Slashdot Mirror
Thai Government To Close 400 Anti-government Sites
Will Lord writes "The Guardian is reporting that the Thai government plans to close down 400 anti-government websites and is asking ISPs to block 1,200 more. The response follows a declaration of a state of emergency which has seen troops take to the streets of Bangkok to police anti-government protests.
With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent, do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?"
"somebody somewhere is suffering... so anyway, what about me?"
if you want to preserve rights and freedoms in this world, you go on the offensive, you take the fight to the regimes where they are being abused
if you play a defensive game, if you only worry about yourself, you will lose your rights and freedoms anyway, and furthermore, you don't deserve the rights and freedoms you worry about because of this self-concern
how can i say this?
because the rights and freedoms we are talking about here are aspects of higher morality, of a human conscience. part of a human conscience is concern for the well-being of others. these are not merely contemporaneous concerns: rights and freedoms and concern for the well-being of others, but dependent upon each other in order to exist: it is through concern for the well-being of others that you maintain and repair and extend the framework of rights and freedoms in this world
meanwhile, if you only care about yourself, how can you expect society to protect you? society protects you by you staying involved in society, and by society, i mean the world at large, not your own little nationalist fiefdom
which is all the story summary seems to care about
selfishness will lead to your loss of freedoms faster than anything happening in authoritarian regimes
in the story summary above "someone somewhere is suffering, anyway, how about me me me?" is the beginning of the downfall of your rights and freedoms. your selfishness indicates you don't deserve them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yeah, but at least then people would pay to see crappy movies and listen to horrible music. Right? All problems solved? No? Oh.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
you accuse me of mistaking shortsightedness for selfishness
ok, charge accepted
but at least i didn't mistake altruism for selfishness, antonymns:
"It is the individuals self interest to secure and protect the rights of others"
paraphrased: "it is selfish to be altruistic"
wtf?
i understand that selfish interest and altruism can go hand in hand, which is what you probably meant to say
but you are not allowed to equate contradictory terms and still think you are saying anything coherent
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
How many times do you hear about the fact that Walmart could not expand and make as much profit without the existence of government welfare programs? Or that the FBI employs fewer than fifty people who know Arabic? I can link you to one story about each of these items, but try to find them on your own. Now look for meaningless stories about sports, celebrities, fashion, celebrity news. There are tens of thousands of individually written stories about Brangelina's baby, but as far as I can see, not a single major news organization wrote anything about the Secretary of Defense claiming that the government had lost 2.3 trillion dollars on September 10th, 2001. How in the world is that just a coincidence?
Sure, you hear about "scandals," which is little more than confirmed political gossip. The real and sensible criticism of government and business simply isn't covered, though it does exist. You have to look for it, because no news corporation is going to endanger their profit, their friends, or their access to government power for the sake of society.
Yul Brunner for King