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Web Censorship Proposed For Norway
Aqwis writes "A Norwegian Web filtering system (link in Norwegian), comparable to the Great Firewall of China, has been proposed to the Norwegian legislature. It would, if enacted, block all Web sites and servers that contain hate material (racial hate, pro-Nazi sites, hate towards the government, etc.), most kinds of pornography (not only child pornography), foreign gambling sites, and sites that share copyrighted or other material that it is not legal to share (such as most BitTorrent sites and services such as LimeWire). Reactions have been mixed; however they are mostly negative."
Given Norway's proximity to Sweden, I'm sure that the PiratPartiet (Pirate Party) would be interested in offering their paid-for proxy service there if this law ever goes through.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
We have a pirate party too here in Norway. :)
toresbe
is nothing but a synonymn for selfishness
if you understand what is wrong with selfishness, you understand what is wrong with libertarianism
the only people who take libertarianism seriously are earnest philosophy majors in college with no real world experience, and 40 and 50 year olds behind on their alimony payments
yes, liberals and conservatives are always trying to tell you what to do
because they care. smothering you is a side effect of caring. of course that can do damage, but not as much damage as libertarianism can do to society
because at least they care about something besides themselves
libertarianism is a political philosophy based upon an incomplete understanding of human nature. in many ways, it is the mirror image of communism, with equal flaws as to communism, in mirror reverse
communism ignores selfishness and embraces altruism, and is therefore critically flawed from the start
libertarianism ignores altruism and embraces selfishness, and is therefore critically flawed from the start
because human nature has both altruistic and selfish components at the same time, and any political philosophy that fails to take stock of this basic human nature is automatically doomed. a valid political philosophy must fit human nature like a glove, or it deemphasizes or overly emphasizes some aspect of human nature that becomes that political idea's downfall when attempted in reality
no one will ever take libertarianism seriously, it is permanent fringe
or maybe it will be taken seriously someday. but whatever society does that, will reap pain and poverty in the same way that societies that embraced communism reaped poverty and pain
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If we block any obscene content, our people will become fine, upstanding citizens.
As obviously incorrect as it is, this is actually a common belief in the south eastern US.
I grew up in San Francisco, but attended college in Alabama. As you might imagine, it took some time to get used to the degree of conservatism in the south east. After all, San Fracisco is a rather liberal place. When I grew up there in the 1970s, it was unusual for a day to go by when you didn't see a topless woman, some guy with his penis hanging out, or even a group of hippies performing their acts of "public love".
At first I wasn't sure if people in Alabama were serious or not. I'd hear people talking about how evil pornography was, and how if a girl even thought of a scrotum before she was 25, she'd be completely damaged for life. At some convenience stores, some of the religious people would throw the porno mags on the floor while the store owner was watching. It was actually quite strange to see how anti-sexual people in the south east US are.
I think I got a better understanding of how things really are there when I was in my final year of college. A couple of years before we had had one professor who was extremely against pornography, anal sex, homosexuality, and atheism. During my final year, there was a bit of a scandal involving that professor. It turns out that he had been caught with three other men sexually molesting a farmer's livestock and each other. So we had listened to him rant on against "sexual deviancy" day in and day out, only to find out that he one of the sickest bastards out there, completely contradicting everything he said and supposedly stood for.
is that if you watch a man fall, you will not stop to help him up. that if a man is dying of sepsis, you will not buy him 79 cents in antibiotics, that if a man is smart but can't afford an education, then you will deny him a future. etc
of course, it is absurd for me to suggest that altruism and selfishness cannot coexist at the same time, in the same person, in the same society. this is, in fact, what most modern western societies are like: capitalism with social safety nets, or socialism with a capitalist engine. but notice how the agenda of libertarians is to remove those social safety nets. that's interesting
what would happen without those social safety nets? you honestly can't imagine how they might be necessary, how they might, in fact, help you by removing the attractiveness of criminal acts that are sought after by the desperate? that is as actually cheaper to pay for the social safety nets then to pay for eventual negative effects of a growing poor underclass?
oh: you thought libertarianism would do anything except shrink the middle class?
sorry: selfishness compounds interest. what i mean by that is that, in a libertarian society, given a few generations, all power and money would be centralized in a handful of ultrarich. of course, libertarians say that their political philosophy is all about the little middle class man making it on his own, unburdened by the intrusions of a busy body government. what they don't understand is how their livelihood relies so much on those government hand outs, indirectly, they can't fathom seeing the worth for paying. this doesn't make a libertarian wiser, this makes him more shortsighted
the only people who gain from libertarianism is not the hardy backwoods souls. it is the ultrarich in the penthouses of the urban centers. it is amazing how libertarians cannot understand how selfishness concentrates wealth into societies of rich and poor, and destroys the middle class. the little middle class guy in the woods who supports libertarianism supports the impoverishment of his children and grandchildren so that the ultrarich can get even richer
which makes perfect sense, right? selfishness only cares about yourself... not the next generation
there is nothing wrong with what ayn rand said about the many and varied benefits of selfishness. but there is everything wrong with thinking that those positive aspects of selfishness, in a vacuum of altruistic efforts and benefits, does anything but consume that which it creates, and then some
life is balancing act on so many principles. when it comes to altruism and selfishness, especially
you must have equal parts both concepts in your political philosophy, or you have a political philosophy that only impoverishes and makes miserable
understand why both altruism and selfishness must be expressed in your political philosophy, or understand nothing at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Oh dear, the attempts to control what travels through the Internet and into our brains. Is that what's hurting us? Can we put one ounce (28.349523 grams) of this effort towards nailing the bot nets, spam generators and Internet pirates with Phishing schemes instead of policing our minds? Maybe policing our minds is easier than the hard work of really fixing a dozen Chinese hosts throwing the dictionary at my servers all day long or absorbing 80% of the Internet's bandwidth with noise. Fix that, lawmakers.
Yes, policing used to be easier when the library and the magazine stand contents were all that needed control, but the Internet is a massive book store with all the books thrown on the floor and a frantic mob running through it with snow shovels. Forget it. There's no organization and any effort to control that will fail.
Most of the stuff on
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it