Moderate that Coward UP!!!
on
Virtual War
·
· Score: 1
by Anonymous Coward on 06:13 AM May 31st, 2000 EST
The Balkans are still a mess first because of the Turk invasion 600 years ago. Second because of the way the new states were created there by the so called Great Powers in the last century. Today it is a mess only in ex-Yugoslavia which was created after WWI, combining diferent nations in one unstable state. Also ther are a mess because of the label used for a very simple row of wars which led to WWI.
Unfortunately, this was posted annonmyously, but the Ac in question seems to be the only one here with an actual sense of the history of the region.
The US/UN/NATO should stay out of the Balkans!!! The "Great Powers" of the twentieth century, and the empires of the centuries before are the ones who drew the borders and created the petty kingdoms, republics, and finally the federation of Yugoslavia which later blew up because of power hungry local elites who wanted to gain purchase in the emerging global economic order. The West(TM) just keeps screwing things up and should stay out of it. We're still playing the same power games.
As far as the whole virtual warfare things goes, I all in favor of desanitizing the process. Let's let the congressmen and the president who vote for military action eith get in on the bloodletting themselves, or send their children onto the front lines.
by making "their" information easier to find and access than information "they" don't control, and adding in the cross-promotion potential available to a company that has interests in everything from movie production to chat servers, within the next few years we could easily see a world where 95% of all Web users only access 5% of everything that's potentially available online.
OK, Rob, I think you're missing a point here. People search the web. Yes, if this 95% you're talking about just want to turn on the computer like they turn on the tv, then they won't find the sites you cherish. Otherwise, if they're looking for information, there are nifty little sites like google and altavista out there.
While enforcing conformity is a bad thing, it isn't Nazish or Stalinistic, it is obnoxious. This program appears to be well intended: if you think someone is a threat to himself or others, you call a number and they have someone speak to him. Overall, not a terrible state of affairs. If the situation isn't a problem, they go about their business. If they are depressed, maybe they find a good shrink and lead happier lives.
You couldn't be more wrong!!! It is exactly this form of training of individual members of society to learn to look at other members with suspicion and with an eye to identifying difference as deviance that creates the mental mindset necessary to Nazism and Stalinism, etc.
By receiving training in identifying difference/deviance while being able to report to a higher legitimating authority, students will learn to create a new classification within their minds based on a radical sense of "otherness". This will reinforce the inclinations to conformity that are common to people, especially in younger ages. What happens then is that the "others", those that are reported on, become part of a category that is somehow less than equal to that of the reporters. When we are all equal but some of us are less equal than others (to paraphrase), then those who are less equal have less voice, and can be treated differently. Once this situation of radical othering occurs, the rights of the monority can be trampled on. Yes, maybe it starts with repeated harrasments by school counselors and administrators, but this is also the first level in China where intellectual dissenters are regularly rounded up and brought to police stations for "counseling".
When do we start sending different/deviant children off to reeducation camps?
On my two visits to China, I was plesantly suprised by the general interest in the West and Western Ideas. Many of the Chinese I meet were intellegent and had interesting views about life in China and around the world.
My God, Man! You really are generous, aren't you. To think that there were actually intellignet and free thinking people in China... What a revelation!
Seriously, though, the Chinese will have a hard time getting connected for a while. Telephone wires are still few and far between in many parts of the country, so they may all go wireless. In the cities on the coast right now it's still hard to get your own connection, and many people spend a good deal of money to sit in an internet cafe for a bit.
This is just another piece of extreme right-wing xenophobic rhetoric.
Bravo!
The "Japan Bashing" of the 80s will seem like nothing when compared to the anti China stuff that is now starting. Let's not buy into Western governments' propaganda even on Slashdot.
--over a billion people, huh... that a big potential pool for open source developers...
No doubt there are some people that the government is watching, even today. These are people who are coordinating real revolutions, underground sects, militarized religious organizations that dream of dropping acid into the water supply someday. Political enemies of the Republicrats, Black Panthers, whatever. Not slashdot readers.
Real revoulutions??? Do you think they're possible? Real revolutions need to change fundamentally the power relations within society, not just the people who happen to be sitting in the various seats of power within the structure. WHen has this ever happened? How is it that the relations of power replicate themselves? Grand social revolution is a pipe-dream. So what can we do? Resist! The Man, as it's being called, likes to marginalize but accept a certaqin social level of subversive ideas. Because it's accepted, but marginalized in newsgroups and universities, subversive thinking becomes neutered. On the other hand, only by operating from within the margins and perpetually engaging in creating localized sites of resistance can we hope to effect any kind of change or challenge to the system. In this way, we can all be a danger (at least theoretically -- most people don't have the will to adopt constant struggle).
In short, slashdot readers can be a danger. No, they're not going to effect a large scale revolution, but those groups that are trying are far less significant to the monitors of society than those who can create effective resistance. The criminal justice arm of things can handle bomb-maker and terrorists (albeit ineffectively). Anyway, what is a slashdot reader? Someone who does nothing else with her life? Right.
So yeah, for what it's worth, append some nasty keywords to your emails today. It'd be really funny if it did something. Better, yet, get used to trying to throw a wrench in the gears whenever you can.
Slashdot Mirror
by Anonymous Coward on 06:13 AM May 31st, 2000 EST
The Balkans are still a mess first because of the Turk invasion 600 years ago. Second because of the way the new states were created there by the so called Great Powers in the last century. Today it is a mess only in ex-Yugoslavia which was created after WWI, combining diferent nations in one unstable state. Also ther are a mess because of the label used for a very simple row of wars which led to WWI.
Unfortunately, this was posted annonmyously, but the Ac in question seems to be the only one here with an actual sense of the history of the region.
The US/UN/NATO should stay out of the Balkans!!! The "Great Powers" of the twentieth century, and the empires of the centuries before are the ones who drew the borders and created the petty kingdoms, republics, and finally the federation of Yugoslavia which later blew up because of power hungry local elites who wanted to gain purchase in the emerging global economic order. The West(TM) just keeps screwing things up and should stay out of it. We're still playing the same power games.
As far as the whole virtual warfare things goes, I all in favor of desanitizing the process. Let's let the congressmen and the president who vote for military action eith get in on the bloodletting themselves, or send their children onto the front lines.
by making "their" information easier to find and access than information "they" don't control, and adding in the cross-promotion potential available to a company that has interests in everything from movie production to chat servers, within the next few years we could easily see a world where 95% of all Web users only access 5% of everything that's potentially available online.
OK, Rob, I think you're missing a point here. People search the web. Yes, if this 95% you're talking about just want to turn on the computer like they turn on the tv, then they won't find the sites you cherish. Otherwise, if they're looking for information, there are nifty little sites like google and altavista out there.
Just thought I'd share...
Pathetic
While enforcing conformity is a bad thing, it isn't Nazish or Stalinistic, it is obnoxious. This program appears to be well intended: if you think someone is a threat to himself or others, you call a number and they have someone speak to him. Overall, not a terrible state of affairs. If the situation isn't a problem, they go about their business. If they are depressed, maybe they find a good shrink and lead happier lives.
You couldn't be more wrong!!! It is exactly this form of training of individual members of society to learn to look at other members with suspicion and with an eye to identifying difference as deviance that creates the mental mindset necessary to Nazism and Stalinism, etc.
By receiving training in identifying difference/deviance while being able to report to a higher legitimating authority, students will learn to create a new classification within their minds based on a radical sense of "otherness". This will reinforce the inclinations to conformity that are common to people, especially in younger ages. What happens then is that the "others", those that are reported on, become part of a category that is somehow less than equal to that of the reporters. When we are all equal but some of us are less equal than others (to paraphrase), then those who are less equal have less voice, and can be treated differently. Once this situation of radical othering occurs, the rights of the monority can be trampled on. Yes, maybe it starts with repeated harrasments by school counselors and administrators, but this is also the first level in China where intellectual dissenters are regularly rounded up and brought to police stations for "counseling".
When do we start sending different/deviant children off to reeducation camps?
It is that scary!
On my two visits to China, I was plesantly suprised by the general interest in the West and Western Ideas. Many of the Chinese I meet were intellegent and had interesting views about life in China and around the world.
My God, Man! You really are generous, aren't you. To think that there were actually intellignet and free thinking people in China... What a revelation!
Seriously, though, the Chinese will have a hard time getting connected for a while. Telephone wires are still few and far between in many parts of the country, so they may all go wireless. In the cities on the coast right now it's still hard to get your own connection, and many people spend a good deal of money to sit in an internet cafe for a bit.
Bravo!
The "Japan Bashing" of the 80s will seem like nothing when compared to the anti China stuff that is now starting. Let's not buy into Western governments' propaganda even on Slashdot.
--over a billion people, huh... that a big potential pool for open source developers...
No doubt there are some people that the government is watching, even today. These are people who are coordinating real revolutions, underground sects, militarized religious organizations that dream of dropping acid into the water supply someday. Political enemies of the Republicrats, Black Panthers, whatever. Not slashdot readers.
Real revoulutions??? Do you think they're possible? Real revolutions need to change fundamentally the power relations within society, not just the people who happen to be sitting in the various seats of power within the structure. WHen has this ever happened? How is it that the relations of power replicate themselves? Grand social revolution is a pipe-dream. So what can we do? Resist! The Man, as it's being called, likes to marginalize but accept a certaqin social level of subversive ideas. Because it's accepted, but marginalized in newsgroups and universities, subversive thinking becomes neutered. On the other hand, only by operating from within the margins and perpetually engaging in creating localized sites of resistance can we hope to effect any kind of change or challenge to the system. In this way, we can all be a danger (at least theoretically -- most people don't have the will to adopt constant struggle).
In short, slashdot readers can be a danger. No, they're not going to effect a large scale revolution, but those groups that are trying are far less significant to the monitors of society than those who can create effective resistance. The criminal justice arm of things can handle bomb-maker and terrorists (albeit ineffectively). Anyway, what is a slashdot reader? Someone who does nothing else with her life? Right.
So yeah, for what it's worth, append some nasty keywords to your emails today. It'd be really funny if it did something. Better, yet, get used to trying to throw a wrench in the gears whenever you can.