Slashdot Mirror
Imagine A UN-Run Internet
Damon Dimmick writes "Small countries in the United Nations have been arguing to put the Internet under the control of the UN so that countries can more easily monitor (read: control) Internet content. It's on hold for now, but this could become a very real censorship problem, very soon. Some nations have gone so far as to suggest "monitoring boards" for internet content. Here is the link to the Financial Times article. It briefly describes the current situation. Just something to keep an eye on."
Imagine A UN-Run Internet
A prophetic subject line? If they run it as well as other things, the internet may be un-run.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Well then, we just have the US intranet. We only export those sites who wish to be under the UN's thumb. I find it very difficult to have respect for governments who think they need to control the information their populous sees.
Since USA is just a dominate force in the UN, would this really affect us? Yes... it may decrease our freedom of press!
Defenders of the status quo say handing over power to governments could threaten the untrammelled flow of information and ideas that many see as the very essence of the borderless internet.
The internet is based on the ability to put up a web page and shout out my message to whoever wishes to wander by. It's even more powerful than dead-tree press because it reaches more people in a quicker fashion.
UN control is just that--control.
Not only do I not want UN control... I want as little government control as possible! Inforce the laws of your own country on the people in your own country... and leave the rest of us alone.
Davak
However, the US and the European Commission are staunchly defending the Icann model, which is based on minimal regulation and commercial principles. Icann members are predominantly drawn from industrialised countries and the established internet community.
So now, we're rooting for the much-maligned ICANN institution... I guess that's not such a cognitive dissonance now that they've actually faced up to Verisign -- though the end of that story is yet to be written.
Interesting that this should come up on the same day that NPR's Morning Edition (just audio, sorry) reported that the US is blocking an attempt by UNESCO to allow countries to subsidize their national film industries to preserve cultural identity.
In one corner, we have the US: protector of political free speech and homogenous corporate culture.
In the other, we have the rest of the world: protector of political speech restriction and diverse cultural heritage.
Damn, it's hard to know what side to root for these days.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
This is just some goverments trying to get someone else to do their work dirty work. Look at China, they do their own monitoring, they monitor what is withing their 'Domain' content hosted in their country, and content coming into their country, that is the way it should be.
PS:I am not saying that what China is doing is correct, all I am saying is that they are monitoring their nation's internet from their nation, the way it should be.
Useless sig.
If the UN runs the Internet (which may not even be possible, to "run" the Internet), then "unapproved" content will be simply circulated by other means, radio, underground printing press, word-of-mouth, etc. It's the old adage - when encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will use encryption. This type of move is a pure power grab. This is analogous to the MPAA demanding a "broadcast flag" in digital TV streams, or the RIAA stomping on webcasters (despite the fact that analog radio is free, and IT IS LEGAL TO RECORD FROM).
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
"God Bless America, and thank God I don't have to live there."
And I, sitting on my white, male, obese sitcom-watching, oil burning, corporate lacky ass, thank God you don't live here too.
Damn stinky third world types. Take a fucking shower.
What is the lesser of two evils, a government censored internet or a corporate censored internet?
I's sad that in such an "advanced" time, the ideas of censorship are readily and seriously discussed. It isn't feudalism anymore, and people will find ways to get whatever information they look for if they're determined.
now that's just going too far ! All these conspiracy therioes are one thing, but a heterosexual slashdot .. NEVER !
Bet those freenet guys are feeling smug.
Replace one sluggish bureaucracy with another one that's even larger and more sluggish. Then stand back and watch the fights about funding and budgetary contributions. That should be very helpful.
DUCT TAPE: The Election Supervisors' Secret Weapon
Exactly how would the international control improve the internet? What control is currently placed on it by the US? Besides assignment of IP's and domain names, what US control is affecting you? Most of the internet is privately owned. Its controlled by whoever owns the routers.
no, an internet controlled by the UN would be controlled by a council that is under control of the general assembly. a straight up or down vote can determine who is on it, and given that the human rights council is run by every country that gives no rights to its citizens, I would not hold my breath for a council run by the UN to be anything resembling fair and Free.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The UN can try to regulate things all they want. In the US at least, it's all but meaningless. Why?
Well, for the US to even recognize a UN ruling requires approval of the president and 2/3 of the House and Senate. Technically, UN rulings are considered treaties. Even when it's recognized, it still requires an act of Congress to enact some sort of legislation before anyone can be prosecuted.
The one thing our government does well is ensuring that we're the only ones making bonehead laws that are enforcable in this country.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
The 3rd world countries should work on getting less corrupt goverments installed first.
They could also try working on the ability to feed themselves before they do another inet.
hmm, I know that the human rights council is run by Despotic regimes....why should I hold any hope for an internet council being run by free nations?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
with their choice of putting Libya as the Human Rights chair.
Luckily the UN is a flaccid organization with no territory or armies of its own. What would it plan to do? Begin a humanitarian mission to the Web by dropping a bunch of Kenyan and Spanish troops near all the root servers?
Yeah right.
What is music when you despise all sound?
huh? says who? i thought it was a network of networks.
some of those networks most definately have controls/policies against free speech.
FUD. The Internet is far from being under the control of the U.S.
In most ways it's under the control of wherever the lines happen to run.
Examples:
--China has no problem effectively blocking 3/4 of the Internet from viewing.
--Germany/France have effectively censored certain portions of the net.
--Many countries have unique top level domains hosted within their countries.
The list goes on...
The point being, while the U.S. is definitely HEAVILY involved in the development, maintenence, and overall culture of the Internet (not surprising given the history of the network) it also far from being in any real control of it. Certain members of the U.S. government would like us to sieze control through a variety of means (primarily applying economic pressure to other countries), none of it has been particularly succesful (it turns out that most politicians A) don't care or B) 'get it').
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
Nope, just a whole bunch of "little" wars in non-Western-European nations that have killed millions over the years.
Is the world's first supra-national organization and, more remarkably, has had its power seriously challenged only a few times.
What about the League of Nations? Or for that matter, the Hanseatic League?
Finding God in a Dog
I support the concept of world government, but before the UN can assume that role, a few things need to happen.
- The UN needs a split houses concept similar to the US and other democratic nation. One house gets a number of representatives dependent on a nations population, and in the other house all nations have equal numbers of representatives. This is the ONLY fair way to ensure that all nations are heard regardless of size or population.
- Abolish the security council. It made sense 50 years ago, but not today.
- All representatives should be ELECTED by the people in their nations, with reasonably limited terms (5 or six years max). If these people are going to determine my fate and run my Internet, I'd damned well better get a say in who represents me. Undemocratic nations that don't allow their citizens to vote should NOT get voting seats in the UN.
- It should respect the constitutions of its member nations. The UN should not have the ability to override, veto, or limit decisions or rights made or granted by their sovereign member states.
You'll pardon me for not holding my breath for these changes. The UN is a flawed, crippled organization that tries to grab onto any semblance of real power that it can, and it's in the interests of this worlds powerful nations to make sure it stays right where it is.There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
God Bless America, with the worst crime levels in the first world
Where even criminals have civil rights.
God Bless America, so happy to violate international laws
When those laws are put together by the dictator's club called the UN, you bet. You know, the place that puts Syria and Libya on the "human rights committee"?
God Bless America, where "freedom of speech" means race-hate groups like KKK
Where freedom of speech applies to EVERYBODY, even the ones with unpopular causes. Hint: popular causes don't NEED freedom of speech.
God Bless America, with barely 300 years of dire history and culture
Hint: we're still on our first Republic. France is on their fifth, with intervening Reigns of Terror, anarchy, kings, emperors, and Nazi collaborationist regimes.
Hint: our popular culture dominates the world. Deal with it.
God Bless America, with the highest obesity levels in the developed world
Where food is so cheap that even the poorest can (over)eat.
God Bless America, wasting billions to attack foreign countries
They're ours to "waste", Saddam-lover.
Great. So now I'll have to worry about staying in the good graces of the Seven Patriarchs of Outer Boobistan, as if avoiding the wrath of my own enlightened, free, democratic government wasn't getting hard enough as it is.
Seriously, I say this is bad. The UN should be finding ways to get force countries to accept disagreeable content, not finding ways to make it easier for them to export censorship. Besides, there already is a way for military and religious dictatorships to shield their populations from the horrors of free speech and bare nipples: don't connect to the global internet. Run your own damn closed TCP/IP networks; I'll even send a free CD with all the software they'll need to the first dictator to call.
Of course, just not listening/reading/watching stuff you don't like is a strategy that, while damn near 100% effective, never seems to occur to these paleolithic troglodytes. That goes for Outer Boobistan no less than it does for Inner GOPistan.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
I never said the USA didn't have corruption in its goverment. But, you have to admin, that the USA doesn't use food as a weapon against its own citizens.
The Leauge of Nations and the Catholic Church both predate the UN, and both are very arguably "supra-national" organizations
An excellent comparison: when you get right down to it, the UN is like the Vatican, but for atheists. (With the predictble results.)
Carthago delenda est!
I must assume this was a sarcastic post. The ITU is perhaps one of the most unfit organizations for this or even it's own purpose that exists today. Basically, it is composed of representitives from different countries, true; however, unlike the IETF, for example, they don't nessisary represent true "experts" in their chosen field. For example, US representation in the ITU is appointed by the State Department.
The ITU has a history of mandating REQUIRED international standards that include patented (and without royalty free/non-rand requirements...). Nor is their standards formation promotion open to the public, nor even the resulting standards available except at (sometimes considerable) cost.
To the ITU? No thank you...
given the current mess of objectionable content floating around on the internet it is about time we get our act together.
:)
Before you flame me about how your favorite information should be free consider that information includes:
- child porn pictures or other snuff
- virus/worm/hacking tool source code and instructions
- stolen intelectual property (for example: HL2 source)
- [fill in other human rights violation here]
Some of the above might still not be a black and white example of where to draw the line, but at least there are gray areas that need to be discussed on an international level. The conclusion will likely be the need for more then the current inability to remove internationally-agreed-upon unwanted content.
The UN seems to be the right place for this discussion. Just say it out loud "United Nations".
Discussions about wether this organization is efficient at all are to be taken up with your national representatives
Agreed, I'm not sure I trust the bureaucracy of the UN to be able to how to properly run the Internet.
But I don't understand the intense negative reaction to this idea, particularly by the submitter. The UN is not a repressive dictatorship. Sure, some of its members are, but I highly doubt that a UN-controlled Internet administrative body would have been to stupidly designed that it would impose restrictions on the 'Net just because some UN member applied pressure.
In any case, why can we trust the U.S. government to take a hands-off role towards the Internet any more than we can trust the UN?
Ah, and France, Britain, Russia and China don't have veto powers, and they of course NEVER put preasure on nations. France CERTAINLY wouldn't threaten nations seeking to join the EU or NATO in order to get them to vote their way. What strange alternate reality do you live in?
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Wouldn't it be even better if the internet were simply an amorphous social mass that couldn't be directly controled by anyone?
Open standards that can be implemented by any geek in his mom's basement and distributability.
These are the real enemies governments are fighting. They want control for the purpose of control, not insure openess to the international community.
As for the UN being an international orginisation of nations you have to bear in mind that they have always been nothing more than a permenent meeting hall to engage in otherwise normal diplomatic practices. A permenent base for ambassadors, not a governing body of any kind.
It doesn't change anything about historical diplomatic process between nations other than creating a central point for participation in a city known for really good delis when they break for lunch.
KFG
I suppose many Slashdotters are too young to remember UNESCO's scheme to "license" and "regulate" journalism in all countries. This is why Ronald Reagam quite rightly pulled all U.S. funding from UNESCO until they reformed.
The UN is an organization that does things like putting Libya in charge of its commission on human rights. Do you really want North Korea or Communist China to have a say in what YOU can or can't read online?
The UN is in no way, shape or form dedicated to the idea of democracy and individual rights. It is an organization by and for bureaucratic elites looking to expand their power and pretiege and ensure themselves easy employment. It has no moral standing, and only the power that is allowed it by the Security Council. It is not now, nor will it ever be, a "World Government," and thank God for that.
There are very few nations in the world that have a guaranteed right to free speech and a free press the way the U.S. does. (In France it's illegal to "insult the dignity" of the French President.) Putting the UN in chaarge of the Internet would be an unmittigated disaster for freedom.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Why does everybody automaticly think this has anything to do with censorship? The national Internet-censorship already works just fine in a lot of countries. Thank you very much. Its just that a lot of people dont like to depend on something that is operated by an american company. If it would be better in the hands of the UN? I dont know and it will never happen anyway...
Anyone in to international law would see the problems with getting this implemented. Just read the basics of the UN charter, and you will see that countries are extremely protective of their sovereignty, and that such a serious infraction of this would be very unlikely. It could even be interpreted as a breach of some major international treaties on civil and political rights, or maybe even of the non-intervention principle of international law, which, apart from recognized, unregulated rules, the UN also has
codified in its charter. It would seriously affect the national sovereignty, and could therefore be seen as a breach of articles in the UN charter.
On the other hand, I would rather see the UN doing this than ISP:s doing it at their own will..
No, the Bush administration was able to both pass and enforce its policies. Whether or not you agree with them does not make the Bush administration ineffective. It may, however, make the Bush administration dangerous.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
The UN is about as effective as a perforated condom or the League of Nations. They do very little other than waste the funds contributed by the member nations on a bloated, inefficient, inactive bureaucracy.
While I wouldn't exactly say the US has the internet under it's thumb, at least WE invented it. (No, I am NOT Al Gore...) If the UN were to be given oversight of the net, nothing would get accomplished. A matter would be brought up, some nations would vote for, some against and so no action would be taken.
With the veto powers of the Security Council members, it's actually much harder to get a resolution PASSED than round filed. In other words, it's practically impossible to do ANYTHING.
As long as you have at least 2 members on the security council with politically opposed views, this will continue to be the case.
I say we ditch the facade known as the UN, save the funds we spend on keeping them around, kick them out of NYC and work directly with all the countries of the world. I say each country becomes a state in a new United World. I say Balkanism only brings continued strife.
I say, Doctor, is it time for my medicine already?
Would be nice, but it'll never happen. Screw the puppet UN. They can have the net when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!
How would the UN define what the (big I) Internet is? Something about address allocation body and DNS I suspect.
If this got annoying, couldn't we start another network? I can't think of any reason this wouldn't be fairly easy if there was a demand for it. Start new root name servers, setup a new IP allocation agency. Need new routers, but not new cable as they wouldn't be regulating at the MAC level.
Personally, I suspect multiple Internets are going to be the way of the future. Think Xbox Live.
Private ownership is only as good as the law its based on. I'm not a nutjob or anything, but 'ownership' is a fairly flexible term when the state/federal government's needs must be met.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I'm a believer that, at least at this point, that sort of thing needs to remain in the control of nations. Let's break it down:
Child porn: Sorry, but I do not agree with the US position that 18 is some magical age when sex become ok. If other countries wish to have a lower age of consent, that's their right. Then there are those countries that want ALL pornagraphy to be illegal. So if it's ok for us to tell a nation that 18 must be the minimum age for porn, why is it not ok for a different country to tell us that NO age is ok for porn?
Virus/hax0r source: Should be legal. Hacking should be illegal, as should releasing viruses to the Internet. The knowledge itself should not be made illegal. That is a stick your head in teh sand approach. You think that security experts are experts because they know nothing about hacking tools? No, they are experts because they know LOTS about them, what they do and how to stop them.
Stolen IP: Again, who are we to tell countries that they must have the concept of intellectual property?
Sorry, but nations just have real different ideas of what is ok and what is not. It needs to be up to them to decide what they consider acceptable, and how they are going to deal with the Internet in their country. I don't want some dictatorships telling us that we can't have free speech on the Internet any more than they'd want us telling them that they MUST allow it.
In any case, why can we trust the U.S. government to take a hands-off role towards the Internet any more than we can trust the UN?
Because the US has taken a generally hands-off role towards the Internet. Because the U.S. courts have struck down laws trying to restict speech on the Internet not once but twice. Because the U.S., where DARPANET was born, has generally been protective of its intellectual child.
The U.N. is a useless body. In its entire history, it has never accomplished anything without the substantial agreement and cooperation of the Great Powers. Where they have disagreed, it has been powerless. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a perfect example of the kind of claptrap they come up with. Vague, contradictory, and ultimately useless because it is never enforced.
The truth is that anarchy serves the Internet better. What would it be like if the US could enforce its draconian and restrictive view of intellectual property on 'Net locations overseas? What if the Chinese could compel compliance with their censorship regime beyond their own borders?
Historically, the inevitable result of unification of political and social power in one organization or entity has been stagnation. A certain amount of ambiguity, of room for true dissent, a refuge from one authority in the shelter of another, is necessary to human advancement. There are some who will abuse that liberty. But it is not for their benefit that we seek to preserve the ambiguous boundaries of the 'Net. It is for ourselves.
Wrong, except for murder, the UK exceeds the US in all crime areas.
God Bless America, where "democracy" means a rich, white male as President
Unlike Europe, where "democracy" means a rich, white male as Prime Minster.
God Bless America, the biggest consumer of the world's natural resources
Purchased at the fair market value. Too bad you can't afford to consume more.
God Bless America, so happy to violate international laws
The highest legal authority for Lawmaking in the US is Congress. Any such "international laws" unconfirmed by Congress are not laws at all.
God Bless America, where "freedom of speech" means race-hate groups like KKK
Yes, by definition of freedom, it will annoy those uninterested in true freedom.
God Bless America, and its massive and ever-growing poverty gap
You can't earn your money while sitting on the couch. Your unemployment benefits won't make you rich.
God Bless America, with barely 300 years of dire history and culture
And yet, still better than Europe.
God Bless America, all its appalling "sitcoms" with no grasp of irony
Just like Anonymous Cowards
God Bless America, with the highest obesity levels in the developed world
Best Medical system too to take care of it, since its not overwhelmed with the non-paying poor.
God Bless America, because corporations should be allowed to run amok
If your definition of amok is "without crippling restrictions" then yes, God Bless America.
God Bless America, wasting billions to attack foreign countries
God Bless America where we have billions to attack foreign countries.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
> > Where freedom of speech applies to EVERYBODY,
> > even the ones with unpopular causes. Hint:
> > popular causes don't NEED freedom of speech.
>
> If it applies to everybody, then why would
> there be a need for a 3-day shutdown of London
> so that protesters don't get a chance
> to "peacably assemble?"
I may only have a US education, but I'm pretty sure London is in another country. It's the one with Radiohead and Boddington's.
It was a while ago, but the Cyberspace Independence Declaration remains a good read. Here is an excerpt:
"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
"We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear."
A Cyberspace Independence Declaration, John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident
Co-Founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Blog Ho
Hint: we're still on our first Republic.
After the civil war I'd say we are on our second.
As the other poster said, the US won the civil war, so it didn't change there; however, the our first Republic lasted about 10 years, and then they wrote the Constitution when the Articles of Confederation failed.
Eliot Cohen would be grossly mistaken. No single military action/campagin of the last 50 years has compared in scope to either WWI or WWII. Consider that in WWII the total combined forces of allied + axis forces numbered well over 120 million -- indeed it was much closer to 200 million if you count total number who served and died. Find me a war that involves that many men in uniform in the last 50 years.
Also important to note is that while the cold war might be called WWIII, simply because of the resources involved, it did not involve a major direct military confrontation between superpowers. Flares up did occur but they were regional confrontations between world superpowers, not a direct war.
Calling the "war on terror" world war IV is... wrong. While the war on terror does indeed have a worldwide scope it, once again, doesn't involve the resources or amount of men that others did. It is also limited to a relative few countries and is against, in reality, very few people.
No, it doesn't make sense for a country to try to control the internet, but the Third World long ago got the UN to agree that national presses should *not* be free. Their argument was that the Third World press is so important in directing agricultural reform, improving health practices, and reinforcing cultural values that it must be under the control of the government. Little stuff like chilling dissent seemed unimportant to many of the diplomats. Statistically speaking, First Amendment-like law is very rare. We should be grateful. And we should not surprised if the UN decides that the internet should also be under government control.
Freenet nodes abound, the cute little 'monitoring boards' will be of no use. Freenet's development staff would increase by factors of 10 overnight, with the staff of many OSS projects chipping in to make things easier for the everyday users. Continued monitoring will simply result in better encryption and more secure software. The harder they push, the more resistance they'll find. China has no doubt tried to regulate and stop the use of Freenet, yet the freesites of Chinese dissidents continue to thrive, and the use of Freenet message boards by them continues.
To those who wish to control the internet: don't bother - you've already lost. Your continued efforts to increase your control merely expose your despotic aspirations. The mass criminalization of your countrymen will result only in your own downfall. You will never succeed with technological restraints, as there are far too many who will fight with a true passion to unyolk the minds of their peers; a passion your cold hearts could never comprehend, nor overcome. Look to the government of China for a spectacular mural of failure in the abuse of technology to restrain the use thereof.
I can't help but laugh at the prospect of a worldwide effort to outright control the flow of information through the internet. You can slow it down, make it more difficult to find, and even stop some from gaining access to it, but information can no longer be suppressed to the extent you'd like.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Would that be the UN who couldn't bring itself to condemn Iraq for human rights abuses?
Yes! Damn them! Damn them and the tens of millions of protesters worldwide who rallied against the righteous invasion! I mean, so what if it was the largest protest ever in the history of mankind? Those crazy non-Americans (and un-American Americans) deserve to be shot! What do they know about what's right?
Only fools and crackpot leftists take representative democracy seriously. Only educated men of property and good character should be allowed to vote or participate in the political process. That is of course how it used to be in the good old days.
It is a den of dictators, murders, theives and their apologists.
How did this nut-case slander get rated as "Insightful"? You're arguing that 90% of the world's population are "apologists". Wake up: Bush has managed to make most of the world angry at the US's foreigh policy - and this is not just dictators but the educated informed newspaper-reading middle classes of Western democracies. You know, it is possible these "apologists" might be right; recent events in Iraq certainly bear out their concerns. In any case, even if you disagree with someone please don't automatically impugn their character and motives.
The so-called ICC makes a mockery out of due process of law. Secret witnesses, evidence, no right to trial by jury.
I think you're confused. The mockery of the due process of law is promulgated by Bush/Ashcroft. Detainees face secret witnesses, evidence, no right to trial by jury. If you have something concrete (not paranoid fantasies) where the ICC was abusive, please post a link. (Also, trial by jury is not a requirement for due process, and may be detrimental when jurors can be retaliated against. Plus from where would you recruit jurors? Think about it before spouting nonsense.)
Yeah, but what the hell does the human rights council do?
Don't know? That's OK, that's because they DON'T DO ANYTHING. They print pamphlets! Oh my fucking God! What can't Libya do with those nerfarious pamphlets of theirs!? And... and... and... they do statistical analyses of data!!! God help us! Sometimes they even write opinion essays! They're like the Wall Street Journal, only with a smaller audience and less influence! I hear your call, sir, the UN Security Council must sieze control of all these pamphlet-printing, analysis-writing terrorist groups before THE VERY WORLD AS WE KNOW IT COMES TO AN END!
China! China has WAY more Chinese people in it than America. At least 15% more!! So clearly China is the most multicultural nation.
Or how about Africa? I think Africa has more black people in power than in the US. That makes Africa a much more balanced, fair, and multicultural nation.
Only requirement for good karma: be pedantic as much and as often as possible.
Here are 5 off of the top of me head:
1. Iraq -> Kuwait
2. Iraq -> Iran
3. Argentina -> Fauklands
4. Russia -> Afghanistan
5. Everyone -> Israel (twice)
Not all were successful, but the UN had a small hand in only one of them (number 1), and the rest were condemned, talked about, but prosecuted anyway.
And this does not even get into African "countries" and their various tribal/civil wars.
-Donut
Oh for God's sake...
The US has tons of problems and our government is neither perfectly transparent nor corruption free. However, to have the gall to compare the government of the US (or Australia, or Belgium, or what have you) to the murderous, thoroughly corrupt regimes that make so much of the 3rd world a living hell is moral blindness of the worst kind.
And you don't have to remind me that the US founded or propped up many of those murderous, thoroughly corrupt regimes. That is true, and we have a grave responsibility to the citizens of those countries. But that still doesn't make it OK to pretend that all nations are equally good. Some are better than others.
I'll put my cards on the table and say I believe that humans have (by nature, God, whatever you choose), fundamental and inalienable rights; these rights are facts regardless of the system of government they live under. All humans have always had those rights. Some political systems recognize those rights better than others. For example, the United States recognizes those rights better than the Syria does. I think it is morally wrong to give Syria the same (or greater) voice on questions of human rights than the US.
All's true that is mistrusted
No, they can suffer and die in silence like good little wage slaves! If you aren't productive, you're just a waste of resources!
God, this country must have sold its humanity.
Administration of technical aspects of the net by the UN might or might not be a good idea, but the current push at the UN is clearly part of a long-standing effort on the part of oppressive countries to censor what their own people have access to and prevent criticism of themselves elsewhere. It is a continuation of a project initiated 20 years ago called the New World Information and Communication Order. The basic idea was that international action was required to remedy the imbalance in access to and control over communications between the developed and non-developed countries. Some proposals had legitimate goals, such as increasing access to communications in under-developed countries, but it was clear that much of the interest on the part of the states that supported NWICO was in censorship. At the time, this meant censorship of the print media, TV, and radio. Although the US succeeded in blocking adoption of NWICO by UNESCO, the idea has never died. The current activity at the UN is just the latest attempt at censorship, now aimed at the net as well as the traditional media. Here is a recent report [PDF-958k] by the World Press Freedom Committee and the New York City Bar. This is a danger that deserves to be taken very seriously.
Its like giving a nuclear sub commander both missle keys. He isn't actively excercising his powers, but should he fancy launching a few missles, the power is at his fingertips. Isn't everything these days about pre-empting a threat? In this case the threat would be one country having the ability to severly curtial access to the domain name servers.
this is a little scenario for your post over here:
Imagine Party C = CIA, Party B = You, Party A = The Federal Government.
Now according to your theory, you have the right to STFU when requesting information from the CIA. Congress disagrees with you, as do I, thats why the Freedom of Information Act was created. The idea behind freedom of speech isn't that you have the right to STFU, its the opposite. If someone says something you don't like, you can bitch, moan, complain, and create public pressure to change that thing... because its your right.
Another scenario: A = Media Execs, B = You, C = News Outlets & D = Federal Government
Same as above, except (as they often do) D asks A not to break a story for a few days. A agrees, passes that to C and B is the loser. Is that censorship?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The Internet is really the wild west - the great unexplored frontier. To me, it exists beyond governments and central control. When people with malicious intentions come to the Internet, the good people have no problem taking the unwritten law into their own hands. In a weird sense, the Internet is our one chance at an unbounded pseudo-utopia that is controlled by no entity. No one can tell us what to do or how to behave.
The real threat, as you said, are the government organizations that vie for control of this amorphous mass. They want to dictate what we see, record our actions, and like any government institution tax us to death. I would add corporations as our enemies as well. By pushing for legislation in the government, big business may one day control the Internet. We've already seen the frightening effects of this with Verisign's unbridled and unchecked power.
Both governments and corporations are an undeniable threat to the Internet. Indeed, they will destroy the Internet in their selfish quest for power and ruin it for everyone.
As Internet users, we must be aware of these ongoing assaults on our digital freedom. We cannot allow any organization to gain control of the Internet - no matter of said organization claims to work on behalf of the greater whole.
There are multiple ways to get food in the USA. First, if you are careful and learn basic cooking skills, the USA is a very cheap place to eat. All those farm subsidies we hand out.
Second, the Food Stamp program doesn't have a time limit, you can get Food Stamps for as long as you are under the income limits (hidden way of subsiding our food producers). You may have to have a work part time, if you are able, but that is all. Food Stamp benifits are based on income, the less you make, the more you get. A family of 4 with little income can get 250 USD or more per month in food stamps.
Lastly, their are a great variety of food banks and/or churches that will help out by providing food.
Why I would step into this cesspool of a thread, I don't know.
But, I think this post raises a fascinating point about what constitutues a culture and a race. Culture is often considered to be associated with language which would probably still make China far more multicultural then the US since even the rural people tend to be bilingual in spoken tongues. The characters, which are functionally somewhat akin to a huge alphabet, don't change, but the spoken tongues vary literally from province to province and are mutually unintelligible wihtout a doubt and for good historical reasons.
So, if we use language as a basis for culture, we can indeed say that China is much more multicultural than the US and have a factual basis for this assertion.
But race as a reference to a group of genetically similar or dissimilar populations is an even more interesting way to define "culture" becasue if you look at it carefully you find that even the notion of race itself is defined differently in different cultures. So, of course, to an American looking at China, there's not question that there is a wider range of racial representation in the US than China because they're using the American definition of race. But if you were to take, for instance, a medical view of race, you might look at bone marrow compatibilities. Apparently it's true that one distinction between, for instance, blacks and whites in America is their high liklihood of inability to exchange bone marrow.
However, if you look in China, you will find that there are over seventeen types of incompatible bone marrow that you could technically argue are racially unique blood lines.
So, the definition of multicultural is not as clear cut as it seems. There's a context to every instance of language use that is ignored in casual conversation, but comes into play when talking about enormous notions like "cultlure" that is ignored at peril when you're using the phrase in American English and assuming your reader shares your background. Given that context, it's not surprising that your results appear to prove your point. However, appearances can be deceiving when dealing with the BIG issues.
The FT is taking the lead from this Economist article that appeared on 30th October(http://www.economist.com/printedition/disp layStory.cfm?Story_ID=2177567) suggesting that as a result of the Verisign and ICANN debarcle, that the ITU and related parties have been making noises about regulation of the Internet.
.com and .net databases (and earns $6 a year per address). In September, VeriSign launched a service that automatically redirected users who mistyped a non-existent .com or .net address to VeriSign's own search engine, where it earned advertising revenue. Alas, this disrupted other internet technologies: it fooled certain spam filters into assuming that some junk e-mail was legitimate, for example. After ICANN threatened legal action, VeriSign agreed to suspend the service.
.com and .net addresses; now, after ICANN introduced competition, its market share is roughly 25%. When VeriSign acquired the registration business in 2000 for a staggering $21 billion in shares, it justified the price tag based on the potential to bolt its web-security software on to the underbelly of the internet's address infrastructure. But such synergies failed to materialise. In October, VeriSign sold its retail name-registration business to Pivotal Private Equity for a paltry $100m.
Here's the article (copied for fair use of news reporting, criticism and review):
Time for UN intervention?
Oct 30th 2003
From The Economist print edition
A regime change may topple ICANN, the controversial internet regulator
WHEN Augustine arrived in Carthage, the saint found a seething, bubbling cauldron of wickedness. A similar fate has befallen the controversial internet address regulator, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which hosted its trimestrial public board meeting this week in the Tunisian city. Five years after it was founded as a quasi-private body with the backing of many governments, ICANN now faces its most severe test. The environment for which it was designed has radically changed: the business of selling domain names collapsed; governments are keener to oversee the internet; and ICANN itself proved maladroit in carrying out its tasks. This autumn, these three factors collided. How ICANN handles the situation will determine whether the internet's core infrastructure remains managed by industry rather than by international treaty--and highlights the need to balance stability and innovation.
The most visible dispute is between ICANN and VeriSign, a firm that operates the
This shows how much the market for internet addresses has changed. VeriSign needs new services to generate revenue, since selling names and operating the registration system is not as lucrative as it once appeared. In 1998, it had a monopoly on
More importantly, VeriSign's willingness to risk antagonising its regulator reveals the extent to which ICANN's authority is in doubt. Some governments feel that they could do a better job. At a pre-meeting in September for the United Nations' World Summit on the Information Society, which begins in Geneva in December, a number of countries backed a proposal that a different body, the UN-affiliated International Telecommunication Union, should take on the activities that are currently within ICANN's remit. In policy circles, the idea represents a significant snub to the notion of private-sector management of the internet's addressing system.
The threat of being ousted in favour of the ITU helped to push ICANN to confront VeriSign, to prove that it was up to the task of keeping order on the net. But it also exposed an irony that was made clear at this week's board meeting in Carthage, where ICANN's allies and enemies congregated. In the past, the debate over how to run the internet has focused on the risk that too much government regulation might stall innovation. Indeed, industry and governments themselves
- There is no infrastructure to be rebuilt, it has to be built from the ground up.
- There is no education system in place.
- It is very unclear if there is anyone we can trust to not abuse authority when we want to hand it over and leave. This was especially true in Monrovia.
- Considering the racial politic in the U.S., any pre-emptive move on any country in Africa would likely spark insurrection here.
- France considers Africa its personal playground, and would take steps to make our stay there distinctly uncomfortable.
- Last but not least, there are an unknown number of health hazards in Africa. I could just see it...after six months of war in the middle of the jungle we finally arrive at peace, only to witness an outbreak of a cousin of Ebola. Just peachy.
The reason we didn't knock off Hussein earlier was simple: we didn't know if the next Baathist nutjob(maybe one of his sons, maybe not) would be worse. We didn't go in there to knock him off. We went in there to knock off him and his power base.It's amazing to me that people expect things to be so kind and peaceful over there....crying out loud, it took a whole lot longer than that after the U.S. won its independence from Britain & after the U.S. Civil War for things to settle down. In fact, I would say that things are still settling down from the latter...
Ahh well. You're right. Invasions are nasty business. No, not much nastier than I'd think. I think we've had it pretty easy. We've lost more people to murder in Chicago over the same period of time than we have in Iraq. I think the best we can do is set Iraq up with a government and let them sort it out. Will we be sending them money for the next 50 years? Yep. Look at the bright side...at least now, when we send twice what we sent to Israel to Iraq people won't claim we're Zionists.
I don't know about what ICANN are like, but the idea that the UN would do a better job of it should be given the scorn it deserves.