What the Dems need to do is move the electorate to the left.
Good idea! We won't get a national ID database or restrictions on strong encryption unless we convince people that privacy is for felons or the 'radical right' (both policies were supported and fought for by Diane Feinstein and Clinton/Gore).
This message of personal freedom and limited government is too catchy. We have to make people change their minds.
It escapes me, really, why people don't realize that Important, Connected Media Personalities have our best interests at heart, and can manipulate the details of our lives far better than we could ourselves. I mean, our Social Security money is earning about 2% annually before inflation. What, do you really think a mere ordinary person could do better?
</sarcasm>
The problem of government is ultimately similar to a large-scale software engineering project. Attempts to be purely top-down, with huge binders or requirements specs, leads to bloated projects that go nowhere. The solution is to have some leadership at the architectural level, but mainly to leave the code as modular and encapsulated as possible-- ie give the most freedom to everyone. Those of you who think Nader is somehow Libertarian are deluding yourselves-- even Gore is more libertarian than Nader is.
Yup. Voter records are public. I was registered Republican for a while, and because of that I get a constant stream of mail from Republican candidates -- along with some *vile* attacks on Gore and other Democrats from local and state Republican organizations.
I've had something similar happen to me. As a member of my local synagogue, they had my family's name/address. Apparantly, the synagogue shared its mailing list with the local Democrats. I got a letter during our state's Senate campaign which all but called the Republican an enemy of the jewish people. Problem: the Republican was jewish himself.
This is like Amazon's privacy policy, MS's plan not to let you reinstall Windows (effectively), etc. They are clever sounding ideas to score a minor, marginal advantage. People always feel like they can pull off some kind of sneaky deal-- it almost never works.
The problem is that it is difficult to ensure that an election is run fairly. Public voting rolls is one way to verify that the right number of people are voting. It isn't perfect, but there really isn't a corruption-proof voting system.
For instance, there are some precincts which have 'technical difficulties' or other problems which mean that they are kept open past the deadline. Year after year. Reason? They wait until the exit poll results so they know how much to pad their precinct.
This is just part and parcel of the notion that the US government should tax whatever Ralph Nader doesn't like. Note, no position paper included on encryption? Perhaps because you should have, in his eyes, a right to privacy... until the government decides that you are an evil corporation person. I like what he says about ICANN (which somehow noone blames Clinton for), but I can't help but believe that the Green Party and Nader's philosophy is everything that is wrong with ICANN and more.
Those of you still in school, bear with me for a second. The rest of us (including/. itself) are the corporations that Nader is talking about. It is about the persuasive versus the productive. We're working our asses off in these startups, and he's busy spending our wages on his ideas. If his ideas are so great, why not make a few million dollars selling people things they want and using the profits to benefit the charities he wants, instead of trying to force it out of people who paid the price for success in social stigma, gruelling education, and all nighters at work?
Nader wants the majority to be able to take property at will from the minority, when the majority decides that the minority deserves to have it taken from them. Funding the government is secondary. He wants to use taxes to control people, to make them do things his way. Ironically, he claims to be more pro-open source than his competitors. He wants to make all of us government contractors.
Nader, for all his intellectual pretentions, has a really simple, almost JonKatzian idea: there are Good People (like me) and Evil People (those who oppose me). Everything else in his 'seatbelts and socialism' platform boils down to that. I mean, how many times can he go off against companies? Is he aware that virtually everything he eats, wears or uses is made by private enterprise? Or that 'corporate profits' go into stock options for employees in small, fast growing companies, and to investors (ie retirement funds for ordinary people-- the overwhelming majority in stock ownership) in large established companies. Or that the 'exploitive third world factories' provide jobs which are great by the standards of those countries, while freeing up better jobs here in the developed world?
Nothing is perfect, but Nader wants to bring us back to the old academic 'fascism vs communism' debates of the first part of this century. Everyone at the time assumed that centrally planned systems were the wave of the future, and that in a complex future, only experts could design a social system. Democracy and capitalism were considered obsolete. The distributed model beat central planning, though. Nader just doesn't seem to have noticed.
I personally think that if Sega can survive the Dreamcast, they will be worthwhile again as a hardware company; Sega's name will be cleared of the SegaCD/32x/Saturn era. However, if they can't survive, Smile Bit, Sonic Team, Hit Maker, and all the other renamed and now independant AM divisions will keep on making "Sega" titles as third party developers.
It isn't just a question of 'clearing their name'. They'd have to throw out their name and start over. The Dreamcast is sweet-- hell, the Saturn was pretty sweet, too (though tough to code for). But what this boils down to is corporate incompetence. They don't treat their developers well, they don't have a clear product strategy (ie they don't treat their customers well), and they are in a competitive market with companies who don't suffer any of these faults.
I used to sell these things retail, and I can't tell you how thoroughly burned the customers feel (the hard core games playing group-- ones who buy a game twice a week).
It isn't their technology people. It is just bad business sense, and I suspect that the next recession will finish the product line off.
Until then, I can only hope that they release a dedicated Soul Calibur appliance.;)
I have, and in practical, day-to-day operations, Congress, the President and most federal and many state agencies depend on census data to maintain reliable information from which to make policy decisions. Why do you think there was such an advertising blitz in the inner cities? Because uncounted people reduce the government funds to which people are entitled.
Most of the federal government is based on ideas which aren't specifically enumerated in the Constitution. While I am very worried about how invasive the government has become, there are many implied powers which everyone agrees is important. The census's role in keeping policy as quantitative as possible is just as important as its raw people counting role.
To be honest, I had this smug feeling about the whole deal until I read the article. This is really an unfortunate situation. More importantly, it touches all of us, since anyone who tries to reverse engineer an API from MS is going to get painted with the haxor brush. The MS code isn't even that good. I only hope that they don't use this as an excuse to begin a litigious assault on the Open Source movement. Sustained lawsuits attacking key applications will slow development, and could influence virtually everything we do.
One thing this means for us is this: concentrate in your source trees, now more than ever, on modularity. Any time a chunk of code becomes suspect, we should be able to isolate and replace it until the dispute is resolved.
On another note, it would probably be a good idea for people in the Open Source community to alert the FBI to anything we might hear about who may be responsible for this. While I don't like MS, the courts will punish them for their monopoly, and the marketplace will punish them for their close source methodology. To not assist whereever appropriate will leave us open to accusations that our community is filled with criminals and warez d00dz.
Besides, the sooner this is put to rest, the sooner we can dispel the myth that MS source code is actually valuable in the first place...
Nope. In fact, @Large members aren't even, legally speaking 'members'. ICANN wrote the rules (along with their incredibly expensive California law firm) to ensure that laws protecting members' rights did not apply.
Ultimately, the President's move to create ICANN was understandable but flawed. I thought it was a good idea at first myself. ICANN was originally intended to replace the Dept. of Commerce as the regulatory body for the Internet (not just the DNS system). Unfortunately, you can't run the Internet the way you do the public school system. (In fact, with athletes getting away with felonies and kids graduating not able to read, you probably can't run the public school system this way either...)
The problem is that the Internet is based on enlightened anarchism. The better implementation tends to win on the net-- not the media darlings. All the good press on Salon and Wired in the world can't make up for a weak idea.
The idea of ICANN is based on the premise that experts, when insulated from ignorant or selfish people, can run people's lives better than they could themselves. I doubt that that is true in even the Real World, but in Internet infrastructure, there isn't even a question that that is a stupid idea.
Ultimately, the pundits and players who appear on CNN when they talk about 'the crisis in cyberspace', whatever the crisis is that day, do not run the internet. The market does, ie every individual user's decision. I have always felt that we need unlimited TLDs. Now I wonder if we even need a centrally controlled DNS system. We do need some kind of governing body. But it has to be based on law and order-- not stupid and manipulative 'experts'. Since rules are by definition applications of force (or the threat of force) we need to be minimalists.
No, the reason they don't use sampling is because it is more vulnerable to political motivation. The Constitution demands an 'enumeration'. Not a guess-- even a solid one. An actual count is tougher, but less vulnerable to political manipulation-- there are long lines of clever stat people ready to skew the results the 'right way'. Look at the numbers both our candidates spout on their economic plans.
You'd have to change the Constitution to change the Census policy.
Can we at least get the same information and correlations for all officers of the government posted online? After all, if they think it's fine to correlate and snoop on us, it must be okay for use to correlate and snoop on them. Or they could have kept their promise not to hand out the census data. Yeah. Right.
Actually, for the most part, this is already the case. Congressional and executive salaries, including non-government salaries, are all publicly declared and reported. You can request all this stuff-- it is public record, and occasionally published in the newspapers if it has some shred of juiciness to it.
Campaign contributors are the same way. Try to donate five bucks to a candidate-- you'll have to enter personal information to allow them to comply with campaign finance laws-- and much is published by the Federal Elections Commission.
Anyway, the whole point of the Census-- the reason it is in the constitution-- is to give government agencies, especially Congress, the information they need to determine the effects of different public policies. For instance, if the Congressional Budget Office wants to determine what the effects of a tax increase will be-- who it will hit and by how much, and what the effects on revenue will be, they need that information. The Census makes government (theoretically) more science and less guesswork. There's still plenty of opinion to politics, but solid numbers helps people.
That's one reason why libertarians and conservatives don't like how huge government has become. It has touched so many areas of our personal lives that it has to collect invasive information about us. Free healthcare for everyone? Well, we need to know if you qualify. Diane Feinstein, for instance, supported a plan to have a national ID card/database. The plan was rescinded when Congress changed parties.
You can't support a bigger government (as Nader, Gore and Feinstein do) without supporting measures to give government the authority to gather the personal information it needs to support a larger government.
I would challange you to back this assertion of yours, but I think it will be more telling to watch this bill get thrashed by Hyde and everyone else on the Judiciary Committee. Selling influence is bi-partisan, and though the entertainment industry leans Democratic, they've hardly put all their eggs in one basket.
And hey, remember the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act? Or the, *drumroll...* DMCA?
Henry Hyde is a good guy-- I don't see what you accomplish by trashing him on general principles. The slashdot They're All Bought Anyway Corps never seems to deploy when democrats are talking. Gore said some virulently anti-gay things in the 80's, but people have been remarkably forgiving of him (I would say, way too forgiving). Republicans on slashdot appear to be guilty until proven innocent-- often, are still 'guilty' no matter how hard they fight for us. If anything, the biggest threat to the CS community is the fact that the community refuses to vote based on the issues they bitch constantly about.
Democrat politicians know that they can support the RIAA, push for national ID's, oppose fair use, support the clipper chip, and hold up export controls on strong encryption. Why? Because programmers vote for them anyway. So, naturally, that is their record. The only technology issue which the democrats can brag about on slashdot right now is the M$ trial-- and their solution, a breakup, makes as much sense as cutting a planaria worm in half: you just get two monopolies.
Yes, Orin Hatch authored the DMCA. And the RIAA and the courts (judges appointed by who? oh yeah, the president) have interpretted the law in ways that Senator Hatch didn't expect or like. That's why the Senate filed a brief with the courts saying that they didn't support the interpretation of the DMCA. That's why they are holding hearings. Hatch pinned Gail Rosen to the wall in the Napster hearings he called, while democrat Diane Feinstein supported the RIAA as it fought the idea of fair use tooth and nail.
So if you are from California (many/most of us are), vote against Feinstein. If you are from Utah, vote for Senator Hatch. That is, if these are the issues you care about. It is very telling that one of the authors of the DMCA is fighting the way it is being interpretted in courts, and we should be helping out.
Joe Quimby is soft on crime! Just a few years ago, he let a madman like Sideshow Bob free! One more good reason to prevent that ever from happening again: vote Sideshow Bob for Mayor!
Your point about the dealing in the open vs dealing in the back room is valid. However there is a better way - preferential voting - here the 'deals' are done on your ballot paper as shown by your preferences. Think of preferential voting as voting in reverse. Give you number one to the person you dislike the least and your last number to the person you dislike the most.
I had to think for a minute before I responded, because you do have a point. However, the idea isn't just a matter of electing compromise viewpoints. Picking something which eventually will be the consensus is different from picking a candidate who has been pushing for that consensus in an election. This is a subtle difference, and I wonder if I am phrasing it correctly now.
Differences in opinion can exist on (at least) three levels:
Priority: This issue is important, while that issue can wait. Example: the Farm Bill will be coming up for another vote in 2002. Losing sleep over that? Probably about as much as a farmer did over the Clipper Chip.
Extremity: In other words, we may both agree that taxes are needed, but I may want rate X%, while you want rate Y%. The correct compromise might not be in the middle! Some approaches are each at a local minimum, and the compromise is worse than either one.
Approach: Republicans tend to want to solve problems by allowing free markets to produce the solutions. Democrats want to solve things by the passage of laws or use of public funds. So, when faced with a broken education system, Democrats want to strengthen the US Dept. of Education (a federal office which regulates school systems) and spend more money on public school. They feel that the government system isn't properly designed, or isn't sufficiently supported. Republicans think that the system itself is the problem-- it has no market forces to back it up and therefore doesn't self-optimize. Republicans prefer giving parents choice (depending on the person, either between public schools, or with vouchers, among all public and private schools). There isn't a compromise between these outlooks-- the solutions are mutually exclusive, and result from their differing model for just what the problem is. Each believes the that other will only make the problem even worse.
Priority, Intensity, Approach: Synthesizing these views is not so much a statistical process-- it is a social and intellectual process. If we had a fascist with 40% of the vote, and a Republican and a Democrat with 30% each (remaining are undecided), then the Republican and Democrat must compromise (possibly with the fascist, more likely with one another). But the differing outlooks mean that there is a problem with regard to Approach. Priorities and Extremeties are easier to average out-- I get some priorities, and you get some, too; we split the difference on extremeties.
But what about Approach? The trick there is to frame the issues to one's supporters in a way which makes the similarities stronger than the difference. To keep your fans' eyes on the ball, so to speak (after all, the more important difference is between either party and the fascist). This is a social trick which a mere mathematical ranking doesn't cover. More importantly, rating the Republican a '#1', the Democrat a '#2', and the Fascist '#3' forces the voter to express something they don't feel: that either candidate is infinitely preferable to the fascist!
Anyway, the point is that political leadership is needed to bring large groups to endorse compromise positions. Preferential voting systems attempt to automate the process of consensus and compromise, rather than making it something which everyone is a part of.
I'm not sure if I phrased all of this correctly, because as I said, you did make me think about it. But I hope you understand where I'm getting at with this.
Let's think of it another way. Let's pretend 1% of the US are Nazis, and 99% are Jeffersonians. Let's say someone gets ahold of Thomas Jefferson's DNA, and someone else gets ahold of Hitler's DNA. Jefferson is cloned 5000 times, Hitler is cloned only once. In the next election, all 5000 Jeffersons run against Hitler. Who wins? Let's say that right after Hitler wins, he is challenged to a 1-on-1 election by Jefferson #536. Who wins that?
You do realize that by using Hitler in an argument, you automatically kill the thread and lose, right? That's USENET law!
Anyway, that aside, it doesn't seem like you actually read my post, or maybe just the top part of it. In your first example, the primary election is missing. That primary would enable us to bring it down to two candidates. Occasionally, you do get a case where a third candidate appears. Then the party closer to their view creates a compromise/consensus position which lures away their supporters while minimizing the loss of moderates. Or if the new faction represents a middle ground between the two parties, they compete for the centrist vote while trying to hold their radical wings.
So let's reverse the names again on your candidates. Perot, Bush, Clinton. What happened to the reform party? Well Perot stood really for three things:
1) generic moderation (the parties are too different, and can't work together enough to get things done.)
2) balanced budget
3) protectionism (ie no free trade)
Each party moderated; just look at the debate last night to see how much closer the two parties are. To the point that we have Ralph Nader and Jon Katz claiming that the parties are too similar now. The budget got balanced (kudos to programers and the Web for giving us the economy to make it possible.) And protectionism? Well, it just doesn't have much public support anymore. People realize that trade helps the poor in other countries while helping us here in the US. The few protectionists who are left either support Pat Buchanan or Ralph Nader.
Ralph Nader probably won't do that well in this election. But if he does, the democrats will swing back to the radical left- endorsing radical environmental policies, more government, higher taxes and isolationist trade policies. So your example is actually a great one which, when its real world equivalent is looked at, has worked perfectly.
I think this ought to be interesting. Auerbach has been very critical of the ICANN since it's inception. He has some good ideas about how to make the domain system more democratic (like having one or more TLD where trademark holders do not get first pick). It will be good to have someone on the board who represents something besides the corporate interest.
I am very happy that Karl won. One thing we need to remember, though, is that he is only one voice in the board. We all need to be ready to help him if he is going to get stuff done on the board.
Rob, Jeff: what are the odds of getting an interview with him? He was basically/.'s pick!
This is a little roundabout, but it gets where its going. So please bear with me.
Labels like 'liberal' and 'conservative' are deceptive. I have seen many who share the same brand name argue viciously over their beliefs, while (and the VP debate last week is a good example of this) people of different political traditions can have similar beliefs. So what is the practical result? Your example was this:
A clearer example: let's say that there are two liberal candidates and one conservative candidate in an election. And let's say that the population is 60% liberal and 40% conservative. The "correct" result with a 60/40 population is that they should elect a liberal candidate to represent them, right? Well, with the U.S.'s current system, they might get a conservative: vote ends up 30%/30%/40%, and the conservative wins. Under the instant run-off, they'll get one of the liberal candidates, the "correct" choice - in other words they aren't penalized for having more than one candidate, and they can express a preference between the two without fear.
In this example, let's remove the labels. There are three candidates. One is supported by 40% of the people, and the other two by 30%. Who should be elected? If none of the three can reconcile their differences to create a majority voting block, the 40%!
Is removing the labels ok? It feels wrong, because we remember the ideologies in the first example, and want to somehow account for the two liberal candidates wearing the same political label. But from an outside viewpoint, it doesn't matter what the particulars of their policies are. The point of the election is to generate consensus whereever possible, minority rights wherever threatened, and majority rule whenever it is needed. If the two 30% candidates can't agree to a common viewpoints, then it doesn't matter what their label is-- they are different political groups. A minor difference is only minor in the eyes of the beholder.
Ultimately, after the election, whoever didn't vote for the winner will have to live with the results of the election. A working majority will have to be formed in the Congress/Knesset/Diet/Parliament. Otherwise, the government would collapse. Once he wins office, the leader must forge a working majority. That means compromising and working with his opponents-- and where that fails, building a majority.
In multiparty systems, the voter sees plenty of labels and badges, but ultimately, once they win, these parties are able to go into a back room and decide what is critical and where they can compromise. In other words, you are rewarded for the fanaticism of your supporters (luring them away from other parties) and then quietly leave the consensus-building to be done in secrecy.
In a two party system, here's what happens in your example: 40% guy wins. But in the next election, the two 30% candidates decide they have more in common with each other, and ONE runs, fielding a selection of issues which represents the best of both (and, often, compromises between the two). Then the 40% candidate loses, until HE can find a enough voters to compromise with that he can build a faction of more than 50%. In this case, leaders compromise BEFORE the election, and their supporters can each judge the quality of their compromise before voting. That's why the two major parties have primaries! Each major party is made up of a thousand minor factions, and the faction which can forge the best representation of the party as a whole gets to be the party's candidate. Each party races for 50% in the general election. And if one faction decides to try to railroad all the others, it will get outrun by its competitors.
Both two party and three+ party systems have this feature of compromise and consensus-building. The difference is that a two party system has this process before the election, and it is conducted in public. In a parliamentary system, it is conducted after the election, and out of the prying eyes of the public.
For something small like ICANN, there is too much overhead for a two party system to be worth it (though the trademark issue would seem to be creating two factions anyway). The ranking system is appropriate for the size and influence of the organization. But when it comes to a whole nation, with a military and police, you need a fairly extensive process.
Two party systems are simple-- if you aren't too involved and only vote at the general election. But if you aren't happy with the nominees from your party (or the party that you are closest to), then just vote in the primaries for the guy who better represents your views. It takes some research, but you are rewarded by a party which is more like you. If you still aren't happy (tough customer!), then volunteer for the candidate who best represents your views. Rough estimates: A campaign for the House takes about 25 people. A campaign to be Senator or Governor (depending on your state's size and population, of course) takes about 25-100 people. One volunteer, even at these heights, makes a huge difference-- especially if you have organizational, technical or writing skills.
Or better yet, help a county commissioner/freeholder or state senator/representative. You are bound to be one of maybe three or four people on the campaign! If you work hard, you are almost certain to win-- and if there isn't any candidates you like, run yourself! It isn't that hard, and it is tons of fun.
Is there any way we can give a whole thread a +1 Informative/Insightful/Interesting?
SpryGuy and GlenRaphael just made a great series of posts on nuclear power-- tons of information presented for and against.
Just so both of you know-- plenty of us were reading this! And if you didn't catch it yet, click here to read it. Really good series of posts, each moderated at 1 when they ALL deserve a 5. It was last week, so I guess this post is in vain, but who knows?
Interesting idea. Note that the 15km bubble he talks about is only with a kilowatt of power and a 200kg spacecraft. A multiton behemoth would have a huge magnetic bubble. I think the economies of scale sound pretty good on this.
Of course, the big problem of space travel, as everone else is also saying, is the earth to orbit phase.
ps: 500 hits to this report before we slashdotted it!!!
I'd vote last for Langenberg. Read his responses to the questionnaire. I mean, this isn't an apprenticeship. When he learns something about the Internet, and generates some reasonable opinions, then we can take a look at him. This isn't open-mindedness, this is ignorance. I'd much prefer the other candidates, who put their opinions on the table. Who will teach him about DNS issues? What conclusions will he come to once he's informed? Answer: Why risk it?
First and foremost, we need people with a technical understanding of the internet. Fortunately, most of them have it (Lessig, for instance, doesn't). Then, we need someone with a procedural understanding of the internet. Almost all have that as well (Lessig is strong here). Finally, we need to look at what values they have drawn about the direction of ICANN-- and how effectively they will pursue them.
Truth be told, I can't find myself straying from/.'s recommendations. I disagree most of the political stuff I've heard from them, but they seem to be totally on target when it comes to ICANN's 'election'. I'd rank Lessig a little lower, just because I'm more worried about his time/knowledge constraints, and Chapin a little higher (I don't think his employment matters). But that's just poking around here and there. Frankly, if people vote as listed above, they'd be doing just fine.
As for Auerbach, I can't see what isn't to like about him. gTLD anarchy is fine with me... but then again, I want to burn all TLDs. And as for disagreement-- with the state that ICANN is in, to the point where 'members' are not legally members, and the 'election' is not legally an election--- we need active and forceful representation. Especially because ICANN seems to want to become the Government of the Internet (though they strenuously deny it).
This may be the only election ICANN has. At Yokohama, they tried to kill @Large elections altogether, and have constantly worked to make them irrelevent. Any truly effective representation will require some confrontation from the candidates-- and support from the constituencies who elect them once the real debates begin.
Well, I don't like it, but I can't help but smile at the thought.
Everyone warned Jeff Bezos that these patents wouldn't work. Tim O'Reilly did. We did here on/.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. This is exactly why software patents are so dangerous. Why they are bad for everyone-- including the patent holders. There are some cases where they make sense, but going wild is very risky.
I really, really hope that this claim goes through. Then, perhaps Amazon will get serious about stopping these ridiculous patents.
Well, actually not. The body of a a figure skater, Hollywood actress or cheerleader in most cases is not suitable for heavy child production. To be able to withstand the labor of multiple pregnansies and survive (atleast in extreme conditions we are talking about) the women should be build, eh differently. Wide hips are a must. Large utero and strong bone structure as well. Your average top mother for next generation would look much more like a weight-liftress from Romania than, say Natalie Portman.
Medicine can solve the mechanical problem. The challenge is this: can we find women so attractive, so enticing, so triple Xplosive that one hundred can all get regular attention from a single man?
Two romanian weightlifters would just barely be able to arouse enough of a libido to cover both of them. I'll guarantee you that a NP-level of sexiness is required to give a man the energy to handle 100 women. And that, the sheer quantity of hot love-making, is the technical challenge of the post-apocalyptic earth. Only Smooth B has the savvy to devise a solution to this problem.
Why should a company only get one TLD? It doesn't need to be three letters long... Let's just open it up and register it the way the domain registrars are set up.
He's Jesus Christ! He's the Devil! He gets the DMCA passed, and then is disappointed. It's cool and all that's he's calling this like it is, but some consistency and forethought would be nice, nicer than pointing out it's bad after the fact.
Remember Orin Hatch's hearings on Napster and the DMCA? Hatch said that the way they designed the bill, it was designed to be fully fair-use compliant. But that the court rulings and the interpretations the RIAA and MPAA are using are way skewed away from what the bill was intended to do.
That is what happens, sometimes. You write something intended to do one thing, and then it does something else. How many patches make a large software system stable? Same deal.
They were worried about protecting the rights of authors against bootlegging; but the bill is now being applied in ways which it was never intended to work (user licences, DeCSS, etc).
I think the whole point of what Armey's saying is addressing all your things he didn't explicitly mention, except one. And that is that the premise of Carnivore is a violation of civil liberties just by existing. On that point, he's hearing one story from the Clinton Administration, and another from the rest of the world. The whole point of an independent review is to sort out exactly what carnivore does and how it does it.
I mean, talk about nit picky. When/. went up in arms about it, Congress demanded a review of Carnivore. Then, we got mad when we found out that everyone who would review it was working for the president whose people built it-- and Congress is mad about that, too. Trying to jump in the Majority Leader's head and find a reason why this isn't good news is really reaching. We complain that noone is doing the right thing on these issues, then when someone does, we fish around for reasons to still be mad at them. Sheesh!
We should be overjoyed that people are fighting for what we believe in, instead of just saying that they are hip to the internet and then trying to shove the clipper chip down our throats. (or national ID's or stopping fair use, or holding up encryption export, et al.)
Why put any limit on the number of tld's? If a company or organization or whatever is willing to sponsor a tld and act as the database for looking up tld addresses etc then why not let them? Just make it so one company can't own more than one tld.
Exactly, Burn all TLDs. Then you could have a cooperative system for having nameservers refer to one another. Are the TLD's on a given nameserver encroaching on an assigned TLD? (Conflicting name assignments is AFAIK the only argument against unlimited TLDs) Then the other referring nameservers would just give them the equivalent of the Usenet Death Penalty.
This way, you could have.dot or.slashdot or whatever. You just register TLDs as if they were Domain Names, because that is effectively what they then become. And you would avoid much of the bureaucratic and authoritarian nonsense we're seeing from ICANN lately.
Slashdot Mirror
What the Dems need to do is move the electorate to the left.
Good idea! We won't get a national ID database or restrictions on strong encryption unless we convince people that privacy is for felons or the 'radical right' (both policies were supported and fought for by Diane Feinstein and Clinton/Gore).
This message of personal freedom and limited government is too catchy. We have to make people change their minds.
It escapes me, really, why people don't realize that Important, Connected Media Personalities have our best interests at heart, and can manipulate the details of our lives far better than we could ourselves. I mean, our Social Security money is earning about 2% annually before inflation. What, do you really think a mere ordinary person could do better?
</sarcasm>
The problem of government is ultimately similar to a large-scale software engineering project. Attempts to be purely top-down, with huge binders or requirements specs, leads to bloated projects that go nowhere. The solution is to have some leadership at the architectural level, but mainly to leave the code as modular and encapsulated as possible-- ie give the most freedom to everyone. Those of you who think Nader is somehow Libertarian are deluding yourselves-- even Gore is more libertarian than Nader is.
I've had something similar happen to me. As a member of my local synagogue, they had my family's name/address. Apparantly, the synagogue shared its mailing list with the local Democrats. I got a letter during our state's Senate campaign which all but called the Republican an enemy of the jewish people. Problem: the Republican was jewish himself.
This is like Amazon's privacy policy, MS's plan not to let you reinstall Windows (effectively), etc. They are clever sounding ideas to score a minor, marginal advantage. People always feel like they can pull off some kind of sneaky deal-- it almost never works.
The problem is that it is difficult to ensure that an election is run fairly. Public voting rolls is one way to verify that the right number of people are voting. It isn't perfect, but there really isn't a corruption-proof voting system.
For instance, there are some precincts which have 'technical difficulties' or other problems which mean that they are kept open past the deadline. Year after year. Reason? They wait until the exit poll results so they know how much to pad their precinct.
Ug. Social Engineering! (Score:5, Flamebait)
I never thought I would see this.... ;)
This is just part and parcel of the notion that the US government should tax whatever Ralph Nader doesn't like. Note, no position paper included on encryption? Perhaps because you should have, in his eyes, a right to privacy... until the government decides that you are an evil corporation person. I like what he says about ICANN (which somehow noone blames Clinton for), but I can't help but believe that the Green Party and Nader's philosophy is everything that is wrong with ICANN and more.
Those of you still in school, bear with me for a second. The rest of us (including /. itself) are the corporations that Nader is talking about. It is about the persuasive versus the productive. We're working our asses off in these startups, and he's busy spending our wages on his ideas. If his ideas are so great, why not make a few million dollars selling people things they want and using the profits to benefit the charities he wants, instead of trying to force it out of people who paid the price for success in social stigma, gruelling education, and all nighters at work?
Nader wants the majority to be able to take property at will from the minority, when the majority decides that the minority deserves to have it taken from them. Funding the government is secondary. He wants to use taxes to control people, to make them do things his way. Ironically, he claims to be more pro-open source than his competitors. He wants to make all of us government contractors.
Nader, for all his intellectual pretentions, has a really simple, almost JonKatzian idea: there are Good People (like me) and Evil People (those who oppose me). Everything else in his 'seatbelts and socialism' platform boils down to that. I mean, how many times can he go off against companies? Is he aware that virtually everything he eats, wears or uses is made by private enterprise? Or that 'corporate profits' go into stock options for employees in small, fast growing companies, and to investors (ie retirement funds for ordinary people-- the overwhelming majority in stock ownership) in large established companies. Or that the 'exploitive third world factories' provide jobs which are great by the standards of those countries, while freeing up better jobs here in the developed world?
Nothing is perfect, but Nader wants to bring us back to the old academic 'fascism vs communism' debates of the first part of this century. Everyone at the time assumed that centrally planned systems were the wave of the future, and that in a complex future, only experts could design a social system. Democracy and capitalism were considered obsolete. The distributed model beat central planning, though. Nader just doesn't seem to have noticed.
It isn't just a question of 'clearing their name'. They'd have to throw out their name and start over. The Dreamcast is sweet-- hell, the Saturn was pretty sweet, too (though tough to code for). But what this boils down to is corporate incompetence. They don't treat their developers well, they don't have a clear product strategy (ie they don't treat their customers well), and they are in a competitive market with companies who don't suffer any of these faults.
I used to sell these things retail, and I can't tell you how thoroughly burned the customers feel (the hard core games playing group-- ones who buy a game twice a week).
It isn't their technology people. It is just bad business sense, and I suspect that the next recession will finish the product line off.
Until then, I can only hope that they release a dedicated Soul Calibur appliance. ;)
I have, and in practical, day-to-day operations, Congress, the President and most federal and many state agencies depend on census data to maintain reliable information from which to make policy decisions. Why do you think there was such an advertising blitz in the inner cities? Because uncounted people reduce the government funds to which people are entitled.
Most of the federal government is based on ideas which aren't specifically enumerated in the Constitution. While I am very worried about how invasive the government has become, there are many implied powers which everyone agrees is important. The census's role in keeping policy as quantitative as possible is just as important as its raw people counting role.
To be honest, I had this smug feeling about the whole deal until I read the article. This is really an unfortunate situation. More importantly, it touches all of us, since anyone who tries to reverse engineer an API from MS is going to get painted with the haxor brush. The MS code isn't even that good. I only hope that they don't use this as an excuse to begin a litigious assault on the Open Source movement. Sustained lawsuits attacking key applications will slow development, and could influence virtually everything we do.
One thing this means for us is this: concentrate in your source trees, now more than ever, on modularity. Any time a chunk of code becomes suspect, we should be able to isolate and replace it until the dispute is resolved.
On another note, it would probably be a good idea for people in the Open Source community to alert the FBI to anything we might hear about who may be responsible for this. While I don't like MS, the courts will punish them for their monopoly, and the marketplace will punish them for their close source methodology. To not assist whereever appropriate will leave us open to accusations that our community is filled with criminals and warez d00dz.
Besides, the sooner this is put to rest, the sooner we can dispel the myth that MS source code is actually valuable in the first place...
Nope. In fact, @Large members aren't even, legally speaking 'members'. ICANN wrote the rules (along with their incredibly expensive California law firm) to ensure that laws protecting members' rights did not apply.
Ultimately, the President's move to create ICANN was understandable but flawed. I thought it was a good idea at first myself. ICANN was originally intended to replace the Dept. of Commerce as the regulatory body for the Internet (not just the DNS system). Unfortunately, you can't run the Internet the way you do the public school system. (In fact, with athletes getting away with felonies and kids graduating not able to read, you probably can't run the public school system this way either...)
The problem is that the Internet is based on enlightened anarchism. The better implementation tends to win on the net-- not the media darlings. All the good press on Salon and Wired in the world can't make up for a weak idea.
The idea of ICANN is based on the premise that experts, when insulated from ignorant or selfish people, can run people's lives better than they could themselves. I doubt that that is true in even the Real World, but in Internet infrastructure, there isn't even a question that that is a stupid idea.
Ultimately, the pundits and players who appear on CNN when they talk about 'the crisis in cyberspace', whatever the crisis is that day, do not run the internet. The market does, ie every individual user's decision. I have always felt that we need unlimited TLDs. Now I wonder if we even need a centrally controlled DNS system. We do need some kind of governing body. But it has to be based on law and order-- not stupid and manipulative 'experts'. Since rules are by definition applications of force (or the threat of force) we need to be minimalists.
No, the reason they don't use sampling is because it is more vulnerable to political motivation. The Constitution demands an 'enumeration'. Not a guess-- even a solid one. An actual count is tougher, but less vulnerable to political manipulation-- there are long lines of clever stat people ready to skew the results the 'right way'. Look at the numbers both our candidates spout on their economic plans.
You'd have to change the Constitution to change the Census policy.
Actually, for the most part, this is already the case. Congressional and executive salaries, including non-government salaries, are all publicly declared and reported. You can request all this stuff-- it is public record, and occasionally published in the newspapers if it has some shred of juiciness to it.
Campaign contributors are the same way. Try to donate five bucks to a candidate-- you'll have to enter personal information to allow them to comply with campaign finance laws-- and much is published by the Federal Elections Commission.
Anyway, the whole point of the Census-- the reason it is in the constitution-- is to give government agencies, especially Congress, the information they need to determine the effects of different public policies. For instance, if the Congressional Budget Office wants to determine what the effects of a tax increase will be-- who it will hit and by how much, and what the effects on revenue will be, they need that information. The Census makes government (theoretically) more science and less guesswork. There's still plenty of opinion to politics, but solid numbers helps people.
That's one reason why libertarians and conservatives don't like how huge government has become. It has touched so many areas of our personal lives that it has to collect invasive information about us. Free healthcare for everyone? Well, we need to know if you qualify. Diane Feinstein, for instance, supported a plan to have a national ID card/database. The plan was rescinded when Congress changed parties.
You can't support a bigger government (as Nader, Gore and Feinstein do) without supporting measures to give government the authority to gather the personal information it needs to support a larger government.
Henry Hyde is a good guy-- I don't see what you accomplish by trashing him on general principles. The slashdot They're All Bought Anyway Corps never seems to deploy when democrats are talking. Gore said some virulently anti-gay things in the 80's, but people have been remarkably forgiving of him (I would say, way too forgiving). Republicans on slashdot appear to be guilty until proven innocent-- often, are still 'guilty' no matter how hard they fight for us. If anything, the biggest threat to the CS community is the fact that the community refuses to vote based on the issues they bitch constantly about.
Democrat politicians know that they can support the RIAA, push for national ID's, oppose fair use, support the clipper chip, and hold up export controls on strong encryption. Why? Because programmers vote for them anyway. So, naturally, that is their record. The only technology issue which the democrats can brag about on slashdot right now is the M$ trial-- and their solution, a breakup, makes as much sense as cutting a planaria worm in half: you just get two monopolies.
Yes, Orin Hatch authored the DMCA. And the RIAA and the courts (judges appointed by who? oh yeah, the president) have interpretted the law in ways that Senator Hatch didn't expect or like. That's why the Senate filed a brief with the courts saying that they didn't support the interpretation of the DMCA. That's why they are holding hearings. Hatch pinned Gail Rosen to the wall in the Napster hearings he called, while democrat Diane Feinstein supported the RIAA as it fought the idea of fair use tooth and nail.
So if you are from California (many/most of us are), vote against Feinstein. If you are from Utah, vote for Senator Hatch. That is, if these are the issues you care about. It is very telling that one of the authors of the DMCA is fighting the way it is being interpretted in courts, and we should be helping out.
Joe Quimby is soft on crime! Just a few years ago, he let a madman like Sideshow Bob free! One more good reason to prevent that ever from happening again: vote Sideshow Bob for Mayor!
I had to think for a minute before I responded, because you do have a point. However, the idea isn't just a matter of electing compromise viewpoints. Picking something which eventually will be the consensus is different from picking a candidate who has been pushing for that consensus in an election. This is a subtle difference, and I wonder if I am phrasing it correctly now.
Differences in opinion can exist on (at least) three levels:
Priority: This issue is important, while that issue can wait. Example: the Farm Bill will be coming up for another vote in 2002. Losing sleep over that? Probably about as much as a farmer did over the Clipper Chip.
Extremity: In other words, we may both agree that taxes are needed, but I may want rate X%, while you want rate Y%. The correct compromise might not be in the middle! Some approaches are each at a local minimum, and the compromise is worse than either one.
Approach: Republicans tend to want to solve problems by allowing free markets to produce the solutions. Democrats want to solve things by the passage of laws or use of public funds. So, when faced with a broken education system, Democrats want to strengthen the US Dept. of Education (a federal office which regulates school systems) and spend more money on public school. They feel that the government system isn't properly designed, or isn't sufficiently supported. Republicans think that the system itself is the problem-- it has no market forces to back it up and therefore doesn't self-optimize. Republicans prefer giving parents choice (depending on the person, either between public schools, or with vouchers, among all public and private schools). There isn't a compromise between these outlooks-- the solutions are mutually exclusive, and result from their differing model for just what the problem is. Each believes the that other will only make the problem even worse.
Priority, Intensity, Approach: Synthesizing these views is not so much a statistical process-- it is a social and intellectual process. If we had a fascist with 40% of the vote, and a Republican and a Democrat with 30% each (remaining are undecided), then the Republican and Democrat must compromise (possibly with the fascist, more likely with one another). But the differing outlooks mean that there is a problem with regard to Approach. Priorities and Extremeties are easier to average out-- I get some priorities, and you get some, too; we split the difference on extremeties.
But what about Approach? The trick there is to frame the issues to one's supporters in a way which makes the similarities stronger than the difference. To keep your fans' eyes on the ball, so to speak (after all, the more important difference is between either party and the fascist). This is a social trick which a mere mathematical ranking doesn't cover. More importantly, rating the Republican a '#1', the Democrat a '#2', and the Fascist '#3' forces the voter to express something they don't feel: that either candidate is infinitely preferable to the fascist!
Anyway, the point is that political leadership is needed to bring large groups to endorse compromise positions. Preferential voting systems attempt to automate the process of consensus and compromise, rather than making it something which everyone is a part of.
I'm not sure if I phrased all of this correctly, because as I said, you did make me think about it. But I hope you understand where I'm getting at with this.
You do realize that by using Hitler in an argument, you automatically kill the thread and lose, right? That's USENET law!
Anyway, that aside, it doesn't seem like you actually read my post, or maybe just the top part of it. In your first example, the primary election is missing. That primary would enable us to bring it down to two candidates. Occasionally, you do get a case where a third candidate appears. Then the party closer to their view creates a compromise/consensus position which lures away their supporters while minimizing the loss of moderates. Or if the new faction represents a middle ground between the two parties, they compete for the centrist vote while trying to hold their radical wings.
So let's reverse the names again on your candidates. Perot, Bush, Clinton. What happened to the reform party? Well Perot stood really for three things:
1) generic moderation (the parties are too different, and can't work together enough to get things done.)
2) balanced budget
3) protectionism (ie no free trade)
Each party moderated; just look at the debate last night to see how much closer the two parties are. To the point that we have Ralph Nader and Jon Katz claiming that the parties are too similar now. The budget got balanced (kudos to programers and the Web for giving us the economy to make it possible.) And protectionism? Well, it just doesn't have much public support anymore. People realize that trade helps the poor in other countries while helping us here in the US. The few protectionists who are left either support Pat Buchanan or Ralph Nader.
Ralph Nader probably won't do that well in this election. But if he does, the democrats will swing back to the radical left- endorsing radical environmental policies, more government, higher taxes and isolationist trade policies. So your example is actually a great one which, when its real world equivalent is looked at, has worked perfectly.
Don't put that finger in your ear!! You don't know where that finger's been!
Smells finger suspiciously....
I am very happy that Karl won. One thing we need to remember, though, is that he is only one voice in the board. We all need to be ready to help him if he is going to get stuff done on the board.
Rob, Jeff: what are the odds of getting an interview with him? He was basically /.'s pick!
This is a little roundabout, but it gets where its going. So please bear with me.
Labels like 'liberal' and 'conservative' are deceptive. I have seen many who share the same brand name argue viciously over their beliefs, while (and the VP debate last week is a good example of this) people of different political traditions can have similar beliefs. So what is the practical result? Your example was this:
In this example, let's remove the labels. There are three candidates. One is supported by 40% of the people, and the other two by 30%. Who should be elected? If none of the three can reconcile their differences to create a majority voting block, the 40%!
Is removing the labels ok? It feels wrong, because we remember the ideologies in the first example, and want to somehow account for the two liberal candidates wearing the same political label. But from an outside viewpoint, it doesn't matter what the particulars of their policies are. The point of the election is to generate consensus whereever possible, minority rights wherever threatened, and majority rule whenever it is needed. If the two 30% candidates can't agree to a common viewpoints, then it doesn't matter what their label is-- they are different political groups. A minor difference is only minor in the eyes of the beholder.
Ultimately, after the election, whoever didn't vote for the winner will have to live with the results of the election. A working majority will have to be formed in the Congress/Knesset/Diet/Parliament. Otherwise, the government would collapse. Once he wins office, the leader must forge a working majority. That means compromising and working with his opponents-- and where that fails, building a majority.
In multiparty systems, the voter sees plenty of labels and badges, but ultimately, once they win, these parties are able to go into a back room and decide what is critical and where they can compromise. In other words, you are rewarded for the fanaticism of your supporters (luring them away from other parties) and then quietly leave the consensus-building to be done in secrecy.
In a two party system, here's what happens in your example: 40% guy wins. But in the next election, the two 30% candidates decide they have more in common with each other, and ONE runs, fielding a selection of issues which represents the best of both (and, often, compromises between the two). Then the 40% candidate loses, until HE can find a enough voters to compromise with that he can build a faction of more than 50%. In this case, leaders compromise BEFORE the election, and their supporters can each judge the quality of their compromise before voting. That's why the two major parties have primaries! Each major party is made up of a thousand minor factions, and the faction which can forge the best representation of the party as a whole gets to be the party's candidate. Each party races for 50% in the general election. And if one faction decides to try to railroad all the others, it will get outrun by its competitors.
Both two party and three+ party systems have this feature of compromise and consensus-building. The difference is that a two party system has this process before the election, and it is conducted in public. In a parliamentary system, it is conducted after the election, and out of the prying eyes of the public.
For something small like ICANN, there is too much overhead for a two party system to be worth it (though the trademark issue would seem to be creating two factions anyway). The ranking system is appropriate for the size and influence of the organization. But when it comes to a whole nation, with a military and police, you need a fairly extensive process.
Two party systems are simple-- if you aren't too involved and only vote at the general election. But if you aren't happy with the nominees from your party (or the party that you are closest to), then just vote in the primaries for the guy who better represents your views. It takes some research, but you are rewarded by a party which is more like you. If you still aren't happy (tough customer!), then volunteer for the candidate who best represents your views. Rough estimates: A campaign for the House takes about 25 people. A campaign to be Senator or Governor (depending on your state's size and population, of course) takes about 25-100 people. One volunteer, even at these heights, makes a huge difference-- especially if you have organizational, technical or writing skills.
Or better yet, help a county commissioner/freeholder or state senator/representative. You are bound to be one of maybe three or four people on the campaign! If you work hard, you are almost certain to win-- and if there isn't any candidates you like, run yourself! It isn't that hard, and it is tons of fun.
Is there any way we can give a whole thread a +1 Informative/Insightful/Interesting?
SpryGuy and GlenRaphael just made a great series of posts on nuclear power-- tons of information presented for and against.
Just so both of you know-- plenty of us were reading this! And if you didn't catch it yet, click here to read it. Really good series of posts, each moderated at 1 when they ALL deserve a 5. It was last week, so I guess this post is in vain, but who knows?
Ask and you shall receive:
Phase One of his study: Read the Abstract, enjoy the Full Report.
Phase Two of his study: Read the Abstract, enjoy the Full Report.
You're welcome.
Interesting idea. Note that the 15km bubble he talks about is only with a kilowatt of power and a 200kg spacecraft. A multiton behemoth would have a huge magnetic bubble. I think the economies of scale sound pretty good on this.
Of course, the big problem of space travel, as everone else is also saying, is the earth to orbit phase.
ps: 500 hits to this report before we slashdotted it!!!
I'd vote last for Langenberg. Read his responses to the questionnaire. I mean, this isn't an apprenticeship. When he learns something about the Internet, and generates some reasonable opinions, then we can take a look at him. This isn't open-mindedness, this is ignorance. I'd much prefer the other candidates, who put their opinions on the table. Who will teach him about DNS issues? What conclusions will he come to once he's informed? Answer: Why risk it?
First and foremost, we need people with a technical understanding of the internet. Fortunately, most of them have it (Lessig, for instance, doesn't). Then, we need someone with a procedural understanding of the internet. Almost all have that as well (Lessig is strong here). Finally, we need to look at what values they have drawn about the direction of ICANN-- and how effectively they will pursue them.
Truth be told, I can't find myself straying from /.'s recommendations. I disagree most of the political stuff I've heard from them, but they seem to be totally on target when it comes to ICANN's 'election'. I'd rank Lessig a little lower, just because I'm more worried about his time/knowledge constraints, and Chapin a little higher (I don't think his employment matters). But that's just poking around here and there. Frankly, if people vote as listed above, they'd be doing just fine.
As for Auerbach, I can't see what isn't to like about him. gTLD anarchy is fine with me... but then again, I want to burn all TLDs. And as for disagreement-- with the state that ICANN is in, to the point where 'members' are not legally members, and the 'election' is not legally an election--- we need active and forceful representation. Especially because ICANN seems to want to become the Government of the Internet (though they strenuously deny it).
This may be the only election ICANN has. At Yokohama, they tried to kill @Large elections altogether, and have constantly worked to make them irrelevent. Any truly effective representation will require some confrontation from the candidates-- and support from the constituencies who elect them once the real debates begin.
Well, I don't like it, but I can't help but smile at the thought.
Everyone warned Jeff Bezos that these patents wouldn't work. Tim O'Reilly did. We did here on /.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. This is exactly why software patents are so dangerous. Why they are bad for everyone-- including the patent holders. There are some cases where they make sense, but going wild is very risky.
I really, really hope that this claim goes through. Then, perhaps Amazon will get serious about stopping these ridiculous patents.
Medicine can solve the mechanical problem. The challenge is this: can we find women so attractive, so enticing, so triple Xplosive that one hundred can all get regular attention from a single man?
Two romanian weightlifters would just barely be able to arouse enough of a libido to cover both of them. I'll guarantee you that a NP-level of sexiness is required to give a man the energy to handle 100 women. And that, the sheer quantity of hot love-making, is the technical challenge of the post-apocalyptic earth. Only Smooth B has the savvy to devise a solution to this problem.
Why should a company only get one TLD? It doesn't need to be three letters long... Let's just open it up and register it the way the domain registrars are set up.
Remember Orin Hatch's hearings on Napster and the DMCA? Hatch said that the way they designed the bill, it was designed to be fully fair-use compliant. But that the court rulings and the interpretations the RIAA and MPAA are using are way skewed away from what the bill was intended to do.
That is what happens, sometimes. You write something intended to do one thing, and then it does something else. How many patches make a large software system stable? Same deal.
They were worried about protecting the rights of authors against bootlegging; but the bill is now being applied in ways which it was never intended to work (user licences, DeCSS, etc).
I think the whole point of what Armey's saying is addressing all your things he didn't explicitly mention, except one. And that is that the premise of Carnivore is a violation of civil liberties just by existing. On that point, he's hearing one story from the Clinton Administration, and another from the rest of the world. The whole point of an independent review is to sort out exactly what carnivore does and how it does it.
I mean, talk about nit picky. When /. went up in arms about it, Congress demanded a review of Carnivore. Then, we got mad when we found out that everyone who would review it was working for the president whose people built it-- and Congress is mad about that, too. Trying to jump in the Majority Leader's head and find a reason why this isn't good news is really reaching. We complain that noone is doing the right thing on these issues, then when someone does, we fish around for reasons to still be mad at them. Sheesh!
We should be overjoyed that people are fighting for what we believe in, instead of just saying that they are hip to the internet and then trying to shove the clipper chip down our throats. (or national ID's or stopping fair use, or holding up encryption export, et al.)
Exactly, Burn all TLDs. Then you could have a cooperative system for having nameservers refer to one another. Are the TLD's on a given nameserver encroaching on an assigned TLD? (Conflicting name assignments is AFAIK the only argument against unlimited TLDs) Then the other referring nameservers would just give them the equivalent of the Usenet Death Penalty.
This way, you could have .dot or .slashdot or whatever. You just register TLDs as if they were Domain Names, because that is effectively what they then become. And you would avoid much of the bureaucratic and authoritarian nonsense we're seeing from ICANN lately.