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."
What is xccr.com ?
Sig: I stole this sig.
Or come over here to Europe, where you have plenty of social safety, don't have to work the crazy hours US employers want to make you believe are required for the company to survive, plus you can get pretty wealthy never the less.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
I'm thrilled that we have a massive nanny-state in Europe where those afraid of personal risk and responsibility can find a peaceful haven.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Sure, if you prefer to work yourself to death, still not earning enough to make for a decent living, and be afraid of retirement where you don't know if you'll have enough money to sustain, stay where you are. If you, instead, prefer to work reasonable hours, enjoy your life, have rent after retirement, and can be assured that you're going to be supported if your company kicks you out, come over here.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
The problem with the classic libertarian view, as you have expressed it, of taking personal risk, is that the vast majority of the financial risk I take is not personal at all; it is out of my control. I have no control over the investment market, and what little knowledge I can obtain is unreliable at best. In other words, I can't take any personal responsibility for my investments. The so-called free market is controlled by huge conglomerates whose owners are not well known and whose goals, both short term and long term, are invisible to just about everybody else.
When the US becomes a truly capitalist society with no robber barons and monopolists biasing the risk in their favor and limiting my options to rigged investments, then I will be more than happy to have Social Security disappear. But as long as the fat cats rig the system in their favor, I am just as happy to have them finance the social safety net.
Infuriate left and right