I believe they are - fuck, shit, piss, cunt, tit, cocksucker, motherfucker.
of course motherfucker is redundant of fuck and piss and tit make no sense whatsoever, but go figure, those are the ones they came up with.
here's a solution if you don't want to bleep - just dangerouly them. As I recal, comedy central, which usually bleeps, let Johnny Dangerously play with all the "farging iceholes" and "cork-suckers" intact.
Why not just put a brief disclaimer bringing attention to the nature of the song prior to airing it. Oh, I know why... it makes too much sense.
Only if you think risking their very real broadcasting license for trey's "artistic license" makes too much sense.
Come on now, they have to bleep fuck. Its one of the seven words. Unless they want to switch the awards to a cable network, the academy cannot air the song without doing something about that word. and if the you think the artistic integrety found in the line "now when I see him he tells me to fuck myself" is something anyone is going to bat against the FCC over, you are seriously deluded.
The solution is bleep on fuck, get a grip on fart, and negotiation on bitch. If trey would rather bleep than re-write a meaningless line in the song, thats his decision. But lets be realistic on the viable options the academy has.
But I for one am sick and tired of hearing all these privacy advocates whine for legislation about privacy on the net, and then hear the same advocates turn around and cry when bills are passed to censor content. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Hey, don't stop there, the hypocracy continues!
Publishers expect legal enforcement of copyright, yet expect the government not to censor their content!
Businesses want laws against embezzelment and theft but the whiners think they should be able to produce what they want, not what the government says.
And the gall of those feminists who ask the government not to regulate their reproduction and then turn right around and ask for rape to be taken seriously as a crime!
When will these people learn? I hope you continue to ferret out these hypocrits who want to have their cake and eat it too, where ever you imagine them.
On the other hand, I believe that some car company has the patent on a center headlight that turns with the streering wheel (to illuminate turns better) and just isn't making cars with them. Seems strange, I have to hunt up the facts on that little semi-legend.
More importantly, little Johnny shouldn't even be at the library without his parents unless they deem him mature enough to make responsible decisions about what information he seeks out.
Afterall, most libraries contain information about explosives, erotica, and texts on human sexuality complete with graphic illustrations and photos, without any access control to prevent Johnny from getting his hands on them. The librarians are there to help people find information, not to babysit some irresponsible parents' children.
This is the worst argument that comes out of this debate. Libraries are great places for kids. I don't know what's wrong with the libraries you go to, but where I come from, there are "children's", "young adult", and "adult" sections of any library. Parent's do and should feel perfectly comfortable leaving their kids in either of the first two sections and any librarian worth shit will ask a young child out of those areas if they are lost or where their parents are. It isn't babysitting, its doing part of their job and has more to do with making sure that they don't get lost, destructive or caught in the back stacks with some sicko than with restricting information access.
Now most libraries that I have seen place computers in a central area accessable to all their patrons. A child using a computer alone is not a neglected waif, anymore than a kid listening to story time without his mom checking each page before the aide reads it. If the library places computers in a child accessable area, they have a responsibility to the parents of those children, just like they wouldn't put the penthouse forum in the stack of books for volunteer readers and then say "well why weren't you paying attention to your child?"
Libraries are good places for kids. They can stay that way even with computers and without faulty filterware, but not if your attitude defines the debate (and sadly, on/. it seems to). All you are doing is telling people that filter-ware is their only alternative, cause you'll just call them bad parents for giving their kid some independence in what should be a safe environment.
Not such a bad idea if you can train the >= 18 year olds to remember to logout their session before leaving.
No problem, I would just put in something so if there was no activity for X seconds, you got a Y second warning before the browser closed and the cache was cleared. Need a warning to that effect so people don't go to ask a question during a session, but still pretty simple.
This is what I like to see. Proactive problem solving.
That is like trading a greater evil for a lesser evil. This is free speech, all or nothing please thanks.
hope you like nothing.
Free speech is not absolutely garenteed anyway. You can't threaten people, you can't make false advertising statements, etc. And free *access* is limited even more. If you want your kids to have 100% free internet access, buy them a computer. The library can restrict access based on age all they want and won't be interfereing one whit with free speech.
The concern I would have with such a plan is that most avalible filtering programs will end up blocking info about safe sex, gay and lesbian issues, sexual abuse, even if thats not what the community was looking to block.
THe supreme court has ruled on this in the CDA decision stating that the internet deserves the strongest 1st amendment protections, and also compared banning sites to burning books...
And you wouldnt advocate burning books, now would you?
You wouldn't advocate making silly comparisons and then expecting people to make their decisions based on them, would you?
The supreme court was a little silly in this case, but more importantly, they were talking about banning a site from existing, not from being read in a specific location.
Hint. I can burn all the books I want if they belong to me. Wouldn't cause it would seem a waste, but could without it being censorship. Its when I try to gather up every copy of a book in my community and burn them that a problem exists. I think you need to really get a grip and look at the difference between restricting access from one location and "banning" a site.
Interestingly, I have not and do not support filtering software of the kind currently avalible in libraries (mostly due to concerns on incorrect blocking) but the overall effect of these/. discussions has been to make me more understanding of the average person who would vote for filters. And it makes me understand why we're losing. Maybe I should go check out the ACLU web site. It might remind me of the way people talk when they want to win.
If you are willing to drive 200 miles to Seattle to see it then I think Disney is completely and 100% correct to demand what they have been.
Just because you can do something and still make money doesn't make it correct. A lot (I don't know about the majority for sure) of IMAX theaters are out of museums and other educational venues. It is exceedingly tacky for Dinsey to expect them to just abandon their mission for four months for a commercial and entertainment venture. I will not be driving anywhere to see this film and will be sending a letter of support to the Mugar for choosing against this kind of deal.
If however you can come up with a group of people who believe both that abortion is wrong and should be outlawed, yet would have one themselves, well.......
Look at McCain's responses to what he would want to do if his teenaged daughter was pregnant (due to sexual assualt?) he first said that in the end the decision would lie with her, then backpedaled to say it would be a family decision. In other words, constitutional amendment for you personal choice for me.
It actually isn't unusual. In (I think) the first Bush race, Dan Quayle was asked a similar question and wishywashed on it. Then his wife came to the podium and showed us what real no-holds-barred pro life is all about, saying that their daughter would carry the baby to term, etc. The strong reaction got more notice than the wishy-washy one, showing that most American's expect "pro-life" leaders to be hypocrits when it comes to their own choices.
One of us has tried gonzo.com while looking for muppet stuff and found porn.
One of us has searched for pet supplies and gotten a completely misleading porn site with the pop-up windows of doom.
One of us was searching for political info and found that a certain gay rights term had been added to the search strings of a bunch of porn sites. ("a bunch of" meaning that the search was completely useless because of the porn 'noise' and a more indirect search had to be used to get the desired info.)
The existance of 'stealth porn' is not (IMHO) a reason to use ineffective filtering software that blocks useful sites. But it is a problem that concerns some people. Neither pretending it doesn't exist, nor insulting those who are concerned are viable solutions. Helping create a non-censoring technological solution is, and will take the wind out of the AFA's sails while you're at it.
...but my cat loves me. Runs to the door when I come home, jumps up on the table to be pet, plays the "chase me" game... And I trained her to let me trim her claws easily.
Dogs aren't more affectionate, they're just less discriminating.;>
"This post is for limited release to Slashdot readers only. Under no circumstances it is to be made available to general population. What would they think of us?!?! Keep PR in mind at all times!!"
*grin* well, this is a public forum. And don't forget that the "open letter" to a pro-filtering group got held up as an example of our evil because the "department" heading had a boobies joke.:)
Anyway, "unmitigated bigots" really isn't very descriptive. If we're going to be insulting, lets at least be informative. Are they intellectual bigots? Sexual expression bigots? I deal with a wide variety of bigots in my political life, I just need more data!
Some folks learned the hard way about sixty years ago about defending their rights, and that so-called "middle ground," and six million of them paid with their lives. Sorry, I don't intend to go quietly.
Oh please. The only thing I hate more than holocaust revisionists is those people who demean it by trying to equivalate every tiny crimp in their style. You know why? Because the revisionists are at least implicitly acknowleging the significance of the event.
If you think finding a way to keep people from (irrationally) worrying about their kids happening upon porn at the library without censoring deliberate searches is the first step to gas chambers you need to grow up and get some priorities.
As far as I am concerned, the pro-filter people are exactly those who were pushing CDA a couple of years ago and are pushing CDA II now. I don't think they are concerned parents. I think they are unmitigated bigots.
Er, are you talking about those introducing it, or those voting for it? If the former, whatever, but you'll lose PR points saying it so bluntly. If the latter, I think you may want to think it through a little more. I really doubt that 45% of Holland MI's voting population are "unmitigated bigots" and if they are, you might as well give up now. I rather suspect that those who voted for it were people who saw a problem and had an easy solution handed to them.
Ballot issues are more used more often than not to inflict the tyranny of the masses on the minority.
Hear, hear. While I was recently part of a successful ballot campaing in my state (on public funding for candidates, funny how sitting reps are never into that sort of thing.) and see their value, I'm also frightened by the tendency to put human rights for a minority up for majority vote. We live in a constitutional democracy, not a full one. (US that is)
here in MA, you cannot put anything on the ballot that relates to religion. Same concept, but only protects one kind of minority. (though by happy happenstance, the gay civil rights law here was passed with a religious exception that inadvertently ballot-proofed it.:> Same thing will probably prevent an anti-marriage initiative.)
This is a response to the overall caliber of responses. None have really answered the question except to say "It isn't a problem or if it is, its your problem, because you dont take care of your kid/raise it correctly/have the right attitude on sex."
Congratulations, you just explained why filter proponents will most likely win. A person says "i am concerned about X" The Religious Right gives them a solution, but one they are uncomfortable with. You give them no solutions and insult them for being concerned. Guess who they are more likely to see as on their side?
This community has the ability to give concerned parents a non-censorship solution to the problem they percieve. Everyone wins except the RR. If we instead choose to insult their perceptions, we give the RR a constant platform to gain support, the parents solutions that dont work and censorship for ourselves. Everyone loses except the RR.
While I congradulate you on your victory, you made some big mistakes on your way there, and you should think about them, considering there will be a "next time". One was making a big deal out of the "accidental porn viewing" and claiming it couldn't happen. Frankly you are lucky there wasn't more time between that and the vote because it could have bommeranged on you big time.
Never make an argument for your cause which is both falible and unneccassary. If and when it fails, some people will percieve your entire position as invalidated with it. I'm seeing it happen on an issue I work on right now, and I started worrying when I read about your little bet. Think about that in the future.
Then there's this...
I think it was my friend Lizard on the fight-censorship mailing list who said: "You can't compromise with book-burners. When someone asks you to burn 1,000 books, you cannot agree to burn only 500." He's exactly right. Any middle ground is a step backwards, and hard to recover.
When you demonify your opponents, you lose the middle ground and you cheat yourself. Some proponants of filtering software may be in the same league as "book burners." Most aren't going to be. They will be concerned parents, people who have had a misleading porn site draw them in (a friend found a site posing as a pet supply retailer that dumped her into hard core porn then kept popping up windows on her. It might be unusual, but it only has to happen once to change your opinion on the internet) people who want to feel that dropping their kids off for an afternoon at the library is better than leaving them home with the TV, and people who take care of their kids, but are worried about other peoples. You deal with these people by educating them, not with insults.
And the "no compromise" attitude sucks too. When someone complained of finding another user's porn, you didn't say "deal with it, no compromising with book burners", you pointed out a solution which is not censorship. If you actually listen to what the average voter is concerned about, you can help them solve their problems without them feeling they have to resort to censorship. If you tar everyone with the same brush, you won't know how to change the moderate minds.
Sorry to be negitive, and I mean the congradulations, but the only problem with victories is that they rarely inspire you to learn from your mistakes, and in a closer contest those mistakes will cost you. Good luck in the future.
It's quite obvious to the casual Slashdot reader (which is different from the casual observer) that Stanford ignored the reality of the situation. Nobody has yet bothered to ask why.
Has it ever occured to you that the casual slashdot reader knows practically nothing about social psych and that psychology is not as intuitive as most people seem to think? Have your read the study or any peer review of it?
I think I know. Flame me if you think I'm out in left field, but here goes:
Well, you did ask....
I think They are scared. "They" are the pointy haired bosses, the university deans, the brokers, everyone who's a middleman and raking in the cash. They see the potential for their power to slip away, for mere mortals to talk directly to God without purchasing an indulgence from the local priesthood. People like Bob Young and Jeff Bezos and a couple gents named Larry and you and me have, not overtly, but just as loudly, nailed our 95 Theses to the doors of Redmond and 1600 Pennsylvania.... and the fertilizer is beginning to hit the rotating ventilation device. But it's no longer politic to simply send in the Knights Templar and squash the revolution. First you have to demonize it in the press. Alternatively you can attempt (Microsoft, Algore, AOL) to co-opt it for yourself.
And this relates to a scientific study coming out of a reputable university HOW?
OK, lets think outside the box for a moment. Lets, just for one second, imagine that there is no mass illuminati-esq conspiracy out to crush geek culture because they are of so threatened by our superiority. What if some psych grad students or profs at a good university were looking to expand their work in social isolation and connection (psych researchers generally stay in one field and build on their advisor's research). And what if they just happened to notice that their favorite pool of lab rats (the undergraduate psychology student) had, over the last decade or so, gained a whole new entertainment and social outlet? You know, I think they would study it. All by their little lonesomes, not out of fear or prejudice or awe, but just because it makes a real straightforward study that could use a dependant variable (social isolation) which has probably been used before and has accepted measurment criterion, a really easy to chart independant variable (time on line doing various things) and a nice neat statistical framework to analyse the data.
And what if, once they did study it, they ran the data and found some results? Gee, I wonder if they would publish?
Frankly, the responses to this study have been pretty damn amusing to someone who has studied psych and been arround the decision making process of your average university psych research department. Look, some guys ran a test because they needed to do research. They got some results. Deal with it. No one is saying "everyone who uses the computer for more than X hours is socially isolated and a loser." They are saying that increased usage is correlated with social isolation, even when much of the usage is social in nature.
And next week we will explain the difference between "everyone in this group is better than everyone in that group"; "there is a statistically significant difference between the two groups"; and "some are, some aren't".
Halle Berry looks to "pretty" -- not to imply that Ms. Basset is unattractive, but her looks are more sophisticated than those of Berry, and IMHO more suited to Storm.
I know exactly what you mean. berry looks young to me. Storm was not a teenager, she was somewhat "innocent" of american customs when she first joined the team, but she was always very mature. Basset has that tough but still tender look to her, and I think she could have played a deeply spiritual woman who could wreck your world whenever she chose.:) (And in Strange Days she was so cut *drool drool*. ahem...)
Whenever they make a cartoon, movie, or special of the XMen, they have to put together a team. As far as I can tell, this usually involves pulling together charecters at nigh random and (worse) throwing in other charecters completely out of their comic book context.
But those of us who were addicted to the comic book itself remember a continum of teams as people dropped in and out. So who when was your favorite XMEN?
My vote - after Brood, before baby-phoenix showed up, Colosus, wolvie, Shadowcat, nightcrawler, rouge, and storm after the mohawke but before she lost her powers. And of course, Lockeed the dragon hang out saying gleep.
Which team do you think of as the "real" X-Men?
-Kahuna Burger
PS, since my favorite three x-men of all time are shadowcat, nighcrawler and colosus, I'm a little disapointed at the lineup. At least they've got rouge and wolvie. But why did they have to include scott and jean (aka ken and barbie)???? Now I'm gonna be watching the movie and some bad guy's gonna smack jean and I'll be the only one to yell "yeah!" and then I'll be all embarrassed.
Every woman in every comic book has enormous breasts. You may also have noticed that none of the men have visible pectoral muscles or ridiculously huge calves, either.
Just like the costumes, the comic book bodies are never going to translate to real life. and good thing too - The rediculously over-sexualized comic book women were the one thing that damped my marvel zobie enthusiasm as a "kid".
But I wanted angela basset as storm. I really, really did.:(
Thing is with the UCITA is that its obscure, but its impact isn't. It will affect the way that many citizens go about their lives, yet the only people who understand are techs who a are a very small minority. In order to reach politicians, you have to reach the citizenship with this through the press--difficult now that AOL owns a lot of the press.
In some ways, I think you are thinking too big here and missing the power we can have. Yeah, AOL owns a bunch of the national media, but these are STATE bills. As such, the place to oppose and educate is on the state and local level. I haven't had a chance to visit the website listed in the main article, so some of this will (hopefully) be redundant of what is said and done there, but this is how you do this :
Step one - instead of ass, say "bum", no no no, not that step one.....
ehem, Step one - find the people in a national forum such as this who are interested in this issue.
Step two - classify these people by region and state and ask them to network with other people in their area who may be interested. (ie, bob from nebraska goes to local university computer departments or clubs to explain the issue and find people willing to work on it.) These people form the core state group against the bill.
Step three - Someone in the state group writes (possibly from a standard format from the national group) an opinion piece explaining the bill, its repercussions for real people and how it is being slipped under most consumer's radar. Said article is submitted to local and university papers.
Step four - can be before or after 3. Group gets itself a name, website and po box.
Step five - make contact with other more established local groups who may be supportive of your goals. get a mention in their newsletters or a chance to address their membership. Build up a list of people who are supportive of you and how much they can be counted on for.
Step six - second round of media, this time by press release. Write up your formation as a news spot, with local color as neccessary and send it around. Local papers are best, they're desperate for news and will print anything that looks vaugly interesting and has most of the work done for them.
Step seven - lobby day! And what could be more fun? make sure to bring information for the reps, and have everyone who can't make it call on that day.
The steps go on, but the overall point is that this is a local process. You don't need to fight big money head on, you just have to put in the extra time and energy to get your message out through other channels, mainstream and non. It can work.
Just out of curiosity, what level of government are you thinking about. I've noticed that most americans (myself included) start thinking about politics at the biggest, most unresponsive level first. That is, the first political thing you care about is president. But simultaneously, the process that seems most remote from the average person is that which chooses the president. Then you take a little interest in your senatorial seat, which is still usually a choice between two or more well monied political insiders. Then you discover the house races, where people who actually seem interested in you are running, especially in the primaries. Then you discover your state legislature and BOOM! You discover politicos when they are still marginally human beings. And of course, one day you buy a house and all the sudden discover city government.
If you don't like republicans or democrats, try a level of politics where there are actually still people behind those lables. The bill that we are talking about here is being pushed for on the state level. Don't dismiss it because of how you feel about the parties on the national level.
Slashdot Mirror
of course motherfucker is redundant of fuck and piss and tit make no sense whatsoever, but go figure, those are the ones they came up with.
here's a solution if you don't want to bleep - just dangerouly them. As I recal, comedy central, which usually bleeps, let Johnny Dangerously play with all the "farging iceholes" and "cork-suckers" intact.
-Kahuna Burger
Only if you think risking their very real broadcasting license for trey's "artistic license" makes too much sense.
Come on now, they have to bleep fuck. Its one of the seven words. Unless they want to switch the awards to a cable network, the academy cannot air the song without doing something about that word. and if the you think the artistic integrety found in the line "now when I see him he tells me to fuck myself" is something anyone is going to bat against the FCC over, you are seriously deluded.
The solution is bleep on fuck, get a grip on fart, and negotiation on bitch. If trey would rather bleep than re-write a meaningless line in the song, thats his decision. But lets be realistic on the viable options the academy has.
-Kahuna Burger
Hey, don't stop there, the hypocracy continues!
Publishers expect legal enforcement of copyright, yet expect the government not to censor their content!
Businesses want laws against embezzelment and theft but the whiners think they should be able to produce what they want, not what the government says.
And the gall of those feminists who ask the government not to regulate their reproduction and then turn right around and ask for rape to be taken seriously as a crime!
When will these people learn? I hope you continue to ferret out these hypocrits who want to have their cake and eat it too, where ever you imagine them.
-Kahuna Burger
-Kahuna Burger
Afterall, most libraries contain information about explosives, erotica, and texts on human sexuality complete with graphic illustrations and photos, without any access control to prevent Johnny from getting his hands on them. The librarians are there to help people find information, not to babysit some irresponsible parents' children.
This is the worst argument that comes out of this debate. Libraries are great places for kids. I don't know what's wrong with the libraries you go to, but where I come from, there are "children's", "young adult", and "adult" sections of any library. Parent's do and should feel perfectly comfortable leaving their kids in either of the first two sections and any librarian worth shit will ask a young child out of those areas if they are lost or where their parents are. It isn't babysitting, its doing part of their job and has more to do with making sure that they don't get lost, destructive or caught in the back stacks with some sicko than with restricting information access.
Now most libraries that I have seen place computers in a central area accessable to all their patrons. A child using a computer alone is not a neglected waif, anymore than a kid listening to story time without his mom checking each page before the aide reads it. If the library places computers in a child accessable area, they have a responsibility to the parents of those children, just like they wouldn't put the penthouse forum in the stack of books for volunteer readers and then say "well why weren't you paying attention to your child?"
Libraries are good places for kids. They can stay that way even with computers and without faulty filterware, but not if your attitude defines the debate (and sadly, on /. it seems to). All you are doing is telling people that filter-ware is their only alternative, cause you'll just call them bad parents for giving their kid some independence in what should be a safe environment.
-Kahuna Burger
No problem, I would just put in something so if there was no activity for X seconds, you got a Y second warning before the browser closed and the cache was cleared. Need a warning to that effect so people don't go to ask a question during a session, but still pretty simple.
This is what I like to see. Proactive problem solving.
-Kahuna Burger
hope you like nothing.
Free speech is not absolutely garenteed anyway. You can't threaten people, you can't make false advertising statements, etc. And free *access* is limited even more. If you want your kids to have 100% free internet access, buy them a computer. The library can restrict access based on age all they want and won't be interfereing one whit with free speech.
The concern I would have with such a plan is that most avalible filtering programs will end up blocking info about safe sex, gay and lesbian issues, sexual abuse, even if thats not what the community was looking to block.
-Kahuna Burger
And you wouldnt advocate burning books, now would you?
You wouldn't advocate making silly comparisons and then expecting people to make their decisions based on them, would you?
The supreme court was a little silly in this case, but more importantly, they were talking about banning a site from existing, not from being read in a specific location.
Hint. I can burn all the books I want if they belong to me. Wouldn't cause it would seem a waste, but could without it being censorship. Its when I try to gather up every copy of a book in my community and burn them that a problem exists. I think you need to really get a grip and look at the difference between restricting access from one location and "banning" a site.
Interestingly, I have not and do not support filtering software of the kind currently avalible in libraries (mostly due to concerns on incorrect blocking) but the overall effect of these /. discussions has been to make me more understanding of the average person who would vote for filters. And it makes me understand why we're losing. Maybe I should go check out the ACLU web site. It might remind me of the way people talk when they want to win.
-Kahuna Burger
Just because you can do something and still make money doesn't make it correct. A lot (I don't know about the majority for sure) of IMAX theaters are out of museums and other educational venues. It is exceedingly tacky for Dinsey to expect them to just abandon their mission for four months for a commercial and entertainment venture. I will not be driving anywhere to see this film and will be sending a letter of support to the Mugar for choosing against this kind of deal.
-Kahuna Burger
If however you can come up with a group of people who believe both that abortion is wrong and should be outlawed, yet would have one themselves, well.......
Look at McCain's responses to what he would want to do if his teenaged daughter was pregnant (due to sexual assualt?) he first said that in the end the decision would lie with her, then backpedaled to say it would be a family decision. In other words, constitutional amendment for you personal choice for me.
It actually isn't unusual. In (I think) the first Bush race, Dan Quayle was asked a similar question and wishywashed on it. Then his wife came to the podium and showed us what real no-holds-barred pro life is all about, saying that their daughter would carry the baby to term, etc. The strong reaction got more notice than the wishy-washy one, showing that most American's expect "pro-life" leaders to be hypocrits when it comes to their own choices.
-Kahuna Burger
One of us has tried gonzo.com while looking for muppet stuff and found porn.
One of us has searched for pet supplies and gotten a completely misleading porn site with the pop-up windows of doom.
One of us was searching for political info and found that a certain gay rights term had been added to the search strings of a bunch of porn sites. ("a bunch of" meaning that the search was completely useless because of the porn 'noise' and a more indirect search had to be used to get the desired info.)
The existance of 'stealth porn' is not (IMHO) a reason to use ineffective filtering software that blocks useful sites. But it is a problem that concerns some people. Neither pretending it doesn't exist, nor insulting those who are concerned are viable solutions. Helping create a non-censoring technological solution is, and will take the wind out of the AFA's sails while you're at it.
-Kahuna Burger
Dogs aren't more affectionate, they're just less discriminating. ;>
-Kahuna Burger
*grin* well, this is a public forum. And don't forget that the "open letter" to a pro-filtering group got held up as an example of our evil because the "department" heading had a boobies joke. :)
Anyway, "unmitigated bigots" really isn't very descriptive. If we're going to be insulting, lets at least be informative. Are they intellectual bigots? Sexual expression bigots? I deal with a wide variety of bigots in my political life, I just need more data!
-Kahuna Burger
Oh please. The only thing I hate more than holocaust revisionists is those people who demean it by trying to equivalate every tiny crimp in their style. You know why? Because the revisionists are at least implicitly acknowleging the significance of the event.
If you think finding a way to keep people from (irrationally) worrying about their kids happening upon porn at the library without censoring deliberate searches is the first step to gas chambers you need to grow up and get some priorities.
-Kahuna Burger
Er, are you talking about those introducing it, or those voting for it? If the former, whatever, but you'll lose PR points saying it so bluntly. If the latter, I think you may want to think it through a little more. I really doubt that 45% of Holland MI's voting population are "unmitigated bigots" and if they are, you might as well give up now. I rather suspect that those who voted for it were people who saw a problem and had an easy solution handed to them.
-Kahuna Burger
Hear, hear. While I was recently part of a successful ballot campaing in my state (on public funding for candidates, funny how sitting reps are never into that sort of thing.) and see their value, I'm also frightened by the tendency to put human rights for a minority up for majority vote. We live in a constitutional democracy, not a full one. (US that is)
here in MA, you cannot put anything on the ballot that relates to religion. Same concept, but only protects one kind of minority. (though by happy happenstance, the gay civil rights law here was passed with a religious exception that inadvertently ballot-proofed it. :> Same thing will probably prevent an anti-marriage initiative.)
-Kahuna Burger
Congratulations, you just explained why filter proponents will most likely win. A person says "i am concerned about X" The Religious Right gives them a solution, but one they are uncomfortable with. You give them no solutions and insult them for being concerned. Guess who they are more likely to see as on their side?
This community has the ability to give concerned parents a non-censorship solution to the problem they percieve. Everyone wins except the RR. If we instead choose to insult their perceptions, we give the RR a constant platform to gain support, the parents solutions that dont work and censorship for ourselves. Everyone loses except the RR.
Your choice, guys.
-Kahuna Burger
Never make an argument for your cause which is both falible and unneccassary. If and when it fails, some people will percieve your entire position as invalidated with it. I'm seeing it happen on an issue I work on right now, and I started worrying when I read about your little bet. Think about that in the future.
Then there's this...
I think it was my friend Lizard on the fight-censorship mailing list who said: "You can't compromise with book-burners. When someone asks you to burn 1,000 books, you cannot agree to burn only 500." He's exactly right. Any middle ground is a step backwards, and hard to recover.
When you demonify your opponents, you lose the middle ground and you cheat yourself. Some proponants of filtering software may be in the same league as "book burners." Most aren't going to be. They will be concerned parents, people who have had a misleading porn site draw them in (a friend found a site posing as a pet supply retailer that dumped her into hard core porn then kept popping up windows on her. It might be unusual, but it only has to happen once to change your opinion on the internet) people who want to feel that dropping their kids off for an afternoon at the library is better than leaving them home with the TV, and people who take care of their kids, but are worried about other peoples. You deal with these people by educating them, not with insults.
And the "no compromise" attitude sucks too. When someone complained of finding another user's porn, you didn't say "deal with it, no compromising with book burners", you pointed out a solution which is not censorship. If you actually listen to what the average voter is concerned about, you can help them solve their problems without them feeling they have to resort to censorship. If you tar everyone with the same brush, you won't know how to change the moderate minds.
Sorry to be negitive, and I mean the congradulations, but the only problem with victories is that they rarely inspire you to learn from your mistakes, and in a closer contest those mistakes will cost you. Good luck in the future.
-Kahuna Burger
Has it ever occured to you that the casual slashdot reader knows practically nothing about social psych and that psychology is not as intuitive as most people seem to think? Have your read the study or any peer review of it?
I think I know. Flame me if you think I'm out in left field, but here goes:
Well, you did ask....
I think They are scared. "They" are the pointy haired bosses, the university deans, the brokers, everyone who's a middleman and raking in the cash. They see the potential for their power to slip away, for mere mortals to talk directly to God without purchasing an indulgence from the local priesthood. People like Bob Young and Jeff Bezos and a couple gents named Larry and you and me have, not overtly, but just as loudly, nailed our 95 Theses to the doors of Redmond and 1600 Pennsylvania.... and the fertilizer is beginning to hit the rotating ventilation device. But it's no longer politic to simply send in the Knights Templar and squash the revolution. First you have to demonize it in the press. Alternatively you can attempt (Microsoft, Algore, AOL) to co-opt it for yourself.
And this relates to a scientific study coming out of a reputable university HOW?
OK, lets think outside the box for a moment. Lets, just for one second, imagine that there is no mass illuminati-esq conspiracy out to crush geek culture because they are of so threatened by our superiority. What if some psych grad students or profs at a good university were looking to expand their work in social isolation and connection (psych researchers generally stay in one field and build on their advisor's research). And what if they just happened to notice that their favorite pool of lab rats (the undergraduate psychology student) had, over the last decade or so, gained a whole new entertainment and social outlet? You know, I think they would study it. All by their little lonesomes, not out of fear or prejudice or awe, but just because it makes a real straightforward study that could use a dependant variable (social isolation) which has probably been used before and has accepted measurment criterion, a really easy to chart independant variable (time on line doing various things) and a nice neat statistical framework to analyse the data.
And what if, once they did study it, they ran the data and found some results? Gee, I wonder if they would publish?
Frankly, the responses to this study have been pretty damn amusing to someone who has studied psych and been arround the decision making process of your average university psych research department. Look, some guys ran a test because they needed to do research. They got some results. Deal with it. No one is saying "everyone who uses the computer for more than X hours is socially isolated and a loser." They are saying that increased usage is correlated with social isolation, even when much of the usage is social in nature.
And next week we will explain the difference between "everyone in this group is better than everyone in that group"; "there is a statistically significant difference between the two groups"; and "some are, some aren't".
-Kahuna Burger
I know exactly what you mean. berry looks young to me. Storm was not a teenager, she was somewhat "innocent" of american customs when she first joined the team, but she was always very mature. Basset has that tough but still tender look to her, and I think she could have played a deeply spiritual woman who could wreck your world whenever she chose. :) (And in Strange Days she was so cut *drool drool*. ahem...)
-Kahuna Burger
But those of us who were addicted to the comic book itself remember a continum of teams as people dropped in and out. So who when was your favorite XMEN?
My vote - after Brood, before baby-phoenix showed up, Colosus, wolvie, Shadowcat, nightcrawler, rouge, and storm after the mohawke but before she lost her powers. And of course, Lockeed the dragon hang out saying gleep.
Which team do you think of as the "real" X-Men?
-Kahuna Burger
PS, since my favorite three x-men of all time are shadowcat, nighcrawler and colosus, I'm a little disapointed at the lineup. At least they've got rouge and wolvie. But why did they have to include scott and jean (aka ken and barbie)???? Now I'm gonna be watching the movie and some bad guy's gonna smack jean and I'll be the only one to yell "yeah!" and then I'll be all embarrassed.
Just like the costumes, the comic book bodies are never going to translate to real life. and good thing too - The rediculously over-sexualized comic book women were the one thing that damped my marvel zobie enthusiasm as a "kid".
But I wanted angela basset as storm. I really, really did. :(
-Kahuna Burger
Intelligent person: "Your 'land' has value only by our presence. Listen to our votes even if you aren't ruled by them."
-Kahuna Burger
In some ways, I think you are thinking too big here and missing the power we can have. Yeah, AOL owns a bunch of the national media, but these are STATE bills. As such, the place to oppose and educate is on the state and local level. I haven't had a chance to visit the website listed in the main article, so some of this will (hopefully) be redundant of what is said and done there, but this is how you do this :
Step one - instead of ass, say "bum", no no no, not that step one.....
ehem, Step one - find the people in a national forum such as this who are interested in this issue.
Step two - classify these people by region and state and ask them to network with other people in their area who may be interested. (ie, bob from nebraska goes to local university computer departments or clubs to explain the issue and find people willing to work on it.) These people form the core state group against the bill.
Step three - Someone in the state group writes (possibly from a standard format from the national group) an opinion piece explaining the bill, its repercussions for real people and how it is being slipped under most consumer's radar. Said article is submitted to local and university papers.
Step four - can be before or after 3. Group gets itself a name, website and po box.
Step five - make contact with other more established local groups who may be supportive of your goals. get a mention in their newsletters or a chance to address their membership. Build up a list of people who are supportive of you and how much they can be counted on for.
Step six - second round of media, this time by press release. Write up your formation as a news spot, with local color as neccessary and send it around. Local papers are best, they're desperate for news and will print anything that looks vaugly interesting and has most of the work done for them.
Step seven - lobby day! And what could be more fun? make sure to bring information for the reps, and have everyone who can't make it call on that day.
The steps go on, but the overall point is that this is a local process. You don't need to fight big money head on, you just have to put in the extra time and energy to get your message out through other channels, mainstream and non. It can work.
-Kahuna Burger
If you don't like republicans or democrats, try a level of politics where there are actually still people behind those lables. The bill that we are talking about here is being pushed for on the state level. Don't dismiss it because of how you feel about the parties on the national level.
-Kahuna Burger