Slashdot Mirror
Mysterious Website Actually Social Experiment
MaelstromX writes "For six months a website called eon8 (probably down) has carried a countdown to July 1, along with vague and mysterious codes. In addition, strange code-bearing posts associated with the site were made in various webforums, and the site carried a map of the world marked by spots of "deployment". All of this, along with some apparent recorded visits by US military and intelligence computers, led many people to believe this was an imminent terrorist operation or a massive virus to be unleashed on the web-surfing public. Turns out, it was just an experiment by a 23-year-old guy named Chris from Florida who wanted to see how people would react to an absence of information, and he was disappointed that people expected the worst -- even going to so far as to attempt to hack his webserver and make phone calls to anyone with any perceived tangential connection to the site or its host. A mirror of the site in its current state is available with an explanation added by the site owner after the countdown expired."
Don't worry! Chris -- and his family and friends -- are being investigated by homeland security as you read this. :-(
The most I can tell you is I am a 23 year old web designer from Florida named Mike.
Where did the summary get the name Chris from?
I don't see why that should be a surprise or a disappointment. Is he trying to make a case that people should trust people more? Bollocks. In the absence of valid information during a decision making process it would be foolish not to assume the worst.
The owls are not what they seem
Am I the only one who simply ignored the whole thing? I saw the link posted on many forums and blogs, but it looked like some sort of prank or whatever, only in movies you'd see terrorist organizations publicly providing maps of their targets, or countdown timers...
python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
People are simply afraid of what they don't know or don't understand. In the absence of information or explanation, it is often wise to assume the worst - indeed, doing so helped our ancestors survive, which is why such behavior is now instinctive.
A-Bomb
The problem is, he didn't "see how people would react to an absence of information". He provided some information, and did it in a way that would make most people think immediately of military operations (using obviously encrypted data, terms like "deployment", etc.)
And he's surprised that people "expected the worst"?
If he had been serious, he wouldn't have left any (immediately) human readable text on the website. Instead, he prejudiced his own experiement by providing just enough information to prompt certain thoughts. If he had labelled his map "Elvis Sightings" instead of "Deployment Map", he probably would have gotten an entirely different set of reacations.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
This was a clumsy experiment at best. He's sad people assumed evil and says all that was on the site was the phrase "we don't want you here".
That means the only info was negative. This is a commonly studied human phenomen called "framing" (or something similar). If you give a person very limited info, then they will use that tidbit of info will drastically influence their perception of the question at hand. If it has said something less ominous I'm sure it could have had a better reception. As it was, however, if you only give 1 factoid and the factoid is negative, and there's a countdown - how do you expect people to react?
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
It doesn't seem fair pin "assuming the worst" on the viewers of this website. It seems to me that the information that was provided was, given the current context, quite suggestive of something negative. "Deployment"? Who uses that word? It is has a largely military connotation. A map with locations targeted? I don't think people assumed the worst as much as his website implied the worst. Yes, none of these things is direcctly indictivie of a negative act, but they are all highly associated with negative acts in the collective consciousness at this point in history. If it were a countdown to a "birth" of something people might have had a different reaction...
And I can see how you must be such a huge coward, that you would be well served by never leaving your home again. People who live in fear of anything and everything are not healthy.
Excuse me while I hide from: Terrorists, SARS, the bird flu, west nile virus, mad cows disease, video game violence corrupting the youth, school shootings, anthrax, and gays some how destroying traditional marriage. Oh yeah, and now anonymous website postings that may or may not be threats.
Btw, I could have told you for free that the unknown always leads people to fear the worst. After you grow up a bit more you'll realize that for yourself.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Put a countdown on a webpage with half-ass myserious writing with nothing explicitly bad whatsoever, and people are willing to take vigilante action to shut it down?
Right now it is funny because it was designed in a bad spy movie kind of way. But if you did the same thing, with mysterious Arabic writing and music, a world map with locations, and a countdown, I am certain the results would be as bad (or most likely even worse), and the discussion certainly would not be as light-hearted. It turned out not that bad because it was such an obviously contrived thing that people thought it could be an ad for a movie or video game.
People, nowadays, have such a paranoid lynch mob mentality, it is getting scary. If it isn't terrorists, it is myspace predators, or crystal meth rampages, or school shooters, or bird flu, or whatever other astronomicly unlikely boogyman. Even people on Slashdot, who love to joke "someone think of the children!!!" are starting to become more and more paranoid within the bounds of their political beliefs (people on the right tend to be paranoid about terrorists and foriegners, where as people on the left tend to be paranoid about sexual preditors and school violence... people tend to discount the other guys paranoid fears, while maintaining that theirs are, of course, rational!).
Is the government promoting the hysteria in order to gain more power? Or is the government just reacting to the popular hysteria of the people? I don't know, but I wouldn't be suprised if we started hunting witches again (real old-school Communists are just to damn irrelevant for some good ol' fashion Red hunting... but the power of Satan is eternal!). Is there some ergot growing in our wheat supply nowadays that is causing people to lose their minds? Is it all that floride in the water? Cosmic rays? What the hell is going on?
Sure, the first four Google results on "deployment" are military sites, but the fourth is Microsoft talking software deployment. http://www.google.com/search?q=deployment
Why must you assume the worst? Sounds to me like bad marketing hype. Did you think Ginger (the Segway) was a new thermonuclear weapon? This guy could have been pushing a PC game or a new type of potato chip.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Goodbye mod points...
This point is missed in the modern tech savvy libertarian geek. They want a system that benefits their immediate greed, their future and everyone else be damned. I really can't think of any other reason than greed that anyone would support such an untenable and intangible ideal.
Civilization is doomed to be imperfect, and unfair. Social security tries to evens this out a bit. I have a feeling that most people who are against it have never been down and out, or poor, or rendered incapable of work. I have a feeling that they really don't care that 90% of America is two paychecks away from the streets, meaning if they loose their job for two measly weeks their in a world of hurt and debt, of no fault of their own. Sure they could have invested, but this precludes the idea that they had excess capital to begin with. Its hard to invest money when your living paycheck to paycheck, and fighting off the debt of raising a family or paying off a mortgage on a wage that is grossly inadequate for any standard of living.
Adventures in capitalism is only for the rich. And a hugely vast majority of us aren't wealthy by any means, of no fault of our own. Not all of Americans have good paying tech jobs, but it seems that some people can't escape from their own position to see how other people live, and are far too egotistical to see that helping others is our responsibility, especially since we have the means to do so.
This is going to get modded to oblivion, isn't it? The anti-slashbot POV.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
This is going to get modded to oblivion, isn't it? The anti-slashbot POV.
2 006/02/08/185448.html
Get over yourself. There's a strong libertarian streak, but there's also plenty of "america sucks, capitalism is evil" types running around.
Two points.
1. My original point was simply this: I don't think you have a right to force someone else to invest in a safety net. Period. I'm well aware that a social security net would benefit both, but if you notice the sig I was replying to stated something to the effect of "if you don't want a net you can splatter on the ground, but I want my social security". Since social security is an everybody-in or everybody-out proposition, the sig in question is just assinine. THAT was my point.
2. You write: I have a feeling that most people who are against it have never been down and out, or poor, or rendered incapable of work.
You're wrong, in my case anyway. I have been poor. I'd say 5 kids in a double-wide trailer with barely enough money to keep food on the table day in and day out is poor by American standards. Social security did squat. My mother-in-law recently had to quit her job to continue her 18-year battle with breast cancer. She gets social security. It's such a pathetic amount it's an insult. It does squat for her.
Studies have shown that increasing the value of food stamps x% can increase poverty by 3 or 4 times as much (in %).
And finally studies also show that the vast majority of Americans who are poor manage to work themselves out of it. I'm not quoting all my "studies show", and I apologize for that, but I'll at least link you on this one: http://townhall.com/opinion/columns/thomassowell/
So what's my point? Social security is ineffective and largely unnecessary. It's more impotant to have a vital economy that creates jobs than to have a handout that can't even pay the rent.
People extend as much effort as they think they have to - no more. The more paternalistic (or nannyish, take your pick) the gov't becomes, the more people will 'need' that support.
I say let's operate on a minimalist approach to gov't welfare. Private organizastions tend to do a much better job of it anyway. The gov't should be the last resort - not a full-service stop for people who are either genuinely in-need or just lazy or somewhere in between.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
"I say let's operate on a minimalist approach to gov't welfare. Private organizastions tend to do a much better job of it anyway."
Didn't we have that at one time? Social security is a relatively new invention as are medicare, medicaid, etc. Apparently minimal govt thing wasn't working so well and private enterprise wasn't providing enough so we invented social security.
We don't like in a vacuum you know. There is a rich history of mankind without social benefits. Not only that but today, right now, there are governments which provide little or no retirement benefits. Why don't we look to see if people are better off in those countries then they are in the US or other countries which provide even more social benefits.
That's the beauty of internet and modern communications. You can actually look things like this up rather then accept on faith that private enterprise would take care of people or that people who live in countries with no social benefits are richer, happiers, live longer, are better educated, and all around better off.
No need for faith or zealotry. Just look it up!
evil is as evil does
The argument that you shouldn't force others to spend on gov't programs is not really useful.
But that's not my argument. There's a difference between gov't programs and re-distributing wealh. Gov't programs are like nat'l defense and publich libraries. Social security is about taking money from some people and giving it to others. The useful value of money, from a societal standpoint, is that it encourages people to be productive, etc. This erodes the utility of money to society at large. The incentive to work hard and be productive is diminished, the incentive to be a parasite is increased every time we richen wealth re-distribution benefits. It's bad for America.
I've never heard anyone from western Europe or Canada, or even Australia say, "I wish we had America's level of social security." The fact is that we have terrible coverage of medical and financial hardships. If we wanted to talk about the usefulness of social securty, the question we should be asking is "How come ours isn't as good as Britain or Canada's?"
Hahahaha. This is a matter of experience. I think I know a prety good amount about the UKs system because my mother is British and her family still lives there (Ipswich and London). Right now her grandfater is going through what should have been a routine sugery. Thanks to UKs state medicine it's turned into a nightmare. I can't tel you how many times my mother (she's over there right now) has told me "if only the lived in America!"
The reason America has bad health care has nothing to do with gov't programs. I know what I'm talking about here because my job is an analyst in the insurance industry. First of all, you have to point out that from the standpoint of sophistication America has the absolute best medical care in the world bar none. If you need cutting-edge medical care, you come to the US (yes, yes - IF you can afford it). Also - everyone in America has free access to this care on an emergency basis. E.g. emergency rooms can't turn you away (or refuse to roll out the expensive stuff) if you show up with a bullet in you or something like that.
Where American medical care falls down is accessibility of non-emergency care. And the main problem here is the rising cost of health care. But what most people dn't realize s that the cost of health care is rising just above inflation on a per-unit/service basis. The reason insurance premiums are going up by double-digit inflation has one cause: utilization.
1. Starting in the 80s health insurance changed from insurance to subsidization. Insurance is when you pay x dollars and then if something catastrophic happens you get 1000x dollars (or whatever). Insurance does NOT mean you pay $150 a month (or whatever) and then get to have MD visits for $25, or tier 3 drugs for $30 a month. But in the 80s that's whay the designed into insurance - copays and other routine utilization subsidies. Well guess what happened. At $10 a visit (instead of say 100) people went to the MDs more than 10 times as much. Combine this with marketing from big pharma and EVERYBODY is on ritalin, prozac, etc - at subsidized prices. If you pay $150 a month for insurance and get $200 a month in benefits from routine care guess what - the price goes up.
The final problem is our elderly population. They use health care like you wouldn't believe I'm talking like 12 visits to primary care physician every year on average! They need more care than young folks, they have more time on their hands, and they're living longer and longer.
This is why Europe's state health care system is a bad, bad bad idea. It takes all the problems American health care has, hides them under high taxes and low payments (the low payments make the problem WORSE) and the result? Rationing at best, total failure at worst. Give it time. Decades, maybe. The system is designed to fail.
In America, on other hand, we're trying to use the laws of capitalism to make the system get better. When is medicine ca
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Well, this became a large thread. Maybe I should consider a career as a political agitator ?-)
Not at all. The point of my sig is to express my opinion about welfare system and the prevailing Slashdot attitude of it being somehow bad.
No, it forces you to protect my unlucky ass. The point of social security is not feeding those too lazy to feed themselves, but those incapable of feeding themselves.
If I fall and break my leg, I'm going to be unable to work - at least on some jobs - while it heals. If I don't have enough money to feed myself until I'm healthy again, and don't have the qualifications to jobs I could do with a broken leg, I'll starve. And while one might point out that I should have saved money, no matter how much I'll save there will always be something that requires more money to treat than I have.
That's another point of my sig - to comment the belief that you only need social security if you're lazy. That's simply not true. Be as capable, cautious and hard-working as you can possibly be, and you're still liable to need help. Social security guarantees that you get it. Or, more importantly to me, social security guarantees that I get it.
Finally, I dislike laws that try to protect people from themselves. That is not only impossible, but also treat people as less than adults - which they may well be, but the lawmaker is not really any different in that regard.
See, this is the bad side of living in a society and enjoying its benefits and protections: someone has to pay for them, and sometimes that someone is you. And sometimes someone else is the one to get the benefit.
Besides, why would my neighbours wallet take priority over my life and security ? And don't start typical libertarian bullshit about his rights being violated, since the only thing that allows him to have any property in the first place is that society restricts other people's ability to take it away. He benefits from having a publicly funded police force and army to enforce contract and property laws, but now he decides that these rights are "natural" and deserve protection but my right to live is somehow not natural and doesn't deserve protection ? That he's entitled to protection of property but I'm not entitled to protection of life ?
I say that man's not my neighbour, then. And if he refuses to acknowledge any responsibilities towards me, I refuse to acknowledge any towards him - including the responsibility to honor his claims of ownership to his personal property. If you want a world where only the fit survive, fine; but don't expect me to play by your rules - or any other, for that matter - for I'll be fighting for my survival and sure as Hell won't just lie down and die.
It's all fine and good to say "every man for himself", but also remember it when a hungry mob breaks to your home and hauls you off to be beheaded. And also remember it when you realize that you can't afford treatment for an illness that's killing you, or when you break your leg and can't work, or when a thousand other things make you unable to survive on your own.
A world without safety nets is one where a single misstep sends you falling to your death, a world where only the strong survive; but no one is strong all the time, and no one is immune to misfortune. It is sheer arrogance to believe that you won't ever need the safety net; even if it's true, it's because of good luck and not any merit of yours. That's the point of my sig: I don't want my life to go to hell, literally or metaphorically, just because I got unlucky, and I value my life far above anyone's property rights or freedom to be a selfish asshole.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
"Yes, it was a time called the Great Depression. The name should indicate it was an emergency, and Social Security was an emergency soluion. Where's the emergency now?"
Why did the great depression occur if private enterprise was so great? Maybe the great depression occured BECAUSE there was a weak govt and private enterpise ruled the day. Every think of that?
"Other nations have other cultures, other infrastructure, other politics, and other economies. So whatdo you think we could really learn from such a comparison?"
Political theories should be robust enough to compensate for cultural differences. Any political theory that says "this will only work in america" is useless and should be disregarded. Those are people, they are not animals, they are not aliens. They have the same types of motivations as all other humans do.
Nice dodge though. At least we narrowed your argument about the supremecy of the private enterprise to just the US.
evil is as evil does