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Modding and the Law
S3D writes "An article at O'Reilly discusses modding as a cultural phenomenon and its relation to the law and authority. The conclusion is that social activists are modders too. They want to change the government into something that supports a productive society. They want institutions to stop hiding facts and to pay attention to science. They want to change corporations, change people's day-to-day behavior, and change our own social relationships."
What's so culturally phenomenal about modifying stuff? We've been doing it ever since we made flint knives. The only new aspect of "modding" is the restrictions unreasonably placed on it by corpolitics.
Argh.
Sometimes the right way to change things, isn't by going thru the system at all. For example, illegal copying. Inspite of all the brow beating and guilt trip morality, there is nothing wrong at all with sharing music with other people. They not only have a right to copy, but they also don't deserve punishment for it either, even if it's the law, and even if they know it. IMHO, the internet and rampant copying have done more good for society in the last 10 years than all the information in the last 100 years combined. Starving artists? Bull, most people have a far better chance making a name for themselves by sharing their creations freely.
You can call it "modding" but I think the we are supposed to try and fix social injustices.
> The conclusion is that social activists are modders too. They want to change the
> government into something that supports a productive society. They want institutions
> to stop hiding facts and to pay attention to science. They want to change corporations,
> change people's day-to-day behavior, and change our own social relationships.
Oh bullshit. YOU may THINK you are promoting that in YOUR activism. Other equally activist folk are promoting very different things. So stop projecting your own political notions on everyone else and pretending it is the only possible viewpoint.
Typical slashdot twaddle, what passes for politics and philosophy here isn't even cereal box pop philosophy. Bah!
Democrat delenda est
A fun game anyone can play.
This week; why social activist activity is like modding.
Next week, why modding and social activism are like biological viruses: 'both set out to commandeer the host and change its functions to their own end'.
The week after, why the IETF is like a shoemaker; both provide the tools that let people transfer information from place to place.
The difficulty with analogies is not creating them, but in creating ones that shed valuable light on either topic. This analogy doesn't help understaning of modding or social activism.
The more insidious ones are those that purport to increase freedom. (In the following case, the "right" to get into the business of your neighbors.)
...and then the information of women who are trying to hide and safeguard themselves from an abusive ex is published in the Sunday paper. (Ohio)
"We have a right to know if the person in front of us in the grocery store is carrying a gun, so the media must be allowed to publish the names and residence information of concealed license holders!"
There are plenty of other examples, but this is the one that comes to mind.
Change *everything*?
... for what? One rhetorical
question: Does different = good?
The list you quoted does not include "everything". Jus three things, one a historically-new serious problem (corporations), and two on-going basic traits (but "broken" in the context of the current world) of our evolution as domesticated primates.
That's a good plan
And a not-so-rhetorical answer: Yes, when what you have now clearly has serious fundamental problems.
Corporations have a single motive (profit), the pursuit of which has the logical outcome of destroying the planet and enslaving the human race.
People's day-to-day behavior, while "mostly harmless" in isolation, adds up to nothing less than the evironmental nightmare we now face. That needs to change.
And our social relationships - As long as you can describe "haves" and "have-nots", yet we have the technological capacity for everyone to "have", we have a problem. As long as some people feel so trapped that they need to hurt others to cope, we have problems. As long as we have people so ignorant they need to blow up other people for their imaginary friends, we have a problem.
Now, random change won't help. But only a fool would avoid carefully thought-out change, even experimental, to address any of those issues.
Oh look, the next generation of culture, mind, society and consciousness altering activists has found a way to ignore the failures of all the previous culture, mind, society and consciousness altering activists.
Hippie, punk, hair metal, grunge, goth and now whoever these people are.
Modding is modding. It's doing what you want with what you've bought. It's not social commentary and it's not a blow against the man, "the media" or a challenge to the educational system.
What's already happened is that some companies have made their products mod-friendly as a marketing ploy. "Look! Our product is genuinely mod-friendly!" and if it is all the geeks trundle of and buy it.
OH NO! The movement's been co-opted by the system!
Counter-cultureal theories fall apart when you realize that there is no counter-culture, just the next big cultural thing. There is no selling out, just selling to a broad market rather than a nieche market.
To claim the goal of all social activism is "They want to change the government into something that supports a productive society. They want institutions to stop hiding facts and to pay attention to science." is a gross and naive oversimplification. Many social activists are actively ANTI-science (Fundamentalist Christians). Many social activists are actively ANTI-production (anti-globalization groups, ELF, etc).
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I'm afraid I must do the same with your post.
These women need to protect themselves, but why with a gun?
Because a gun is by far the most effective tool for self-defense, especially for women, who tend on average to be smaller and weaker than their male attackers.
If they're being maltreated, the obvious action is to tell the police.
Yes, telling the police is obviously the first step to be taken, but the police can't guard someone 24/7. Also, police take time to respond to a call for assistance. The delay between calling 911 and the arrival of police can potentially be fatal. On the other hand, if the potential victim has a gun, she can protect herself immediately.
Carrying a gun around is not a valid solution to all life's problems!
A gun isn't meant to solve all of life's problems. But it can be very effective in dealing with human predators. Usually, you don't even have to shoot -- most attackers will change their minds once they find out their victims are armed.
Finally, here's a link that might be revelant: http://www.a-human-right.com/fight-flight.html
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
It's inherent in our nature to tinker with what is, which is how we got out of the caves. Whether it's modding governments through revolutions, putting a few more horsepower through that engine or moving our processors ahead a few MHz. Companies (or anyone) trying to stop it are fooling themselves as it is a true force of nature. Of course people are going to mod x-boxes, cell phones and things like people's habits through things like anti-smoking legislation. While making legal claims that say you are not allowed to mod may give a company a right to sue, there aren't enough lawyers in existence to make a small dent in what goes on. Even if there were enough lawyers, there aren't enough court rooms.
This is also a reason why attempts at computer security/anti-copy schemes are doomed to fail. They pay some poor schmoe to come up with these schemes and thousands out in the world treat it's arrival like the release of a new game. Who will win? As for telling people it's wrong, good luck. Most modders would rather ask forgiveness than permission and when they buy something take the attitude that you can't break into your own house. Make things onerous enough for them and they'll revolt. Technically, the American and French revolutions were illegal acts.
It's all very much like in Shogun when Toranaga tells Blackthorne that there is no mitigating circumstance when it comes to rebellion against a sovereign lord. Blackthorne replies, "unless you win". Which of course Toranaga realizes is the one mitigating circumstance.
Now get back there and unlock those cell phones and x-boxes. While your at it, mod those politicians to get them to tell these companies suck it up.
Start producing some independant canidates that hold those views, support them with your money and actually vote.
Just like being an armchair quarterback, being a armchair politician will accomplish nothing.
America is not just a two party system. We need to educate the voters that voting isn't a contest to try and pick who is going to win, It's about who you WANT to win.
We need a canidate that acknolwledges that our economic system can't be purely capitalist nor socialist. We need a moderate mix of the two with the decisions based on the needs of the majority.
We already have some socialist systems in place such as Social Security, Welfare, Medicare, Public roads and parks. Lets not try and dismantle those at any given opportunity.
But for myself, what I see as the major problem in American Politics today is that the funding comes mostly from corporations and business people. Politicians don't represent the voters; they represent those who supply them with the money they needed to run for office and the promise of a cushy high paying corporate position when they are voted out.
This of course has led us to the corpratism situation we have today where the lobbyists are going as far as writting bills that they then hand to the politicans to submitt (the energy bill for example).
Our government has been bought from the people and is now solidly in the hands of corporations.
Look, the republicans have done a good job of hanging themselves and violating everything they stood for as a party. It's pretty apparent now that the next elections will see alot of them lose thier seats. But, what good does that do? Corporate money is hedged between the two major parties anyway!!
The whole concept of a government was to represent its citizens. Just like tribal hunting parties, if one hunter scores a kill the whole party had food. It existed for the benifit of the group. Leave it to human nature to subvert that concept and exploit it for the benifit of a few.
It remains to be seen if the unorganized masses can change the system run by organized corporate intrests. We only tend to THINK about it around election time, they WORK on it EVERY DAY!!
I'd cite the case law, but instead I'll let you continue to make a fool of yourself.
Translation: "I could prove that I'm not talking out of my arse, but I'd rather insult you instead."
Impressive debating skills there, mate. Forgive me if I pronounce myself rather unconvinced by your argument. Since you explicitly decline to give us any evidence that supports your claims, I see no reason to believe any such evidence exists: instead, I will continue to believe that tackling crime is the job of the police.
(If you do change your mind and decide to support your claims, maybe you could also try to come up with some statistics that show that carrying concealed weapons increases personal safety. I've seen it argued both ways, and I still haven't seen anyone citing actual studies.)
Modders want to change something that they own and paid for... and accept the responsibility if they fry their gadget or mess something up.
Activists want to change not only things that other people own, but also change people against their will, and don't want to accept responsibility if they screw up (i.e. when do activists for public housing take responsiblity for the disasterous urban housing projects debacles of the 1960s that led to the creation of new "Ghettos"??? When do anti-nuclear activists take responsibility for global warming because they have eliminated a potential form of non-greenhouse emitting energy?? When do anti-drug activists take responsibility for the half-million and rising Americans in prison, and the thousands killed in the drug war in Columbia??? When do human rights activists who want the U.S. to cut trade with "human rights abusing countries" take responsibility for pissing off half the world???)
Imagine if a "modder" decided to "improve" someone elses dialasis machine, and that someone else died in the process, and then the "modder" blamed the manufacterer of the dialasis machine... and that is a perfect example of an "activist".
The world could do with a few less activists, and a few more people minding their own damn buisness!
This from a man living in a country that used to be seperated by a WALL?
http://www.dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/10/14/news /maryland_news/03newsmd14burning.txt http://www.nbc4.com/news/5097879/detail.html?subid =10101441
Summary of case: a woman went before a judge and asked him to extend a restraining order against her estranged husband, who had made several threats against her life. Against all sense of good judgment, the judge lifted the restraining order. The husband subsequently set the woman on fire, leaving her with burns over 60% of her body. A weapon could easily have helped here.
The judge, of course, has been demoted and justice is "served" from a statistical perspective. But the woman ... she's in the hospital.
The right to carry a weapon is the right to protect yourself from becoming a statistic -- precisely because we don't trust the law enforcement system in *any* country.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
A gun is by far one of the LEAST effective tool for self-defense. It is useful when you want to attack someone (that, or a rifle), but for proper so-called "self-defense" a gun is one the worst options unless you really know what you're doing. A knife is a better tool, but then again it's not the best one. The "most effective tool for self-defense" is your own body and the weapons that came free with the purchase.
Spoken by someone who has never been in a fight, has no military or law enforcement training. (I'm in a combat MOS in the US military, active duty.)
The only reason an aggressor is going to fight you is if he thinks he can win. Sure, you can use "martial arts" to convince him otherwise, but only after he's had a chance to inflict significant injury on you (especially in a knifefight) and only if you actually are better. And if you're small, female or old (old is over 25, if he's 18) you have to be very good to win against someone who has planned an ambush.
By simply brandishing a firearm, you can convince him that he risks death.
Posts like these sometimes make me think the USA is some kind of third world country with a civil war waging.
Actually, it's more like you already had that prejudgement in your mind, and you singled out something that reinforced it.
Meanwhile, most of our crime rates are lower than those in Europe, and their violent crimes are rising while ours are lowering.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Excuse me? Are you comparing "self-defense" to "coming alive out of an ambush set up to kill a combat MOS"? Are you serious?
The only reason an aggressor is going to fight you is if he thinks he can win.
Well yes, of course, but what's that got to do with what I said?
Sure, you can use "martial arts" to convince him otherwise, but only after he's had a chance to inflict significant injury on you (especially in a knifefight) and only if you actually are better.
Well duh, of course you need to be good, that why you practice. About the chance to damage you: sure, there is a chance he will do that. I am not saying that MA are sure-fire ways to dispatch him whereas guns are useless. I am saying MA are more effective and useful than guns, for normal citizens, but of course that does not rule out the risk of, uhm, losing the fight? It only lowers it. Which is what we aim to do: lower the risk.
Also, please note that I said that a gun is one the worst options "unless you really know what you're doing". YOU certainly know it. Joe R. Walker does not. Anyway, you have probably been taught a lot about how to fight with your bare hands and you know they are deadly: your natural weapons are always with you, cannot be taken away, and are as dangerous as a knife. Pulling out a gun and shooting an aggressor is something YOU can do well but, again, Joe R. Walker is way better off leaving guns home, learning just 2 (and I do mean 2) techniques that will incapacitate his aggressor and RUNNING AWAY after he's used them.
So as you see I was talking about real life *self-defense* and that is something you just cannot compare to actual *combat*.
And if you're small, female or old (old is over 25, if he's 18) you have to be very good to win against someone who has planned an ambush.
Oh come on, you don't need to be very good. You need to hit him once or twice in the right places with the right techniques. He can't fight you if 1. he cannot breath because you've broken his trachea (or just hit him above the stomach) 2. you've gouged out his eye 3. you've just kicked him in the balls 4. you've broken his temple and the list goes on and on. But why I am telling you this, you're a big burly combat MOS after all.
Global warming is a cube.
Spoken just like someone with military experience, but no experience with crimes against women.
I have military experience myself, and yes -- a gun is the best offensive/defensive weapon for an enemy which you know is there, and who is at a suitable distance. But crimes against women don't typically work that way.
Predators skulk in the dark, and often grab from behind in a manner suitable to restrict the victims movements. What use is a gun now? None what-so-ever. If a woman tries to pull a gun out of a handbag or a holster on a well-built man who has grabbed her from behind, he is going to be able to very easily restrict her ability to point it at him, and/or remove the weapon from her possession (where the victim now risks being injured or killed by her own weapon).
Criminal predators use a different method of attack from what occurs on a military combat zone, and it's one where a gun is not only significantly less useful, but where it could in fact increase your chance of fatality. In such a situation, self defence using your own body is more important as a way of removing the attackers constraint upon you, after which a gun can come into play as a way of ensuring your ability to escape -- but a gun alone isn't going to help if someone grabs you from behind, pinning your arms and covering your mouth. In such a case, if you did somehow manage to get the gun out (without freing yourself from their grasp), assuming there is a significant strength differential (big man vs. small woman), they're going to see this, will be able to easily wrench the weapon from your hand, making it useless for self defence (and perhaps giving them a tool they didn't have before to harm you with, or perhaps almost as bad, a tool they can harm others with in the future).
Yeah, if someone was threatening me from 2 - 3 metres away (and they didn't have a gun drawn already...), a gun is the best means of discouraging their course of action. But that scenario doesn't play out sufficiently often enough for the average victim of violent crime to make carrying a gun worth their while.
Yaz.
I have a problem with this statistic. Every time I've seen the numbers presented, it always compares total accidental injuries in the home with a firearm vs. the number of intruders killed by a firearm. I have never seem intruders injured in the statistics, or more importantly the number of crimes stopped simply because the victim had a firearm, but did not have to use it.
I might as well come out with my stance on gun control: I believe that people should be required to have a licence to purchase or own a gun. There would be mandatory safety training similar to driver's education before getting a driver's licence. Different types of firearms would require different classes of licence, similar to how driving a Semi requires a C-class, and there being different requirements for hauling liquids, biohazards, explosives, radioactive waste, etc. A hunting rifle or shotgun would be a very basic licence while handguns would at least require being 18, and owning semi or fully automatic weapons would require passing more stringent education, and rocket launchers, grenades, bazookas, mortars and the like would be fairly difficult to get and likely require special profficiency testing, but not impossible. Military or police training would probably ensure access to most of these weapons, although that shouldn't be the only route to getting access. Concealed carry would be permissable with proper licensing. Violent crimes which involve the use of a firearm (And the weapon has to be actually used, not simply on the person) would revoke a licence, whether that is permanent or temporary I don't know.
Training for a hunting weapon would be pretty basic, maybe something like an afternoon course. Children would be able to use their parents firearms with permission without a licence, as long as they are accompanied by the parent or another legal guardian, or someone appointed temporary guardianship by the parent such as an uncle taking his nephew out hunting. People also would not be legally required to have a licence to operate firearms at gun ranges, although the range would of course have the option of requiring a licence.
I fell that anybody who would raise arms in revolt against their country really would have more to worry about than not having a firearm permit, so I don't think the regulations I have outlawed would significantly harm their ability to revolt against a despotic or otherwise "evil" government. And I highly doubt that it would be possible for any private militia currently concievable to forcibly overtake the United States armed forces in the U.S. proper considering the immense size and funding; The United States military budget is about that of the rest of the world combined. Guerilla tactics or political tactics (I.E. convincing a good portion of the soldiers to join your cause) would be the only way to overthrow the United States army.
The gun control plan I outlined was meant mostly for the U.S., as that is the country I, as well as a significant portion of other people on slashdot reading this, reside. Some things may not be feasible in other countries due to cultural, economic differences. Also, I personally do have a logical objection to armed insurrection. Most objections to a form of government is that the power that government wields is being used to harm people in some way (physically, strip people of their rights, not fairly providing access to certain material necessities, whatever.) Using force to overthrow the government in a way proves that might does make right. Using the logic that the right of the revolutionaries to gain control by use of force means that the previous government's claim to control based purely on might was true, but only removable by use of force. This seems to be a slippery slope (yes, a logical fallacy, but just the way it seems) which means that any new government which comes about by use of force will eventually be perverted to use this force to subjugate the very people it was supposed to serve. I understand this argument
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman