(in other words: what incentive do I have to move my ass in a movie theater chair or buy it on disk?)
Large civil fines ensure you'll always be bankrupt. Anything over $10,000 can't be discharged in the US; Not sure about Canada, but I suspect a similar limitation. Any significant assets you own will be seized. You won't be able to own a car worth more than a few grand, you'll never own a house; You'll be renting forever. Your wages will be garnished to ensure you are never able to acquire anything of value, or pay for your own health insurance (thank god you live in canada!). You will never receive another tax refund. Certain career choices will be unavailable to you, including anything in the government that requires a security clearance, work in the finance industry, or anything involving the handling of money or "crimes of trust." You may be denied a passport or visa, and will likely be unable to immigrate to any other country due to your debt (believe it or not, your credit report does matter when it comes to naturalization, just like any trouble with the law, even civil law). You will be summoned to court on a very regular basis to detail your financial situation to your debtors (the entertainment companies), and should you fail to show for any reason including being in a coma in a hospital, a bench warrant will be issued for your arrest. You will stay in jail for weeks to months until a hearing can be rescheduled. You will likely lose your job many times over the course of your life, and custody of your kids (if you have any).
So there's your incentive. Now, that said, it wouldn't be a fair analysis without telling you what your odds of being caught, prosecuted, and a judgement placed against you are. File sharing is one of the most popular and widespread online activities there is, and the legal system can only process so many cases per month. It will take many years to decades of this kind of enforcement activity before your lifetime risk of being hauled into court leave the single digit percentages.
As for me: I don't negotiate with terrorists; And terror is the weapon of choice for these people. Whether you do it with a bomb or a pen isn't relevant. They could make the penalty 30 years in the electric chair and it wouldn't change my behavior. But I'm not a normal person... normal people cave like a house of cards. It's your choice... but mine is to download, share, and annoy the hell out of them.
Its purpose will be to study the four greatest threats to the human species - artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology."
Artificial intelligence can't threaten anything but our pride unless it's hooked up to something that is a threat.
Climate change is caused by people, not robots.
Nuclear war will only be a problem if someone, or some thing in the command chain makes it a problem. If we're worried about AI taking over the nukes and launching them, two words: air gap. Require that a human being push the final button.
Rogue biotechnology is the same as nuclear war: Make sure there's a person in the decision chain. The smartest AI in the world can't do anything if the power's off.:)
Okay, where's my million dollar grant, guys? Also, what's for breakfast?
To my mind this belies a misunderstanding of what mathematics is.
Math does not tolerate concepts like "A lot", "a little", "somewhat", "sortof", "usually", "often", etc. These are phrases used in everyday conversation to describe not just quantity, but also quality -- but subjectively instead of objectively. And math is not good at subjectivity. Mathematics is discrete -- it has a definite and unambiguous result (whether it is a scalar or vector, a range or a set, whether positive or negative, real, or imagined...). 2x+y may not be solvable without knowing the values of both x and y, but the relationship can be plotted and it will have a specific angle.
But it isn't necessary to be precise or discrete to communicate observations, similarity, or patterns, from one person to the next. You say you can grab any "decent mathematician and put her in an environment with completely different conventions"... but I can do the same with a non-mathematician. I can show a kid in Kenya a picture of a leaf, of the pattern of blood vessels in the lungs, of coral -- anything that demonstrates the fibbonoci sequence, and without having had any education whatsoever, knowing only the most primitive concepts... he will be able to say "This is like that", and "this is not like that."
Pattern recognition does not require an explicit understanding of mathematics.
I have learned that those that assume expertise in one area grants special insight into other areas often make fools of themselves.
I never mentioned special insight, just the regular kind. If you're a police officer for long, you learn something about psychology. Same with technical support. If you are an engineer, you'll find it easier to learn the legal system or medicine as well. While the fields have very different subject material, there are many underlying cognitive tools and processes that are similar. Using a screwdriver, hammer, wrench, etc., you can build a car, a house, a ship, or a skyscraper.
That doesn't mean you know when or why you use those tools, or in what order -- that's something you have to study the field to learn. But if you already know the tools, that's one less new thing you have to learn to gain proficiency. And the thing is, the process that flow from those tools also follow a similar pattern... the more fields you learn, the more those "higher level" processes start to repeat as well.
The more you learn, the easier it is to learn more.
If there's only 21 million bitcoins that can be made, then if a lot of people started using them, they'd have to share them. There's something to be said for currency that has a indivisible limit -- for example, the smallest unit of currency in the US is the penny, though everything is typically counted in dollars. But while bitcoins can be divided, it adds a lot of complexity to the system and extra tracking and auditing. And it's main feature, anonymity, isn't really all that anonymous -- cash has serial numbers but there's no log of transactions built into the dollar. Bitcoins require that transaction log. In a lot of ways, it's about as anonymous as using a credit card.
...every language based description must have at least one equivalent mathematical problems.
Well, you're not wrong.:) All languages evolve in complexity to explain the environment of its users. That's just human nature. And being able to count beyond potato is likewise a valuable survival skill, which is how mathematical understanding evolved. I guess I should be more specific in that you don't have to study mathematics specifically in order to observe and report on these natural patterns of organization. It is possible to sketch out these things visually and say "This is like that", without ever touching upon math. So you can make comparisons and convey observations without it.
That was my only point. Math is convenient, but it is not necessary or intrinsic to observing the patterns or finding use in them. I know math and science are often found together, and I do not disagree anyone serious about science should study mathematics, but it is possible to utilize the scientific process without its study.
It's not math. Math is a language. Don't confuse natural phenomena with math; It is possible to observe and even describe them without knowledge of mathematics. That said, math is one of the best ways to describe them.
I have learned after studying many differing fields of science and engineering, that as you master one field you gain insight into many others. There are certain patterns of organization that repeat throughout nature, and mimicked by man, and if you study anything long enough you are certain to see these patterns. The more you learn, the easier it becomes to learn more because natural things are mostly variations on a finite set of themes that, whether you are aware of them or not, you will discover them and from that point forward, notice them much more quickly.
But there is something in the law that protects megaupload from this kinda BS. They complied with a search warrant and held the files on their system like FBI asked, now they are being shut down cause they kept them.
There is nothing in the law that protects them. The law is there to protect the FBI and enable it to do whatever it wants. For example, it's been legal for the past several years for evidence collected from a search warrant to be used even if the search warrant is later found to be invalid. Evidence collected without a search warrant is also admissable; The so-called "poisoned fruit" laws were struck down by our new, ultra-conservative, supreme court. And establishing probable cause has gotten a whole lot easier thanks to expansion of police powers -- for example, let's say your tail light is busted, your criminal record is totally clean, but the officer suspects you may have drugs in the vehicle. That suspicion alone is a reason to call over the K-9 unit and allow it to crawl all over, under, and around the vehicle. If it barks, that's cause to search the vehicle. And by search, I mean completely dismantle and leave on the side of the road in pieces. Oh... and you're responsible for the tow. Even if they still find nothing. Bonus: Dogs were found to only be effective about 2/3rds of the time in a recent study... and had a false positive rate of 1 in 8. In other words, 15% of the time, the dog indicated the presence of drugs when none were found (even in trace amounts).
Don't kid yourself... procedural mistakes won't derail the case. Maybe, in bygone days, the police were required to follow all laws and procedures and if they screwed up the guy walked, but not anymore. Getting tough on crime means that we now don't let little problems like a lack of evidence, or tainted evidence, get in the way of justice. And of course, then there's confessions... -_- Many of which are forced out of suspects.
The police don't care who their guy is; They just need a guy. There are no innocent people in the world anymore... there's just guilty, and not yet guilty.
We do not have access to widespread surveillance, including UAVs, blinding weapons, heavy-duty body armors and so on and so forth; the difference in actual physical power just keeps growing at the same speed as political and legal power.
No, we just build them. Easy solution: Stop. All those things require maintenance. I work in IT, maintenance is sorta important. And nothing takes more maintenance than shit for the government. People seem to think that these very few individuals can control many even if the many do not consent to it... but they invariably fail to note that none of those things will last very long once they're unsupported. Drones need fuel, supplies, same with guns, etc. And people need food and water. Logistics and maintenance will fuck them. They can die locked in their mansion-fortresses for all I care... but chances are, eventually, they're gonna run out of food. *shrugs*
It'd be stupid to fight them head on when starving their supply lines and waiting them out is an easier, more ethical, and less bloody alternative.
You missed.. reading the article. No worries, just click on the link and you'll be fine.
I was making a joke about the poor summary by the submitter and miserable lack of editorial quality by the approver. And I'd click on the link but someone sent me a youtube of a cat. Humor is such a subjective thing. So, a man walks into a bar...
Then again, as the realist that I am I believe the situation will only go worse.
Likewise. It seems the world learns its lessons the same way a four year old does: No matter how many times you tell them what will happen if they don't wear their hat and mittens, they will still cheerfully ignore you. It seems that only after you've frozen the little bastard half to death that they learn.
It's unfortunate that we haven't yet managed to evolve a society that learns in any other way than by bludgeoning of the clue bat.
It's neither one or the other, it's both, that's why she wears a blind fold.
Tell me, what inspires your confidence in a blind woman wielding a sword passing judgement on others? Because generally, that's the kind of thing that makes the evening news, not the basis for justice.
"For the first time, blind people could read street signs with a device that translates letters into Braille and beams the results directly onto a person's eye."
There's something missing here. I can't... quite... put my finger on it. I'm sure I'll get it in a minute.
Servers him right for embarrassing wealthy people.
Yes, people who became wealthy by making us poor, telling us there were terrorist boogiemen in the closet and under our beds, and then selling us snake oil cures like "enhanced" airport security scanners that give us cancer. Then they decide to start setting up cameras everywhere to record license plates, facial pictures, fingerprints, shopping habits, facebook profiles, private e-mail accounts... everything they can get their hands on. Why? To protect us against the boogiemen, of course. And not a single terrorist to show for it... but you know what can be shown for it? Marketing companies. Insurance companies. So-called "deep" background checks run against mid-level managers who know just enough to be dangerous, but not rich enough to be complicit and loyal to their corporate overlords without their knowledge. You can buy access to anyone's complete private data collection, just put a dollar in the jar over there labelled "For National Security Use Only".
This guy may have been stupid, and doubly-so for getting caught... But there's an old latin proverb: "Every misfortune is to be believed when directed against the unfortunate." He's poor. They could tell us he raped thousands of young, nubile school girls before setting fire to the local orphanarium and then passing out drunk in the street... and we'd believe him... because he's poor. It's what we expect from poor people.
One might easily imagine a scenario where these encrypted darknets, perhaps aided by those whose machines were hacked and turned unknowingly into exit nodes, remain so difficult to penetrate that the effort will only be expended as part of larger military conflict between nations and not for what amounts to a relatively minor economic matter like copyright.
One might imagine that instead of imagining, one simply looks to history: When PGP 2.6.2 was released, it opened the possibilities of encrypted and secured data exchange between private citizens that the government could not easily crack. Citizens now had access to technology only the military had, and it proliferated rapidly. It led to the rapid expansion of the internet, secured business transactions; It made quite a few people very wealthy, and changed the entire landscape of society. Our society now relies on something that was, not even all that long ago, considered to have no practical application beyond military conflict.
And now, private citizens are building their own technologies and tools to withstand the sustained efforts of a coalition of the world's largest governments to spy on them. It's being used to help people organize politically and socially in oppressive regimes, bring medicine and information about the outside world to those who otherwise could not. It's also helping terrorists, pedophiles, and murderers. There is good, and there is bad, but encrypted "darknets" are increasingly a part of our lives, and looking at the history, it's only a matter of time before outlawing them will not only be impossible and foolhearty, but also not in the best interests of national security.
When I hear about this endless bullshit with the RIAA, copyright law, filesharing... I realize that they're helping to create a digital underground not unlike what happened during the prohibition. Thanks to them, identity thieves have convenient and covert forums to ply their trade, and a lot of that money winds up in the hands of terrorists and political extremists both foreign and domestic. Because they've targetted such a wide swath of the general population and forced them to develop effective defenses against snooping, they've made it easier for those truly damaging to our interests to hide in the noise. It speeds the development of ever-stronger crypto and secret communication channels.
Would we really need cryptography if the governments, corporations, and wealthy private interests, were not so aggressive in turning everyone into a criminal? No. Which means crypto communications would be easily spotted, and it would be easier to monitor and track the truly dangerous. It is a direct consequence of heavy-handed tactics like this that has created a significant and well-connected network of "cyber" criminals; In the beginning we had Napster. Now we have bittorrent and P2P software. You know who else has those? Bot herders. Identity thieves. Non-criminals developed the technology to protect themselves from over-zealous enforcement agents, and as a consequence hundreds of millions of computers right now are engaged in acts of terrorism, vandalism, sabotage, and theft, on a scale that is hard to even comprehend. The size of these criminal enterprises dwarfs that of the entire entertainment industry, globally.
By the time the governments of the world wake up and realize what they've done, we'll be looking at a global criminal infrastructure mated to our communication networks, with a robust distribution network thanks to the drug trade, that not even a coalition of every first world government will have a snowball's chance in hell of dismantling. All because they listened to a few people out to make a buck, and conveniently forgot the law of unintended consequences.
Let's be honest: If you're doing something that someone with significantly more money than you is upset by, you will be punished. Most of what you were taught as a kid was a lie; The law isn't here to protect you, but control you. Every law advantages one group by disadvantaging another. And the idea of morality, ethics, punishment proportional to the harm, any judicial concept you care to toss out I can show numerous and significant examples where it has been thrown out because of the money issue I mention at the start of this.
Money isn't power per-se, but in this society, the value of a person is the balance in their accounts. If you're a valuable person, you get special treatment -- police will investigate crimes for you more readily, favors are easier to get, and everybody wants to be your friend. But if you don't have money, then the only real power you have is that people like you greatly outnumber people like them. But unless that potential is actualized, forget it.
Laws like this will continue to punish file sharers because file sharers are poor. You're being punished, not because what you're doing is unethical or immoral, but because you make less money than the people who say it should be illegal. Whether it's the german courts, the european courts, the american courts... it doesn't really matter. All countries are the same: With enough gold, anything is possible. And when you have enough gold, the first thing you do is punish and inflict harm on anyone who has less than you do... or else. Or else they could some day have enough gold too.
and its current unilateral control over so many part of it is not just bad for foreigners but not that good for US citizens either.
The problem is that the internet is the best tool for democracy ever created. We are all peers now in a global and worldwide community, with the ability to freely communicate with each other. While this communication has moved forward slowly, fitfully, and often painfully, it is moving forward. But it will still take generations of this access before true social change is achieved. We still, for the most part, watch our own news, talk to people geographically local to us, and eschew the larger world. But it still creeps in, day by day, bit by bit. Eventually, the shell will be cracked, no matter how tough it is.
Democracy is also the most dangerous thing imaginable for those in power. It means that you can't control the media in just one country and call it a day -- now you have to control them in all the countries. If your bomb goes awry and lands on civilians, the whole world is going to hear about it. Coverups, media manipulation, etc., all become more difficult. Government transparency increases year after year, and the costs to maintain a curtain over what is happening become higher and higher. The so-called "Transparent society" and loss of privacy goes both ways. Nobody can hide.
That's why the internet has to be dismantled and sold off piece by piece. The geographical barriers need to be put back up. Sovereignty must be restored -- and it's something all governments can agree on, and all of their citizens can disagree with. The internet is the ultimate tool of democracy. It must be destroyed! And quickly, before the whole world converts to it.
it sounds like the worst sort of stalkery marketer who'll abuse the hell out of your personal information for a buck.
Whoa there partner, back up. What this artist is asking for is entirely reasonable because this information is already available to the distributor. And offering additional information from the artist like when and where shows are happening is not only reasonable but the main method by which independent artists make their money! Radio was given free license to air music precisely because air time led to increased ticket sales, and they're very pro-active about announcing concerts that are coming up; It's typically part of the contract.
This person isn't asking for the personal details of every listener, but rather information on when and where those listeners are -- something that would be needed to audit the distributor and ensure their contractual agreement is being upheld, and something that a court order would easily be granted for. And it's just good business anyway. There's nothing "stalkery" about this. Or would you prefer the artist take it on faith that the distributor isn't screwing them over? As I understand it, there's something of a commotion over contractual obligations of certain 4-letter acronym'd agencies that often talk about "artists' rights", though they afford none to those who sign contracts with them. Shouldn't we be wanting the industry to be moving away from this kind of vendor lock-in?
Where's the 'Robot Rights Watch' just when you need 'em?"
They don't have feelings. If you don't believe me, go stab your toaster. I think what you meant was "Human rights" and the effect wide-spread use of robots with the ability to kill would have on them.
The question is, why? If everything at the quantum level always worked the same way forwards as it does backwards, then entropy would be constant; the universe would be in some kind of steady state and nothing would matter because we wouldn't be here.
Slashdot Mirror
(in other words: what incentive do I have to move my ass in a movie theater chair or buy it on disk?)
Large civil fines ensure you'll always be bankrupt. Anything over $10,000 can't be discharged in the US; Not sure about Canada, but I suspect a similar limitation. Any significant assets you own will be seized. You won't be able to own a car worth more than a few grand, you'll never own a house; You'll be renting forever. Your wages will be garnished to ensure you are never able to acquire anything of value, or pay for your own health insurance (thank god you live in canada!). You will never receive another tax refund. Certain career choices will be unavailable to you, including anything in the government that requires a security clearance, work in the finance industry, or anything involving the handling of money or "crimes of trust." You may be denied a passport or visa, and will likely be unable to immigrate to any other country due to your debt (believe it or not, your credit report does matter when it comes to naturalization, just like any trouble with the law, even civil law). You will be summoned to court on a very regular basis to detail your financial situation to your debtors (the entertainment companies), and should you fail to show for any reason including being in a coma in a hospital, a bench warrant will be issued for your arrest. You will stay in jail for weeks to months until a hearing can be rescheduled. You will likely lose your job many times over the course of your life, and custody of your kids (if you have any).
So there's your incentive. Now, that said, it wouldn't be a fair analysis without telling you what your odds of being caught, prosecuted, and a judgement placed against you are. File sharing is one of the most popular and widespread online activities there is, and the legal system can only process so many cases per month. It will take many years to decades of this kind of enforcement activity before your lifetime risk of being hauled into court leave the single digit percentages.
As for me: I don't negotiate with terrorists; And terror is the weapon of choice for these people. Whether you do it with a bomb or a pen isn't relevant. They could make the penalty 30 years in the electric chair and it wouldn't change my behavior. But I'm not a normal person... normal people cave like a house of cards. It's your choice... but mine is to download, share, and annoy the hell out of them.
It's no more illegal than bringing home a bootleg CD bought on the streets of Karachi.
A crime punishable by 30 years in the electric chair under new copyright legislation.
Its purpose will be to study the four greatest threats to the human species - artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology."
Artificial intelligence can't threaten anything but our pride unless it's hooked up to something that is a threat.
Climate change is caused by people, not robots.
Nuclear war will only be a problem if someone, or some thing in the command chain makes it a problem. If we're worried about AI taking over the nukes and launching them, two words: air gap. Require that a human being push the final button.
Rogue biotechnology is the same as nuclear war: Make sure there's a person in the decision chain. The smartest AI in the world can't do anything if the power's off. :)
Okay, where's my million dollar grant, guys? Also, what's for breakfast?
To my mind this belies a misunderstanding of what mathematics is.
Math does not tolerate concepts like "A lot", "a little", "somewhat", "sortof", "usually", "often", etc. These are phrases used in everyday conversation to describe not just quantity, but also quality -- but subjectively instead of objectively. And math is not good at subjectivity. Mathematics is discrete -- it has a definite and unambiguous result (whether it is a scalar or vector, a range or a set, whether positive or negative, real, or imagined...). 2x+y may not be solvable without knowing the values of both x and y, but the relationship can be plotted and it will have a specific angle.
But it isn't necessary to be precise or discrete to communicate observations, similarity, or patterns, from one person to the next. You say you can grab any "decent mathematician and put her in an environment with completely different conventions"... but I can do the same with a non-mathematician. I can show a kid in Kenya a picture of a leaf, of the pattern of blood vessels in the lungs, of coral -- anything that demonstrates the fibbonoci sequence, and without having had any education whatsoever, knowing only the most primitive concepts... he will be able to say "This is like that", and "this is not like that."
Pattern recognition does not require an explicit understanding of mathematics.
I have learned that those that assume expertise in one area grants special insight into other areas often make fools of themselves.
I never mentioned special insight, just the regular kind. If you're a police officer for long, you learn something about psychology. Same with technical support. If you are an engineer, you'll find it easier to learn the legal system or medicine as well. While the fields have very different subject material, there are many underlying cognitive tools and processes that are similar. Using a screwdriver, hammer, wrench, etc., you can build a car, a house, a ship, or a skyscraper.
That doesn't mean you know when or why you use those tools, or in what order -- that's something you have to study the field to learn. But if you already know the tools, that's one less new thing you have to learn to gain proficiency. And the thing is, the process that flow from those tools also follow a similar pattern... the more fields you learn, the more those "higher level" processes start to repeat as well.
The more you learn, the easier it is to learn more.
If there's only 21 million bitcoins that can be made, then if a lot of people started using them, they'd have to share them. There's something to be said for currency that has a indivisible limit -- for example, the smallest unit of currency in the US is the penny, though everything is typically counted in dollars. But while bitcoins can be divided, it adds a lot of complexity to the system and extra tracking and auditing. And it's main feature, anonymity, isn't really all that anonymous -- cash has serial numbers but there's no log of transactions built into the dollar. Bitcoins require that transaction log. In a lot of ways, it's about as anonymous as using a credit card.
...every language based description must have at least one equivalent mathematical problems.
Well, you're not wrong. :) All languages evolve in complexity to explain the environment of its users. That's just human nature. And being able to count beyond potato is likewise a valuable survival skill, which is how mathematical understanding evolved. I guess I should be more specific in that you don't have to study mathematics specifically in order to observe and report on these natural patterns of organization. It is possible to sketch out these things visually and say "This is like that", without ever touching upon math. So you can make comparisons and convey observations without it.
That was my only point. Math is convenient, but it is not necessary or intrinsic to observing the patterns or finding use in them. I know math and science are often found together, and I do not disagree anyone serious about science should study mathematics, but it is possible to utilize the scientific process without its study.
It's not math. Math is a language. Don't confuse natural phenomena with math; It is possible to observe and even describe them without knowledge of mathematics. That said, math is one of the best ways to describe them.
I have learned after studying many differing fields of science and engineering, that as you master one field you gain insight into many others. There are certain patterns of organization that repeat throughout nature, and mimicked by man, and if you study anything long enough you are certain to see these patterns. The more you learn, the easier it becomes to learn more because natural things are mostly variations on a finite set of themes that, whether you are aware of them or not, you will discover them and from that point forward, notice them much more quickly.
This is one example. There are many more.
But there is something in the law that protects megaupload from this kinda BS. They complied with a search warrant and held the files on their system like FBI asked, now they are being shut down cause they kept them.
There is nothing in the law that protects them. The law is there to protect the FBI and enable it to do whatever it wants. For example, it's been legal for the past several years for evidence collected from a search warrant to be used even if the search warrant is later found to be invalid. Evidence collected without a search warrant is also admissable; The so-called "poisoned fruit" laws were struck down by our new, ultra-conservative, supreme court. And establishing probable cause has gotten a whole lot easier thanks to expansion of police powers -- for example, let's say your tail light is busted, your criminal record is totally clean, but the officer suspects you may have drugs in the vehicle. That suspicion alone is a reason to call over the K-9 unit and allow it to crawl all over, under, and around the vehicle. If it barks, that's cause to search the vehicle. And by search, I mean completely dismantle and leave on the side of the road in pieces. Oh... and you're responsible for the tow. Even if they still find nothing. Bonus: Dogs were found to only be effective about 2/3rds of the time in a recent study... and had a false positive rate of 1 in 8. In other words, 15% of the time, the dog indicated the presence of drugs when none were found (even in trace amounts).
Don't kid yourself... procedural mistakes won't derail the case. Maybe, in bygone days, the police were required to follow all laws and procedures and if they screwed up the guy walked, but not anymore. Getting tough on crime means that we now don't let little problems like a lack of evidence, or tainted evidence, get in the way of justice. And of course, then there's confessions... -_- Many of which are forced out of suspects.
The police don't care who their guy is; They just need a guy. There are no innocent people in the world anymore... there's just guilty, and not yet guilty.
We do not have access to widespread surveillance, including UAVs, blinding weapons, heavy-duty body armors and so on and so forth; the difference in actual physical power just keeps growing at the same speed as political and legal power.
No, we just build them. Easy solution: Stop. All those things require maintenance. I work in IT, maintenance is sorta important. And nothing takes more maintenance than shit for the government. People seem to think that these very few individuals can control many even if the many do not consent to it... but they invariably fail to note that none of those things will last very long once they're unsupported. Drones need fuel, supplies, same with guns, etc. And people need food and water. Logistics and maintenance will fuck them. They can die locked in their mansion-fortresses for all I care... but chances are, eventually, they're gonna run out of food. *shrugs*
It'd be stupid to fight them head on when starving their supply lines and waiting them out is an easier, more ethical, and less bloody alternative.
You make all these rude noises about unsubstantiated crap, and then the only thing you really said was...
You must be Welsh. I show you something amazing, and you find fault with it. It would also explain the lack of manners.
You missed .. reading the article. No worries, just click on the link and you'll be fine.
I was making a joke about the poor summary by the submitter and miserable lack of editorial quality by the approver. And I'd click on the link but someone sent me a youtube of a cat. Humor is such a subjective thing. So, a man walks into a bar...
Then again, as the realist that I am I believe the situation will only go worse.
Likewise. It seems the world learns its lessons the same way a four year old does: No matter how many times you tell them what will happen if they don't wear their hat and mittens, they will still cheerfully ignore you. It seems that only after you've frozen the little bastard half to death that they learn.
It's unfortunate that we haven't yet managed to evolve a society that learns in any other way than by bludgeoning of the clue bat.
It's neither one or the other, it's both, that's why she wears a blind fold.
Tell me, what inspires your confidence in a blind woman wielding a sword passing judgement on others? Because generally, that's the kind of thing that makes the evening news, not the basis for justice.
"For the first time, blind people could read street signs with a device that translates letters into Braille and beams the results directly onto a person's eye."
There's something missing here. I can't... quite... put my finger on it. I'm sure I'll get it in a minute.
Servers him right for embarrassing wealthy people.
Yes, people who became wealthy by making us poor, telling us there were terrorist boogiemen in the closet and under our beds, and then selling us snake oil cures like "enhanced" airport security scanners that give us cancer. Then they decide to start setting up cameras everywhere to record license plates, facial pictures, fingerprints, shopping habits, facebook profiles, private e-mail accounts... everything they can get their hands on. Why? To protect us against the boogiemen, of course. And not a single terrorist to show for it... but you know what can be shown for it? Marketing companies. Insurance companies. So-called "deep" background checks run against mid-level managers who know just enough to be dangerous, but not rich enough to be complicit and loyal to their corporate overlords without their knowledge. You can buy access to anyone's complete private data collection, just put a dollar in the jar over there labelled "For National Security Use Only".
This guy may have been stupid, and doubly-so for getting caught... But there's an old latin proverb: "Every misfortune is to be believed when directed against the unfortunate." He's poor. They could tell us he raped thousands of young, nubile school girls before setting fire to the local orphanarium and then passing out drunk in the street... and we'd believe him... because he's poor. It's what we expect from poor people.
One might easily imagine a scenario where these encrypted darknets, perhaps aided by those whose machines were hacked and turned unknowingly into exit nodes, remain so difficult to penetrate that the effort will only be expended as part of larger military conflict between nations and not for what amounts to a relatively minor economic matter like copyright.
One might imagine that instead of imagining, one simply looks to history: When PGP 2.6.2 was released, it opened the possibilities of encrypted and secured data exchange between private citizens that the government could not easily crack. Citizens now had access to technology only the military had, and it proliferated rapidly. It led to the rapid expansion of the internet, secured business transactions; It made quite a few people very wealthy, and changed the entire landscape of society. Our society now relies on something that was, not even all that long ago, considered to have no practical application beyond military conflict.
And now, private citizens are building their own technologies and tools to withstand the sustained efforts of a coalition of the world's largest governments to spy on them. It's being used to help people organize politically and socially in oppressive regimes, bring medicine and information about the outside world to those who otherwise could not. It's also helping terrorists, pedophiles, and murderers. There is good, and there is bad, but encrypted "darknets" are increasingly a part of our lives, and looking at the history, it's only a matter of time before outlawing them will not only be impossible and foolhearty, but also not in the best interests of national security.
When I hear about this endless bullshit with the RIAA, copyright law, filesharing... I realize that they're helping to create a digital underground not unlike what happened during the prohibition. Thanks to them, identity thieves have convenient and covert forums to ply their trade, and a lot of that money winds up in the hands of terrorists and political extremists both foreign and domestic. Because they've targetted such a wide swath of the general population and forced them to develop effective defenses against snooping, they've made it easier for those truly damaging to our interests to hide in the noise. It speeds the development of ever-stronger crypto and secret communication channels.
Would we really need cryptography if the governments, corporations, and wealthy private interests, were not so aggressive in turning everyone into a criminal? No. Which means crypto communications would be easily spotted, and it would be easier to monitor and track the truly dangerous. It is a direct consequence of heavy-handed tactics like this that has created a significant and well-connected network of "cyber" criminals; In the beginning we had Napster. Now we have bittorrent and P2P software. You know who else has those? Bot herders. Identity thieves. Non-criminals developed the technology to protect themselves from over-zealous enforcement agents, and as a consequence hundreds of millions of computers right now are engaged in acts of terrorism, vandalism, sabotage, and theft, on a scale that is hard to even comprehend. The size of these criminal enterprises dwarfs that of the entire entertainment industry, globally.
By the time the governments of the world wake up and realize what they've done, we'll be looking at a global criminal infrastructure mated to our communication networks, with a robust distribution network thanks to the drug trade, that not even a coalition of every first world government will have a snowball's chance in hell of dismantling. All because they listened to a few people out to make a buck, and conveniently forgot the law of unintended consequences.
Let's be honest: If you're doing something that someone with significantly more money than you is upset by, you will be punished. Most of what you were taught as a kid was a lie; The law isn't here to protect you, but control you. Every law advantages one group by disadvantaging another. And the idea of morality, ethics, punishment proportional to the harm, any judicial concept you care to toss out I can show numerous and significant examples where it has been thrown out because of the money issue I mention at the start of this.
Money isn't power per-se, but in this society, the value of a person is the balance in their accounts. If you're a valuable person, you get special treatment -- police will investigate crimes for you more readily, favors are easier to get, and everybody wants to be your friend. But if you don't have money, then the only real power you have is that people like you greatly outnumber people like them. But unless that potential is actualized, forget it.
Laws like this will continue to punish file sharers because file sharers are poor. You're being punished, not because what you're doing is unethical or immoral, but because you make less money than the people who say it should be illegal. Whether it's the german courts, the european courts, the american courts... it doesn't really matter. All countries are the same: With enough gold, anything is possible. And when you have enough gold, the first thing you do is punish and inflict harm on anyone who has less than you do... or else. Or else they could some day have enough gold too.
and its current unilateral control over so many part of it is not just bad for foreigners but not that good for US citizens either.
The problem is that the internet is the best tool for democracy ever created. We are all peers now in a global and worldwide community, with the ability to freely communicate with each other. While this communication has moved forward slowly, fitfully, and often painfully, it is moving forward. But it will still take generations of this access before true social change is achieved. We still, for the most part, watch our own news, talk to people geographically local to us, and eschew the larger world. But it still creeps in, day by day, bit by bit. Eventually, the shell will be cracked, no matter how tough it is.
Democracy is also the most dangerous thing imaginable for those in power. It means that you can't control the media in just one country and call it a day -- now you have to control them in all the countries. If your bomb goes awry and lands on civilians, the whole world is going to hear about it. Coverups, media manipulation, etc., all become more difficult. Government transparency increases year after year, and the costs to maintain a curtain over what is happening become higher and higher. The so-called "Transparent society" and loss of privacy goes both ways. Nobody can hide.
That's why the internet has to be dismantled and sold off piece by piece. The geographical barriers need to be put back up. Sovereignty must be restored -- and it's something all governments can agree on, and all of their citizens can disagree with. The internet is the ultimate tool of democracy. It must be destroyed! And quickly, before the whole world converts to it.
it sounds like the worst sort of stalkery marketer who'll abuse the hell out of your personal information for a buck.
Whoa there partner, back up. What this artist is asking for is entirely reasonable because this information is already available to the distributor. And offering additional information from the artist like when and where shows are happening is not only reasonable but the main method by which independent artists make their money! Radio was given free license to air music precisely because air time led to increased ticket sales, and they're very pro-active about announcing concerts that are coming up; It's typically part of the contract.
This person isn't asking for the personal details of every listener, but rather information on when and where those listeners are -- something that would be needed to audit the distributor and ensure their contractual agreement is being upheld, and something that a court order would easily be granted for. And it's just good business anyway. There's nothing "stalkery" about this. Or would you prefer the artist take it on faith that the distributor isn't screwing them over? As I understand it, there's something of a commotion over contractual obligations of certain 4-letter acronym'd agencies that often talk about "artists' rights", though they afford none to those who sign contracts with them. Shouldn't we be wanting the industry to be moving away from this kind of vendor lock-in?
, but both sexes were firmly put in boxes.
That, sir, is the definition of sexism.
The answer of every average person is, "Yes." Please now proceed to mod me into oblivion for speaking the truth...
Where's the 'Robot Rights Watch' just when you need 'em?"
They don't have feelings. If you don't believe me, go stab your toaster. I think what you meant was "Human rights" and the effect wide-spread use of robots with the ability to kill would have on them.
The question is, why? If everything at the quantum level always worked the same way forwards as it does backwards, then entropy would be constant; the universe would be in some kind of steady state and nothing would matter because we wouldn't be here.
Maybe the universe was bored with the idea... :\