If you take that position, then how do you differentiate between removal of spammy posts and what China does?
In the former case, the post is removed. In communist China, the poster is removed =). In both cases, it is still censorship. The means of censoring are wildly different.
Can I sue the national lottery for not having won with the ticket they sold me?
If they promised (in an ad) that the ticket would definitely win (with 100% probability), then yeah. I guess I never realized that buying an Apple product was like buying a lottery ticket - your choice of analogy says it all =)
You're right as far as matters of principle go. Of course, if someone really wants an objectively run message board, it is impractical to expect that from the manufacturer of the product. Morality in the business world is a wonderful thing to aspire to but it's naive to assume that it exists. You don't go to church to hear a critical analysis of religion. You shouldn't be visiting an Apple message board for a critical review of an Apple product. Having said that, I'm a recent B&N Nook purchaser and their message boards are absolutely rife with whiners and objective tons of objective criticism (no censorship beyond language since it's meant for all ages) - shows that it's quite possible.
The part about Slashdot moderation being censorship is ridiculous in the extreme. This crummy argument keeps coming back like a bad penny. The data is all still there. Anyone who wants to read everything is free to do so. It's a rating system. Using that rating for displaying or hiding posts is the prerogative of the user. Why is this so hard to understand? If Slashdot was deleting the posts, that would be censorship. By your logic, the simple act of rating a post (something that is available in numerous message boards with even rudimentary features) amounts to censorship. WTF? Note also that it's not the powers-that-be that do the rating. It's the farking users! Even disregarding all of this, the simple fact of the matter is that if you browse the thread without filtering, the ratings don't matter at all and you can see everything.
Does Google censor when it simply provides a way to do a safe-search? Obviously, there's some sort of metadata that classifies certain search results as 'safe' and others as 'not-safe'. Does the mere existence of such metadata count as censorship? *snort*
Slashdot moderation is like censorship in the same way that earplug manufacturers are responsible for limiting free speech.
In other words, you have free speech but I have an equal right to protect myself from all the crap speech out there any way I can (I don't expect anyone else to do so but leave the earplug manufacturers alone =p). Now, if Slashdot was deleting posts, that would be censorship. Anyone who wants to read any post ever written on slashdot is free to do so - THAT is freedom of speech. There are extraordinarily disgusting posts (obvious trolls who take advantage of this) that are still not deleted.
This!
Fun activity for the day:
1. Go to 'green' conference
2. Spot people carrying (purchased) bottled water
3. Berate these people soundly and in public for being polluters (which they are)
4. Profit???
some people don't consider drinking fountain water to be as pure and healthy as bottled water, which is why bottled water does have a higher value to them than normal water.
And there's your answer - perceived need as opposed to actual need. Works for other things too. You don't really need the new app that lets ET phone home, you (or Elliot more accurately) have a perceived need for it and so you buy it. All goods above food, shelter and clothing fall under this category and should be considered luxury goods.
Ask youself: How many of the singer / actor / movie / album / software on the shelf today are worth the price-tag?
The song sux.
The singing sux.
The music sux.
The acting sux.
The story sux.
Everything sux and yet they (the movie/music/software companies) expect us to pay and pay and pay through our nose for their wares.
So, the people who download pirated stuff like to eat shit just because it's free? Clearly these troglodytes have no taste if you are correct. A connoisseur complains about quality and refuses to waste his time/money on it (like you seem to be doing - that's fine, praiseworthy even). Clearly though, if we trust your opinion on the matter, we are led to conclude that (1) everything sucks and (2) most downloaders have execrable taste and will consume anything if it's free.
You're probably right about the scapegoating. However, the nimrods who resort to piracy DO exist and in great numbers. That is uncontested fact. Whether it really costs the creators as much has they claim is debatable. That just means that piracy is probably not the ONLY factor responsible for whatever negative outcome they are trying to explain.
Also doesn't change the fact that people who download copyrighted works illegally are self-entitled pricks.
Indeed. I did go a bit overboard making my last point, which was contained in just one sentence: "Outing the users who traffic in the illegal stuff is, I would argue, very much in the public good." I wasn't concerned so much about TPB users abusing the companies than I was about their actions hurting the common good (by helping create an environment where [for example] something like ACTA becomes more likely to pass as a direct result of their actions). In that sense (and only in that sense) did I feel that it was within the mission of WL. It would be a leak in the sense that it would finally expose exactly what fraction of users were dealing in illegal stuff or otherwise. Otherwise, all we have is rhetoric on either side of the argument (RIAA: OMG filesharing is teh fully illegal! FOSS: Nuh uh! It are mostly teh legal free software - well, the latter is probably exaggeration on my part but you know what I mean). Having said all that, I agree that I'm probably reaching =p
I wasn't assuming that you were pro-piracy and I apologize if it came off that way. I just tend to be too verbose in a perhaps over-earnest attempt at clarity (damn! there it is again =))
Don't be absurd. First you deny that it does so and in the next breath qualify why it does so - your post is a mass of contradictions. I'm perfectly aware of why Wikileaks does what it does. One might argue that exposing a bunch of thieves is also "pertinent to the public good" - you know, the part of the public that does not indulge in such actions. I imagine the F/OSS community would also want filesharing to be permanently decoupled in the public perception from petty thievery. TPB is hardly the bastion of glorious revolutionary idealists - it's more of a hangout for common shoplifters.
I would only add a qualifier to my original statement to the effect that mass-publishing such information (again, this is so hypothetical that I have no idea why I'm even arguing about it) would catch the good guys (legit file sharers) in addition to the bad guys and that's the only reason it would not be advisable as is. If you recall, I actually did make that distinction in the final item in my list. So, if someone actually filtered the list accordingly and gave it to Wikileaks, that should conceivably fall within its mission statement.
Essentially, there are many idealists out there (particularly in the F/OSS community). They are however routinely lumped together with the petty thieves and the resultant mess lavishly used by RIAA and others for propaganda use as well as to push toxic legislation such as ACTA (which I fully expect will soon be a reality). This is because, for whatever reason, sites like TPB index both the legal and illegal torrents. Outing the users who traffic in the illegal stuff is, I would argue, very much in the public good. I really wish that the legal torrents were kept completely separate (in terms of trackers, indexing sites, every way imaginable).
No idea what that meant so I googled 'kin'. First hit was this little stubby phone thing that looked like an aborted GPS unit. If this abomination was the reason the Courier lost out, I have officially lost all faith in MS =(
Their naming department needs a spanking by the way. "Kin"? Really? Besides the embarrassing ripoff from the Kindle, isn't that just a sophisticated word for "bro" ? =p
Screw MS for patent-trolling but your specific argument is incorrect.
One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture.
Interesting. I didn't know that. Since I share a wireless connection with no access to the router (for port forwarding setup), I'm unfortunately cut off from the entire torrenting world. Good thing I guess - keeps me honest through no fault of my own;)
By the way, I took back the "TPB is hypocritical" comment in a later post.
Crucifying pirates isn't their only function. Their other function is shutting down/sabotaging these networks. Can you imagine the junk/booby traps (mmmm boobies) they could scatter throughout these networks in a few hours USING these stolen credentials? The nuisance value itself is enormous. Don't think that big organizations, simply because they are big, limit themselves to legal means of achieving their ends.
There are many actors here contributing to/affected by the action you're calling hypocritical. Let's break it down so it's clear who would be hypocrites and who wouldn't.
(a) the hackers: they did something illegal - distributing this ill-gotten information would be immoral for them (though just a bit funny, but I digress). Whatever they do though, there's nothing hypocritical about it.
(b) TPB: it's their site. They can choose to host the torrent of that information or not. Since they routinely allow torrents of illegally obtained material to be indexed by their site, they can either (hypothetically) let this one stay or remove it. They have no stated morality however, so it wouldn't be hypocritical of them either way. Unwise perhaps, for it would piss off their users.
(c) Wikileaks: since they routinely host illegally obtained information (and even private information such as emails, memos, etc.) it would be hypocritical of them not to publish because it would go against their stated morality. The question is moot because they have not been given that opportunity.
(d) TPB users: the ones who traffic in material stolen from content creators - hypocritical (but understandable). The ones who don't (perhaps the ones who use it to find torrents of F/OSS stuff - not hypocritical.
See now, isn't it nice when we state things clearly? =)
I agree with you - in principle. However, if you think the vast majority of TPB users are using it for such noble purposes (pirating things they already own in some form or have paid for otherwise), you're being extraordinarily naive. For that matter, you conveniently left out software, all of which falls squarely in the "not public information" (unless it's free to begin with) and which accounts for a large fraction of traffic on TPB and other torrent sites.
Bottom line - freedom is limited to what you can enforce. So are laws. If laws can be broken easily on the internet because enforcement is spotty/problematic, this story should serve as a grim reminder that this fact may not always work FOR you. Also, there's precious little you can do if you get burned trying to do things that are illegal in the first place. Note that I'm not defending those laws, just stating the practical consequences of not following those laws.
you bet that community would ditch the site and TPB would die
I'm not responding to any other point (of the many) that you have posted so far but the one quoted above made me laugh. The "community" in question is merely a group of opportunistic* users who come to TPB for downloading free stuff. I would be less surprised to see satan stepping out of my shower drying his goatee than to see this so-called community take any such organized action against TPB. TPB could kill kittens everyday and post the pics on its home page and it still wouldn't be boycotted =p
Having said that, you're probably right that TPB would pull down the torrent to protect its own interests. It's hypocritical but also good business sense.
The whole thing is a rather amusing 'for teh lulz' - good for an afternoon chuckle. Kudos to the hacker group for picking the most ironic victim imaginable =) and also one that it knows won't get any official sympathy whatsoever.
_____________
*this is merely a matter of fact, not a qualitative judgment.
Indeed. That's why I emphasized that the boycotts would have to be vocal. Fortunately, the demographic that actually PAYS for most of the games is the one that's ripe for such activism (late twenties - thirties). Unfortunately, the demographic that most pirates the games (the ones younger than that) is the one that cannot be mobilized into anything remotely approaching effectiveness. And that's the sad part - for my suggestion to work, the crucial part is that a DRM-heavy game needs to be boycotted ESPECIALLY by the pirates, and that too AFTER breaking its DRM. That sort of slap in the face is the only thing that will knock some sense into the nutsacks in marketing/legal. Merely stopping sales revenue but having the game be popular (Due to illegal downloads) only provides fodder for the propaganda machine to influence the creation of legislative dribble like ACTA or the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned DMCA. But, as you rightly pointed out, this is a sad pipe dream on my part.
On the other hand, having PAYING communities of gamers (WoW is a good example but there are obvious problems there considering the intense addiction aspect =p) make a huge dent in sales with VOCAL objections to DRM could possibly influence company policy in the short-term. In the end though, it all comes down to legislation. If the gaming industry can build a big enough stick in the form of ACTA, it can phase out the carrots at its whim.
Can you give a few examples showing that mainstream feminism actively concerns itself with the former? I mean more than just the occasional book by women like Sommers who, brave though she is for publishing, was then shunned by mainstream feminism?
I can't. Because I misspoke in my first paragraph when I said "the feminist movement". That evidently gave the impression that I was talking about mainstream feminism (being all about equality), which (as my second paragraph clearly shows) is no longer on the right path (hence the "Who stole feminism" reference). My bad.
After I posted, I read up on Sommers some more and found exactly what you wrote (that she was then shunned for her views - many feminists going so far as to label her "anti-feminist". Damn shame. Guess modern feminism is truly bankrupt intellectually. Of course, I'm a guy so maybe that means I'm forbidden from expressing any negative opinion about feminism. Dunno what the rules are - I didn't get the memo;)
Another interesting book is "Feminists say the darndest things" (I think - Mike Adams?). Though this one I don't take too seriously as it seems to be more about small (relatively low on the totem pole) university politics than feminism per se. The less there is, the more rabidly people fight over it. It is extremely entertaining though and reads more like something you'd find on FARK.
Slashdot Mirror
If you take that position, then how do you differentiate between removal of spammy posts and what China does?
In the former case, the post is removed. In communist China, the poster is removed =). In both cases, it is still censorship. The means of censoring are wildly different.
Can I sue the national lottery for not having won with the ticket they sold me?
If they promised (in an ad) that the ticket would definitely win (with 100% probability), then yeah. I guess I never realized that buying an Apple product was like buying a lottery ticket - your choice of analogy says it all =)
You're right as far as matters of principle go. Of course, if someone really wants an objectively run message board, it is impractical to expect that from the manufacturer of the product. Morality in the business world is a wonderful thing to aspire to but it's naive to assume that it exists. You don't go to church to hear a critical analysis of religion. You shouldn't be visiting an Apple message board for a critical review of an Apple product. Having said that, I'm a recent B&N Nook purchaser and their message boards are absolutely rife with whiners and objective tons of objective criticism (no censorship beyond language since it's meant for all ages) - shows that it's quite possible.
The part about Slashdot moderation being censorship is ridiculous in the extreme. This crummy argument keeps coming back like a bad penny. The data is all still there. Anyone who wants to read everything is free to do so. It's a rating system. Using that rating for displaying or hiding posts is the prerogative of the user. Why is this so hard to understand? If Slashdot was deleting the posts, that would be censorship. By your logic, the simple act of rating a post (something that is available in numerous message boards with even rudimentary features) amounts to censorship. WTF? Note also that it's not the powers-that-be that do the rating. It's the farking users! Even disregarding all of this, the simple fact of the matter is that if you browse the thread without filtering, the ratings don't matter at all and you can see everything.
Does Google censor when it simply provides a way to do a safe-search? Obviously, there's some sort of metadata that classifies certain search results as 'safe' and others as 'not-safe'. Does the mere existence of such metadata count as censorship? *snort*
Not this shit again.
Slashdot moderation is like censorship in the same way that earplug manufacturers are responsible for limiting free speech.
In other words, you have free speech but I have an equal right to protect myself from all the crap speech out there any way I can (I don't expect anyone else to do so but leave the earplug manufacturers alone =p). Now, if Slashdot was deleting posts, that would be censorship. Anyone who wants to read any post ever written on slashdot is free to do so - THAT is freedom of speech. There are extraordinarily disgusting posts (obvious trolls who take advantage of this) that are still not deleted.
This!
Fun activity for the day:
1. Go to 'green' conference
2. Spot people carrying (purchased) bottled water
3. Berate these people soundly and in public for being polluters (which they are)
4. Profit???
some people don't consider drinking fountain water to be as pure and healthy as bottled water, which is why bottled water does have a higher value to them than normal water.
And there's your answer - perceived need as opposed to actual need. Works for other things too. You don't really need the new app that lets ET phone home, you (or Elliot more accurately) have a perceived need for it and so you buy it. All goods above food, shelter and clothing fall under this category and should be considered luxury goods.
Ask youself: How many of the singer / actor / movie / album / software on the shelf today are worth the price-tag?
The song sux.
The singing sux.
The music sux.
The acting sux.
The story sux.
Everything sux and yet they (the movie/music/software companies) expect us to pay and pay and pay through our nose for their wares.
So, the people who download pirated stuff like to eat shit just because it's free? Clearly these troglodytes have no taste if you are correct. A connoisseur complains about quality and refuses to waste his time/money on it (like you seem to be doing - that's fine, praiseworthy even). Clearly though, if we trust your opinion on the matter, we are led to conclude that (1) everything sucks and (2) most downloaders have execrable taste and will consume anything if it's free.
You're probably right about the scapegoating. However, the nimrods who resort to piracy DO exist and in great numbers. That is uncontested fact. Whether it really costs the creators as much has they claim is debatable. That just means that piracy is probably not the ONLY factor responsible for whatever negative outcome they are trying to explain.
Also doesn't change the fact that people who download copyrighted works illegally are self-entitled pricks.
... a premature exposure to Quadratic Equations ...
and the square of the hypotenuse no doubt =]
(epic sentence by the way - *golfclap*)
Indeed. I did go a bit overboard making my last point, which was contained in just one sentence: "Outing the users who traffic in the illegal stuff is, I would argue, very much in the public good." I wasn't concerned so much about TPB users abusing the companies than I was about their actions hurting the common good (by helping create an environment where [for example] something like ACTA becomes more likely to pass as a direct result of their actions). In that sense (and only in that sense) did I feel that it was within the mission of WL. It would be a leak in the sense that it would finally expose exactly what fraction of users were dealing in illegal stuff or otherwise. Otherwise, all we have is rhetoric on either side of the argument (RIAA: OMG filesharing is teh fully illegal! FOSS: Nuh uh! It are mostly teh legal free software - well, the latter is probably exaggeration on my part but you know what I mean). Having said all that, I agree that I'm probably reaching =p
I wasn't assuming that you were pro-piracy and I apologize if it came off that way. I just tend to be too verbose in a perhaps over-earnest attempt at clarity (damn! there it is again =))
Don't be absurd. First you deny that it does so and in the next breath qualify why it does so - your post is a mass of contradictions. I'm perfectly aware of why Wikileaks does what it does. One might argue that exposing a bunch of thieves is also "pertinent to the public good" - you know, the part of the public that does not indulge in such actions. I imagine the F/OSS community would also want filesharing to be permanently decoupled in the public perception from petty thievery. TPB is hardly the bastion of glorious revolutionary idealists - it's more of a hangout for common shoplifters.
I would only add a qualifier to my original statement to the effect that mass-publishing such information (again, this is so hypothetical that I have no idea why I'm even arguing about it) would catch the good guys (legit file sharers) in addition to the bad guys and that's the only reason it would not be advisable as is. If you recall, I actually did make that distinction in the final item in my list. So, if someone actually filtered the list accordingly and gave it to Wikileaks, that should conceivably fall within its mission statement.
Essentially, there are many idealists out there (particularly in the F/OSS community). They are however routinely lumped together with the petty thieves and the resultant mess lavishly used by RIAA and others for propaganda use as well as to push toxic legislation such as ACTA (which I fully expect will soon be a reality). This is because, for whatever reason, sites like TPB index both the legal and illegal torrents. Outing the users who traffic in the illegal stuff is, I would argue, very much in the public good. I really wish that the legal torrents were kept completely separate (in terms of trackers, indexing sites, every way imaginable).
they would have to crack the MD5 hashes first
FTA -
...exposing user names, Internet addresses, and (MD5) hashed password data on more than 4 million users...
No idea what that meant so I googled 'kin'. First hit was this little stubby phone thing that looked like an aborted GPS unit. If this abomination was the reason the Courier lost out, I have officially lost all faith in MS =(
Their naming department needs a spanking by the way. "Kin"? Really? Besides the embarrassing ripoff from the Kindle, isn't that just a sophisticated word for "bro" ? =p
Sounds like you have a legit claim. Lemme know how the lawsuit works out =)
I would welcome this patent if they actually made something with it first. The Courier vaporware thing made me cry =( I wanted it so bad!
One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture.
Interesting. I didn't know that. Since I share a wireless connection with no access to the router (for port forwarding setup), I'm unfortunately cut off from the entire torrenting world. Good thing I guess - keeps me honest through no fault of my own ;)
By the way, I took back the "TPB is hypocritical" comment in a later post.
Crucifying pirates isn't their only function. Their other function is shutting down/sabotaging these networks. Can you imagine the junk/booby traps (mmmm boobies) they could scatter throughout these networks in a few hours USING these stolen credentials? The nuisance value itself is enormous. Don't think that big organizations, simply because they are big, limit themselves to legal means of achieving their ends.
If someone walked up to you on the street in a fancy business suit but started speaking Pig Latin, would you take them seriously?
If he said "ouryay ousehay isway onay irefay", I would at least hear him out before kicking him in the backside and strolling away humming a fugue =)
...
But that's just me
That's farking HI-larious =)
There are many actors here contributing to/affected by the action you're calling hypocritical. Let's break it down so it's clear who would be hypocrites and who wouldn't.
(a) the hackers: they did something illegal - distributing this ill-gotten information would be immoral for them (though just a bit funny, but I digress). Whatever they do though, there's nothing hypocritical about it.
(b) TPB: it's their site. They can choose to host the torrent of that information or not. Since they routinely allow torrents of illegally obtained material to be indexed by their site, they can either (hypothetically) let this one stay or remove it. They have no stated morality however, so it wouldn't be hypocritical of them either way. Unwise perhaps, for it would piss off their users.
(c) Wikileaks: since they routinely host illegally obtained information (and even private information such as emails, memos, etc.) it would be hypocritical of them not to publish because it would go against their stated morality. The question is moot because they have not been given that opportunity.
(d) TPB users: the ones who traffic in material stolen from content creators - hypocritical (but understandable). The ones who don't (perhaps the ones who use it to find torrents of F/OSS stuff - not hypocritical.
See now, isn't it nice when we state things clearly? =)
hypothetical dick-moveness
Aw come on. Where's our traditional admiration for sheer chutzpah? =)
I agree with you - in principle. However, if you think the vast majority of TPB users are using it for such noble purposes (pirating things they already own in some form or have paid for otherwise), you're being extraordinarily naive. For that matter, you conveniently left out software, all of which falls squarely in the "not public information" (unless it's free to begin with) and which accounts for a large fraction of traffic on TPB and other torrent sites.
Bottom line - freedom is limited to what you can enforce. So are laws. If laws can be broken easily on the internet because enforcement is spotty/problematic, this story should serve as a grim reminder that this fact may not always work FOR you. Also, there's precious little you can do if you get burned trying to do things that are illegal in the first place. Note that I'm not defending those laws, just stating the practical consequences of not following those laws.
you bet that community would ditch the site and TPB would die
I'm not responding to any other point (of the many) that you have posted so far but the one quoted above made me laugh. The "community" in question is merely a group of opportunistic* users who come to TPB for downloading free stuff. I would be less surprised to see satan stepping out of my shower drying his goatee than to see this so-called community take any such organized action against TPB. TPB could kill kittens everyday and post the pics on its home page and it still wouldn't be boycotted =p
Having said that, you're probably right that TPB would pull down the torrent to protect its own interests. It's hypocritical but also good business sense.
The whole thing is a rather amusing 'for teh lulz' - good for an afternoon chuckle. Kudos to the hacker group for picking the most ironic victim imaginable =) and also one that it knows won't get any official sympathy whatsoever.
_____________
*this is merely a matter of fact, not a qualitative judgment.
Good luck with that.
Indeed. That's why I emphasized that the boycotts would have to be vocal. Fortunately, the demographic that actually PAYS for most of the games is the one that's ripe for such activism (late twenties - thirties). Unfortunately, the demographic that most pirates the games (the ones younger than that) is the one that cannot be mobilized into anything remotely approaching effectiveness. And that's the sad part - for my suggestion to work, the crucial part is that a DRM-heavy game needs to be boycotted ESPECIALLY by the pirates, and that too AFTER breaking its DRM. That sort of slap in the face is the only thing that will knock some sense into the nutsacks in marketing/legal. Merely stopping sales revenue but having the game be popular (Due to illegal downloads) only provides fodder for the propaganda machine to influence the creation of legislative dribble like ACTA or the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned DMCA. But, as you rightly pointed out, this is a sad pipe dream on my part.
On the other hand, having PAYING communities of gamers (WoW is a good example but there are obvious problems there considering the intense addiction aspect =p) make a huge dent in sales with VOCAL objections to DRM could possibly influence company policy in the short-term. In the end though, it all comes down to legislation. If the gaming industry can build a big enough stick in the form of ACTA, it can phase out the carrots at its whim.
Can you give a few examples showing that mainstream feminism actively concerns itself with the former? I mean more than just the occasional book by women like Sommers who, brave though she is for publishing, was then shunned by mainstream feminism?
I can't. Because I misspoke in my first paragraph when I said "the feminist movement". That evidently gave the impression that I was talking about mainstream feminism (being all about equality), which (as my second paragraph clearly shows) is no longer on the right path (hence the "Who stole feminism" reference). My bad.
After I posted, I read up on Sommers some more and found exactly what you wrote (that she was then shunned for her views - many feminists going so far as to label her "anti-feminist". Damn shame. Guess modern feminism is truly bankrupt intellectually. Of course, I'm a guy so maybe that means I'm forbidden from expressing any negative opinion about feminism. Dunno what the rules are - I didn't get the memo ;)
Another interesting book is "Feminists say the darndest things" (I think - Mike Adams?). Though this one I don't take too seriously as it seems to be more about small (relatively low on the totem pole) university politics than feminism per se. The less there is, the more rabidly people fight over it. It is extremely entertaining though and reads more like something you'd find on FARK.