Microsoft is a firm that makes money by tracking and doesn't respect DNT on the backend.
You keep saying that, yet offer no arguments why MS doesn't respect it, while Google for example does. You cannot connect a dot you haven't even established yet, duh.
The only way to make corporations respect it on the back end is laws that get enforced.
Google has other lines of business
Technically true, but actually, in this conversation, that's just fucking sophistry.
In what way are Google Cloud SQL, Google Compute Engine, Google Apps, Google App Engine, Google Cloud Storage, Google Drive, and Google Fiber (just to pick a few of Google's paid, non-advertising, offerings) not actual products?
See above. Of course, feel free to go full retard and simply call advertising a product! That's technically correct as well, and would fit in perfectly.
Exactly. All these guides are essentially about "how to pick up a stranger, get impregnated, and then perform an abortion with a coat hanger", followed by ramblings about the oppression that makes that illegal. It's bad enough that this crap is desirable to some. You're just making it more desirable, while giving more incentive to general lockdown of the internet, and/or introduction of real ID into it.
I'm all for civil disobedience and breaking the law. But this? FUCK THIS BULLSHIT. I'm not watching the Olympics, I'm not wired that badly, and I'm grateful for having friends who mostly don't give a fuck either -- yet every webtard and their dog has a blog post about this crap. I'm just thinking "It's bad enough you watch this shit. Don't tell me about it, I otherwise enjoyed your technical articles and personal opinions, and now you decorated those with a big fat turd."
Don't knock it till you tried it. I mean, people have no qualms talking about Ubuntu with a straight face here... wtf is up with that?! OpenSUSE is as awesome as they can be in a crappy world.
There are two ways of getting there. One is to work with hardware vendors to have them endorse a SUSE key which we then sign the boot loader with. The other way is to go through Microsoft's Windows Logo Certification program to have the boot loader certified and have Microsoft recognize our signing key (i.e. have it signed with their KEK). We are currently evaluating both approaches, and may eventually even pursue both in parallel.
Seeing how Microsoft is currently pissing off Hardware vendors (and surface isn't even out, so I guess the worst is still to come), I sure hope the first of those two options will come to pass. I'm not sure if I dare be optimistic, this whole thing crazy to begin with. I mean, who the fuck is Microsoft's Windows Logo Certification anyway, and why are they putting their penis in my soup? Waiter?!?!
And you FUCKING blame the person who made the sensible suggestion?
"But Johann, why would someone be so lame?"
"My child, because *they* know about the possibility to opt out, and find that standing up to something, even though they're not among the victims themselves, is just being silly."
"Is that why they conveniently project their own wickedness on Microsoft, not to mention because it's so super easy, Microsoft generally being evil and all that?"
"Hmmm, you might be on to something here. But then again you're learning from the best! Let's forgive them, for they clearly don't have the faintest fucking idea what they're doing."
Construction of roads is a necessary service. "Dr. Who" is not.
Well, strictly speaking, nothing is "necessary", you always have to qualify with "necessary for X". E.g. Roads are necessary for driving cars, which in turn is necessary for disease, pollution and slavery, while Dr. Who is necessary to learn about sonic screwdrivers.
Licens fee, taxes -- same difference? Though thanks for the correction, that was sloppy of me.
you get iplayer access in UK irrespective of if you pay or not, and don't outsside the UK irrespective of if you pay or not.
When you happen upon the browser of a slashdot subscriber, you can see stories before they go live, even though you're not the one who subscribed!!!!111. Clearly the approach isn't perfect, so even though it has decent motives at heart, pirate away.
See what I did there?
And yes, I'm a hypocrite, I downloaded a few Dr. Who seasons a few years ago, I just couldn't stop watching.. but I didn't feel entitled to it, I was fully aware I was "stealing". I still see a difference between what I do because I'm weak or an asshole, and openly advocating it. Interwebs, grow the fuck up.
The BBC is made from British taxpayer money, for British citizens. Where is the problem with that? I don't get it. Especially since they have plenty of stuff available for international audiences.
Would Slashdot also run a story about a hack that gets one subscriber status on Slashdot without paying? If some other big site did, how many Slashdotters would utterly pee themselves?
Of course, since unlike Google they don't respect DNT on the backend, their competitive position in advertising with respect to Google's would change if one of the major browsers went DNT by default so that Google wouldn't track its users, while MS would continue to.
Oh lol. God you're full of shit, aren't you. So MS = bad, Google = good? And the rest follows from there, since you just make it up? Good we discusses this. Anyone else want to have a go?
MS also makes money by advertisement, though they've been less successful at it than Google.
You might also say Google is making *some* money by something other than ads, but less successfully so than Microsoft or Apple or others who create actual products. But you'd have to stop drooling for a sec..
This will effectively KILL the do-not-track project.
This is such bullshit. But you kinda have to argue so I can refute you.
If anything, DNT is killed by it being dependant on what websites say they would or would not honor.
It would also be effectively killed if it was OFF by default, since most people will have it off, so even if websites don't track a bunch of nerds, that doesn't mean shit in the big picture.
Let's recap: The rapist is proposing he won't rape, if 98% of people will "consent" to sex. And then someone says "let's not consent by default", so the rapist says "then I won't cooperate". And you FUCKING blame the person who made the sensible suggestion?
Positive moderation doesn't mean it's not stupid. It just means the moderators are stupid, too, the end.
The bottom half of that post got gobbled up, sorry:
"That's some nice traffic you got there.. would be a shame if it dried up..." <-- what makes you think websites get to dictate shit? I'm not content with that approach. If they won't do the right thing, let's make them. This is Sparta, after all.
It ain't Paranoia if you think MS is out to screw everyone else.
What, exactly, does Microsoft have to gain from random websites tracking their users?
MS makes money by selling stuff, and then locking people in. Google for example makes money by advertisement, which made more valuable by tracking people. So maybe Microsoft decided since they don't have to loose anything on this, they might as well claim the moral high ground: "our browser respects your privacy etc."
DNT only works if websites honor it. Some have already said that if browsers turned it on by default, they would not honor it.
If it's disabled by default, who honors it is pretty much irrelevant, since 99% of all people will have it disabled, never having heard of it. So yeah, of course they'd "honor" something that doesn't mean anything.
But hey, without any teeth, it doesn't mean anything either way - the honour system is pointless with scumbags. Turning it off by default would allow them to get statistics about people who don't like being tracked. Turning it on by default allows them to get statistics about everybody, and people who LIKE being tracked. I know which situation I like more.
But the rest, those who aren't outright criminal, will at least suffer a dent in coolness factor. As in, those who do not track, even though DHT is on by default, are cooler than those who do. Yes, it's hard to tell, but at least with large corporations one can hope that if they publically claim to honor DNT, but actually don't, someone will blow the whistle. That's not much, but better than nothing.
Right now, we're in mostly abusive relationships with many websites, and the only reason they get away with that is the claim that everybody does that, it's just normal. It just takes a bunch of "good guys" to prove that's false. Not a day passes without 1000s of people expressing their wish for a Facebook, Google, Apple or Microsoft (etc.) with morals. The technology is actually much easier to rebuilt from scratch than building and maintaining character: every learned monkey can make Twitter, but character takes more time, and more will. *cue butthurt web monkeys*
"That's some nice traffic you got there.. would be a shame if it dried up..." It ain't Paranoia if you think MS is out to screw everyone else.
What, exactly, does Microsoft have to gain from random websites tracking their users?
If all of the world would instantly have attacked Hitler before he could even have re-armed, instead of time and time again looking the other, that wouldn't even have been necessary. But, I wasn't talking about "the policy of appeasement towards the Nazis" anyway, I meant appeasement of powermongers and sadists, period. It just happens to also hold true for the Nazis, too. Segregation, Suffragettes, you name it -- you don't get shit by just asking real nice, much less by sitting still and merely hoping.
I love the idea in theory, but it goes against the omnipresent need to control content with an iron fist. Incompatible would be an understatement.
The thing with tyranny is, if you don't stand up to it, it just gets worse. Take a single sadist, and extrapolate from there... Appeasement. Does. Not. Work.
Also, people with power are lame and stupid. Seriously. Those who didn't get attracted to it by being dumb to begin with, get turned dumb. And like that spider you killed with a shoe, they are more scared of you than you should ever be of them. You say "world wide" as if that's a sign of strenth -- you're talking about an attack surface. Of something built on sand, no less.
Not everything that gets you punished is worth doing, and not everything worth doing gets you punished. But that something worth doing gets you punished is just reason for doing it proudly, as often and as hard as you can. If you aren't going for the crown jewels, what are you going for? Live a little.
Maybe the hope is that the bailouts will result in taxes generated by private profit. And hey, even if not, at least "banks laughing all the way to the bank" is inaudible:P
This is precisely why we (the Allies) hung the leaders afterwards -- it's them who make it possible to dilute or magic-away culpability in times of war.
I think there's a lesson to be drawn here: leaders, whether they're business or political leaders, must be ruthlessly and relentlessly held to account. If our democracy has failed, it's that certain people HAVEN'T been jailed (or worse) for their crimes.
It's not a vague undefined fear, it's the reality of Republican presidents that I've experienced in my lifetime. They put business first and people second, deregulate every industry, and let a following Democrat president clean up the mess.
AKA good cop, bad cop. With the added beauty that for the republicans the democrats are the bad cop, and vice versa.
So you shit over my viewpoint and offer no alternatives.
Yeah, and? What is better, not pointing out a bug, or pointing out a bug, even though you don't know how to fix it? Especially since it's something that needs to be fixed in consensus?
Thanks for contributing nothing to the discussion.
Thanks for deflecting it with such a cheap fucking "argument". I offered nothing, because it wasn't what you arbitrarily claim it should have been?
I contributed pointing out what bullshit your post was. What you think of that I couldn't care less about. Since your viewpoint included denouncing any and all independents as "crime-loving crackpots", I didn't expect you to agree. But I'm gonna have the last word, you insolent fuck.
Oh, and did it ever occur to you that certain wars and actions are crimes, too? That seeking alternatives to the two big parties who seem to be more in cahoots than distinct, is actually being SICK of crime? No really, fuck you. I'm not talking to you, I'm talking about you. Call it "a taste of your own medicine".
"I'd love to hear what your great ideas are, but you haven't shared a single one yet"
What? Who the fuck are you even talking to? Where did I mention any great ideas? You STATED something, I said "nah".
Don't vote? Leave the country? Can't wait to hear what you've got to say. I'm guessing it will be something unreasonable or unworkable, but do prove me wrong.
You're such a bad liar:'( Maybe take that to the clowns who enjoy such little jabs. I said my piece, not that your crap even warrented a response in the first place. But hey, at least you acknowledged that my post was shitting all over your viewpoint, that's a start:P
"In other words, the author does not seem to have a clue how to make a persuasive argument, and instead wants to flog a personal agenda's dead horse."
In other words, you're not reypling to anything at all but your own strawman.
"Providers who offer their services for free actually get something in return."
No. It says what it says. You're not able to respond to it, so you say something that could be said about just about anything, to proudly state that this is nothing new.
"In other words" my ass. Look up sophistry and how old that is. Fuck off, toy.
Are you suggesting that it is possible for the entire population except you to care about the things you care about?
No, and maybe that was a bad/extreme example. Say, you live under a dictatorship and don't enjoy torture. If the police thinks otherwise, and your fellow citizens don't mind or don't dare to help you, you have no choice. That's also extreme, but much more realistic.
I know I'm dangerously close to say "we can only choose what society offers us as choice", and in a way I mean that, but of course, we all are part of that society, and we can come up with new things as individuals, thereby helping form that society. But a LOT of the ideas we examine, and keep or throw away, have been prepared by others. We are, biologically, not any different than humans 5000-10000 years ago. That means a human from back then could be born today and you might not even notice. Let them have attentive parents and a good school and they might cure cancer. Let a modern baby grow up with cavemen, and it will hunt whatever cavemen hunted. (I don't mean to say any of this as if you don't know that, I'm just rambling ^^) Yes, we can achieve a lot in a lifetime, we can cover a lot of distance, but we always start out where society is currently at.
You see, my problem isn't so much that I'm bored "because people are boring". Only boring people get bored! But I imagine to see continuing trends I don't like, I don't accept them as given, until I know exactly why and how they come to be; that these trends exist does not automatically justify their continued existence. We all sit in little pockets and cliques and classes, feeding the same machinery *we* are building, while pretending it is some kind of anonymous force, and judge ourselves by how well we are adapted to that. I find that nuts, when I stop to think about it, and what you call concerning oneself with the fate of the world, I might also call concerning oneself with the actions of yourself and your contemporaries. Sure, it's a middle class luxury thing to ponder these things, but for me thinking/talking about this stuff is no chore; silently enduring it would be.
And then there is power and its abuses lurking constantly. Maybe we don't get more shallow and driven because "that's just how it goes", maybe it's like hysterical laughter at the dinner table can be connected to the abuse taking place in that family. Man, I suck with analogies, but yeah. Where there is smoke, there is fire?
It is far better to encourage these things in each person you meet.
I don't disagree at all. But still, how much have you learned from books? I learned a big deal. I knew wise people, but the wisest ideas, or the most eloquent ways to put what I "had on the tip of my tongue", came from people I never met, or who were already dead for a long time. You can encourage people you meet AND ramble about it on the interwebs. I don't chat, I always liked forums, and thinking aloud in written form. It ain't literature, but it's what I can do. I've been influenced by others who do that, so I don't think it's presumptuous to say each of us is also having a small effect on some of the people who read it. I try to speak the same way, but of course that's so heavily limited in polite company with strangers, compared to talking to strangers on the net:O
But yes, I'm not responsible for what others do, and of course loosing the plot and fighting windmills is silly. As easily as I forget that, as easily I remember it, it's basic hygiene of the soul I guess. Though when I regained my calm and humour, I still care. I accept that the world is as it is, but I'd still like more justice; and for that I need people to actually think, and I need doublethink and sophistry to be "uncool" - I need to have words for these things, so I can criticize them. By criticizing them, I hope to help preserving those concepts for future generations.
Damn, that sounds quite pompous, even to me. Think o
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I know that. Do you know what random typos are?
I'm getting tired of passive-aggressive gestures of submission by AC's.. I mean, I get it, but still.
You keep saying that, yet offer no arguments why MS doesn't respect it, while Google for example does. You cannot connect a dot you haven't even established yet, duh.
The only way to make corporations respect it on the back end is laws that get enforced.
Technically true, but actually, in this conversation, that's just fucking sophistry.
http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/29/google-advertising/
See above. Of course, feel free to go full retard and simply call advertising a product! That's technically correct as well, and would fit in perfectly.
Exactly. All these guides are essentially about "how to pick up a stranger, get impregnated, and then perform an abortion with a coat hanger", followed by ramblings about the oppression that makes that illegal. It's bad enough that this crap is desirable to some. You're just making it more desirable, while giving more incentive to general lockdown of the internet, and/or introduction of real ID into it.
I'm all for civil disobedience and breaking the law. But this? FUCK THIS BULLSHIT. I'm not watching the Olympics, I'm not wired that badly, and I'm grateful for having friends who mostly don't give a fuck either -- yet every webtard and their dog has a blog post about this crap. I'm just thinking "It's bad enough you watch this shit. Don't tell me about it, I otherwise enjoyed your technical articles and personal opinions, and now you decorated those with a big fat turd."
Gah.
Don't knock it till you tried it. I mean, people have no qualms talking about Ubuntu with a straight face here... wtf is up with that?! OpenSUSE is as awesome as they can be in a crappy world.
Seeing how Microsoft is currently pissing off Hardware vendors (and surface isn't even out, so I guess the worst is still to come), I sure hope the first of those two options will come to pass. I'm not sure if I dare be optimistic, this whole thing crazy to begin with. I mean, who the fuck is Microsoft's Windows Logo Certification anyway, and why are they putting their penis in my soup? Waiter?!?!
"But Johann, why would someone be so lame?"
"My child, because *they* know about the possibility to opt out, and find that standing up to something, even though they're not among the victims themselves, is just being silly."
"Is that why they conveniently project their own wickedness on Microsoft, not to mention because it's so super easy, Microsoft generally being evil and all that?"
"Hmmm, you might be on to something here. But then again you're learning from the best! Let's forgive them, for they clearly don't have the faintest fucking idea what they're doing."
Well, strictly speaking, nothing is "necessary", you always have to qualify with "necessary for X". E.g. Roads are necessary for driving cars, which in turn is necessary for disease, pollution and slavery, while Dr. Who is necessary to learn about sonic screwdrivers.
Licens fee, taxes -- same difference? Though thanks for the correction, that was sloppy of me.
When you happen upon the browser of a slashdot subscriber, you can see stories before they go live, even though you're not the one who subscribed!!!!111. Clearly the approach isn't perfect, so even though it has decent motives at heart, pirate away.
See what I did there?
And yes, I'm a hypocrite, I downloaded a few Dr. Who seasons a few years ago, I just couldn't stop watching.. but I didn't feel entitled to it, I was fully aware I was "stealing". I still see a difference between what I do because I'm weak or an asshole, and openly advocating it. Interwebs, grow the fuck up.
The BBC is made from British taxpayer money, for British citizens. Where is the problem with that? I don't get it. Especially since they have plenty of stuff available for international audiences.
Would Slashdot also run a story about a hack that gets one subscriber status on Slashdot without paying? If some other big site did, how many Slashdotters would utterly pee themselves?
Oh lol. God you're full of shit, aren't you. So MS = bad, Google = good? And the rest follows from there, since you just make it up? Good we discusses this. Anyone else want to have a go?
You might also say Google is making *some* money by something other than ads, but less successfully so than Microsoft or Apple or others who create actual products. But you'd have to stop drooling for a sec..
This is such bullshit. But you kinda have to argue so I can refute you.
If anything, DNT is killed by it being dependant on what websites say they would or would not honor.
It would also be effectively killed if it was OFF by default, since most people will have it off, so even if websites don't track a bunch of nerds, that doesn't mean shit in the big picture.
Let's recap: The rapist is proposing he won't rape, if 98% of people will "consent" to sex. And then someone says "let's not consent by default", so the rapist says "then I won't cooperate". And you FUCKING blame the person who made the sensible suggestion?
Positive moderation doesn't mean it's not stupid. It just means the moderators are stupid, too, the end.
The bottom half of that post got gobbled up, sorry:
"That's some nice traffic you got there.. would be a shame if it dried up..." <-- what makes you think websites get to dictate shit? I'm not content with that approach. If they won't do the right thing, let's make them. This is Sparta, after all.
What, exactly, does Microsoft have to gain from random websites tracking their users?
MS makes money by selling stuff, and then locking people in. Google for example makes money by advertisement, which made more valuable by tracking people. So maybe Microsoft decided since they don't have to loose anything on this, they might as well claim the moral high ground: "our browser respects your privacy etc."
If it's disabled by default, who honors it is pretty much irrelevant, since 99% of all people will have it disabled, never having heard of it. So yeah, of course they'd "honor" something that doesn't mean anything.
But hey, without any teeth, it doesn't mean anything either way - the honour system is pointless with scumbags. Turning it off by default would allow them to get statistics about people who don't like being tracked. Turning it on by default allows them to get statistics about everybody, and people who LIKE being tracked. I know which situation I like more.
But the rest, those who aren't outright criminal, will at least suffer a dent in coolness factor. As in, those who do not track, even though DHT is on by default, are cooler than those who do. Yes, it's hard to tell, but at least with large corporations one can hope that if they publically claim to honor DNT, but actually don't, someone will blow the whistle. That's not much, but better than nothing.
Right now, we're in mostly abusive relationships with many websites, and the only reason they get away with that is the claim that everybody does that, it's just normal. It just takes a bunch of "good guys" to prove that's false. Not a day passes without 1000s of people expressing their wish for a Facebook, Google, Apple or Microsoft (etc.) with morals. The technology is actually much easier to rebuilt from scratch than building and maintaining character: every learned monkey can make Twitter, but character takes more time, and more will. *cue butthurt web monkeys*
"That's some nice traffic you got there.. would be a shame if it dried up..." It ain't Paranoia if you think MS is out to screw everyone else.
What, exactly, does Microsoft have to gain from random websites tracking their users?
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day :)
No, but instead of addressing the actual comment, that is the fantasy you're more comfortable with.
Also, what is "individual thought"? Thinking for myself? Oh the irony.
And aren't you quite the shining example of that...
If all of the world would instantly have attacked Hitler before he could even have re-armed, instead of time and time again looking the other, that wouldn't even have been necessary. But, I wasn't talking about "the policy of appeasement towards the Nazis" anyway, I meant appeasement of powermongers and sadists, period. It just happens to also hold true for the Nazis, too. Segregation, Suffragettes, you name it -- you don't get shit by just asking real nice, much less by sitting still and merely hoping.
The thing with tyranny is, if you don't stand up to it, it just gets worse. Take a single sadist, and extrapolate from there... Appeasement. Does. Not. Work.
Also, people with power are lame and stupid. Seriously. Those who didn't get attracted to it by being dumb to begin with, get turned dumb. And like that spider you killed with a shoe, they are more scared of you than you should ever be of them. You say "world wide" as if that's a sign of strenth -- you're talking about an attack surface. Of something built on sand, no less.
Not everything that gets you punished is worth doing, and not everything worth doing gets you punished. But that something worth doing gets you punished is just reason for doing it proudly, as often and as hard as you can. If you aren't going for the crown jewels, what are you going for? Live a little.
Ooops sorry, thanks for pointing it out (I pasted the URL as the title, and, the title as the URL :/ )
http://www.chomsky.info/talks/1990----.htm
Maybe the hope is that the bailouts will result in taxes generated by private profit. And hey, even if not, at least "banks laughing all the way to the bank" is inaudible :P
http://www.chomsky.info/talks/1990----.htm
AKA good cop, bad cop. With the added beauty that for the republicans the democrats are the bad cop, and vice versa.
Yeah, and? What is better, not pointing out a bug, or pointing out a bug, even though you don't know how to fix it? Especially since it's something that needs to be fixed in consensus?
Thanks for deflecting it with such a cheap fucking "argument". I offered nothing, because it wasn't what you arbitrarily claim it should have been?
I contributed pointing out what bullshit your post was. What you think of that I couldn't care less about. Since your viewpoint included denouncing any and all independents as "crime-loving crackpots", I didn't expect you to agree. But I'm gonna have the last word, you insolent fuck.
Oh, and did it ever occur to you that certain wars and actions are crimes, too? That seeking alternatives to the two big parties who seem to be more in cahoots than distinct, is actually being SICK of crime? No really, fuck you. I'm not talking to you, I'm talking about you. Call it "a taste of your own medicine".
What? Who the fuck are you even talking to? Where did I mention any great ideas? You STATED something, I said "nah".
You're such a bad liar :'( Maybe take that to the clowns who enjoy such little jabs. I said my piece, not that your crap even warrented a response in the first place. But hey, at least you acknowledged that my post was shitting all over your viewpoint, that's a start :P
"In other words, the author does not seem to have a clue how to make a persuasive argument, and instead wants to flog a personal agenda's dead horse."
In other words, you're not reypling to anything at all but your own strawman.
"Providers who offer their services for free actually get something in return."
No. It says what it says. You're not able to respond to it, so you say something that could be said about just about anything, to proudly state that this is nothing new.
"In other words" my ass. Look up sophistry and how old that is. Fuck off, toy.
Public funding until it's profitable, then private profit. That is generally the pattern, no?
No, and maybe that was a bad/extreme example. Say, you live under a dictatorship and don't enjoy torture. If the police thinks otherwise, and your fellow citizens don't mind or don't dare to help you, you have no choice. That's also extreme, but much more realistic.
I know I'm dangerously close to say "we can only choose what society offers us as choice", and in a way I mean that, but of course, we all are part of that society, and we can come up with new things as individuals, thereby helping form that society. But a LOT of the ideas we examine, and keep or throw away, have been prepared by others. We are, biologically, not any different than humans 5000-10000 years ago. That means a human from back then could be born today and you might not even notice. Let them have attentive parents and a good school and they might cure cancer. Let a modern baby grow up with cavemen, and it will hunt whatever cavemen hunted. (I don't mean to say any of this as if you don't know that, I'm just rambling ^^) Yes, we can achieve a lot in a lifetime, we can cover a lot of distance, but we always start out where society is currently at.
You see, my problem isn't so much that I'm bored "because people are boring". Only boring people get bored! But I imagine to see continuing trends I don't like, I don't accept them as given, until I know exactly why and how they come to be; that these trends exist does not automatically justify their continued existence. We all sit in little pockets and cliques and classes, feeding the same machinery *we* are building, while pretending it is some kind of anonymous force, and judge ourselves by how well we are adapted to that. I find that nuts, when I stop to think about it, and what you call concerning oneself with the fate of the world, I might also call concerning oneself with the actions of yourself and your contemporaries. Sure, it's a middle class luxury thing to ponder these things, but for me thinking/talking about this stuff is no chore; silently enduring it would be.
And then there is power and its abuses lurking constantly. Maybe we don't get more shallow and driven because "that's just how it goes", maybe it's like hysterical laughter at the dinner table can be connected to the abuse taking place in that family. Man, I suck with analogies, but yeah. Where there is smoke, there is fire?
I don't disagree at all. But still, how much have you learned from books? I learned a big deal. I knew wise people, but the wisest ideas, or the most eloquent ways to put what I "had on the tip of my tongue", came from people I never met, or who were already dead for a long time. You can encourage people you meet AND ramble about it on the interwebs. I don't chat, I always liked forums, and thinking aloud in written form. It ain't literature, but it's what I can do. I've been influenced by others who do that, so I don't think it's presumptuous to say each of us is also having a small effect on some of the people who read it. I try to speak the same way, but of course that's so heavily limited in polite company with strangers, compared to talking to strangers on the net :O
But yes, I'm not responsible for what others do, and of course loosing the plot and fighting windmills is silly. As easily as I forget that, as easily I remember it, it's basic hygiene of the soul I guess. Though when I regained my calm and humour, I still care. I accept that the world is as it is, but I'd still like more justice; and for that I need people to actually think, and I need doublethink and sophistry to be "uncool" - I need to have words for these things, so I can criticize them. By criticizing them, I hope to help preserving those concepts for future generations.
Damn, that sounds quite pompous, even to me. Think o