Slashdot Mirror
In Leaked Email, NASA Chief Vents On Shuttle Program's End
jerryasher writes "In a leaked memo, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin discusses 'the jihad' to prematurely terminate the Shuttle and what that means for the International Space Station. One implication: there may come a long interval when only our Russian Allies are aboard the Space Station. Add that bit of irony to your new cold war kit and then wonder why Griffin discusses why we wouldn't sabotage the Space Station, and how and why the memo got leaked in the first place."
And get something new and awesomer in the skies to replace it.
Something that could get people going wow again would be nice.
I was going to post something about the importance of anonymity but then I saw a comment above yours by AC which just had the word "fag" in it. And suddenly I didnt have the heart anymore.
In a statement issued after the Orlando Sentinel posted Griffin's e-mail, the space agency administrator stressed that the memo alone lacked the appropriate context.
"The leaked internal email fails to provide the contextual framework for my remarks, and my support for the Administration's policies," Griffin said the NASA statement. "Administration policy is to retire the shuttle in 2010 and purchase crew transport from Russia until Ares and Orion are available."
This basically validates the accuracy of the article's source material (the email), although it does insist that relying on the information in the email alone would not respect the context it was written in. In short, you should have RTFA (which contains a lot more information than the original email), and your comment is idiotic and baseless.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I read somewhere that keeping the shuttle fleet active would up the percentage of failure dramatically since they're already in the process of decommissioning. I think it may be smart to just keep the shuttles as a reserve fleet, that way if the Russians were to stop playing nice (unlikely) we could still access the the space station. Only slight issue is that congress would have to fund this, else it'd eat into NASA's budget, the amount of funding needed is a relatively small amount, and a wise investment for the period until Orion gets on its feet.
With Putin doing his best Stalin imitation lately, it's moronic to trust the Russians to be a reliable stopgap until our new rockets and spacecraft are ready. We need to simply accept the fact that we'll be needing the Shuttle for a little while longer, and budget appropriately.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Congress could simply increase NASA's budget in the short term to handle the issue...
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I would imagine he's covering scenarios. But I'm sure someone will manage to read something sinister in to it.
OMFG!
I think the leaked email was a warning that NASA/Gov't could secretly sabotate the ISS, but I'm not sure to whom.
Was it to Putin's government to get them back in line?
To congressman who oppose allowing us to buy seats on Russian craft?
To Obama or McCain warning them that to fail to back NASA can be used against them in the election?
To Alex Krycek, who is rumored to be an ISS visitor in 2009?
To the black oil alien hybrids that we can and will take down the ISS if we need to?
To PepsiCo/Fritolay that we can and will take down the ISS if we need to?
It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, sent in an email, read on a blog, noticed on twitter.
It's hard to sift what's really going on anymore..
This is the same Mike Griffin that has advocated shutting down manned space programs for AGES..
Would it have been more credible if it came from some Fox News announcer?
Yes, many times anonymity brings baseless information, but don't take it as a rule, especially in this world where even whistleblowing about your company for a good cause can ruin your life forever.
ISS has been nothing but a money pit so far. If we take an extended vacation from it, so be it.
Are we afraid the Russians will take over it like Northern Georgia or something and decorate it with Soviet nick-nacks? What's the deal?
Table-ized A.I.
It's a serious question since McCain has already said the Russians should be thrown out of the G8 Summit. How likely is he going to be to continue cooperating with the Russians or how happy are they going to be dealing with some one that speaks openly against them? The Cold War is coming back at a very bad time for the ISS.
"Premature"? The shuttle program should have been terminated decades ago when it was clear it wouldn't meet stated design goals, i.e. low cost transportation to orbit. The termination of the shuttle program is very, very post-mature. The only reason it survived is the number of jobs it provided in the right congressional districts.
The more serious question is - how the hell did the email leak out? Is everyone tapping everyone these days?
Anyway NASA, I'm waiting for more moon pics (the ones taken in Utah).
slashdot rocks
Having lived through one such gap in my lifetime I have to say they seem brief at first, but can extend some. A lot more than you would think at first.
It is not acceptable to me to surrender U.S. spaceflight capability. Not for one minute. Not for 12 years. Not at all. Dammit do we have to let the rest of the world own space? Did you hear? There's a lot more space in space than there is land on land. And more resources. There are entire moons made of hydrocarbons. And the conquering of space leads to us learning valuable lessons that help everyone stuck to this ball of mud. And then there's that whole "an 8' length of rebar dropped from low earth orbit can destroy any tank ever made" thing.
Hey, I heard that a retail 12 megapixel camera attached to a retail telescope can, from orbit, discriminate objects as small as fingerprints, and that advanced video analysis software can identify an individual by his gait if not by his impossible-to-mask facial features. Doesn't that make you wonder what the kind or money that launches stuff into orbit could buy? Could they scan you for cancer? Do I have your attention yet?
Obligatory Toynbee Tiles reference. If you don't know what they are, it behooves you to find out.
I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but no. Just no. We will not surrender space. It is not in our national interest to do so. If the odds of survival are 1:9 we'll still have enough volunteers that filtering them is the biggest challenge of the endeavor. Money is not an issue.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Only if the parties maligned actually deny the claims made by those sources.
This is a double edged sword. On the one hand, anonymous sources can help uncover serious abuses, i.e. Watergate. On the other, journalists can and do simply make stuff up and attribute it to these "sources". I recall the case of one American journalist, whose name(ironically) escapes me at the moment, who was caught extorting his victim. He was essentially threatening to publish stories that while they would be damaging to the victim, would not create any legal "liability" for his publication. I'm sure anonymous sources are abused in this way.
Personally, I think that given the low standing of journalism as a profession, anonymous sources are at this time completely without credibility. Nowadays, the default assumption that must be made about any journalist and news story is that they are a spin doctor spinning a story the way their employer pays them to. Under such high G-forces, the delicate anonymous sources collapse under their own weight.
May the Maths Be with you!
When the banks wrote the mortgages and held them, they were less likely to give money to unqualified buyers. When they were allowed to repackage the debt and sell it to other corporations, to no one's surprise, everyone got greedy and started trading the debt.
I like certain libertarians ideals, but the fact is that regulation is to industry what police are to neighborhoods. If you take a cop off a beat, crime will go up. If you take your eyes off corporate shenanigans, they will go up. This has been obvious from the days of Enron. What we need is reasonable regulation with national standards, state enforcement, and some new laws against the revolving door between business and government. There should be a separation of business and state, for the sake of both.
Of course, you can always argue that the fact that there was regulation that was removed led to the crisis. But you'd be wrong.
Yeah, it's like defending free speech and having to stick up for Nazis and pedophiles. It's still a worthy cause in the abstract, but the specifics can take some of the wind out of your sails.
I hate the fad of anonymous sources today.
Doesn't anonymous source = baseless article?
Read the article, narcberry -- it's obvious that Griffin acknowledges the content of the e-mail was his. The reason documents like this are leaked is that someone on the inside feels it's important for the public to know, but the person has a position to protect. The leaker is anonymous, but the source is NASA Administrator Mike Griffin.
Might the Russians decide to sabotage the ISS? How badly do they need us to keep the thing running? Sounds like they don't need us at all.
Here's a wacky idea so bear with me. Could the Russians "steal" the ISS? They have the capability to dock with the ISS but we will not (without their cooperation) between 2011 and 2014. That date of our being unable to reach the station may come sooner if Russia becomes even less "friendly" and the date we can reach the station might be pushed back because of technical difficulties, further budget diversions, etc.
What would they do with the ISS if given free reign over its operation for four years? What COULD they do with the ISS in four years? They could arm it. They could turn it into a spying platform. They could let it rot and fall into the ocean.
I'm sure someone is thinking, why would they arm it? What could they possibly shoot from orbit that they can't already shoot from the ground? If they start to militarize it as a platform for spying then it becomes a target. They might feel the need to put an anti missile defense system to keep the US Navy from putting a SM-3 in a coincident orbit.
That's all crazy talk. The Russians would never use ISS as a military platform, right?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
... then Richard Nixon would not have been caught at all his bullshit.
Anonymous sources must not only be paid attention to, they must be protected in a Democratic society. Thus the laws protecting whistle blowers, and so on.
How can this be called the premature end to the shuttle program? Shuttles were an ill-conceived idea from the beginning and now they are almost 30 years old. Surely they should have been retired long ago.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The shuttle failed to meet design specifications as you state (cost is only one area in which it failed). But unfortunately, all our eggs are in one basket. Nobody did sufficient forward planning to replace the space shuttle... planning that should have begun no later than the day it first launched.
Nevertheless, you don't throw away the only tool you have, even if it is expensive and unwieldly. Granted, we should have had a replacement for the shuttle a long time ago. But we don't, so that means we fly the shuttle until we do!!!
The PRC initially designed the Shenzhou spacecraft with docking technologies imported from Russia, therefore compatible with the International Space Station (ISS). The Shenzhou 8 unmanned space laboratory module, the Shenzhou 9 unmanned Shenzhou cargo and a manned Shenzhou 10 will be docked in late 2010 to form a first step small orbital space laboratory complex. This first step will allow China to master key technologies prerequisites for the following larger permanent space station. The Shenzhou 11 mission will carry the second crew to the complex
How about stopping to make wars?
Oh no, then those poor bankers could not sell credits and drive us to slavery and our government into obedience anymore... And there could actually be money spent on education and science (like, above 10% of the budget).
This of course can't be! Because then people would start to think, and kill those power-greedy bastards in an instant.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The Cold War is coming back at a very bad time for the US.
When politics turn sour because of internal factors, politicians try to create an external enemy.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1188/1
Time is short. Senior NASA management is committed to beginning the destruction of the tooling used to construct the Space Shuttle's External Tank as early as next month. This destruction is completely unnecessary to support the current Ares 1 production plan because the floor space NASA plans to use is not occupied by the External Tank tooling. The only apparent objective of beginning the destruction of this $12-billion national asset next month, used by both the Space Shuttle and Jupiter Launch System, is to maliciously eliminate any competition to the current plan. In an attempt to put a halt to this unnecessary destruction of government property, the Senate version of 2009 NASA authorization bill sought to make this imminent action of the NASA administrator explicitly illegal. Specifically, the Senate provision directed the NASA administrator "to terminate or suspend any activity of the Agency that, if continued, would preclude the continued safe and effective flight of the Space Shuttle Orbiter after fiscal year 2010." Unfortunately, this provision, that cost us nothing to include yet wisely keeps our options open, was removed from the Senate-House conference bill just before the summer recess.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Man, if SpaceX gets even just the Falcon 1 in orbit successfully soon they're gonna make big bucks. Seriously big.
I hope they succeed.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
.... quite do not understand, why NASA and ESA won t join all their forces to get the ATV and it s planned offsprings running high: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ATV/SEMNFZOR4CF_0.html It still puzzles me, that such closed allies run amok regarding the nationalistic approach inbuilding those technologies. I truly believe that this would speed up the programs schedule by 50% the least. It seems like the best concept out there, in direct comparison to the american proposal and the Kliper/Parom technology not yet developed by the russians due to unsolid fundings.
Yeah, it's like defending free speech and having to stick up for Nazis and pedophiles. It's still a worthy cause in the abstract, but the specifics can take some of the wind out of your sails.
It shouldn't. Nobody wants to censor talk about mom and apple pie. The right of free speech only matters when it comes down to speech that somebody finds offensive. If you aren't willing to defend the freedom to speak about stuff you find offensive, then you didn't ever really believe in free speech to begin with.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
In the article it shows he's implying that Russia can do whatever they like with the ISS apart from the unlikely situation where the USA declares war and actively sabotages it. It is a way to say that due to cuts NASA will be completely irrelevant to the ISS after the shuttle is retired.
Who need the shuttle, when NASA+Air Force been sending team to other planets through Chapa'ai
"Vents On Shuttle Program's End" - That just sounds so wrong.
Table-ized A.I.
I hate apple pie and will do my best to censor any talk about it!
Excuse me, but where does "safer" as a value weigh in with the importance of exploring the unknown? Does it scare you? Then stay home and brew some tea.
As for me and mine - if you won't go, I will. Strap a nuke to my butt with 3" of lead for shielding and a 1% chance of survival. But I might get to the great unknown? Let's go!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
yes, or else, we can always trust goodwill and common sense ??
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
It shouldn't.
Why shouldn't it?
Nobody wants to censor talk about mom and apple pie. The right of free speech only matters when it comes down to speech that somebody finds offensive.
Right.
If you aren't willing to defend the freedom to speak about stuff you find offensive, then you didn't ever really believe in free speech to begin with.
Bullshit. Freedom of expression is just one universal human right, and like anything, when it its in competition with other universal rights a balance is struck that effectively curtails it.
The right to free expression conflicts with the right to be free from harm. If your expression is causing harm then perhaps your expression should be curtailed.
The fact that most people accept a limit to free speech doesn't mean they "don't really believe in it", rather it means that they aren't single minded idiots that can't hold two thoughts inside their head at the same time. It means they can see the conflict between the ideal of free expression and the ideal of avoiding harm and have struck a personal balance, such that the imperative of protecting free speech becomes progressively weaker as we become increasingly in conflict with the principle of avoiding harm.
In other words, at some stage up around advocating the raping of children most normal people find that DESPITE believing in free speech, they are uncomfortable with the harm they perceive it to be causing, particularly when they perceive that its PURPOSE is to cause harm and has no value beyond that, and perhaps they even perceive that they are being MANIPULATED into providing protection for that harm by the perpetrator... why should we be critical that their resolve to protect that instance of speech has significantly been diminished, perhaps even to the point that they elect to curtail it?
This is the action of a sane and rational person.
"One implication: there may come a long interval when only our Russian Allies are aboard the Space Station..."
AFAICT there will soon be Chinese up there as well - they announced a space walk for later this month yesterday....
So when we get back to the ISS we'd better get used to borsch, vodka and two helpings of No.27....
Nobody wants to censor talk about mom and apple pie.
I'm allergic to apples, you insensitive clod!
I'd rather no-one mentioned those unfortunate fruits.
Mods will probably consider modding you up as soon as you as you demonstrate a basic grasp of human nature and its consequences for political systems.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
What's with those bracketed codes after the names in the printed/faxed email, eg (HQ-AA000)? What email system are they using? Just curious that's all ...
Does anyone else still remember all the videos shown on Discovery Channel and the like on the Lockheed Martin "VentureStar"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VentureStar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33
I know they had some technological problems, but somehow I've always had the feeling that the project was canceled /way/ too soon!
I especially like the idea of the Aerospike engine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine
But the moment they canceled that project, it was for me a given that they would run into problems with the Shuttle in the years 2010-2015-2020.
Lack of persistence, vision and looking ahead IMHO.
I certainly agree that we should be more interested in reviving Apollo-era technologies. And, along with people inside NASA I certainly agree that they've got a real clusterfuck going by now and really could do lot better.
But, oddly enough, we're actually far less capable of doing things like building Apollo-scale systems than we were back in the seventies. Ya see, that's what happens when a country outsources all of its manufacturing for an entire generation. The manufacturing infrastructure gets torn out to make room for condos and nail salons.
Truth is, we're screwed, We simply don't have the industrial base to build that kind of thing anymore. Not to weld tanks that are big enough. Not to move cargos by rail through as many places. Not to even have the population of machinists and glassblowers and chemical plant technicians to populate the assembly systems.
Should this be a call to arms? Yet another reason to require that kids take industrial arts (as I had to) and that government agencies buy American-made-products? Yes. But for now, we're S.O.L.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
If the first 50 launches blew up on the pad and I was offered the rare privilege of riding in the 51st, I would go. Perhaps I'm insane. Perhaps the people who volunteer for such things all are. The prairie is littered with the arrow ridden corpses of the pioneers. Still they risk it and I would too. Who are you to deny us a beautiful death, reaching for the frontier? Somebody has to go. All of us are given with our life one death. Not all of us get to spend it reaching to expand the realm of all mankind. If there are none better qualified who would go, send me!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Well, whether we put new vehicles into service or not, we can be damned sure that other countries will keep on motoring along. A few people in this thread have mentioned the Chinese space program. I would have *thought* that somebody would remember that the ESA has been launching craft for years now. But, for that matter, so have the Japanese. And India's program is going nicely. The Brazilian space program is a bit gunshy these days, but, make no mistake, they'll be launching more rockets some time soon. Though we have to wonder how they feel about the Guyanese launch capability, which has been a pretty serious thing for over ten years now.
Folks, there are more governments with space programs then there are well-known Linux distros these days. And plenty of them have or are well on the way to developing their own launch vehicles and facilities. And that doesn't even begin to address all the possible private actors. How many of y'all know how many organizations were vying for the original X Prize? A hell of a lot more than the three or four that most media outlets are aware of. And even that doesn't include some relevant players.
We're entering a world where many space programs are becoming more like seventies Silicon Valley startups than like NASA. For anybody to think that they understand what will be available in three or four years and how just shows that they either haven't looked into it, that they're very warped by Big Company Think, or that they've got their head so far up their ass that they're seeing daylight up their throat.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Lets face it they have no imagination at all over there they are just another govt. bureaucracy. The shuttle was tired in the 80's. Its a flying Volkswagen bus, they were cool don't get me wrong but, its time is done...
No. he sure didn't, did he? Well.. the next time you don't go making Stalin comparisons until someone has killed a million of their own people at a minimum. I mean... there are standards here.
In fact, what actually happened was Karl Rove took a trip to the Crimea to meet with the Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, and then Georgia gets a wild hair up their ass right after Karl Rove left the Crimea and started bombing civilian targets within S. Ossetia without provocation.
"...Since Karl Rove skipped out on his subpoena to appear before the House Judiciary Committee last month, the whereabouts of Bushâ(TM)s longtime political strategist have emergedâ"Rove was in Crimea, Ukraine, for the fifth annual Yalta European Strategy summit. Also in attendance: former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Hereâ(TM)s an excerpt from his panel discussion about how U.S. policy toward Ukraine would change, if at all, after Novemberâ(TM)s American presidential elections...."
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20080815_karl_roves_ukranian_sojourn/
Putin actually reacted to stop Georgia from bombing civilian targets in S. Ossetia
Bush and Cheney told you they wanted another war before the election. They haven't been allowed to invade Iran like they wanted to, so they had to arrange a different war... between Georgia and Russia.
It is interesting how both source and the discussion here is almost entirely about the USA versus Russia. The fact that Europe is also involved, and now actually has it's own (unmanned, but there is talk about a manned version) space vehicle to reach the ISS (the ATV) independent of either Russian Soyuz/Progress or American Shuttle flights, is completely ignored. Europeans will also continue to fly aboard Russian Soyuz flights (certainly now Kourou is ready to launch Soyuz rockets).
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
Soviet Russia - 1 : USA - 0
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I'll take Griffin's assertions of context at face value and assume he thinks it's the right thing to replace the STS with Constellation.
He did, however, say the retirement of the STS was not based on engineering. I can see why he might say that.
The most incredible thing about the STS is the main engine, both incredibly amazing and incredibly problematic. The development of those machines as been long and winding. Here is a nice summary of the problems they had just up to first flight.
The thing is, work on improving those engines has continued non-stop since 1972, and finally their performance and reliability is in the ballpark of where is was originally spec'd to be.
Mainly due to new fuel and oxidizer turbopumps.
And now they throw it all away. I just don't get it. It's too Arrow-esque for me.
Why not re-do the STS instead of re-doing Apollo?
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
You can blame Bush as much as you want for the Fannie Mae debacle, but if you actually have been following the issue for twenty years, you would find in the Op Ed web pages of the Wall Streetn Journal a steady stream of Republican voices arguing that the finances of these two institutions are basically crap and have been that way for decades. Democrats have resisted any sort of legislative effort to bring reform to these two agencies. In fact, if you look at whose donating to whose campaign you could see that Wall Street overwhelming prefers Obama because they are look for the big handout to shareholders whereas Republicans are always more inclined to let companies simply fail.
This is my sig.
Dudes, usa is already bankcrupt, and not even selling all assets will fix it, well.. unless they count nukes as assets.
Unless USA pulls out all their area51 hitech and says, "ok we have spaceships, death rays etc..., time travel, we rule earth, now STFU and pay up"
All empires fall, even in stargate /\
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The primary problem is that it's a lot harder to convince people to allow speech than it is to convince people to ban speech. Give people an inch and they'll ban everything that they don't like.
Myself, I always default to believing that speech should be free unless it's completely clear that the damage caused by the speech cannot be counteracted with more free speech.
On a related note, I wish that no one was allowed to say anything on TV without first taking a legal oath that what they say is true under penalty of perjury. (And they would further be prevented from adding "I think" or any other prevarications to their talk.) The Republican party would essentially be barred from advertising in any way.
Nevertheless, would I ever want to disallow their hateful damaging lies by actually passing a law that made it illegal for them to spew their economy and world damaging nonsense?
No. And honestly, it's a LOT harder for me to say that than it is for me to stick up for neo nazis or other hate groups. That's because, unlike neo nazis, the Republicans are actually successful with their hate speech. Seriously, they actually have people convinced they are a party of small government. (biggest lie ever)
But, I still want it all protected.
Cow Cube
Surely they have documentation or can reverse engineer stuff. And if no one makes 512k, then use a damn higher specced part. So that 32meg chip is .05% worse, but run it in raid64 mode with 63 redudency levels for gods sake. Its like saying, oh its too hard. Bull shit it is. Just VM it if you dont have the hardware. The shuttle isnt going to Jupiter, we already have other space hardware with higher specs flying.
They just wont do it because theres no ROI in it, and no bean counter will say, "ok do your techy magic and create something 'thesame' but is new" .
I cant imagine why no one could trust a modern cpu cut into say 32 cores, and runs the same code 32 times in vm mode to emu the old hardware. You could test it 10000x faster with todays sims than in the 80s.
Give google 8billion and they could do it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Nothing wrong with old OSes really, after all its all logics and math, and math doesnt change. 1+1 is as old as anyone can guess.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
by israel.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
If your expression is causing harm then perhaps your expression should be curtailed.
But who gets to choose this? I think Madonna should be able to screw around with a crucifix on stage. If you are offended by this, join the club. If you think it "interferes with your natural rights", then you are way, way, too delicate.
Sorry, but unless someone is put in some kind of actual and direct danger, I don't support other people deciding what is and isn't acceptable speech... "Fire in a crowded theater" being the classic example.
In the example of advocating the raping of children... does anyone actually advocate this? I think you chose an example with a "think of the children" element so that people wouldn't disagree. That aside, what about a website advocating lowering the legal age of consent to, say, 17? How about 14? How about 9? Too young? Too old? Are you going to throw the book at the guy running the 9-year-old site but not the 14-year-old site? Why? Because you think one is "rape" but not the other? Who gets to decide? What about other cultures with different ages of consent? Are they rapists?
Conversely, let's say I put up a website advocating raising the age of consent to 21. Here I have a website intent on stripping millions of their legal rights... Isn't that harmful?
See the slippery slope?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Clearly a way to make dollars, use it to full capacity, ie 4 scientists, + 3 tourists, $60m/month is no small change.
Send the acedemics back to economic school.
Do what capitalists do best.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The right to free expression conflicts with the right to be free from harm. If your expression is causing harm then perhaps your expression should be curtailed.
No it does not, and to claim otherwise is to make a false analogy, just watch as you do it:
In other words, at some stage up around advocating the raping of children
You should rape children. GO! Do it now! You will really like it!
Harm is not caused by speech. Harm is caused by physical action. People like you who falsely claim to believe in freedom of expression are just conflating the two because, like all censorship, it is easier to identify and squelch speech about harmful actions than it is to identify and stop individuals who actually commit those actions and cause actual harm. You get the warm fuzzy of appearing to do something about a problem with high emotional content without all the cost of actually making a real difference.
By the way, bonus points for using "But think of the children!" as your example. I can't think of another meme that has been so widely abused to justify censorship with such little actual reduction in harm.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
And so we are witness to the start of the great liquidation sale of the US. It's been going on for years but now we see program after program get closed, slashed, reduced and buried. Is Rome burning yet?
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
Or the next bond film, or
Austin powers 4.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Err... Are you completely ignoring emotional harm and mental health?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Err... Are you completely ignoring emotional harm
"Emotional harm" is not a sufficient justification to infringe on free speech. Grow a spine and realize that your "right" not to be offended doesn't trump my right to speak my mind. If you don't like what I'm saying then start shouting an opposing point of view or walk away. Don't whine about "emotional harm" and try to censor me.
and mental health
If your mental health is so unstable that you can't handle listening to free speech then you probably shouldn't be leaving your house. What was that old adage about sticks and stones?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
We have combat airplanes and ships that receive a heck of a lot LESS stress than the shuttle receives, and we replace them in less than 30 years. The cost per flight is outrageous on the shuttle. They basically REBUILD THE SHUTTLE every flight! Engines stripped down and overhauled, tires, flight control hydraulics, etc. You just can't dump out the port-a-potty and put it back on the launch pad like was originally designed. If the shuttle worked as it was designed, it would be one thing, but just as with every government program, it is behind schedule, over priced, and under used.
If you want people (Apart from the Slashdot circle jerk group think I mean) to take you seriously, stop intentionally peppering your posts with hyperbole and inaccuracies.
I have an instinctive response to people who think screaming their political diatribes at me is an effective way to interact, that being to ignore you.
For example, "Forget dreaming at all, for we can no longer afford it. Our future has been pissed away in 8 years".
I mean, could you be any more chicken little if you tried? The sky isn't falling, and screaming it over and over like you're doing doesn't make it so.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
Yeah, it's like defending free speech and having to stick up for Nazis and pedophiles. It's still a worthy cause in the abstract, but the specifics can take some of the wind out of your sails.
It shouldn't. Nobody wants to censor talk about mom and apple pie. The right of free speech only matters when it comes down to speech that somebody finds offensive. If you aren't willing to defend the freedom to speak about stuff you find offensive, then you didn't ever really believe in free speech to begin with.
There's a difference between being willing to defend speech that one finds offensive, and being able to get excited about it.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
You are talking to the wrong person. I am not one to be easily offended. I, however, am not the majority of society. I'd suggest that you spend a few days walking around calling every woman you see "cum dumpster" (to her face) including your time at work. Lemme know how that works out for you.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
So what if human missions decline? The space station is primarily political in purpose, and science will advance at a far higher rate per dollar invested if NASA rebalanced its budget to more robotic missions. See for example: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/machine.html
I'd suggest that you spend a few days walking around calling every woman you see "cum dumpster" (to her face) including your time at work
If I did that at work I'd be fired. Free speech != freedom from the consequences of that speech. Saying it elsewhere would probably get me slapped -- which I suppose would technically be assault but I'd deserve it (again, free speech != freedom from the consequences)
Do you actually think it should be illegal to walk up to a woman and call her a cum dumpster?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I didn't see a link to the memo, here it is:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=29133
That would be great if Orion didn't reuse the Crawler, Launch Pads, Assembly Buildings, Gantries and all of the other Launch infrastructure that the shuttle uses now, same as Apollo and the Shuttle couldn't cohabitate because the equipment they are reusing has to be repurposed for the new system. Launch facilities and equipment are reused to save the costs of building an entirely new infrastructure for each new launch system. What really concerns me is that we had parts of the launch pad fly off when the Shuttle launched with Kibo because it was the heaviest launch ever. Isn't Orion supposed to be heavier?
There are different kinds of "anonymity".
There's the "over the transom" kind of anonymity, in which the credibility of the evidence has to be judged by external sources.
There's the "anonymity" of confidential sources, in which a trusted (or not) third party attests to authority of the source.
And there's the pseudonymity of the web, which is all over the place from pseudonyms like "CmdrTaco" whose real identity is know, and other pseudonyms like "riverbend" whose actual identity is unknown, but whose pseudonym nonetheless has its own reputation which must be considered. Does knowing that the "kos" of "DailyKos" is Markos Moulitsas, born on September 11, 1971 in Chicago Illinois, add or detract anything from his credibility when writing as "kos"? The reputation of the pseudonym "kos" is arguably more important to Mr. Moulitsas in his political writing than the reputation of his legal name.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Whine and bitch about a O-ring blowing, Ice Encrusted, insulation shedding, Astronaut wasting piece of over budgeted crap.
We want space access that actually works, so until you get anti-gravity drive working we will have to do it with rocket and capsule, not Wylie E Coyote rocket powered brick covered glider theatrics.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
You pretty much have to. Someone, somewhere, will be offended by pretty much anything that you have to say.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
A bad policy is one which leaves you at some point in the future with no good options.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Me personally? Nope. Ask that question at your local NOW meeting and I suspect you'll get an entirely opposite response. Many people who are not WASPs will also expect that they have a right to not be called a racial slur as well.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'd suggest that you spend a few days walking around calling every woman you see "cum dumpster" (to her face) including your time at work
Free speech != freedom from the consequences of that speech.
This happened to me last week. Here I was, minding my own business calling some women cum dumpsters at the office, when my boss charges in and fires me. Then some random woman in the street starts slapping me about just because I gave her a colorful nickname.
I have since then hired a lawyer, and am now suing the government for allowing such a dangerous thing as this "freedom of speech" to exist. My lawyer said I could get somewhere close to 2 million, but unfortunatly the judge didn't approve when I called her "Your honorable cum dumpster".
Sounds more like "retire equipment from the Carter era and replace it with new equipment based on designs from the Kennedy-Johnson era."
Perhaps only a minor quibble, but hey.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The ATV is fully human-rated. Slap some seats in there and call it good!
Then again, for ESA to put an astronaut up on its own would probably require an amendment to whatever treaties it's bound by....
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
When I went down to Marshall Space Flight Centre last year, I saw it all laid bare. NASA is still stuck in the Cold War.
All the presentations were highly nationalistic, and the histories omit the Russians except as adversaries. The TVs at the cafeteria were set to Fox News. And in private moments, the engineers are still griping about the switch to metric units for the Ares rocket. Some of them don't even know what a Newton is!
I don't know why NASA continues to persist in this mindset, but it's not going to help them in their long-term goals.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
Many people who are not WASPs will also expect that they have a right to not be called a racial slur as well.
They might expect that they have that right but I can't seem to locate it anywhere in the US or my State Constitution. We have freedom of speech. If that speech offends you then your choice is to stop listening to it or provide a counter-argument.
Even the KKK has the right to voice their opinions in this country. I may not agree with anything they have to say but I'm not going to silence them just because of that.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Your Russian heritage duly noted - there was a tremendous fear post-breakup that that's exactly what would have happened. Not that the government would have sanctioned it, but that economic survival would have driven nuclear and rocket scientists to defect/emigrate en-masse to unfriendly countries.
Feeding your family is a damn good motivator.
When Hernando Cortez arrived in Mexico, he ordered his ships to be burned. As there was no turning back, no options left open other than to proceed ahead, his men were incredibly well motivated.
I'm going to propose that having the shuttle program intact is possibly the biggest hindrance to advancement. As long as it is there, any viable alternatives are so easily canceled by Congress whenever they need an influx of cash by cutting NASA's budget, just as they've done dozens of times before over the last couple of decades.
However, with the Shuttle program completely disassembled, their ships burned as it were, and the embarrassment that would be seen that the United States has no viable space program while China and India are out doing spacewalks, Congress will be well motivated to make sure that NASA has all the funding they need. While it could just be the romantic in me, or simply wishful thinking, this provision might perhaps bring in a golden age of space that we've not seen since the race to the moon with the Russians in 1969.
The
And yet there are consequences (such as firing from work) which take away the part of free in freedom. I, personally, would like people to be able to say anything they want even if it is hurtful. I am not in the majority.
This is a freedom much like you are free to murder someone, you're not at liberty to do so as there are consequences if you're caught. It is freedom in name only.
The reason I asked the question is because there are quite a few people who would like to think they have to be protected from hateful speach because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The authors of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights intended the phrase "free speech" to mean political speech, in order to ensure the proper functioning of a democratic government. They never intended it to provide a right for pedophiles to speak about their harmful sexual proclivities.
Maybe NASA could buy flights on Arianne 5 with a modified ATV ( c.f. Jules Verne)? Both are intended to be used for human flight. Arianne needs man-rating and there are designs for modifications to the ATV to carry astronauts. It's maiden flight has shown that it works. Just while they're busy building their own rockets. And what about Atlas and Delta? Weren't there proposals to man-rate them too? They're pretty reliable and capable of lifting a few people into LEO.
Looks like the race to Mars will be between China and Russia.
Stick Men
The more people ignore emotional harm, the less emotional harm there will be.
The inverse holds true, also. The more people are concerned with emotional harm, the more emotional harm will result.
Something things do go away if ignored.
You think you've got it bad? I'm allergic to his mom you insensitive clod!
I'd rather no-one mentioned that unfortunate rash.
.evom ton seod gis eht
The authors of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights intended the phrase "free speech" to mean political speech, in order to ensure the proper functioning of a democratic government. They never intended it to provide a right for pedophiles to speak about their harmful sexual proclivities.
If that's true, why didn't they say that? Lets assume they were too lazy to add that one extra word, do you have any supporting evidence, like from the archives of Franklin's or Jefferson's letters, to validate your claim?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No it does not, and to claim otherwise is to make a false analogy, just watch as you do it:
Yes it does.
Hate speech fosters hate crime; it recruits the disenfranchised, and gives them a target.
Following people around threatening them deprives them of their sense of security and peace of mind and makes it impossible for them to live their lives.
Making false claims about what the snake oil I sell does and what its contents are can lead to people choose to use it, and suffering horribly.
et cetera
You should rape children. GO! Do it now! You will really like it!
Clearly your purpose with that expression was to make your argument, you obviously aren't really advocating it. Furthermore your argument has social value, and should be protected.
Harm is not caused by speech. Harm is caused by physical action.
Your point? Speech causes physical action which causes harm.
If stopping the speech is not harmful itself and will prevent harm, then stopping the speech is good.
People like you who falsely claim to believe in freedom of expression are just conflating the two because, like all censorship, it is easier to identify and squelch speech about harmful actions than it is to identify and stop individuals who actually commit those actions and cause actual harm.
That's rather the point. Its easier to wash your hands after using a bathroom than to cure the diseases you might get if you don't. That's precisely why we advocate hand-washing.
You get the warm fuzzy of appearing to do something about a problem with high emotional content without all the cost of actually making a real difference.
When judging an action its intention is more important than its outcome. Its better to try to make a difference for the better and fail, than not to try at all.
The failure in our society is not that we pass ineffective laws with good intentions, its that we have no mechanism for un-passing laws that aren't effective, and very few metrics to assess the effectiveness of laws.
By the way, bonus points for using "But think of the children!" as your example. I can't think of another meme that has been so widely abused to justify censorship with such little actual reduction in harm.
That's why I chose it. Society en masse is quite comfortable with erring on the side of caution in that particular case, and I readily concede that it hasn't done nearly as much good as the effort taken would suggest. But the real question you have to answer is what real harm has been caused by it?
"Emotional harm" is not a sufficient justification to infringe on free speech. Grow a spine and realize that your "right" not to be offended doesn't trump my right to speak my mind. If you don't like what I'm saying then start shouting an opposing point of view or walk away. Don't whine about "emotional harm" and try to censor me.
I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I followed you around, taunting you, calling you at work, leaving threatening messages, drawing pictures of your family getting murdered and raped and leaving them where you can see them, issuing anonymous police reports that I saw child porn on your laptop. Following your 6 year old daughter around telling her I'm going to kill her mommy and daddy, and putting bestial and necrotic pornography with your head photo shopped onto the models on the side of my van parked on your street.
Grow a spine. If you and your family doesn't like it than start shouting an opposing point of view or walk away. I'll just shout louder though and I'll be here when you get back. And I won't stop.
If you don't like it, maybe you shouldn't leave your house.
Or maybe, just maybe, you should have the right to live in peace. You shouldn't have to spend your whole life locked up in your home, or shouting at the top of your lungs whenever you do go outside.
Censorship is bad. But using your freedom of speech to harass someone or some group is bad too.
You know, Eisenhower warned Americans about that, in the late 50s. But this culture has that memory hole thing, and after a few years things just sort of disappear. We just need to Oh, look how tiny my new cell is!
Eisenhower was a wise, experienced leader. What he said made sense.
Now, if anybody else says exactly the same thing, they're 'kook lunatic fringe'. Got it? Now get back to MICTV.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Hmm... I never thought of it that way before. So what you're saying is that different nations owns different parts of the space station. Now, lets say Russia is "forced" to protect its "citizens" in Ukraine and decides to invade, triggering Cold War II. This of course will sour their relations with the US. Will they then draw a line demarcating their "territories" on the space station and require passports to cross? What happens if a fight breaks out there and one party takes over the space station. Will this be equivalent to invading another country's soil?
Dude, read the letter. Griffin specifically addresses this and says that the supposed conflicts for those facilities is so much hogwash. RTFA.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Common law makes it illegal to question a womans virtue. Consider these insults illegal:
Slut
Whore
Cum Dumpster
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
No expression of free speech "causes" harm. The harm is always caused by the small, ignorant minds that are listening and then responding, not with reason, but with violence.
Don't be such a pussy. You are the one who brought up this idea of 'emotional harm' if you are going to argue a countering opinion, then have the balls to do it justice instead of shrugging your shoulders and saying "not my idea" as soon as someone responds.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Hate speech fosters hate crime; it recruits the disenfranchised, and gives them a target.
Censoring hate speech just gives it legitimacy in the eyes of the disenfranchised and reduces the opportunity for public repudiation. You can not stop people from thinking, but you can lend credibility to what they think and censorship is the exact kind of reinforcement that such 'bad thoughts' thrive on.
Your point? Speech causes physical action which causes harm.
Hate speech does not CAUSE physical action. The will of the individual is what causes physical action. You know personal responsibility, the right of self determination. Your argument is the equivalent of denying the existence of free will, probably the most singularly important concept on which any modern democracy is based.
That's why I chose it. Society en masse is quite comfortable with erring on the side of caution in that particular case, and I readily concede that it hasn't done nearly as much good as the effort taken would suggest. But the real question you have to answer is what real harm has been caused by it?
Yeah, and you would too if you had a clue. Like the suicide of Commodore David White or hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of children who were denied the opportunity for mental growth afforded by all those banned books that I originally cited.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
And don't be such a mental midget. Some of us are human enough to actually bring up a counterpoint because we agree with the sentiments but want to check someone else's opinion to clarify. Not all of us just randomly spout gibberish at a bunch of pixels on a screen in an effort to argue.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I disagree. Letting people freely advocate for their insane shit (like Nazis and pedophiles) sure does make it a lot easier to keep track of them. Its the quiet ones who worry me.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Not all of us just randomly spout gibberish at a bunch of pixels on a screen in an effort to argue.
Dude, that's what you just did. Spouted random gibberish which you weren't prepared to back up with anything coherent.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Threating to kill someone isn't covered by the first amendment right to free speech. Neither is making terroristic threats. If you did the things you describe, you would be committing various crimes and opening yourself up to civil penalties should the target of your assaults choose to sue. Not only that, but the person could get a restraining order which, if you violated it, would provide them further civil and criminal options. This falls within the "fire in a crowded theatre" realm, as harm is being done.
Using racist langugage, advocating for different age of consent, or engaging in other protected forms of speech are not the equivalent of the actions you described.
Try again though please. Perhaps you should focus even more tightly then before on how we should just think of the children, that seems to be working like gangbusters for you so far.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Something things do go away if ignored.
Like cancer!
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
You truly believe hearing something that you find offensive is harmful enough to warrant restraining free speech? Your ignorance astounds me. There is a HUGE difference between yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater and yelling "FUCK BUSH" in a crowded theater: one endangers lives, one only causes unpleasant sensations that cannot be independently measured.
You truly believe hearing something that you find offensive is harmful enough to warrant restraining free speech? Your ignorance astounds me. There is a HUGE difference between yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater and yelling "FUCK BUSH" in a crowded theater: one endangers lives, one only causes unpleasant sensations that cannot be independently measured.
When did I ever so much as hint that there would ever be a situation where I thought yelling "fuck bush" would qualify as speech deserving of censorship? That's seriously misrepresenting my position here.
Look up "Strawman". Your guilty of it.
Threating to kill someone isn't covered by the first amendment right to free speech. Neither is making terroristic threats. If you did the things you describe, you would be committing various crimes and opening yourself up to civil penalties should the target of your assaults choose to sue.
They are still limitations on your right to express yourself. Society does not value all the things you can say equally, and places limits on some of them.
Using racist langugage, advocating for different age of consent, or engaging in other protected forms of speech are not the equivalent of the actions you described.
You, like so many posters, are choosing to misrepresent what I said.
I never said merely 'using rascist language' should be censored. I did not say advocating a different age of consent should be censored. You saying I said those things doesn't make it so.
If it were up to me I would have said something like 'dressing up in pointy white hats congregating in front of someones house and burning images of local residents while chanting racist slurs' should be censored. To me, the latter satisfies the "fire in a crowded theatre" test for harm, and I really have no problem curtailing their right to do that.
Try again though please. Perhaps you should focus even more tightly then before on how we should just think of the children, that seems to be working like gangbusters for you so far.
The point of invoking that meme was because, like or not, the people who 'just think of the children' outnumber you (and I, despite your desperate desire to lump me in with them) a million to one. And because of that, they always get their way. No court can stand up to a majority like that. They'll just rewrite the laws, or amend the constitution itself.
Hate speech does not CAUSE physical action. The will of the individual is what causes physical action. You know personal responsibility, the right of self determination. Your argument is the equivalent of denying the existence of free will, ...
That's quite a stretch about denying the existence of free will.
You can have free will and still be influenced the world around you.
If you decide to haul off and take a swing at me, that's 'free will' right? The fact that I just broke one of your kneecaps didn't CAUSE you to do anything. It was your choice. You know personal responsibility and the right of self determination and all that.
Now, if instead of breaking your kneeaps I show you a recording of me raping your family and breaking their kneecaps, hey, I didn't cause anything... if you lose your cool and take a swing at me, it was your choice. Should I bear any responsibility for inciting your violent outburst?
What if the recording was faked? I just photoshopped your family into it? Hey, I thought I was being 'artistic' and 'clever', and besides I apparently think your asshole. Do I bear any responsibility for inciting your little outburst now?
Speech IS physical action, as much as any other physical action you can make.
A fundamentalist christian didn't really choose to be one, not really, not in any meaningful sense. That is how they were raised. They were taught not to question, and they don't. Same goes for fundamentalist followers of Islam. And I suspect most people who tried Pepsi-Blue wouldn't have done it without the massive advertising Pepsi did on its behalf.
Bottom line: People can have free will, and still be HEAVILY influenced by the speech around them.
They have been doing that since the 70s, when it was shown that minorities were being racially profiled and either not receiving loans or paying higher interest. And while that is still the case thirty years later, the current problem has nothing to do with thirty year old legislation, and everything to do with corporate faith that their newly unregulated wagers will still be covered by our tax dollars. This year alone they will receive 130 billion dollars in bail outs, just for Fannie, Freddie, and Bear Stearns. That's about 50 billion more than we'll spend on "education."
There's an excellent BBC documentary called Super Rich that has some interesting interviews straight from the horses' mouths.
If you decide to haul off and take a swing at me, that's 'free will' right?
YES! ABSOFUCKINGLOUTELY YES!
And you know who agrees with me?
Ghandi.
Influence is one thing, action is entirely seperate. As long as you believe that anything more than one's own brain is responsible for one's actions, then you not only don't believe in free speech, you believe in fascism because that's the only logical way to run a society where people are not responsible for their actions.
PS to address your red herring - A fundamentalist christian didn't really choose to be one, not really, not in any meaningful sense. That is how they were raised.
You sure don't know many fundamentalists, do you? The most extreme of the fundamentalists are not the ones who were "raised that way" - its the recently converted.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Roosevelt's 3.5 terms + Truman's 1.5 terms = 20 years, not 30 as the parent stated... but why go with the correct numbers when you can exaggerate and sound so much better?
Influence is one thing, action is entirely seperate. As long as you believe that anything more than one's own brain is responsible for one's actions, then you not only don't believe in free speech, you believe in fascism because that's the only logical way to run a society where people are not responsible for their actions.
Your point is what exactly? If you want to phrase it as 'society censors certain types of speech to prevent it from "influencing" people towards making a choice to do something society abhors' instead of 'society censors certain types of speech to prevent it from "causing" people to make a choice to do something society abhors'... well... to me that is pointless semantics.
So if you yell fire in a theatre. You didn't 'cause' a stampede that gets people trampled and killed. Each individual in the audience chose for themselves not only to believe you, but also to exit in an disorderly fashion. Therefore the person yelling "fire" isn't and shouldn't be personally responsible for causing any harm at all, is that what you are saying?
Society disagrees with you.
You sure don't know many fundamentalists, do you? The most extreme of the fundamentalists are not the ones who were "raised that way" - its the recently converted.
I didn't say "most extreme of the fundamentalists" I just said fundamentalists. As in the majority of the people who live in the Bible-belt. Most of them are not "recently converted".
During the Eisnehower era, congress was still controlled by democrats, excepting his first 2 years. Of the next 4 elected presidents, 3 were democrats, and the democrats controlled congress for the entire time.
More to the point, no president in that entire time, Democrat or Republican, seriously challenged the New Deal. It was only with the election of Regan that things truly changed. Even then I don't think the Reps took over Congress until midway through his term.
So that's actually, what, 1980 - 1932 = 48 years? If anything, I was playing it down.
If you want to phrase it as 'society censors certain types of speech to prevent it from "influencing" people towards making a choice to do something society abhors' instead of 'society censors certain types of speech to prevent it from "causing" people to make a choice to do something society abhors'... well... to me that is pointless semantics.
Hey! You GOT it. You use the word influence as if it means "cause" and that's totally fucked up. They are two entirely different meanings but you insist in conflating the two.
So if you yell fire in a theatre. You didn't 'cause' a stampede that gets people trampled and killed.
I have waiting and waiting for you to run out of other excuses and finally end up at the end of the road which is "fire in a theater" Now that you are here, we can agree on one thing. You got here because every other defense of censorship you've tried were losers. I mean it would be utterly disingenuous to say that kiddie porn was the same thing as yelling fire and you aren't disingenuous, right? Good, I'm glad we can agree.
Now, here's why fire in a theater is not a free speech issue. It is because it is ALSO a threat, just like pointing a gun at someone is a threat. Based on previous posting history you will probably find it difficult to discriminate between the two, it might help if you keep in mind that pointing a gun at someone is not speech at all, thus the concept of a threat is distinct from speech.
I didn't say "most extreme of the fundamentalists" I just said fundamentalists. As in the majority of the people who live in the Bible-belt. Most of them are not "recently converted".
So? What you did say is that, "A fundamentalist christian didn't really choose to be one, not really, not in any meaningful sense. That is how they were raised." The fact that the most committed of the fundies are the recently converted proves that people do have a choice because they chose to convert. Furthermore to take your terribly bad example one step further down the road of fail - plenty of kids from fundie families break out of the 'influence' once they are adults with ... wait for it ... FREE WILL!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Hey! You GOT it. You use the word influence as if it means "cause" and that's totally fucked up. They are two entirely different meanings but you insist in conflating the two.
Look up influence in the dictionary some time. Face it. Using 'influence' is defined in terms of how it 'causes' others to change or make changes. Using influence is also illegal in many circumstances because it can be an 'overriding force'.
I have waiting and waiting for you to run out of other excuses and finally end up at the end of the road which is "fire in a theater". Now that you are here, we can agree on one thing. You got here because every other defense of censorship you've tried were losers.
Nope. I used it because its a classic and can be summed up in a single line.
Kiddie porn works just fine too provide its framed in a context where its reasonably influencing people to abuse children. For example running a website dedicated to sharing kiddie porn, perhaps with a moderation system offering members status like 'excellent' or for contributing the best stuff or contributing the most frequently.
Now, here's why fire in a theater is not a free speech issue. It is because it is ALSO a threat, just like pointing a gun at someone is a threat.
Oooo. A 'threat'. A site advocating and compelling its members to sexually abuse kids is a 'threat' too, to the children within 'reach' of the sites visitors.
A guy standing on the corner pointing at me calling me a nigger, using his influence to turn my neighbors against me claiming I'm some sort of sub-human monster that will probably rape their wives, using his influence to turn potential employers away from hiring me reducing my prospects to raise a family or sleep peaceably at night. I don't call that merely a 'threat'. I call that causing measurable harm.
it might help if you keep in mind that pointing a gun at someone is not speech at all, thus the concept of a threat is distinct from speech
More semantics. So now you are saying speech is only curtailed when its a threat? a threat of causing harm? Great. So kiddie porn, if the people perceive it to be a threat to cause harm, should be illegal. And we're right back where we started, and you obviously agree with me. I'm glad.
Look up influence in the dictionary some time. Face it. Using 'influence' is defined in terms of how it 'causes' others to change or make changes.
Are you for real? The dictionary says! the dictionary says! But unsurprisingly you failed to actually provide proof, probably because when you actually looked at real dictionary you saw that words have multiple meanings and your entire joke of an argument relies on taking the wrong meaning in the wrong context.
Your premise - ideas cause auctions. You will never find that in an authoritative dictionary. The best you can do is that ideas cause more ideas.
So now you are saying speech is only curtailed when its a threat?
Threats can exist without speech, as exemplified by point a gun at someone. Thus laws that restrict making threats do not restrict speech. If speech happens to accompany the threat, punishing someone for the threat is not a restriction of speech.
Oooo. A 'threat'. A site advocating and compelling its members to sexually abuse kids is a 'threat' too, to the children within 'reach' of the sites visitors.
Do fail to understand the difference between the verb threaten as in make a threat and the noun threat?
So kiddie porn, if the people perceive it to be a threat to cause harm, should be illegal. And we're right back where we started, and you obviously agree with me. I'm glad.
I perceive your posts to be a threat to myself and my freedoms, so off to jail with you.
It is not the perception that matters, it is the intent. If someone made some kiddie porn and then sent it to a kid, or a kid's parent along with the caption of "this is what I'm going to do to you" - that would be a threat. But only a doofus who has argued himself into a corner on slashdot would say they think random kiddie porn is a threat made toward anyone. You know full well that no one who thinks that possession of kiddie porn should be illegal thinks the porn is addressed to anyone in particular.
Your premise - ideas cause auctions. Totally antithetical to a free society. You might as well argue that food should be banned because the calories it provides are what enable people to kill and maim.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Your premise - ideas cause auctions. You will never find that in an authoritative dictionary. The best you can do is that ideas cause more ideas.
speech -> influences minds -> minds choose -> compels the body to act
It really is that simple.
The fact that the mind can choose to reject the speech, or exercise free will in any number of ways doesn't detract from the fact that speech and influence have a direct impact on the particular actions the mind chooses.
If speech happens to accompany the threat, punishing someone for the threat is not a restriction of speech.
Stopping/punishing someone for saying something, ANYTHING, is a restriction of speech.
I perceive your posts to be a threat to myself and my freedoms, so off to jail with you.
You see, I said what the people people, meaning society as a whole. That is entirely different than what YOU perceive. Moreover, yes, if -society- perceived my posts to be a threat to themselves and their freedoms, off to jail I go. That is exactly my point. That is in fact precisely how the world works.
It is not the perception that matters, it is the intent.
Correct. But there is NO way to know the intent. There is only what society can percieve the intent to be. So for all practical purposes, perception is more important because its all we ever actually know.
You might as well argue that food should be banned because the calories it provides are what enable people to kill and maim.
Certain drugs are banned precisely because they alter the chemistry of the mind, and enable people to harm themselves or others... and when you think about it: altering the brain chemistry is all that an idea really does too.
Your premise - ideas cause auctions.
ideas do not equal speech
speech -> influences minds -> minds choose -> compels the body to act
And as long as you do not accept that "minds choose" is the one and only arbiter of the final result, then you are a fascist.
You see, I said what the people [think], meaning society as a whole.
No you didn't and expecting your twisted logic I already pointed that out when I said: "You know full well that no one who thinks that possession of kiddie porn should be illegal thinks the porn is addressed to anyone in particular."
That is in fact precisely how the world works.
So, now your argument has devolved from "I am a true believer in free speech, even though I want to censor stuff that I don't like" to "well if society does it, it must be right." Seems like you've left out a step where you assert that society is even close to being principled.
Certain drugs are banned precisely because they alter the chemistry of the mind, and enable people to harm themselves or others... and when you think about it: altering the brain chemistry is all that an idea really does too.
Why is it that when I write "calories" you read "drugs?"
ideas do not equal speech
Yeah, right.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
And as long as you do not accept that "minds choose" is the one and only arbiter of the final result, then you are a fascist.
And as long as you do not accept that the choices minds make is not heavily influenced by the 'speech' around them, then you are an idiot.
Russia has already told us that they are willing to break treaties and renew aggressions over (relatively) minor issues. They are and have been very aggressive, even when everybody knew they did not have the muscle to back it up.
The concern -- my concern anyway -- is that they have not been trustworthy and might do something stupid. In fact they haven't been trustworthy. They have taken every opportunity to leverage every advantage they have against the United States.
Effective control of the ISS for a few years is actually a pretty big lever for them to pull. I have no doubt they would lean on it if they thought it would gain them something. To me that is not acceptable.
Either you are responsible for your actions or you are not. It is a binary state.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Either you are responsible for your actions or you are not. It is a binary state.
Life just isn't that simple.
You are normally responsible for your own actions.
You are also responsible for the actions of others if you influenced them.
Naturally all human interaction including speech is inevitably influential, so the perceived degree of influence and perceived intent of your influence is taken into account.
Life just isn't that simple.
Yes it is and your little diagram made it obvious:
speech -> influences minds -> minds choose -> compels the body to act
You showed that it is a serial process and that the last step is "minds choose"
In your diagram nothing happens without "minds choose."
You are also responsible for the actions of others if you influenced them.
Again with the fascism.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You showed that it is a serial process and that the last step is "minds choose"
In your diagram nothing happens without "minds choose."
The choice minds make is altered by speech that came before it. When its at the point that they choose what YOU chose to maliciously influence them to choose you share responsibility for the action.
The choice minds make is altered by speech that came before it. When its at the point that they choose what YOU chose to maliciously influence them to choose you share responsibility for the action.
You really haven't thought your belief through. Malice has nothing to do with it. Its all about responsibility and your belief distributes responsibility for a person's actions to anyone they have ever interacted with which is antithetical to the concept of free will and democracy and thus leads directly to fascism.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Its all about responsibility and your belief distributes responsibility for a person's actions to anyone they have ever interacted with
Something like that.
which is antithetical to the concept of free will
Not at all. The fact that other people can share in the responsibility for your actions doesn't mean you aren't responsible for your own actions, and it doesn't mean you don't have free will.
It would in your on-off binary universe, but that isn't how the real one works.
In the real world, the actions of others (including their speech) changes and shapes the choices of others. Everyone has the freedom to make their own choices, but their choices are limited, and stacked.
A trivial example would be a US election. Everyone can exercise free will when they vote. Yet they only have a handful of choices of what they may vote for. More over depending on where they live, in many cases we can guess with high probability what they will vote. Its not that they are really any different than people elsewhere, or have lost the freedom to choose, but they have been shaped and molded by their upbringing to the point where we can predict their vote before its case. They have freedom to choose, but the influences in their lives will direct enough of them in a given direction that we can predict it.
and democracy
He who can influence what the most people think wins. Advertising works. That's democracy. Or did you think the US wanted George Bush to be President? Not that I'm saying they wanted Kerry. But I suspect if you opened it wide open, most Americans wanted neither.
and thus leads directly to fascism.
What exactly do you think fascism means?
How would you know to what "minor" issues I referred? I didn't say! Are you just assuming, or were you trying to read my mind? Either way your opening statement has no foundation.
Sure they are suffering negative press over the Ossetia thing! Why shouldn't they? Did you really pay attention to some of the things they threatened to do?
What do you mean by "rather trustworthy"? You mean as trustworthy as our own government? Less? More? That is a pretty poor standard to be using. I will certainly agree with you that far. But it is beside the point. I meant trustworthiness in a more absolute sense, not a relative one. "Rather trustworthy", in today's atmosphere, is not a good recommendation.
And I certainly do not blame someone for taking advantage of the cards they hold. Blame does not enter into the equation. When (at least in part) you are playing for the same pot, you do not show your hand to the other players... much less give them cards, like we would be doing with the space shuttle situation. That is a stupid way to play.
Obviously you do not understand the long-term usefulness of the ISS, or the importance of it as a symbol. You may not care but a lot of people do. It is the people who do that count here. I am well aware of the vulnerabilities and strengths of the ISS, but you seem to have missed my point.
The only reason that running the shuttle delays its replacement is because of shoddy planning, stupid funding decisions by the government (along with voters and special interests), and the bureaucracy that NASA has become. That was my point... this was ill-conceived, ill-planned, and not well carried out. I made that argument when the schedule was announced years ago, and recent political situations (not just Russia) have been proving my point. These projects (and government budgets) have been too short-sighted.
And you underestimate the importance of people in space, as well. Both as a practical matter and as a symbol. It is very important in both respects. I do not intend to argue and I do not expect to convince you, but I stand by that statement, and I believe that future events will bear me out.
A trivial example would be a US election.
Not only have you failed to think through the ramifications of your belief, you have also failed to think through even your own trivial example.
Everyone can exercise free will when they vote. Yet they only have a handful of choices of what they may vote for.
False. It is called voting for a write-in.
In an election you have the right to vote for anyone you please or no one at all. You have no right to how anyone else votes, which ironically would be the case if your theory of collective responsibility were true.
Seems like every time you make an analogy it falls down in the face of a few seconds of critical thought.
Everyone has the freedom to make their own choices, but their choices are limited, and stacked.
Limited by circumstances only. Your whole tangent about being elections being 'stacked' is an absolute red-herring. You sure do love the herring though, this is like your fourth one so far. You are all over the map and all it does is show that you are reaching for straws to support an untenable contradiction.
In the case of hate speech, you would be foolish to argue that people's choice in actions ever excludes NOT ACTING. And you've gone so far abroad from possession and distribution of child porn that what you've written doesn't even apply as justification for claiming a belief in free speech but only for whatever you consider to be 'good speech.'
What exactly do you think fascism means?
In this case, primarily collectivism. Followed by social authoritarianism, totalitarianism and a command economy. All philosophies that draw on the belief that people are not 100% responsible for their own actions and thus the state is required to take responsibility and control for them.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
False. It is called voting for a write-in.
I'm reaching the point where I laugh and roll my eyes every time you claim something I've said is false, because its usually followed by you proving my point and simultaneously being completely unwilling to fathom it, while, of course, pronouncing how "wrong I must be".
But the debate really has nothing to do with free speech or democracy or fascism. The debate comes down to the nature of free will. We evidently disagree on what free will is.
So be it.
No, the debate is whether or not one can truthfully claim they believe in free speech and yet be perfectly happy to censor speech they don't like.
All of your examples are attempts to prove that the world is full of hypocrisy so therefore your particular hypocrisy must be truth rather than hypocrisy.
When I talk about fascism I am pointing out to you where your particular brand of hypocrisy leads in societies that have embraced it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No, the debate is whether or not one can truthfully claim they believe in free speech and yet be perfectly happy to censor speech they don't like.
Note quite. Nobody said merely 'not liking it' is sufficient. They have to appeal to another universal principle that would require preventing that speech. The principle of least harm, for example. If the speech is harmful to society or even individuals then preventing it could be supported by the principle of least harm.
Whether or not speech can be considered harmful devolved into a debate about the nature of free will.
All of your examples are attempts to prove that the world is full of hypocrisy so therefore your particular hypocrisy must be truth rather than hypocrisy.
There is nothing hypocritical about believing in more than one principle. There is nothing hypocritical about having to find a balance when multiple principles conflict.
When I talk about fascism I am pointing out to you where your particular brand of hypocrisy leads in societies that have embraced it.
Any set of principles which a society embraces will have conflicts. Accepting that and coping with it isn't hypocrisy and doesn't lead to fascism.
Nobody said merely 'not liking it' is sufficient.
Blah, blah, blah. So I trivialized what you to believe to be a subtle view and which I believe is clear-cut hypocrisy.
There is no conflict between "least harm" and free speech. By definition free speech leads to the least harm. The cure for bad speech has never been censorship. Got some other "universal" principle you want to bring up to bat?
Any set of principles which a society embraces will have conflicts. Accepting that and coping with it isn't hypocrisy and doesn't lead to fascism.
Cute twist of words, but yet another red herring. Believing that speech must be censored is what leads to fascism, not "accepting that principles will have conflicts."
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
There is no conflict between "least harm" and free speech.
'blah blah blah...'
I obviously disagree.
'nuff said.
I obviously disagree.
But are unable to explain your belief without relying on misdirection.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
But are unable to explain your belief without relying on misdirection.
You think least harm is achieved with completely unrestricted speech. I don't. We disagree.
You think least harm is achieved with completely unrestricted speech. I don't. We disagree.
Again on the herring.
You mean least harm was all you had?
What happened to all the grandiose claims about "universal principles" - it was really just one principle?
So in fact, the way your head works, is that you believe in your version of "least harm" more than you believe in free speech. Which just happened to be my point all along.
BTW, the problem with your version of least harm is that you are clearly more interested in short term harm than long term harm. Kinda like a politician. See my original point about appearing to do something about a problem without actually fixing it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Again on the herring.
Is that all YOU'VE got. The fact that you labeled it a herring doesn't make it one, and I'm tired of absorbing your pointless abuse. Make your case or walk away.
You mean least harm was all you had?
Least harm is enough. What have you got that supports your position that its not? Oh, right, nothing, except more passive aggressive ad hominem. Why should I bother to go further abroad?
So in fact, the way your head works, is that you believe in your version of "least harm" more than you believe in free speech. Which just happened to be my point all along.
There you go again: "your version of least harm".
I suppose I could say, "So in fact, the way your head works, is that you clearly believe in your version of free speech to the exclusion of least harm. Which just happens to be my point all along. You clearly think free speech somehow will magically lead to least harm and also manage to avoid running into conflict with any other principle, but that's obviously absurd. Of course, you've resolved any conflicts by convincing yourself they don't exist, by asserting that any conflict is either somehow not an example of free speech, or pretending that it doesn't cause harm.
See, I can be a condescending dick too. Its actually harder not to. You should try it.
BTW, the problem with your version of least harm is that you are clearly more interested in short term harm than long term harm.
And that would be a ANOTHER strawman. I didn't say anything of the sort, I do not believe anything of the sort. I said "least harm", and I stand by it. Seeing as you disagree, make your case.
BTW 'it leads to fascism' isn't an argument; its an unsupported conclusion.
And that would be a ANOTHER strawman. I didn't say anything of the sort, I do not believe anything of the sort. I said "least harm", and I stand by it. Seeing as you disagree, make your case.
Anyone who actually believes in free speech, not just conveniently free speech knows that the cure for bad speech is not censorship, it is good speech. If you don't believe that, then you don't believe in free speech, full stop.
All of your examples have been cases where you prefer to prevent short-term harm at the expense of long-term harm. So, in fact, you did say precisely that - just one of many examples would be "Now, if instead of breaking your kneeaps I show you a recording of me raping your family and breaking their kneecaps, hey, I didn't cause anything.." -- strawman it wasn't.
Make your case or walk away.
My case has always been clear and simple - if you believe in exceptions to free speech then you do not believe in free speech. Pretty much by defintion you only believe in kinda-sorta-free-speech.
I'm tired of absorbing your pointless abuse.
Don't try to co-opt the righteousness of free speech without the responsibilities that go with it and I won't insult you for it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.