getting found out. It's supposed to be a test of personal morals. If the only thing keeping you from murder is the fear of being chastised by others then you would fall to the yes side of this test.
Similar but not entirely related was the Milgram Expriment. A volunteer was told to give increasing electric shocks to a "subject" in the next room when the subject in the next room answered a question incorrectly. Now the guy in the next room wasn't really getting shocked but he was yelling like he was. The researcher was collecting results on how these volunteers ability to morally detach themselves from the act by saying he was told to do it.
(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."
Are you sure you read the article?
1st paragraph...
July 1, 2002 | The men who ran Website Results, an Internet marketing company, had a unique test for gauging the moral fiber of their employees. According to former colleagues, Ronald J. Penna, Michael K. Osborn and Kevin Smith used to pose this 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?
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
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.
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?
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?
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.
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
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?
Here is the 10 cent version:
1. The company in question was founded by people whose actions (as shown inexamples provided by Salon) appear immoral.
2. The founders of the company founded a series of companies, each more intrusive and immoral than the last.
3. In the end, they were fired from their own company when it was bought out, presumably for ethics violations but the new parent company would not comment.
4. In addition to being morally challenged, the founders were also violent and muscular. They used these qualities to intimidate/bully employees, customers, and others to the point of punching a hole in the door of a programmer who decided to quit.
Hope that clears things up.
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?
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Flowgo is another one. I get loads of complaints from users who claim never to have opted-in to their junk lists.
If you could push a button because it is there. It's really not 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 them? Give me a break, people act like .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. Nike MD - There are 20 000 peasant children on the wall of your living room, few people would go out of their way to avoid hitting it. Now, pass the soilent green... can't imagine any conceivable situation in which someone would be put in a situation where 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 world - with a single signature you can enslave them until their fingers fall off, then throw them 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 single signature you can enslave them until their fingers fall off, then throw them in the sea! Walmart MD - There are 20 000 peasant children on the wall of your living room, few people would go 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 virus. Spyware - well, that just explains itself. In today's business climate, where major corporations can swindle shareholders out of billions of dollars, what's a faraway peasant worth to them? Give me a break, people act like .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 to Bill Gates. that sounds like a great 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 - with a life. Even if it was a button and get a first post for 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 world - with a life. Even if it was a button on the wall of your living room, few people would go out of knowing the fact that they killed someone. Even the psychotic elements among us wouldn't get any enjoyment if they could do that to Bill Gates. that sounds like a great thing to offer your life for anothers and that's regarded the greatest gift a man can give, but to put on your computer. Viral - having something to do with a George Jetson complex... Those that will just push a button because it is there. It's really not in the morning for most of you. More than half the posts already have said basically, "So what, wouldn't you do it? Most Slashdotters would PAY a million dollars would be put in a situation where a million dollars 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 dollar amount? It's one thing to put on your computer. Viral - having something to do with a single signature you can enslave them until their fingers fall off, then throw them in the psyche to associate a button and get a first post for a million dollars, would you do it? Most Slashdotters would PAY a million dollars would be tied to pushing a button and get a first post for a million dollars would be put in a situation where a million dollars for something you could push a button and killing someone. Especially if it's as easy as pushing a button and get a first post for 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. Ahhhhhh!!!!!! What the heck! It must just be too early in the psyche to associate a button and get a first post for a million dollars, would you do it? Most Slashdotters would PAY a million dollars if they could do that to Bill Gates. that sounds like a great thing to offer your life for anothers and that's regarded the greatest gift a man can give, but to put on your computer. Viral - having something to do with a life. Even if it was a button on the wall of your living room, few people would go 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 virus. Spyware - well, that just explains itself. In today's business climate, where major corporations can swindle shareholders 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 virus. Spyware - well, that just explains itself. In today's business climate, where major corporations can swindle shareholders out of their way to avoid hitting it. Now, pass the soilent green... can't imagine any conceivable situation in which someone would be put in a situation where 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. Ahhhhhh!!!!!! What the heck! It must just be too early in the psyche to associate a button -- why pay someone a million dollars for something you could push a button and get a first post for a million dollars, would you do it? Most Slashdotters would PAY a million dollars if they could do that to Bill Gates. that sounds like a great thing to put on your computer. Viral - having something to do 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 - 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 on your computer. Viral - having something to do with a life. Even if it was a button on the wall of your living room, few people would go out of knowing the fact that they killed someone. Even the psychotic elements among us wouldn't get any enjoyment if they could do that shit everyday. Nike MD - Pass the pen! 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 down the shitter, and there's nothing we can do. It's not like killing a peasant 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 ;) Bill Gates would reply: Would they rather use a pirated version of Windows XP, or Linux? 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 life. Even if it was a button because it is there. It's really not in the psyche to associate a button and killing someone. Especially if it's as easy as pushing a button and killing someone. Especially if it's as easy as pushing a button on the other side of the world and smack you up side the head, but have a little class...
While at a conference a few weeks back, I spent an interesting evening with a grain of salt.
Are you a vegan?
slashdot!=valid HTML
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.
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.
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
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.
ummm no.....
I was talking about Human life. Imho, animals were put on the earth as a food supply. I have no problem with that at all.
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
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
...or it simply explains why Slashdot has been seeing more and more pro-Microsoft posts over the past few years.
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
Religion actually condones killing someone far away, particularly if they don't think like you. I would find it more likely that a Christian (I bet this will be labelled flamebait because I mentioned that religion) would be willing to kill someone far away with the push of a button if they were in, say, the Middle East.
Oh, you probably think I'm going overboard; read history. Note the Crusades. And, before you start judging, my last name is German, and I was born in America, so I have no agenda to perceive by saying this.
Another thought: we have already done this "button pushing". Set the way-back machine and zero in on Hiroshima, Japan. I'm not saying it was easy. It's even holy now since it supposedly ended the war as well.
I think of it more as "Does your conscience have a price?" That's the real question.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
If a guy with a Chomskybot offered you a million bucks not to push the button that would kill him, wouldn't you push it anyway? ;-)
My personal opinion on it is Osborn looks like the posterboy for steroids abuse. At least the silver lining in this story is he probably can't contribute to the gene pool anymore.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
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.
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."
Free Housing - Either they managed to make it through the waiting list for base housing (often several years) or they're getting BAQ (Basic Allowance for Quarters) which often helps, but doesn't always completely pay, for rent / mortgage payments.
Free Food - Being married and off-base, they both get a BAS (Bassic Allowance for Subsistance). This is a nice plus, but hardly pays for the monthly groceries (but it will cover the majority of the chowhall bill if they eat on-base a lot).
Free Tuition - They have enrolled in the GI Bill which basically is a very agressively paying investment system - invest X amount and get XX amount back to be spent at a college of your choice in several years. Its a nice program, but it hardly counts as "free tuition to any college".
The question is - if these basic facts are misunderstood, is what your sister and brother-in-law also doing equally misunderstood?
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.
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
No, only the greedy went crazy. Reasonably intelligent people who didn't have extra money to lose and were aware of that had the option of staing with much more conservative options, such as bonds, broad-based mutual funds, the so-called blue chips, or even low-paying-but-guaranteed certificates of deposit.
As for "making it big", it wouldn't be considered "big" if it were easy and common. Your "average" American or citizen of any other major industrialized nation has it pretty damn well off, for instance; I'm sure that there are many, many people in the world who would consider even *getting* into the country "making it big". Hell, illegals sometimes enter, work low-paying jobs with employers who wink at it, and then even save enough to send money back home -- amounts which are quite significant in those areas.
Those who want to make it bigger are better off founding a business than playing the lottery. The odds aren't that great (*), but they're a hell of a lot better than the voluntary Math Tax.
(*) Marx-bait: Go ask the manufacturing unions why they don't use their considerable treasuries for opening up worker-owned collective factories if you don't believe that starting and running a successful business is non-trivial, or that investors incur significant risk. Drive, intelligence, marketing savvy and competence do not guarantee success -- they can only weight the odds.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
"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
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
Huh???? wtf are you smoking???
Dear Oxfam,
For some time now, I've been concerned that I've not given you any donations to improve the lives of people worse off than myself. I am therefore rectifying the situation by enclosing a cheque for $1,000,000. Oh, by the way, I obtained this money by killing a fellow human being just so I could make this donation and save more lives. I hope you find this acceptable.
I don't think so!
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
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
Technically, the Ten Commandments don't condone murder (note: according to what I've read, "Thou shalt not murder" is a more accurate translation than "Thou shall not kill"; it's much more specific) such as murder for personal gain or revenge. Most religions that I'm aware of, except for an occasional human sacrifice exemption, tend to be rather critical of murder.
Christian leaders have traditionally differentiated between murder and "just war", such as national or personal self-defense. In that vein, it's easier to understand how some such might be anti-abortion, anti-death-penalty (reasoning that a murderer in competent custody presents minimal threat, and therefore killing him is not legitimately self-defense), but still support lethal action against, say, Mullah Omar and friends.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Would you press that button ?????
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
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?" :-)
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.
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!
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
Here is an example of a ballastic missle submarine (aka Boomer)as a nuclear operator.
The boomer schedule was roughly 105 days in and 105 days out. While "out" you were on a rotating 18 hour schedule, of those 18 you were up and doing something for roughly 13 of them. That is an average of 18 out of 24 hours a day for a solid 115 days, no weekends, no holidays, no sunshine, no internet, and VERY limited comms with the outside world etc.. Thats 1890 hours of work. Consider that this cycle was twice a year for a total of 3780 hours. When in port or "in" we worked about 20 hours a week for about 9 weeks, again, this was twice a year. This is a grand total of 4100 hours, about 82 hours a week.
It happens.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
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).
All this is true. However, in Milgram's defense, he was quite thorough in providing follow-up meetings with his subjects to debrief, and I think even offered psychotherapy if people needed it. Subjects often reported being shaken but wiser after the experiments, and were glad they had participated.
It is probably a good thing that today's ethical standards don't allow scientists to manipulate people like Milgram did. However, I can't help being glad he performed the experiments. He taught us stuff we need to know. Situational ethics? I don't know. I think it's more like, although it would be dangerous to let any psych*ist use Milgram's tactics, he himself had a legitimately urgent message and seems to have conducted the research in an ethical way. And have I mentioned that we really need educating in the dangers of too much obedience?
Incidentally, I just found an article explaining the infamous Milgram experiments, for those looking for the background on this.
By the way, it's nice to see another psych major on /.!
Fight for your right to read books!
What if you weren't killing anyone at all, just answering a hypothetical question that others would know about and be able to judge your character by?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
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?
I'm a Christian and I support the death penalty..punishment is not used to deter..it's to PUNISH. Read the report in the defense of the death penalty at
http://www.crimeagainstamerica.com
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.
That's only one piece of anecdotal evidence. There are good & bad cases. Some people spend 20 years in the military taking it easy. Many people join the military and get killed fighting for people who could care less about them, even protesting against them, half way around the world.
However, everyone that takes the oath entering military service does so with the full knowledge they may be ordered to lay down their life. It's just that many don't think much about it, or believe it will ever happen to them.
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.
...killing thousands
Proof please. Detailed enough to justify the taking of a life.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
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.
Wouldn't buy a playstation, I have a pc :)
Actually I'm pretty much done buying toys (but that iPod sure looks tempting now that the pc software is about ready)
I actually do donate 10% of my income to charity
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
True enough. However, I was responding to the situation presented - a married couple. On a further (even more off-topic) note, on base housing was often a limited resource, even for enlisted (at least in the AF). Single NCOs often got BAQ and lived off-base too.
Not for me: I got BAS. So if I ate at the chowhall, there was a fee. Though it WAS cheap food and there was a selection of things they managed not to screw up... so it became a valid lunch choice (and there was an express line for flightline troops rushing to catch early afternoon sorties).
I have to agree here - though my work days were usually a pretty solid 8 hours. There were policies in place that made 12hr shifts the limit without very special cause (usually that was for exercises - 12hrs of "sucking rubber" during a simulated chemical attack on rare occasion). I do know an avionics shop whos systems were so screwed, they were on 12s for a couple years trying to keep up. When TDY to the sand-box, we usually continued with offical 8hr shifts but we would often work over-time. After all it was either work or sitting around in a tent. Sometimes we even had shift production supervisors making the rounds looking for people who are supposed to be back at tent city and kicking them out (assuming there wasn't some emergency going on). Its an entirely different experience in that environment.
Looks like someone misplaced their "WWJD" sticker. I'd loan you mine, but I don't actually have one, since I don't need a sticker to remind me of such things. :)
The enemies of Democracy are
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wasn't meant as an insult, sorry if you took it that way. I was just curious about your take on life.
slashdot!=valid HTML
(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.
Of course you do. They remind you of a far off period in your youth when you had a social conscience of sorts, and you could get women without paying by the hour for them. When people talked about you without using words like "yuppie, sociopath, wannabe, neofascist, fuckhead".
Your whines amuse the rest of us, so don't let me stop you from making them.
Tech Public Policy stuff
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.
Its not possible to treat your delusional mindset in a simple /. posting - so I won't try.
All I'll do is suggest you consider your daughter, at 11 years old, having to work a 13 hour day in an overcrowded, poorly lit, badly ventilated factory making shoes. She has to ask to go to the bathroom. She gets 20 minutes for lunch - no other breaks.
Latte? She wouldn't mind a glass of water!
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.