I agree they that they probably won't implement the thing, but the key to preventing the implementation is rabble rousing and anger before any attempt is made. Even if the idea would be to just count the viewers to generate data, that's still too intrusive for me and I'd think most viewers. It's none of Microsoft's business how many people are sitting on my couch. Not to mention there are more creepy things they could do with this data than just milk viewers for more money - facial recognition technology combined with combing the internet . . . ugh.
Of course, I'd never have a Microsoft device in my living room anyway so I'm not too worried about it, but when this type of technology becomes prevalent it's hard to get away from it.
The Supreme Court is already stacked with ideologues who'll rule every good policy unconstitutional and districts are gerrymandered to make taking over Congress impossible. The electoral system is already thoroughly broken, so what's to lose?
The NFL analogy is terrible. Tom Brady hasn't won a Super Bowl since the Patriot's defense became mediocre. Eli Manning is the luckiest QB ever and his defense puts him in a position to win -- the Giants are more analogous to the Ravens than the Patriots. Peyton Manning is the biggest playoff underachiever of all time, likely because the Colts had crappy defenses (and they have the same # of Super Bowl victories as the Ravens in the last decade).
The biggest challenge facing the Ravens is that they're in the same division as the Steelers, which is the most dominant NFL team on both offense and defense. But the Steelers are owned by people who care more about winning than making money, which is a luxury many teams such as their Ohio rivals and the Ravens can't afford. Green Bay and the Patriots are the only teams that can truly invest in their teams with a win-at-all-costs model.
It was a noble attempt at an analogy, but it's just a bad comparison. There's a ton of parity in the NFL and for the Ravens to be competitive year after years means they're a success. It's not like they're the Browns (anymore - har har). If they sacrificed their defense for some hot-shot QB they probably wouldn't be nearly as successful.
Here's a football analogy: long-term success is built on short-term success. If you draft every hot-shot QB you can, like the Browns, you're always sacrificing the present for some mythical future that probably won't come about. Worry about success now and then the appropriate Supreme Court justices will find their way on the bench, the legislation will creep its way in the direction of your goal, and the public will be more receptive to your ideas. Teams that worry about short term success build long term success because if a team does good this year, more free agents will want to play for them next year. More fans will fill out the stadiums. More jerseys will be sold.
Those 1992 and 2000 elections had massive long-term effects.
Nothing really Orwellian about it. If you want to compare it to a dystopian novel I'd suggest Fahrenheit 451. If Microsoft were to actually utilize such a system (which I don't think they could - consumer uproar would kill it and could potentially hurt the XBox brand as collateral damage) then there is reason enough to criticize it on its own without drawing some parallel to a dystopian novel. The term Orwellian is pretty inaccurate in almost every case it's used except perhaps when talking about China or the NSA.
The issue is that the Us election system is broken, so you need a new constitution of the people to replace the 1790 free masonry constitution.
This has been my mantra for some time. Unfortunately, Democrats and Republicans alike tend to respond to this suggestion with incredulous shock. I've been told so many times that the U.S. Constitution is a perfect document designed by geniuses. An equally ignorant argument I've been given is that the ability to amend the Constitution compensates for it's antiquity -- never mind that given the polarized state of the nation, it's unlikely that the Constitution will ever be amended again.
I think what most people don't understand is that the U.S. Constitution isn't the supreme law of the land. It's so anachronistic that in order to apply it to modern society we've relied on Supreme Court decision after Supreme Court decision in which the Constitution is 'interpreted' in such a way that always seems to adhere to the values of the Justices. Court precedent is the supreme law of the land. Whenever someone offends logic by suggesting that this country is run the way James Madison envisioned it I have two words for them: "Commerce Clause."
One of the biggest problems is it's considered anti-American to question the Constitution, the founding fathers, and this abstract notion of freedom that most Americans believe to be exclusively American. This is how we teach history and civics in our K-12 schools -- we put nationalism before education. We put James Madison on a pedestal and act as if he had the foresight to create a government system that would work for the rest of time, yet we conveniently gloss over his total lack of foresight regarding the War of 1812. We don't deal with our history honestly and thus we're unable to correctly diagnose and correct current problems that these revered historical figures have put us in. Of course, another common attitude is that history is boring or irrelevant.
This is why education is the political issue I prioritize above all others. If the general population was better educated then a multitude of problems would correct themselves and we'd be more receptive to replacing our outdated system of government with something that's efficient, flexible, and works for the best interests of society as a whole rather than the aristocratic powerbrokers who are currently in control.
I hate having my picture taken. I was pretty neutral about it before Facebook but now I actively avoid having any pictures taken of me. Most people find this extremely strange. Unfortunately, I think there's probably pictures of me on Facebook anyway. I wouldn't know b/c I don't have a Facebook account, which is something most people I know think is more strange than my aversion to having my picture taken.
Maybe it's just an introvert thing. I don't think I've ever been able to get an extrovert to understand why I value my privacy and why I have no interest in being part of 'the network.' I'm not antisocial, I just don't feel the need to be social all the time.
I also have a problem with security cameras, especially now that they're starting to get networked together and applying facial recognition algorithms (burn in hell, NSA; stop being evil, Google), but at least for the most part the material on security cameras is just a file that's never looked at unless a crime is committed, and then it serves an actual purpose.
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that the reason celebrities have to deal with the paparazzi is because they are public personalities. If you consciously choose to live a lifestyle that makes you famous, by doing so you've forfeited many privacy rights that non-famous people enjoy.
If Variety or some other Hollywood rag published a picture of me I'm pretty sure I could sue them. George Clooney cannot. If a paparazzi nut decided to follow me around with a camera, I'm pretty sure I could have a restraining order issued against him and perhaps have him charged with harassment, whereas Lindsay Lohan probably can't unless he goes to some Princess Diana type of extreme.
With the PhotographyIsNotACrime thing - I'm pretty sure that public officials on duty ought to qualify as public personas whether they think they actually do or not, and that's the argument they're making.
Anyway, I don't see how the OP is spewing FUD. While anyone may be photographed in a public space, that's different than standing a few feet in front of someone pointing a camera at them just for the sake of pissing them off. Cameras do have zooms, after all; if you want to photograph/videotape random people in public there's nothing stopping you from doing so discretely. If you're doing something just for the sake of pissing someone off, are you not harassing them? Perhaps not, but the OP didn't say it's an absolute, he just described it as a possibility.
I know this is repeated a lot here on/., but don't confuse incompetence with malice. The sad thing is that many of those law enforcement types actually think they're doing the right thing. When they engage in unconstitutional wiretapping, when they detain people indefinitely, and even when they bust some hapless stoner; more often than not they're acting under the delusion that they're taking the morally correct course of action.
The evil fucks who know what they're doing is wrong and do it anyway: the lobbyists who are paid to get these draconian laws passed and the people who pay them - they're the ones who really write our legislation. Congress and law enforcement - for the most part I just see incompetence.
Would that really be that bad? It makes me think of good old Diablo II where there was the ultra-regulated network and the open network where hackers could go wild. Or Halo 2 or Starcraft, where you could connect to their networks or use private networks (strangely enough, this worked the opposite as DII - people went usually went to the private networks to avoid the cheaters). Okay, those examples are old but that's when I played video games. I guess the financial industry might be a good example, I believe they rely on a closed network of some sort but I'm not sure of the particulars (hey some karma whore, here's an opportunity for +5 informative).
Anyway, the point being is that if the world wide web is strictly regulated then there are benefits as well as drawbacks. The benefits would obviously be better security, which would make people feel better about using credit cards and personal information and all that jazz. The drawbacks (loss of freedom in every way imaginable) could be countered by a sort of wild west darknet that perhaps relies on a different protocol or something. Ideally something where anonymity is guaranteed (to the best that it can be) that would be used for non-commercial purposes. Maybe I'm dreaming, but as you said, laws like this could be what drives people to non-www networks. It's not like they don't already exist, most people just currently have no reason to use them.
I read the headline and got excited. The conclusion is disappointing. The biggest injustice when it comes to contracts, either ToS or not, is the ability to include stipulations that the signee may not engage in a class action suit or that the terms of the contract can be arbitrarily changed. I'm sure someone will argue that one doesn't have to sign any contract if they don't want to, but I don't see how one can function in society without 'agreeing' to outrageous contracts. If I never agreed (downloading software, visiting websites, purchasing something, working somewhere, etc.) to outrageous contracts I'd be forced to live like the Unabomber or worse . . . like Richard Stallman.
The results of this ruling could potentially just lead to a lot of annoying ToS splash screens when visiting web sites.
God I hate consumers like you. Maybe this is just because I was once unfortunate enough to work in retail, but why do people think that "I didn't like it" is a valid reason to return something they've purchased? Even if it's part of the store's return policy and all, I would never use a return policy to test drive new toys. It really takes some warped sense of entitlement to have that attitude. It actually seems unethical to me to demand money back for a product that functions as advertised.
The formal discipline of logic has undergone one major change since Aristotle. The language of computers is over 2000 years old. Is it too old? Has its usefulness expired? What we do with it has become much more complex, but the fundamentals remain the same.
Scientists, of all people, should understand that human knowledge and understanding is accumulated from the work of previous generations. You don't scrap an idea just because it's old, you scrap it because it's become invalid in light of new information.
If Dawkins or you or anyone else has a moral philosophy to replace religion I'm all ears. In fact, if Dawkins wanted to disuade people from religion that would be the correct course to go rather than trying to argue that religion is stupid. Argue in favor of a better philosophy, don't argue in favor of any philosophy that's not religion. But the fact of the matter is that I find more wisdom in Aesop than Ayn Rand, a better moral framework from Jesus Christ than from L. Ron Hubbard. What era these people belonged to is irrelevant. I love Robert Pirsig's philosophy of quality but I would find it just as intriguing and just as worth studying if it were first written down 2000 years ago (which Pirsig actually argues it was, in the form of the Tao Te Ching, a document Dawkins undoubtedly disdains for spawning a religion, Taoism).
We need to be smarter than those guys were, or the age we're living in now will be our last as a civilized species.
Yeah, that's not a knee-jerk reaction or anything. That's quite a bold assertion to make, especially considering you state it as if it were self-evident.
Those people weren't killed "in the name of atheism" no matter how much revisionism you shovel at it.
And most 'religious wars' aren't fought over religion - they were usually fought over land, resources, or power. The Crusades were not fought just because Christians wanted to vanquish Islam or they wanted the Holy Land -- Islam was the fastest growing religion by means of military take over. In a way, it was a preemptive attack because if the trend continued, Islam would have taken over the world. Before even the first Crusade, armies of Islamic Moors had made their way onto the Iberian Peninsula (Spain).
The normal foot soldier may have being fighting in the name of Christianity in the Crusades, but the knights and Papacies who initiated them actually saw it as a defensive measure -- fight Islam on its own land before it spread any further into Europe.
It's too bad Dawkins and his parrots don't understand that history, society, and government are complex. Considering how complex biology is, one would think this type over oversight wouldn't be one that Dawkins would make. I don't think it's really an oversight, he just learned that he can make a whole bunch more money being a controversial ass than by being a biologist.
So you're saying the vast majority of adults don't read when using their computer? I wasn't talking about setting up a mysql database using just a terminal or writing code in emacs or anything like that. I sincerely doubt that most people who use computers never READ - whether they're setting up a desktop wallpaper or using Facebook or organizing their music library, they're reading, something that little kid can't do unless he's a such a genius his father should probably have him doing something much more productive than playing games on Windows 8.
Because have learned how something is done, but not why, and refuse to learn a different way that perhaps is better ( or just new ).
While that may be true, it's pretty irrelevant to Windows 8.
Also, dogs are actually the worst users because every once in a while their paws hit just the right assortment of random keys to almost make a grammatically correct sentence and post it on slashdot.
You probably should have reread that post a bit more slowly before ranting about how the OP is wrong and boasting about your snot-nosed kid. He meant that a three year old isn't capable of using a computer in the same manner as an adult. A three year old isn't capable of understanding most of the things I do with my computer, let alone do them. Just because a three year old can do some things with a computer doesn't mean a three year old can use a computer.
I know parents never miss an opportunity to boast about their children, but come on. . .
I've watched all the #debates so far and it's sad how little they say, tapdance around questions, avoid talking about the critical issues while spending lots of time on things that don't matter for shit.
Sad, sad field. These ain't the best, and they ain't the brightest.
The problem is that a person has to have been living under or a rock for the last year or just stupid if they don't know who they're going to vote for at this point. Since not many people live under rocks, let's assume these people are stupid. That's the assumption the candidates and the media make, as well. Stupid people don't know who's right or wrong on the 'Libya issue' because they have no idea what's being discussed. They don't know the pitfalls of a laissez-faire system because they don't know what that is. They think 'socialism' is evil because that has something to do with the Soviets or the Chinese or some other county they watch their favorite action hero beat up on.
Recent elections have been decided by very slim margins so that very slim percentage of the population that's stupid enough to still be undecided at this point in the election are those whom the candidates are courting. These people are going to cast their votes based on who "looked stronger" and "sounded more like a leader" and "seemed to know what he's talking about." These are the people who handed George W. Bush a second term after getting his ass thoroughly kicked in debates by Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. Because, unlike his opponents, "he seemed like the type of guy you'd like to have a beer with."
These guys probably are among the best and brightest. But proving that isn't what these debates are about.
I agree the China pissing contest is ridiculous, but. ..
Sky-rocketing crime rate
Any statistics to back that one up? This isn't up to date, but as you can see, the general trend of crime since its peak in the early 90s has been that of steady decline.
Tanking of morality
What does this mean and how does the president have any sway over this? "Morality laws" are generally outside the domain of the federal government as a power reserved for the states. It's unconstitutional for the federal government to make prostitution and gambling illegal, for example (hence Nevada). If the courts hadn't broadened the interpretation of the Commerce Clause to its furthest extent, drug prohibition would also be unconstitutional. How many people here would really want a Mormon to have any sway over legislating and enforcing morality? There's a reason sane people don't live in Utah.
But Nader wouldn't have received all the non-Bush votes, just as Perot wouldn't have received all the non Bush Sr./Dole votes. But the inverse is true. Gore would have received nearly all (I would guess 99% with the remaining 1% just not voting) of the Nader votes and Bush Sr./Dole would have received those Perot votes.
There's historical precedent for this conclusion: The elections of 1912 is a particularly good example, where the Republican vote was split between Theodore Roosevelt running independently and Howard Taft the defending Republican incumbent.
The biggest problem is that our system of government is outdated, inefficient, and ineffective. But to criticize the U.S. Constitution is taboo (funny how the most staunch defenders of this antiquated document know the least about it). Voting for a third party candidate is just voting against one's interests and will continue to be the case as long as our government is run by this ridiculous bicameral legislative system and selects the head of state through an electoral college. The only hope for this to happen is for the average citizen to become better educated and thus better able to see through the nationalistic bullshit of worshipping the U.S. Constitution and the men who founded this country. That's why I'm voting for Obama - I don't think he'll enact the specific changes I would like to see, nor do I think he'd have the power to do so if he wanted to - but he does prioritize education, which sets America on the path to overcoming the chains of our federalist system. In an era when technology is steadily making manual labor less necessary, this country cannot afford to have as many uneducated, unskilled people running amok as it currently does.
It doesn't matter if people think in the terms of the 'lesser of two evils' or not. The average voter is a moron. It doesn't matter what they think. Statement votes to third party candidates will do nothing to better this country. Voting for Obama does.
Jim Taggart and his railroad were already chummy with Washington in the beginning of the book
Yeah, this point was conveniently overlooked. They've already been given tax breaks, handouts, protections, etc from the gov't. But the did it 'all on their own' and not at all at the cost of others.
I thought this was the biggest fallacy of Atlas Shrugged: Railroads aren't economically sustainable in a laissez-faire system, or even possible to build without eminent domain, so Rand's point about Nat Taggart building his railroad with nothing but his brains and braun was a bunch of bullshit. History especially proved Rand wrong: just compare the European and Asian railroads to American ones. Not only are the 'socialist' rail systems of Europe and Asia much more modern, but they're also utilized much more and provide immense opportunities not available in the States. Outside a couple large metropolises (which have 'socialist' subways and trains), in the States a person is screwed without a car. It's a Catch-22 for many: can't get a job without a car, can't get a car without a job. The U.S. has Amtrak and freight trains and that's it.
Great point. To elaborate a bit, even if those special interest groups got what they wanted - and for the most part, they have - they would continue to exist and demand a bunch of bullshit because there are huge organizations that have spawned from them and people's livelihoods are at stake. This is why Jesse Jackson protests anything that can be interpreted as racist in even the slightest way - to stay relevant.
The best example of this is MADD. They achieved everything the group was founded to achieve, they won. But instead of disbanding, all those who depended on paychecks from the institution sought more frivolous battles to fight just to stay relevant. The issues were no longer important - sustaining the organization was all those within it cared about, purely out of self interest. The NRA is a good example, too. Do they really fight to keep automatic weapons on the streets because they're staunch defenders of freedom or because they've won practically every other battle they've fought? If the members don't feel that the NRA needs their money to fight the good fight, then they won't donate. So the NRA has to make 'the good fight' more and more extreme after every battle they win or they just won't be relevant.
When an organization loses their purpose by achieving their goals they have two choices: disband or make up new goals that are extreme extensions of the original goal. What will NORML do when pot gets legalized? Probably start advocating for the legalization of other drugs. While the initial goal is a worthy one, the extreme extensions are questionable at best.
I find this attitude to be unsettling. The fact that abortion and 'gay rights' happen to be polarizing issues is one of the problems with the American political system.... it angers me to see a homosexual who believes in a more libertarian form of distributive justice vote Democrat because he prioritizes gay marriage over economic issues.
Perhaps if you were that gay man, you would understand. Were economic issues also more important than civil rights for blacks?
Civil rights for blacks was a matter of distributive justice. The same civil rights protections that black enjoy today are also granted to homosexuals. It's illegal to discriminate against hiring homosexuals and it's illegal for an employer to fire someone because they find out that person is gay.
Marriage isn't a right, it's a license granted by the state. One that's already too easy to obtain. Personally, I don't think the government should legally recognize any marriage, gay or straight. Why do I need a judge or priest to officiate my love for another individual? I oppose gay marriage because I oppose marriage, not because I think that gays shouldn't be allowed to be in long term monogamous relationships. The state already sanctions that by not legally prohibiting it.
Hell, most married people don't believe in marriage, either. They just do it for the tax breaks or because of social pressure or because the whole idea's been romanticized beyond rationality. Also, claiming that if I were gay that I would understand probably isn't true because I know homosexuals who agree with everything I've written in this post. Hell, there are homosexual Republican congressmen and lobbyists who demonize gay marriage as an evil abomination - I agree with them, I just think that straight marriage is also an evil abomination. Social institutions should never be blindly accepted as just and right.
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I agree they that they probably won't implement the thing, but the key to preventing the implementation is rabble rousing and anger before any attempt is made. Even if the idea would be to just count the viewers to generate data, that's still too intrusive for me and I'd think most viewers. It's none of Microsoft's business how many people are sitting on my couch. Not to mention there are more creepy things they could do with this data than just milk viewers for more money - facial recognition technology combined with combing the internet . . . ugh.
Of course, I'd never have a Microsoft device in my living room anyway so I'm not too worried about it, but when this type of technology becomes prevalent it's hard to get away from it.
The Supreme Court is already stacked with ideologues who'll rule every good policy unconstitutional and districts are gerrymandered to make taking over Congress impossible. The electoral system is already thoroughly broken, so what's to lose?
The chance to change that.
The NFL analogy is terrible. Tom Brady hasn't won a Super Bowl since the Patriot's defense became mediocre. Eli Manning is the luckiest QB ever and his defense puts him in a position to win -- the Giants are more analogous to the Ravens than the Patriots. Peyton Manning is the biggest playoff underachiever of all time, likely because the Colts had crappy defenses (and they have the same # of Super Bowl victories as the Ravens in the last decade).
The biggest challenge facing the Ravens is that they're in the same division as the Steelers, which is the most dominant NFL team on both offense and defense. But the Steelers are owned by people who care more about winning than making money, which is a luxury many teams such as their Ohio rivals and the Ravens can't afford. Green Bay and the Patriots are the only teams that can truly invest in their teams with a win-at-all-costs model.
It was a noble attempt at an analogy, but it's just a bad comparison. There's a ton of parity in the NFL and for the Ravens to be competitive year after years means they're a success. It's not like they're the Browns (anymore - har har). If they sacrificed their defense for some hot-shot QB they probably wouldn't be nearly as successful.
Here's a football analogy: long-term success is built on short-term success. If you draft every hot-shot QB you can, like the Browns, you're always sacrificing the present for some mythical future that probably won't come about. Worry about success now and then the appropriate Supreme Court justices will find their way on the bench, the legislation will creep its way in the direction of your goal, and the public will be more receptive to your ideas. Teams that worry about short term success build long term success because if a team does good this year, more free agents will want to play for them next year. More fans will fill out the stadiums. More jerseys will be sold.
Those 1992 and 2000 elections had massive long-term effects.
Nothing really Orwellian about it. If you want to compare it to a dystopian novel I'd suggest Fahrenheit 451. If Microsoft were to actually utilize such a system (which I don't think they could - consumer uproar would kill it and could potentially hurt the XBox brand as collateral damage) then there is reason enough to criticize it on its own without drawing some parallel to a dystopian novel. The term Orwellian is pretty inaccurate in almost every case it's used except perhaps when talking about China or the NSA.
The issue is that the Us election system is broken, so you need a new constitution of the people to replace the 1790 free masonry constitution.
This has been my mantra for some time. Unfortunately, Democrats and Republicans alike tend to respond to this suggestion with incredulous shock. I've been told so many times that the U.S. Constitution is a perfect document designed by geniuses. An equally ignorant argument I've been given is that the ability to amend the Constitution compensates for it's antiquity -- never mind that given the polarized state of the nation, it's unlikely that the Constitution will ever be amended again.
I think what most people don't understand is that the U.S. Constitution isn't the supreme law of the land. It's so anachronistic that in order to apply it to modern society we've relied on Supreme Court decision after Supreme Court decision in which the Constitution is 'interpreted' in such a way that always seems to adhere to the values of the Justices. Court precedent is the supreme law of the land. Whenever someone offends logic by suggesting that this country is run the way James Madison envisioned it I have two words for them: "Commerce Clause."
One of the biggest problems is it's considered anti-American to question the Constitution, the founding fathers, and this abstract notion of freedom that most Americans believe to be exclusively American. This is how we teach history and civics in our K-12 schools -- we put nationalism before education. We put James Madison on a pedestal and act as if he had the foresight to create a government system that would work for the rest of time, yet we conveniently gloss over his total lack of foresight regarding the War of 1812. We don't deal with our history honestly and thus we're unable to correctly diagnose and correct current problems that these revered historical figures have put us in. Of course, another common attitude is that history is boring or irrelevant.
This is why education is the political issue I prioritize above all others. If the general population was better educated then a multitude of problems would correct themselves and we'd be more receptive to replacing our outdated system of government with something that's efficient, flexible, and works for the best interests of society as a whole rather than the aristocratic powerbrokers who are currently in control.
I hate having my picture taken. I was pretty neutral about it before Facebook but now I actively avoid having any pictures taken of me. Most people find this extremely strange. Unfortunately, I think there's probably pictures of me on Facebook anyway. I wouldn't know b/c I don't have a Facebook account, which is something most people I know think is more strange than my aversion to having my picture taken.
Maybe it's just an introvert thing. I don't think I've ever been able to get an extrovert to understand why I value my privacy and why I have no interest in being part of 'the network.' I'm not antisocial, I just don't feel the need to be social all the time.
I also have a problem with security cameras, especially now that they're starting to get networked together and applying facial recognition algorithms (burn in hell, NSA; stop being evil, Google), but at least for the most part the material on security cameras is just a file that's never looked at unless a crime is committed, and then it serves an actual purpose.
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that the reason celebrities have to deal with the paparazzi is because they are public personalities. If you consciously choose to live a lifestyle that makes you famous, by doing so you've forfeited many privacy rights that non-famous people enjoy.
If Variety or some other Hollywood rag published a picture of me I'm pretty sure I could sue them. George Clooney cannot. If a paparazzi nut decided to follow me around with a camera, I'm pretty sure I could have a restraining order issued against him and perhaps have him charged with harassment, whereas Lindsay Lohan probably can't unless he goes to some Princess Diana type of extreme.
With the PhotographyIsNotACrime thing - I'm pretty sure that public officials on duty ought to qualify as public personas whether they think they actually do or not, and that's the argument they're making.
Anyway, I don't see how the OP is spewing FUD. While anyone may be photographed in a public space, that's different than standing a few feet in front of someone pointing a camera at them just for the sake of pissing them off. Cameras do have zooms, after all; if you want to photograph/videotape random people in public there's nothing stopping you from doing so discretely. If you're doing something just for the sake of pissing someone off, are you not harassing them? Perhaps not, but the OP didn't say it's an absolute, he just described it as a possibility.
I know this is repeated a lot here on /., but don't confuse incompetence with malice. The sad thing is that many of those law enforcement types actually think they're doing the right thing. When they engage in unconstitutional wiretapping, when they detain people indefinitely, and even when they bust some hapless stoner; more often than not they're acting under the delusion that they're taking the morally correct course of action.
The evil fucks who know what they're doing is wrong and do it anyway: the lobbyists who are paid to get these draconian laws passed and the people who pay them - they're the ones who really write our legislation. Congress and law enforcement - for the most part I just see incompetence.
Would that really be that bad? It makes me think of good old Diablo II where there was the ultra-regulated network and the open network where hackers could go wild. Or Halo 2 or Starcraft, where you could connect to their networks or use private networks (strangely enough, this worked the opposite as DII - people went usually went to the private networks to avoid the cheaters). Okay, those examples are old but that's when I played video games. I guess the financial industry might be a good example, I believe they rely on a closed network of some sort but I'm not sure of the particulars (hey some karma whore, here's an opportunity for +5 informative).
Anyway, the point being is that if the world wide web is strictly regulated then there are benefits as well as drawbacks. The benefits would obviously be better security, which would make people feel better about using credit cards and personal information and all that jazz. The drawbacks (loss of freedom in every way imaginable) could be countered by a sort of wild west darknet that perhaps relies on a different protocol or something. Ideally something where anonymity is guaranteed (to the best that it can be) that would be used for non-commercial purposes. Maybe I'm dreaming, but as you said, laws like this could be what drives people to non-www networks. It's not like they don't already exist, most people just currently have no reason to use them.
It'd be like gopher but fully functional.
I read the headline and got excited. The conclusion is disappointing. The biggest injustice when it comes to contracts, either ToS or not, is the ability to include stipulations that the signee may not engage in a class action suit or that the terms of the contract can be arbitrarily changed. I'm sure someone will argue that one doesn't have to sign any contract if they don't want to, but I don't see how one can function in society without 'agreeing' to outrageous contracts. If I never agreed (downloading software, visiting websites, purchasing something, working somewhere, etc.) to outrageous contracts I'd be forced to live like the Unabomber or worse . . . like Richard Stallman.
The results of this ruling could potentially just lead to a lot of annoying ToS splash screens when visiting web sites.
Oh everyone knows that.
No they don't. And they won't learn it if Microsoft's marketing department has anything to say about it.
God I hate consumers like you. Maybe this is just because I was once unfortunate enough to work in retail, but why do people think that "I didn't like it" is a valid reason to return something they've purchased? Even if it's part of the store's return policy and all, I would never use a return policy to test drive new toys. It really takes some warped sense of entitlement to have that attitude. It actually seems unethical to me to demand money back for a product that functions as advertised.
The formal discipline of logic has undergone one major change since Aristotle. The language of computers is over 2000 years old. Is it too old? Has its usefulness expired? What we do with it has become much more complex, but the fundamentals remain the same.
Scientists, of all people, should understand that human knowledge and understanding is accumulated from the work of previous generations. You don't scrap an idea just because it's old, you scrap it because it's become invalid in light of new information.
If Dawkins or you or anyone else has a moral philosophy to replace religion I'm all ears. In fact, if Dawkins wanted to disuade people from religion that would be the correct course to go rather than trying to argue that religion is stupid. Argue in favor of a better philosophy, don't argue in favor of any philosophy that's not religion. But the fact of the matter is that I find more wisdom in Aesop than Ayn Rand, a better moral framework from Jesus Christ than from L. Ron Hubbard. What era these people belonged to is irrelevant. I love Robert Pirsig's philosophy of quality but I would find it just as intriguing and just as worth studying if it were first written down 2000 years ago (which Pirsig actually argues it was, in the form of the Tao Te Ching, a document Dawkins undoubtedly disdains for spawning a religion, Taoism).
We need to be smarter than those guys were, or the age we're living in now will be our last as a civilized species.
Yeah, that's not a knee-jerk reaction or anything. That's quite a bold assertion to make, especially considering you state it as if it were self-evident.
Those people weren't killed "in the name of atheism" no matter how much revisionism you shovel at it.
And most 'religious wars' aren't fought over religion - they were usually fought over land, resources, or power. The Crusades were not fought just because Christians wanted to vanquish Islam or they wanted the Holy Land -- Islam was the fastest growing religion by means of military take over. In a way, it was a preemptive attack because if the trend continued, Islam would have taken over the world. Before even the first Crusade, armies of Islamic Moors had made their way onto the Iberian Peninsula (Spain).
The normal foot soldier may have being fighting in the name of Christianity in the Crusades, but the knights and Papacies who initiated them actually saw it as a defensive measure -- fight Islam on its own land before it spread any further into Europe.
It's too bad Dawkins and his parrots don't understand that history, society, and government are complex. Considering how complex biology is, one would think this type over oversight wouldn't be one that Dawkins would make. I don't think it's really an oversight, he just learned that he can make a whole bunch more money being a controversial ass than by being a biologist.
Mr. Dawkins doesn't go around beheading people for having different beliefs.
Beheading isn't bigotry, it's savagery. No one accused Dawkins of beheading anyone.
So you're saying the vast majority of adults don't read when using their computer? I wasn't talking about setting up a mysql database using just a terminal or writing code in emacs or anything like that. I sincerely doubt that most people who use computers never READ - whether they're setting up a desktop wallpaper or using Facebook or organizing their music library, they're reading, something that little kid can't do unless he's a such a genius his father should probably have him doing something much more productive than playing games on Windows 8.
Because have learned how something is done, but not why, and refuse to learn a different way that perhaps is better ( or just new ).
While that may be true, it's pretty irrelevant to Windows 8.
Also, dogs are actually the worst users because every once in a while their paws hit just the right assortment of random keys to almost make a grammatically correct sentence and post it on slashdot.
I still don't know anyone who knows how to use the ribbon.
On the plus side, the ribbon got me to finally learn the Windows hotkeys I never took the time to memorize before it came out.
You probably should have reread that post a bit more slowly before ranting about how the OP is wrong and boasting about your snot-nosed kid. He meant that a three year old isn't capable of using a computer in the same manner as an adult. A three year old isn't capable of understanding most of the things I do with my computer, let alone do them. Just because a three year old can do some things with a computer doesn't mean a three year old can use a computer.
I know parents never miss an opportunity to boast about their children, but come on. . .
I've watched all the #debates so far and it's sad how little they say, tapdance around questions, avoid talking about the critical issues while spending lots of time on things that don't matter for shit.
Sad, sad field. These ain't the best, and they ain't the brightest.
The problem is that a person has to have been living under or a rock for the last year or just stupid if they don't know who they're going to vote for at this point. Since not many people live under rocks, let's assume these people are stupid. That's the assumption the candidates and the media make, as well. Stupid people don't know who's right or wrong on the 'Libya issue' because they have no idea what's being discussed. They don't know the pitfalls of a laissez-faire system because they don't know what that is. They think 'socialism' is evil because that has something to do with the Soviets or the Chinese or some other county they watch their favorite action hero beat up on.
Recent elections have been decided by very slim margins so that very slim percentage of the population that's stupid enough to still be undecided at this point in the election are those whom the candidates are courting. These people are going to cast their votes based on who "looked stronger" and "sounded more like a leader" and "seemed to know what he's talking about." These are the people who handed George W. Bush a second term after getting his ass thoroughly kicked in debates by Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. Because, unlike his opponents, "he seemed like the type of guy you'd like to have a beer with."
These guys probably are among the best and brightest. But proving that isn't what these debates are about.
I agree the China pissing contest is ridiculous, but. . .
Sky-rocketing crime rate
Any statistics to back that one up? This isn't up to date, but as you can see, the general trend of crime since its peak in the early 90s has been that of steady decline.
Tanking of morality
What does this mean and how does the president have any sway over this? "Morality laws" are generally outside the domain of the federal government as a power reserved for the states. It's unconstitutional for the federal government to make prostitution and gambling illegal, for example (hence Nevada). If the courts hadn't broadened the interpretation of the Commerce Clause to its furthest extent, drug prohibition would also be unconstitutional. How many people here would really want a Mormon to have any sway over legislating and enforcing morality? There's a reason sane people don't live in Utah.
But Nader wouldn't have received all the non-Bush votes, just as Perot wouldn't have received all the non Bush Sr./Dole votes. But the inverse is true. Gore would have received nearly all (I would guess 99% with the remaining 1% just not voting) of the Nader votes and Bush Sr./Dole would have received those Perot votes.
There's historical precedent for this conclusion: The elections of 1912 is a particularly good example, where the Republican vote was split between Theodore Roosevelt running independently and Howard Taft the defending Republican incumbent.
The biggest problem is that our system of government is outdated, inefficient, and ineffective. But to criticize the U.S. Constitution is taboo (funny how the most staunch defenders of this antiquated document know the least about it). Voting for a third party candidate is just voting against one's interests and will continue to be the case as long as our government is run by this ridiculous bicameral legislative system and selects the head of state through an electoral college. The only hope for this to happen is for the average citizen to become better educated and thus better able to see through the nationalistic bullshit of worshipping the U.S. Constitution and the men who founded this country. That's why I'm voting for Obama - I don't think he'll enact the specific changes I would like to see, nor do I think he'd have the power to do so if he wanted to - but he does prioritize education, which sets America on the path to overcoming the chains of our federalist system. In an era when technology is steadily making manual labor less necessary, this country cannot afford to have as many uneducated, unskilled people running amok as it currently does.
It doesn't matter if people think in the terms of the 'lesser of two evils' or not. The average voter is a moron. It doesn't matter what they think. Statement votes to third party candidates will do nothing to better this country. Voting for Obama does.
Jim Taggart and his railroad were already chummy with Washington in the beginning of the book
Yeah, this point was conveniently overlooked. They've already been given tax breaks, handouts, protections, etc from the gov't. But the did it 'all on their own' and not at all at the cost of others.
I thought this was the biggest fallacy of Atlas Shrugged: Railroads aren't economically sustainable in a laissez-faire system, or even possible to build without eminent domain, so Rand's point about Nat Taggart building his railroad with nothing but his brains and braun was a bunch of bullshit. History especially proved Rand wrong: just compare the European and Asian railroads to American ones. Not only are the 'socialist' rail systems of Europe and Asia much more modern, but they're also utilized much more and provide immense opportunities not available in the States. Outside a couple large metropolises (which have 'socialist' subways and trains), in the States a person is screwed without a car. It's a Catch-22 for many: can't get a job without a car, can't get a car without a job. The U.S. has Amtrak and freight trains and that's it.
Great point. To elaborate a bit, even if those special interest groups got what they wanted - and for the most part, they have - they would continue to exist and demand a bunch of bullshit because there are huge organizations that have spawned from them and people's livelihoods are at stake. This is why Jesse Jackson protests anything that can be interpreted as racist in even the slightest way - to stay relevant.
The best example of this is MADD. They achieved everything the group was founded to achieve, they won. But instead of disbanding, all those who depended on paychecks from the institution sought more frivolous battles to fight just to stay relevant. The issues were no longer important - sustaining the organization was all those within it cared about, purely out of self interest. The NRA is a good example, too. Do they really fight to keep automatic weapons on the streets because they're staunch defenders of freedom or because they've won practically every other battle they've fought? If the members don't feel that the NRA needs their money to fight the good fight, then they won't donate. So the NRA has to make 'the good fight' more and more extreme after every battle they win or they just won't be relevant.
When an organization loses their purpose by achieving their goals they have two choices: disband or make up new goals that are extreme extensions of the original goal. What will NORML do when pot gets legalized? Probably start advocating for the legalization of other drugs. While the initial goal is a worthy one, the extreme extensions are questionable at best.
I find this attitude to be unsettling. The fact that abortion and 'gay rights' happen to be polarizing issues is one of the problems with the American political system. ... it angers me to see a homosexual who believes in a more libertarian form of distributive justice vote Democrat because he prioritizes gay marriage over economic issues.
Perhaps if you were that gay man, you would understand. Were economic issues also more important than civil rights for blacks?
Civil rights for blacks was a matter of distributive justice. The same civil rights protections that black enjoy today are also granted to homosexuals. It's illegal to discriminate against hiring homosexuals and it's illegal for an employer to fire someone because they find out that person is gay.
Marriage isn't a right, it's a license granted by the state. One that's already too easy to obtain. Personally, I don't think the government should legally recognize any marriage, gay or straight. Why do I need a judge or priest to officiate my love for another individual? I oppose gay marriage because I oppose marriage, not because I think that gays shouldn't be allowed to be in long term monogamous relationships. The state already sanctions that by not legally prohibiting it.
Hell, most married people don't believe in marriage, either. They just do it for the tax breaks or because of social pressure or because the whole idea's been romanticized beyond rationality. Also, claiming that if I were gay that I would understand probably isn't true because I know homosexuals who agree with everything I've written in this post. Hell, there are homosexual Republican congressmen and lobbyists who demonize gay marriage as an evil abomination - I agree with them, I just think that straight marriage is also an evil abomination. Social institutions should never be blindly accepted as just and right.