Caring has nothing to do with the matter at hand...
Well. As I said:
(The current case is not so interesting, to my point - my initial parent's comment was).
...it is, in fact, exactly the matter which I was addressing. You may want to discuss something else, and you are certainly entitled to do so. But simply responding in this thread does not make the subject at hand whatever you would like it to be. I am, to repeat myself, talking about the comment implying that corporations as legal 'persons' with more power than anything else on the planet is problematic as they have no humanity.
Which bring me to:
I am basically just saying we should not let them run things...
If you don't like company X or industry Y, then don't do business with them and they won't "run things".
Yes they will. Because whether I do business with Nike or not, they will use slave labour. And whether I do business with Microsoft or not, they will work to destroy Free Software. And whether I use a bike or car, we are running out of oil soon. Etc. Etc. Your position is only valid if I were the only consumer on the planet!
No one made her get a cell phone and no one made her break her contract. Those were her choices and hers alone. You're arguing that she should be exempted from the consequences of her actions because her husband died, which is sad, yet irrelevant to her paying her cell phone bill.
I am really not. And I never was. Check the discussion again. You will find you are the only one talking about this particular case, and that I am talking about what happens when corporations, which by definition have no morals or humanity, decide how to run the planet.
I am not going to respond to any more messages about this woman and Verizon - the case is only relevant as an example that corporations will only do 'the decent thing' when forced by public opinion. And that they do not even care about 'the decent thing' in that case, but only about... public opinion. As you yourself pointed out, there is no particularly compelling moral reason this woman shoud be excempt from her contract - but Verizon cares naught for the actual moral issues, the troops, whatever; they have an obligation to their shareholders only to care about one thing!
Anyway, I will gladly discuss my position on the free enterprise model, if you wish... But please stop assuming I am somehow 'for' this woman. I couldn't care less about her phone bill...
I think that we have an overall problem with the way we are running our societies. The most powerful individuals in it are fictitious, and by definition uncaring and inhuman. I am basically just saying we should not let them run things...
(The current case is not so interesting, to my point - my initial parent's comment was).
Since Corporations are now considered 'persons' under the law, perhaps we should expect them to show certain levels of humanity that most of us would display.
/asking too much, I know
Communist!
Or at least socialist.
Anti-capitalist for sure...
I mean, expecting anything else than 100% self-interest is just stupid, or you're suggesting we (gasp) hinder free enterprise!
(If the sacrasm was too high, here's the breakdown: I sincerely believe the parents sentiments are diametrically opposed to, and cannot exist alongside, an absolutely free enterprise-model of society, in the veins of the American ideal as it is often touted. I also believe parent is right).
the company responded saying, " Verizon Wireless has long supported our troops.... Our thoughts and prayers are with Mrs. Brummund and her family."
Huh. So Verizon, as a company, now has a public opinion, not only on supporting our troops, but on the effectiveness of prayer?
Am I being overly sensitive, or is that just a bit odd?
That's not odd to me at all. Companies have professed opnions about god knows what for ages. What is worrying to me is they seem to think the company has a personal relationship with god/jesus/the-holy-ghost-too? and presumably an immortal soul. If true, this might just turn me to a life of virtue; I am not spending eternity with SCO!
I wouldn't mind this guy turning his boss/firm/department in another small FOSS success story... If a couple hundred companies used whatever FOSS solution is best for this, a few of them might contribute something useful, a handfull will notice a bug that needed fixing somewhere in the stack, a dozen will come up with a GUI improvement and they'll all mention it from time and again. My two cents, this is FOSS FTW!
On a related note: could someone suggest an AGPL solution, please?:-)
(I am not saying it is not true, it might even be informative. It is, however, irrelevant, because when you mention George's "Kessel boo boo", you are not evaluating his ability to retcon, but his basic astronomy knowledge).
Who cares if it has vulnerabilities. It's a phone.
A phone which is able to broadcast your real-time location. A phone which has all your mails, all your texts and logs of all your calls, and a few private photoes to boot. A phone with verified contact information for all your friends, and sellable information on yours and their preferences. A phone that can call any number, including premium-rated ones owned by shady organizations.
Yeah. Who cares is someone else gains control of that?
Are you saying that secular democracies with bills of rights are never able to put their own interests ahead of their neighbours or other states and act aggressively?
No. In fact, I might argue that Bills of Right, and maybe democracy itself, cannot solve inter-state problems, unless they are agreed upon, enacted and accepted in all countries. But that has nothing to do with my point...
Are the three things you mentioned above complete guarantors of neutral or benevolent behavior towards your own people or other people?
No.
But they are a hell of a lot more important and interesting, than what stripe of religion the nutters who cry murder adheres to, when it comes to protecting people's rights.
I do not disagree 100%, but I do think you are overstating your case.
I don't think a constitution is useless just because less than _everyone_ follows its spirit. But if no one does, of course you are right. What I was speaking against, is the belief that certain religions are flawed. It is societies, laws and, as you point out, 'civic culture' or whatever the term might be (my history classes were some while ago) that matters!
Not to mention, any time that a death penalty is suggested for anything... there's something terribly wrong with the picture.
I know I didn't fix anything - I just like it better that way:-)
Seriously, I don't want the state making those decisions. I'll admit society is better off with some people dead, that some victims might be and that some people deserve it - I just don't want any state handling that sort of power. There is just no need, and the dangers are too great.
I'm curious, which 21st century Christian figures are calling for and filing motions for government-sponsored murder?
Wrong question. The interesting question is what countries enable you to file a religion-based motion for government-sponsored murder.
You have nutters all over the place, of every colour and (proclaimed) stripe/culture/religion - the problems is having those nutters in powers. Screw the reformation - the seperation of church and state, constitutions and bills of right are what makes a difference!
Like I said in my post you replied to? FIND US MORE CURRENT DATA ON WHATEVER BUILD OF LINUX YOU CAN FIND THERE... ok?? I'll be GLAD to see it in fact!
The absence of better evidence does not make your "evidence" better. Or less skewed. And does not excuse comparing a 2003 kernel to a 2009 OS and going "I bet there are even more stuff wrong with all the 1000+ distros running the kernel".
You're RIGHT - so, IF I was to add on the KNOWN SECURITY VULNERABILITIES in the remaining parts of LINUX not noted (such as KDE or GNOME, or even BA$H, to name only a FEW parts omitted in my fair analysis of the LINUX KERNEL/CORE ONLY mind you, vs. the rest of it that folks use regularly/usually, which DO GET ANALYZED IN WINDOWS 7 &/or MacOS X?)?
You'd see more than the 11 security vulnerabilities in Linux... my guess? Far more.
So all the stats you quoted do not really matter, and we are down to your guesswork...
They should just buy a huge plate of ham sandwiches, and those who take a bite and swallow are waved through, while the rest get the royal treatment.
This might be frighteningly close to the truth. I am not claiming this is the (only) motive behind SPOT - but it does make it possible to single out all those suspicious-looking non-aryan foreigners, while ensuring the persons who do so have a vocabulary of bullshit to draw on if questioned (so we can avoid the true, but unmentionable, "he looked muslim").
A portable phone with pictures is nothing compared to suddenly living in car-powered cities vs. agricultural existence.
Maybe it is not comparable to the agrarian hunter gatherer vs. industrialized society-gap, but everyone being able to film and upload in seconds does make an impact. (I headed here from the ongoing discussion over cops not wanting people to film them; some balance of power is shifting here).
The toys may not matter much in the lives of the individual, but neither does a car in itself. Living in a society where everyone has a car, and products can be moved about with ease, does make a difference - and so does living in a world where everyone can share anything with everybody. The profit-motive and gadget-fever western society is so wild about right now is making huge, serious changes elsewhere: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/sms-fights-malaria-scourge-in-africa/ http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/ghana/090527/africa-looks-cell-phone-banking And that whole outsourcing thing we are seeing the tip of now...
"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57
I can see how there would be situations like that, but I still wouldn't want to trust the cops to make that judgement call without any kinds of checks...
Option one: Trust noone to be a cop (or any other sort of governmental agent). Option two: Trust the cops implicitly, in everything they do. (Note that there is no need for a legal system, with this option). And the third option (there's more, this is mine): Trust the cops exactly as much as we have to, and not one iota more.
For instance: After completing their training, give them additional privileges when on the job, and record their every move while in service. Trust them to hold the gun, do not trust them to tell you they had to use it.
Trust is a foundation of governance, as you point out. The system, and it's administrators, will work to maintain that trust.
And they should be made to work damn hard to maintain it. I am going to go so far as to say they should earn it!
How about making them 100% accountable for everything? The job who stays within the law would automatically have my trust. In fact, if cops were being filmed every hour they were on the job, any cop not currently in court would be immediately trustworthy. All for a few webcams, and of course denying cops the possibility of beating people without just cause, or in any way lying to "maintain trust".
I can live without that... Why would you want them able to "maintain trust" in any other way than obeying the law?
By arguing about whether or not there are safeguards against police brutality, or legal recourses, or any of that, you're sidestepping the critical issue: At some point, you have to trust them.
Nonsense. I do not have to trust them. The state/government/legal system/society may have to delegate responsibility, but that does not mean we have to believe that the people we to hand such responsibilities and privileges over to are necessarily good and righteous or trustworthy. At all! You are, in a sense equivocating. We need to trust them, in the sense that we need to hand over such and such power to them and hope for the best - this is true, but only one sense of the word trust. The other, which you seem to take as meaning the same thing, is that we should trust them never to do wrong. We should not.
In fact, every single member of government should be wiretapped 24/7. Ditto for every civil servant, while on the job. Don't like it? Don't run for president, or don't become a cop.
Why, now that we have the technology to prevent it, do we continue to allow politicians to lie? Why, when we have the technology to make it a 100% guarenteed lose-your-job-and-go-to-prison-certainty to engage in police brutality, do we allow it to continue? Old power systems, tired and slow and not wanting change... Even going so far as to stop volunteers from performing a favour to the public, in filming and keeping government in line. Sad...
PS: If your argument was right, then we should just elect one guy to be president, holder of the launch codes and act as congress - and "just trust him". We have safeguards in government for a reason. PPS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPEV6twzxmE
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah it's off topic, get over it we're having a discussion here.
And now we have two! :-)
Caring has nothing to do with the matter at hand...
Well. As I said:
(The current case is not so interesting, to my point - my initial parent's comment was).
...it is, in fact, exactly the matter which I was addressing. You may want to discuss something else, and you are certainly entitled to do so. But simply responding in this thread does not make the subject at hand whatever you would like it to be. I am, to repeat myself, talking about the comment implying that corporations as legal 'persons' with more power than anything else on the planet is problematic as they have no humanity.
Which bring me to:
I am basically just saying we should not let them run things...
If you don't like company X or industry Y, then don't do business with them and they won't "run things".
Yes they will. Because whether I do business with Nike or not, they will use slave labour. And whether I do business with Microsoft or not, they will work to destroy Free Software. And whether I use a bike or car, we are running out of oil soon. Etc. Etc. Your position is only valid if I were the only consumer on the planet!
No one made her get a cell phone and no one made her break her contract. Those were her choices and hers alone. You're arguing that she should be exempted from the consequences of her actions because her husband died, which is sad, yet irrelevant to her paying her cell phone bill.
I am really not. And I never was. Check the discussion again. You will find you are the only one talking about this particular case, and that I am talking about what happens when corporations, which by definition have no morals or humanity, decide how to run the planet.
I am not going to respond to any more messages about this woman and Verizon - the case is only relevant as an example that corporations will only do 'the decent thing' when forced by public opinion. And that they do not even care about 'the decent thing' in that case, but only about... public opinion. As you yourself pointed out, there is no particularly compelling moral reason this woman shoud be excempt from her contract - but Verizon cares naught for the actual moral issues, the troops, whatever; they have an obligation to their shareholders only to care about one thing!
Anyway, I will gladly discuss my position on the free enterprise model, if you wish... But please stop assuming I am somehow 'for' this woman. I couldn't care less about her phone bill...
So, you think that because her husband died...
No.
I think that we have an overall problem with the way we are running our societies. The most powerful individuals in it are fictitious, and by definition uncaring and inhuman.
I am basically just saying we should not let them run things...
(The current case is not so interesting, to my point - my initial parent's comment was).
It's called compassion.
Since Corporations are now considered 'persons' under the law, perhaps we should expect them to show certain levels of humanity that most of us would display.
Communist!
Or at least socialist.
Anti-capitalist for sure...
I mean, expecting anything else than 100% self-interest is just stupid, or you're suggesting we (gasp) hinder free enterprise!
(If the sacrasm was too high, here's the breakdown: I sincerely believe the parents sentiments are diametrically opposed to, and cannot exist alongside, an absolutely free enterprise-model of society, in the veins of the American ideal as it is often touted. I also believe parent is right).
the company responded saying, " Verizon Wireless has long supported our troops.... Our thoughts and prayers are with Mrs. Brummund and her family."
Huh. So Verizon, as a company, now has a public opinion, not only on supporting our troops, but on the effectiveness of prayer?
Am I being overly sensitive, or is that just a bit odd?
That's not odd to me at all. Companies have professed opnions about god knows what for ages. What is worrying to me is they seem to think the company has a personal relationship with god/jesus/the-holy-ghost-too? and presumably an immortal soul. If true, this might just turn me to a life of virtue; I am not spending eternity with SCO!
I wouldn't mind this guy turning his boss/firm/department in another small FOSS success story... If a couple hundred companies used whatever FOSS solution is best for this, a few of them might contribute something useful, a handfull will notice a bug that needed fixing somewhere in the stack, a dozen will come up with a GUI improvement and they'll all mention it from time and again.
My two cents, this is FOSS FTW!
On a related note: could someone suggest an AGPL solution, please? :-)
Only on slashdot is this "insightful".
(I am not saying it is not true, it might even be informative. It is, however, irrelevant, because when you mention George's "Kessel boo boo", you are not evaluating his ability to retcon, but his basic astronomy knowledge).
Who cares if it has vulnerabilities. It's a phone.
A phone which is able to broadcast your real-time location.
A phone which has all your mails, all your texts and logs of all your calls, and a few private photoes to boot.
A phone with verified contact information for all your friends, and sellable information on yours and their preferences.
A phone that can call any number, including premium-rated ones owned by shady organizations.
Yeah. Who cares is someone else gains control of that?
In Soviet Russia, the government takes on the RIAA and MPAA!
Which is more or less what the article is saying, for a sufficiently cynical view of corruption and the current political situation over there...
Are you saying that secular democracies with bills of rights are never able to put their own interests ahead of their neighbours or
other states and act aggressively?
No. In fact, I might argue that Bills of Right, and maybe democracy itself, cannot solve inter-state problems, unless they are agreed
upon, enacted and accepted in all countries. But that has nothing to do with my point...
Are the three things you mentioned above complete guarantors of neutral or benevolent behavior towards your own people or other
people?
No.
But they are a hell of a lot more important and interesting, than what stripe of religion the nutters who cry murder adheres to, when it comes
to protecting people's rights.
I do not disagree 100%, but I do think you are overstating your case.
I don't think a constitution is useless just because less than _everyone_ follows its spirit. But if no one does, of course you are right.
What I was speaking against, is the belief that certain religions are flawed. It is societies, laws and, as you point out, 'civic culture' or whatever the term might be (my history classes were some while ago) that matters!
As someone said above, why should a factory reset delete data on the SD card?
Mod parent Jesus?
Not to mention, any time that a death penalty is suggested for anything ... there's something terribly wrong with the picture.
I know I didn't fix anything - I just like it better that way :-)
Seriously, I don't want the state making those decisions. I'll admit society is better off with some people dead, that some victims might be and that some people deserve it - I just don't want any state handling that sort of power. There is just no need, and the dangers are too great.
I'm curious, which 21st century Christian figures are calling for and filing motions for government-sponsored murder?
Wrong question.
The interesting question is what countries enable you to file a religion-based motion for government-sponsored murder.
You have nutters all over the place, of every colour and (proclaimed) stripe/culture/religion - the problems is having those nutters in powers. Screw the reformation - the seperation of church and state, constitutions and bills of right are what makes a difference!
Like I said in my post you replied to? FIND US MORE CURRENT DATA ON WHATEVER BUILD OF LINUX YOU CAN FIND THERE... ok?? I'll be GLAD to see it in fact!
The absence of better evidence does not make your "evidence" better. Or less skewed. And does not excuse comparing a 2003 kernel to a 2009 OS and going "I bet there are even more stuff wrong with all the 1000+ distros running the kernel".
Also, the shouting is becoming rather shrill...
You're RIGHT - so, IF I was to add on the KNOWN SECURITY VULNERABILITIES in the remaining parts of LINUX not noted (such as KDE or GNOME, or even BA$H, to name only a FEW parts omitted in my fair analysis of the LINUX KERNEL/CORE ONLY mind you, vs. the rest of it that folks use regularly/usually, which DO GET ANALYZED IN WINDOWS 7 &/or MacOS X?)?
You'd see more than the 11 security vulnerabilities in Linux... my guess? Far more.
So all the stats you quoted do not really matter, and we are down to your guesswork...
Not impressive.
They should just buy a huge plate of ham sandwiches, and those who take a bite and swallow are waved through, while the rest get the royal treatment.
This might be frighteningly close to the truth. I am not claiming this is the (only) motive behind SPOT - but it does make it possible to single out all those suspicious-looking non-aryan foreigners, while ensuring the persons who do so have a vocabulary of bullshit to draw on if questioned (so we can avoid the true, but unmentionable, "he looked muslim").
A portable phone with pictures is nothing compared to suddenly living in car-powered cities vs. agricultural existence.
Maybe it is not comparable to the agrarian hunter gatherer vs. industrialized society-gap, but everyone being able to film and upload in seconds does make an impact. (I headed here from the ongoing discussion over cops not wanting people to film them; some balance of power is shifting here).
The toys may not matter much in the lives of the individual, but neither does a car in itself. Living in a society where everyone has a car, and products can be moved about with ease, does make a difference - and so does living in a world where everyone can share anything with everybody.
The profit-motive and gadget-fever western society is so wild about right now is making huge, serious changes elsewhere:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/sms-fights-malaria-scourge-in-africa/
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/ghana/090527/africa-looks-cell-phone-banking
And that whole outsourcing thing we are seeing the tip of now...
"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57
Very appropriately modded, thanks!
I can see how there would be situations like that, but I still wouldn't want to trust the cops to make that judgement call without any kinds of checks...
But still, interesting perspective.
Option one: Trust noone to be a cop (or any other sort of governmental agent).
Option two: Trust the cops implicitly, in everything they do. (Note that there is no need for a legal system, with this option).
And the third option (there's more, this is mine): Trust the cops exactly as much as we have to, and not one iota more.
For instance: After completing their training, give them additional privileges when on the job, and record their every move while in service. Trust them to hold the gun, do not trust them to tell you they had to use it.
Trust is a foundation of governance, as you point out. The system, and it's administrators, will work to maintain that trust.
And they should be made to work damn hard to maintain it. I am going to go so far as to say they should earn it!
How about making them 100% accountable for everything? The job who stays within the law would automatically have my trust. In fact, if cops were being filmed every hour they were on the job, any cop not currently in court would be immediately trustworthy. All for a few webcams, and of course denying cops the possibility of beating people without just cause, or in any way lying to "maintain trust".
I can live without that... Why would you want them able to "maintain trust" in any other way than obeying the law?
By arguing about whether or not there are safeguards against police brutality, or legal recourses, or any of that, you're sidestepping the critical issue: At some point, you have to trust them.
Nonsense. I do not have to trust them. The state/government/legal system/society may have to delegate responsibility, but that does not mean we have to believe that the people we to hand such responsibilities and privileges over to are necessarily good and righteous or trustworthy. At all!
You are, in a sense equivocating. We need to trust them, in the sense that we need to hand over such and such power to them and hope for the best - this is true, but only one sense of the word trust. The other, which you seem to take as meaning the same thing, is that we should trust them never to do wrong. We should not.
In fact, every single member of government should be wiretapped 24/7. Ditto for every civil servant, while on the job. Don't like it? Don't run for president, or don't become a cop.
Why, now that we have the technology to prevent it, do we continue to allow politicians to lie? Why, when we have the technology to make it a 100% guarenteed lose-your-job-and-go-to-prison-certainty to engage in police brutality, do we allow it to continue?
Old power systems, tired and slow and not wanting change... Even going so far as to stop volunteers from performing a favour to the public, in filming and keeping government in line. Sad...
PS: If your argument was right, then we should just elect one guy to be president, holder of the launch codes and act as congress - and "just trust him". We have safeguards in government for a reason.
PPS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPEV6twzxmE
Exactly..
Look I cut open a cat and inserted a wifi router... CATS CAN CONNECT TO WIFI!!!!
Sorry, but... Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!