... unless, of course, the majority would vote that everyone must vote on everything.
That's a chance we'd have to take.
Then we'd possibly end up going to war against the minority that doesn't want to vote on everything, but that would still be better than going to war against poor brown people on the pretense of weapons of WMD:s or Freedom for oil or for geopolitical reasons or whatshamacallit.
>Except maybe the case of two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner...
Oh, right. Thank God we don't have democracy, so us stupid peons don't fuck shit up!
Thank God for the people with all the power, the money and all the guns and all the media and all the justice systems and prisons being so wise and benevolent, ruling us against our better judgement so that we don't get to decide. I stand corrected. Democracy bad. Opposite of democracy good.
A constitutional republic is one way of limiting the democratic power of The People to protect individual persons.
Great. So, who gets to decide if we're gonna have a constitutional republic or not? The people? Should we all get to have a say about what the constitution should contain?
Do you think the people in power will be wolves or sheep?
Sure, two wolves and a sheep is not a good place for the sheep, do you have a better suggestion? A rule of everyone is as good as it's gonna get. Those in power, either by numbers or money/guns will be able to rule, but how could *not* having one vote each make things any better?
The tyranny of the majority will have to be mitigated by people not wanting to be wolves eating the sheep. And if that doesn't work, I, as a sheep would do what I can to protect myself. I'd shoot, emigrate or whatever I could think of to avoid being eaten. Still, where are you going to find the despot to outlaw the eating of minority sheep against the will of the majority?
Ergo, you can't have a better governance than one that counts everyones voice, but on top of that you need discussion about minority rights and if we can not agree that, morally, sheep should not be eaten by the rest of us wolves, then we're doomed.
In short, there is nothing that is not damaging in an excessive amount. A lot of anything will bring bad consequences. This includes anything we consider "good" such as vitamins and minerals and HDL.
Except democracy. You can't have too much democracy. Nothing but rule of the people can be the right thing. Even if it would turn out that people are too stupid in aggregate and would technically benefit from a despot or anything less that direct and absolute democracy.
(I know you were talking about nutrition, but for some reason I felt compelled to come up with a silly counter argument.)
He does seem like the blowhard/BSer/sales/marketing type, but there's a big difference between being Full of S--t and being a S--thead
And there is also a power-balance issue. The big marketing cahuna should not be a dick to the little customer. Big guys stomping down on little guys is a big no-no according to righteousness 101.
If a little customer would be a dick to a marketing representative of some business it wouldn't matter. They should just reply respectfully and calmly and maybe laugh about it with the coworkers by the watercooler.
Even if the rape-gene (if there is one) saved humanity once, that doesn't mean we should go around raping people any more. And that is the whole point. We are not at the mercy of our genes anymore.
We have moved past biological evolution. We can now focus on doing what we think is right instead of doing what we have to do.
Of course, the same genes are still there and we need culture and technology to mitigate any adverse effects the rape- and murder-genes and whatnot may have. We do pretty good all ready. We can do better.
If by "Wow. That's, like, cosmic man." you mean to put down what I just said, then maybe I wasn't expressing it in a way that caters to your view of how to present an idea, so I'll explain, lest the point be lost because of crappy delivery.
(If you we're just making fun of the way I said it, but not what was said, then feel free to disregard this comment.)
What I meant to say, when the words that said it came out all hippie-like, was that technology and our usage of it is getting better at making a better approximation of truth feel like "the shit" for an increasing number of people. There will be more or less local or global backlashes, but on the whole we're getting more enlightened.
Just let everyone moderate everything from any kind of point of view. People could tag every aspect of every comment or user or story or paragraph in any way they so chose.
I could say this comment is semantically self referential:+2, Speling:-1 and a generic interesting +5, for example. I could tag it on a political left/right scale. I could moderate it as n/a to the paper/plastic dichotomy and whatever.
Quite a lot of standards would probably emerge and for tags on a comment that seem orphaned, people could tag the tag as being similar to some other tag.
People could then choose to view for example all 2+ Strawman but not 1+ Purple comments by users rated Maoist-Cyberornithologists but self-claimed venture-environmentalists, or any sane combination, or just make it look like regular old slashdot (which could still have it's current system intact), or like reddit with just everyones aggregated +/- or just view comments upvoted by friends. Etc.
'People are fired up about Fire because they know it's part of a service they already use and trust,' said Josh Tsui, president of Robomodo. 'It becomes effortless to buy and use because it does not make them break their usual buying patterns. It enhances it.' Added Igor Pusenjak, president of Lima Sky: 'In many ways, the best thing about Fire is that you barely feel it's an Android device. Amazon built its own closed-system OS on top of Android.'
For some reason I feel a sudden urge to tell people not to feed trolls and not to respond to flame baits. Not that I would want to tell people what to do. And neither should you!
I think the term human nature is thrown about too carelessly. Human nature would imply it's in the genes. Sure, the genes allow for war and all bad things, but how about the power of culture? I think the world of today is shaped more by culture and ideas, than by genes. We are not just monkeys. We can do what we think is right.
The powerful shape the world in a way that benefits them, but humanity as a whole wouldn't want this mess, I think. It's not the genes. It's history. The history of power, money and ideas, more than it is human nature. Culture and ideas we can change. Nature, not so much.
We can overcome any genes for rape, murder an oppression with some ideas of doing the right thing. Ideas will evolve. And the Internet should help accelerate that evolution.
Aren't we in the midst of a great "evolutionary leap"? It just doesn't show in our genes. It's our collective consciousness that is getting more saturated with truth. Some powerful players are of course against all this truth, but humanity can prevail, I think.
Offering the technology to the community so soon after the acquisition could indicate that Twitter made the acquisition primarily for the developer talent.
So, apparently whispersystems has to do with that Moxie Marlinspike character, who strikes me as someone who might have some open souring as a requisite for the acquisition?
Just because any number of representatives of media are doing bad journalism, doesn't alter what journalism should be. And just because any number of representatives of media are doing bad journalism doesn't mean anyone should do bad journalism.
The state of things is quit dire, though, bad journalism being the norm. It all boils down to having an economic system in which greed is the core driving force and lying is the principal tool used.
And if common sense is not allowed to prevail, then as some intermediate solution, maybe Facebook could speak up and tell the vultures not to use their copyrighted material for subethical purposes? It might amuse some people who appreciate irony as well.
ps: You're from Finland? Liar! Everyone knows there are no gays in Finland.;)
No it isn't morally ok, you are depriving the creator their choice in where and how their creation is distributed. Using P2P on files you don't have copyright on you are actively distributing someone else's creation without their permission.
It's basically some hand waving that allows people to feel morally innocent. I've no issue with pirates who admit what they are doing is morally unjustifiable - it's the freetards who think it's OK and they're STICKING IT TO THE MAN that get my goat.
Sadly both you and I will get modded down as people "need their free shit".
Since we have the means of copying something that has value, we should do that. For free, we can spread joy, information, knowledge and culture to people. Obviously, we should do that.
We should also find a way for talented people creating the content to be able to keep doing what they do and not having to get a job at McD which would cut into their time of producing their art. A little bit of socialism could help.
A good starting point to build a more sane society, where passionate people could pursue their passion while the rest of us could get jobs to afford luxury items to fill the void of lacking a passion, might be a basic income guarantee.
>Even the certainty of a killer asteroid won't do it with this lot!
From a staring point of today, what would that entail? Some people would probably suddenly get very cooperative. Not the 1%, but maybe the 0.01%, and not just measured in net worth, but in power. Money is power so, the crÃme de la crÃme of billionaires would be there, of course, but also whomever (if anyone at that point, because chains of command would start to break down) who could wield political power that could put as expensive things in motion as the ultra-super-rich, like commanding troops and weapons and having access to hangars and engineers and scientists...
Wait. In case the impending doom was public knowledge, money would be moot, wouldn't it? So, who would be the elite in that case? Probably still predominantly the ultra-super-rich, because they'd have more hardware like armored vehicles and guns all ready (promising to bring their lackeys, of course).
Maybe a more simple and interesting setup would be to not have the impending doom be public knowledge, though, so one could draw a picture of the power-elite of today being all class-conscious and working together to mount this great escape, not so subtly exposing the hierarchy that exist in our world of today.
Maybe told from the perspective of a skilled mechanic or something, unknowingly used as a tool and dragged along for the ride...
Isn't it ironic that all the while you are talking about democracy, you are furhering and supporting the dictatorship of the PRC by being solely concerned with price, and not at all concerned with the freedom of the people who produce your GPL compliant hardware? Why don't you exclude China and consider Taiwan as you source?
That is indeed ironic.
I wish I had income, so that I could make that choice. I could abstain from computers, of course. I make these costly choices for bananas and coffee for example, but... Fuck! Now what am I gonna do?
A couple of thoughts about why anyone having a database with peoples finances, health and/or politics is a bad thing leap to mind:
In this case, the political party can tailor their marketing for you.
Aren't they supposed to be pushing their view of the world and trying to convince you it's the right one, not telling you what you need to hear to vote for them? Perhaps not a crystal clear distinction, but if the info in the db is used sneakily to more effectively manipulate you, then it's bad.
And any db with sensitive info can be used nefariously in other ways too. Health info could be used to deny insurance or raise the price for it. Political stance could be used to compile a hit-list (if not for actual assassination, then at least for digging up dirt for character-assassination should the need arise) of potential political adversaries.
The db could be leaked or the curators of it may turn bad if they weren't all ready.
Slashdot Mirror
So, you're more into some measure of dictatorship as opposed to extreme democracy, then?
... unless, of course, the majority would vote that everyone must vote on everything.
That's a chance we'd have to take.
Then we'd possibly end up going to war against the minority that doesn't want to vote on everything, but that would still be better than going to war against poor brown people on the pretense of weapons of WMD:s or Freedom for oil or for geopolitical reasons or whatshamacallit.
Sure you can. If everyone has to vote on everything, no matter how trivial, the organisation will be paralysed into inaction cf. Life Of Brian.
Who said anything about everyone *having* to vote on anything? Everyone should *get* to vote on anything they wanna.
In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic.
>Except maybe the case of two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner...
Oh, right. Thank God we don't have democracy, so us stupid peons don't fuck shit up!
Thank God for the people with all the power, the money and all the guns and all the media and all the justice systems and prisons being so wise and benevolent, ruling us against our better judgement so that we don't get to decide. I stand corrected. Democracy bad. Opposite of democracy good.
A constitutional republic is one way of limiting the democratic power of The People to protect individual persons.
Great. So, who gets to decide if we're gonna have a constitutional republic or not? The people? Should we all get to have a say about what the constitution should contain?
Do you think the people in power will be wolves or sheep?
Sure, two wolves and a sheep is not a good place for the sheep, do you have a better suggestion? A rule of everyone is as good as it's gonna get. Those in power, either by numbers or money/guns will be able to rule, but how could *not* having one vote each make things any better?
The tyranny of the majority will have to be mitigated by people not wanting to be wolves eating the sheep. And if that doesn't work, I, as a sheep would do what I can to protect myself. I'd shoot, emigrate or whatever I could think of to avoid being eaten. Still, where are you going to find the despot to outlaw the eating of minority sheep against the will of the majority?
Ergo, you can't have a better governance than one that counts everyones voice, but on top of that you need discussion about minority rights and if we can not agree that, morally, sheep should not be eaten by the rest of us wolves, then we're doomed.
In short, there is nothing that is not damaging in an excessive amount. A lot of anything will bring bad consequences. This includes anything we consider "good" such as vitamins and minerals and HDL.
Except democracy. You can't have too much democracy. Nothing but rule of the people can be the right thing. Even if it would turn out that people are too stupid in aggregate and would technically benefit from a despot or anything less that direct and absolute democracy.
(I know you were talking about nutrition, but for some reason I felt compelled to come up with a silly counter argument.)
How's that indigenous post-modern anti neo-liberal revolution by the Zapatistas in Chiapas coming along?
Haven't heard much in the news lately and the site(s?) seems to be completely in Spanish.
http://www.ezln.org.mx/
He does seem like the blowhard/BSer/sales/marketing type, but there's a big difference between being Full of S--t and being a S--thead
And there is also a power-balance issue. The big marketing cahuna should not be a dick to the little customer. Big guys stomping down on little guys is a big no-no according to righteousness 101.
If a little customer would be a dick to a marketing representative of some business it wouldn't matter. They should just reply respectfully and calmly and maybe laugh about it with the coworkers by the watercooler.
Even if the rape-gene (if there is one) saved humanity once, that doesn't mean we should go around raping people any more. And that is the whole point. We are not at the mercy of our genes anymore.
We have moved past biological evolution. We can now focus on doing what we think is right instead of doing what we have to do.
Of course, the same genes are still there and we need culture and technology to mitigate any adverse effects the rape- and murder-genes and whatnot may have. We do pretty good all ready. We can do better.
If by "Wow. That's, like, cosmic man." you mean to put down what I just said, then maybe I wasn't expressing it in a way that caters to your view of how to present an idea, so I'll explain, lest the point be lost because of crappy delivery.
(If you we're just making fun of the way I said it, but not what was said, then feel free to disregard this comment.)
What I meant to say, when the words that said it came out all hippie-like, was that technology and our usage of it is getting better at making a better approximation of truth feel like "the shit" for an increasing number of people. There will be more or less local or global backlashes, but on the whole we're getting more enlightened.
Just let everyone moderate everything from any kind of point of view. People could tag every aspect of every comment or user or story or paragraph in any way they so chose.
I could say this comment is semantically self referential:+2, Speling:-1 and a generic interesting +5, for example. I could tag it on a political left/right scale. I could moderate it as n/a to the paper/plastic dichotomy and whatever.
Quite a lot of standards would probably emerge and for tags on a comment that seem orphaned, people could tag the tag as being similar to some other tag.
People could then choose to view for example all 2+ Strawman but not 1+ Purple comments by users rated Maoist-Cyberornithologists but self-claimed venture-environmentalists, or any sane combination, or just make it look like regular old slashdot (which could still have it's current system intact), or like reddit with just everyones aggregated +/- or just view comments upvoted by friends. Etc.
'People are fired up about Fire because they know it's part of a service they already use and trust,' said Josh Tsui, president of Robomodo. 'It becomes effortless to buy and use because it does not make them break their usual buying patterns. It enhances it.' Added Igor Pusenjak, president of Lima Sky: 'In many ways, the best thing about Fire is that you barely feel it's an Android device. Amazon built its own closed-system OS on top of Android.'
For some reason I feel a sudden urge to tell people not to feed trolls and not to respond to flame baits. Not that I would want to tell people what to do. And neither should you!
Ironic, isn't it?
I think the term human nature is thrown about too carelessly. Human nature would imply it's in the genes. Sure, the genes allow for war and all bad things, but how about the power of culture? I think the world of today is shaped more by culture and ideas, than by genes. We are not just monkeys. We can do what we think is right.
The powerful shape the world in a way that benefits them, but humanity as a whole wouldn't want this mess, I think. It's not the genes. It's history. The history of power, money and ideas, more than it is human nature. Culture and ideas we can change. Nature, not so much.
We can overcome any genes for rape, murder an oppression with some ideas of doing the right thing. Ideas will evolve. And the Internet should help accelerate that evolution.
Aren't we in the midst of a great "evolutionary leap"? It just doesn't show in our genes. It's our collective consciousness that is getting more saturated with truth. Some powerful players are of course against all this truth, but humanity can prevail, I think.
Offering the technology to the community so soon after the acquisition could indicate that Twitter made the acquisition primarily for the developer talent.
So, apparently whispersystems has to do with that Moxie Marlinspike character, who strikes me as someone who might have some open souring as a requisite for the acquisition?
Just because any number of representatives of media are doing bad journalism, doesn't alter what journalism should be. And just because any number of representatives of media are doing bad journalism doesn't mean anyone should do bad journalism.
The state of things is quit dire, though, bad journalism being the norm. It all boils down to having an economic system in which greed is the core driving force and lying is the principal tool used.
And if common sense is not allowed to prevail, then as some intermediate solution, maybe Facebook could speak up and tell the vultures not to use their copyrighted material for subethical purposes? It might amuse some people who appreciate irony as well.
ps: You're from Finland? Liar! Everyone knows there are no gays in Finland. ;)
If your passion is making gobs and gobs of money, then go make gobs and gobs of money.
Memes want to be repeated.
And haters gonna hate.
But ideas will evolve.
No it isn't morally ok, you are depriving the creator their choice in where and how their creation is distributed. Using P2P on files you don't have copyright on you are actively distributing someone else's creation without their permission.
It's basically some hand waving that allows people to feel morally innocent. I've no issue with pirates who admit what they are doing is morally unjustifiable - it's the freetards who think it's OK and they're STICKING IT TO THE MAN that get my goat.
Sadly both you and I will get modded down as people "need their free shit".
Since we have the means of copying something that has value, we should do that. For free, we can spread joy, information, knowledge and culture to people. Obviously, we should do that.
We should also find a way for talented people creating the content to be able to keep doing what they do and not having to get a job at McD which would cut into their time of producing their art. A little bit of socialism could help.
A good starting point to build a more sane society, where passionate people could pursue their passion while the rest of us could get jobs to afford luxury items to fill the void of lacking a passion, might be a basic income guarantee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee
>Even the certainty of a killer asteroid won't do it with this lot!
From a staring point of today, what would that entail? Some people would probably suddenly get very cooperative. Not the 1%, but maybe the 0.01%, and not just measured in net worth, but in power. Money is power so, the crÃme de la crÃme of billionaires would be there, of course, but also whomever (if anyone at that point, because chains of command would start to break down) who could wield political power that could put as expensive things in motion as the ultra-super-rich, like commanding troops and weapons and having access to hangars and engineers and scientists...
Wait. In case the impending doom was public knowledge, money would be moot, wouldn't it? So, who would be the elite in that case? Probably still predominantly the ultra-super-rich, because they'd have more hardware like armored vehicles and guns all ready (promising to bring their lackeys, of course).
Maybe a more simple and interesting setup would be to not have the impending doom be public knowledge, though, so one could draw a picture of the power-elite of today being all class-conscious and working together to mount this great escape, not so subtly exposing the hierarchy that exist in our world of today.
Maybe told from the perspective of a skilled mechanic or something, unknowingly used as a tool and dragged along for the ride...
".... the main tenets of democracy..."
Isn't it ironic that all the while you are talking about democracy, you are furhering and supporting the dictatorship of the PRC by being solely concerned with price, and not at all concerned with the freedom of the people who produce your GPL compliant hardware? Why don't you exclude China and consider Taiwan as you source?
That is indeed ironic.
I wish I had income, so that I could make that choice. I could abstain from computers, of course. I make these costly choices for bananas and coffee for example, but... Fuck! Now what am I gonna do?
A couple of thoughts about why anyone having a database with peoples finances, health and/or politics is a bad thing leap to mind:
In this case, the political party can tailor their marketing for you.
Aren't they supposed to be pushing their view of the world and trying to convince you it's the right one, not telling you what you need to hear to vote for them? Perhaps not a crystal clear distinction, but if the info in the db is used sneakily to more effectively manipulate you, then it's bad.
And any db with sensitive info can be used nefariously in other ways too. Health info could be used to deny insurance or raise the price for it. Political stance could be used to compile a hit-list (if not for actual assassination, then at least for digging up dirt for character-assassination should the need arise) of potential political adversaries.
The db could be leaked or the curators of it may turn bad if they weren't all ready.