Yes they are. After 9/11, the voters cheered for the patriot act. Since then, they've failed to get off their asses and tell their elected officials to repeal the patriot act or be voted out.
In this case, abstaining from speaking against an erosion of rights or the growing police state IS endorsing it.
This is an important distinction for two reasons. One, blaming someone besides ourselves for taking away our rights may be more comfortable than owning responsibility, but it's futile. Law enforcement is ALWAYS going to push for a police state, citizens need to push back. Politicians are ALWAYS going to be pushed, and without some push balancing them out from opposing interests (us), the result is inevitable regardless of party numbers or ideology. Second, it's easier than if the police state were overriding popular concern. We live in a democracy. It's not like we'd need to revolt or take up firearms to stop it. Look at SOPA. All we did was call our politicians and tell them not to, and they didn't.
Do you think that the Patriot Act would be re-authorized if it was put up for national referendum?
It's not a matter of whether people will give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to it if the question was put before them. It's a matter of "Will people get off their asses to rally against it." The answer is no. Whenever it's reauthorized, there's barely a peep from most people. They don't bother sending so much as an e-mail to their senators. Apathy, not support or opposition, is the thing keeping the patriot act in place. The patriot act's supporters have no need to really defend it: it's going to stay in place due to inertia.
It will require more of a leader than I see in any political party to get Americans to realize the patriot act needs to go.
The elected officials of both parties have pushed the power of government to interfere with our personal liberties on the promise of "keeping us safe".
After they realized the voters were screaming for it, led on by the media. The reason I bring this up is not to excuse either party, just that in order to solve it, the voters need to be educated. Probably by third party candidates. Third party candidates are the only ones with nothing to lose, and thus the only ones able to really tell the customers (voters) that they're wrong and stupid.
Unfortunately, the media also is compounding the problem: they have an interest in carrying messages that the customers want to hear as well, which again, is "Give me your liberties and I'll keep you safe from the world."
I'd argue that republican vs democrat is missing the underlying cause. The parties aren't conspiring to erode our privacy or liberties. The voters have indicated they're willing to trade those away for a sense of security. The parties are selling the voters what they want.
Whoa whoa whoa... "Tree huggers?" As someone who could be accused of being a tree-hugger, I object. Please do not equate the two groups. That's like calling republicans "creationists". Some people are both, but one does not mean the other.
I have strong environmentalist leanings. I kill animals regularly for my research. And I don't feel the slightest bit bad about it. Animals don't have rights. The environment is delicate and if we allow corporations to mess it up, that will be bad for the rest of us. The two views are not contradictory. Animal rights activists and environmentalists are not the same thing.
Posting AC because posting anything that even mildly questions GW will get your karma blown into the shitter.
I know what you mean. I can't bring up questions about spontaneous generation, Homunculus theory, or creationism without people modding me troll! It's almost as if raising arguments against the scientific consensus, arguments which have specifically been brought up for decades, arguments which no one makes unless they have an agenda which involves denying reality, is looked down on in rational debate!
I mean, Darwinists used to say that evolution was gradual, NOW they say it's punctuated equalibrium, sometimes going thousands of years without change! It's nuts! Clearly god created all life in 6 days!
I don't think it will require "Amazing" desalination technologies. Just enough to make it more economical to purify water rather than try to bully Canada about it. We can desalinate water now. It's just not to the point where it's cheap enough for farms to do now and remain competitive with farms that pipe freshwater in from wherever. It would require a lot of taxpayer investment and subsidies, and would probably also result in increased food prices. Or we could fail to do that, and would become dependent on importing water and crops from Canada. Which might be incompatible with the US maintaining our standard of living.
Then again, I'm not an economist, farmer, or engineer working on desalination technology, and this is wild underinformed speculation.
Because I'd rather keep what we have: a state where there may be higher incidences of rape and murder, than a state where the government has my DNA on file. Murder and rape can always be countered effectively by methods we have now. And if crime gets too bad, it's not too hard to turn that situation around. Erosion of privacy, and police state on the other hand are situations that are pretty much permanent. You can always put more cops on the street and be careful if you're worried about getting shot. Law enforcement with too much power on the other hand pretty much requires moving to a different country, or a revolution.
My mistake, thank you. But if you were going to do a clinical trial in humans, you'd be even more foolish to try using children with MS, as the number of diagnosed children with MS is so much smaller than adults.
I think he probably knows if he is innocent or not. And using similar language to (likely) killers is not a really good reason to be suspicious that someone is a killer. The fact that the police are looking for him and he's on the run is about a million times more suspicious than the fact that he says he's looking for the real killers.
I would hope so. It could be that one "success" of volunteer submissions could pave the way to some lawmaker suggesting it be "encouraged." Then outright mandatory. I'd rather err on the side of having murders and rapes go unsolved, rather than err on the side of police having everyone's DNA sequences.
MS can take years to progress, especially with treatments already available, so I think this does in fact provide possible hope for current MS sufferers. Preliminary results are more promising than no progress. Current sufferers might also be interested in participating in the clinical trials.
Not even orphan children. MS symptoms appear in adults. So even if you're fine with injecting orphan children with chemicals to see what works, then cutting up their brains, you should be offended at how ineffective that would be.
I'm with you in spirit. I can run netflix on easily:
-android
-iphone
-ipad
-Xbox 360 if I paid the additional fees
-Wii
-Macbook
-Windows laptop
-WDTV device that crashes constantly
Things I cannot run netflix on easily:
-The ubuntu laptop that I have no use for except as a HTPC.
I'd cancel my subscription out of protest. But my wife would side with Netflix over me any day of the week.
Compared to what, out of curiosity? I don't think anyone would argue that the political system here is perfect and there is no room for improvement, but to me there don't seem to be a whole lot of good models to follow. Sweden is about the only country that really seems to consistently be better than the US in the political system. Most of the rest of the world seems like examples of what not to do. The UK, France, and Germany seem 50-50.
But there IS no negative publicity: everyone else is already doing it, and consumers don't care. Aside from a few specific incidents with phone carrriers, I haven't heard much noise about how ridiculous it is.
Just HTC and sony? Is there ANYONE that pushes updates in a reasonable manner?
Samsung took quite a while to upgrade to their version ICS. ICS was released in october 2011, it didn't come to the note or skyrocket until July 2012. Which is weird, because they seemed to have done very little aside from changing the graphics. They broke "unauthorized" tethering, maybe that counts as a feature. I guess they figured everyone who would bother upgrading had already installed cyanogenmod.
That's not cynical. The only groups who go against their self-interests are voters and consumers.
Cynical would be assuming the lawyers and the corporations are going to come to some sort of agreement where the lawyers will still get paid but the consumers will still not be able to band together to hold corporations responsible for things.
Of course, most of us are cynical enough about it to think that's pretty much what we have already with class-action lawsuits.
I'm surprised it's taken amazon this long. Several other big companies have done it and have not faced revolts, lynchings, or even much noise that I've heard about barring such clauses via legislation. What were they worried about, it couldn't possibly be that they respected their customers too much: they're a large corporation.
Are there any countries running a form of capitalism which is comparable, in which class action lawsuits are barred? Any indication that this hurts or helps consumer rights? I could see no class action lawsuits on average helping consumer rights if they resulted in less apathetic politicans and consumers. However, I could also see that hypothesis being totally wrong, and people just accepting whatever minor abuses companies throw at them.
Seems like something which would have been researched by some economist at some point.
I think that would be wooshable if there weren't people out there who would think that would be a good idea. Cutting an article up into ten pieces to get more ad clicks is about as fun as what Sentrion was suggesting.
And actually, there is one website I know of, geared at adults, that does exactly that. And yet I keep visiting it. Hmm... stupid brain...
Slashdot Mirror
Yes they are. After 9/11, the voters cheered for the patriot act. Since then, they've failed to get off their asses and tell their elected officials to repeal the patriot act or be voted out.
In this case, abstaining from speaking against an erosion of rights or the growing police state IS endorsing it.
This is an important distinction for two reasons. One, blaming someone besides ourselves for taking away our rights may be more comfortable than owning responsibility, but it's futile. Law enforcement is ALWAYS going to push for a police state, citizens need to push back. Politicians are ALWAYS going to be pushed, and without some push balancing them out from opposing interests (us), the result is inevitable regardless of party numbers or ideology. Second, it's easier than if the police state were overriding popular concern. We live in a democracy. It's not like we'd need to revolt or take up firearms to stop it. Look at SOPA. All we did was call our politicians and tell them not to, and they didn't.
Do you think that the Patriot Act would be re-authorized if it was put up for national referendum?
It's not a matter of whether people will give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to it if the question was put before them. It's a matter of "Will people get off their asses to rally against it." The answer is no. Whenever it's reauthorized, there's barely a peep from most people. They don't bother sending so much as an e-mail to their senators. Apathy, not support or opposition, is the thing keeping the patriot act in place. The patriot act's supporters have no need to really defend it: it's going to stay in place due to inertia.
It will require more of a leader than I see in any political party to get Americans to realize the patriot act needs to go.
The elected officials of both parties have pushed the power of government to interfere with our personal liberties on the promise of "keeping us safe".
After they realized the voters were screaming for it, led on by the media. The reason I bring this up is not to excuse either party, just that in order to solve it, the voters need to be educated. Probably by third party candidates. Third party candidates are the only ones with nothing to lose, and thus the only ones able to really tell the customers (voters) that they're wrong and stupid.
Unfortunately, the media also is compounding the problem: they have an interest in carrying messages that the customers want to hear as well, which again, is "Give me your liberties and I'll keep you safe from the world."
I'd argue that republican vs democrat is missing the underlying cause. The parties aren't conspiring to erode our privacy or liberties. The voters have indicated they're willing to trade those away for a sense of security. The parties are selling the voters what they want.
Stupid voters...
Whoa whoa whoa... "Tree huggers?" As someone who could be accused of being a tree-hugger, I object. Please do not equate the two groups. That's like calling republicans "creationists". Some people are both, but one does not mean the other.
I have strong environmentalist leanings. I kill animals regularly for my research. And I don't feel the slightest bit bad about it. Animals don't have rights. The environment is delicate and if we allow corporations to mess it up, that will be bad for the rest of us. The two views are not contradictory. Animal rights activists and environmentalists are not the same thing.
I thought from an earlier posting about this that they were just flying the drone over the highway bordering the land.
Posting AC because posting anything that even mildly questions GW will get your karma blown into the shitter.
I know what you mean. I can't bring up questions about spontaneous generation, Homunculus theory, or creationism without people modding me troll! It's almost as if raising arguments against the scientific consensus, arguments which have specifically been brought up for decades, arguments which no one makes unless they have an agenda which involves denying reality, is looked down on in rational debate!
I mean, Darwinists used to say that evolution was gradual, NOW they say it's punctuated equalibrium, sometimes going thousands of years without change! It's nuts! Clearly god created all life in 6 days!
I don't think it will require "Amazing" desalination technologies. Just enough to make it more economical to purify water rather than try to bully Canada about it. We can desalinate water now. It's just not to the point where it's cheap enough for farms to do now and remain competitive with farms that pipe freshwater in from wherever. It would require a lot of taxpayer investment and subsidies, and would probably also result in increased food prices. Or we could fail to do that, and would become dependent on importing water and crops from Canada. Which might be incompatible with the US maintaining our standard of living.
Then again, I'm not an economist, farmer, or engineer working on desalination technology, and this is wild underinformed speculation.
Because I'd rather keep what we have: a state where there may be higher incidences of rape and murder, than a state where the government has my DNA on file. Murder and rape can always be countered effectively by methods we have now. And if crime gets too bad, it's not too hard to turn that situation around. Erosion of privacy, and police state on the other hand are situations that are pretty much permanent. You can always put more cops on the street and be careful if you're worried about getting shot. Law enforcement with too much power on the other hand pretty much requires moving to a different country, or a revolution.
My mistake, thank you. But if you were going to do a clinical trial in humans, you'd be even more foolish to try using children with MS, as the number of diagnosed children with MS is so much smaller than adults.
I think he probably knows if he is innocent or not. And using similar language to (likely) killers is not a really good reason to be suspicious that someone is a killer. The fact that the police are looking for him and he's on the run is about a million times more suspicious than the fact that he says he's looking for the real killers.
I would hope so. It could be that one "success" of volunteer submissions could pave the way to some lawmaker suggesting it be "encouraged." Then outright mandatory. I'd rather err on the side of having murders and rapes go unsolved, rather than err on the side of police having everyone's DNA sequences.
MS can take years to progress, especially with treatments already available, so I think this does in fact provide possible hope for current MS sufferers. Preliminary results are more promising than no progress. Current sufferers might also be interested in participating in the clinical trials.
Not even orphan children. MS symptoms appear in adults. So even if you're fine with injecting orphan children with chemicals to see what works, then cutting up their brains, you should be offended at how ineffective that would be.
So you're saying a magazine called "Nintendo Power" may have been slightly biased in favor of Nintendo?
I'm with you in spirit. I can run netflix on easily:
-android
-iphone
-ipad
-Xbox 360 if I paid the additional fees
-Wii
-Macbook
-Windows laptop
-WDTV device that crashes constantly
Things I cannot run netflix on easily:
-The ubuntu laptop that I have no use for except as a HTPC.
I'd cancel my subscription out of protest. But my wife would side with Netflix over me any day of the week.
Your political system seems bent and broken to me
Compared to what, out of curiosity? I don't think anyone would argue that the political system here is perfect and there is no room for improvement, but to me there don't seem to be a whole lot of good models to follow. Sweden is about the only country that really seems to consistently be better than the US in the political system. Most of the rest of the world seems like examples of what not to do. The UK, France, and Germany seem 50-50.
But there IS no negative publicity: everyone else is already doing it, and consumers don't care. Aside from a few specific incidents with phone carrriers, I haven't heard much noise about how ridiculous it is.
Just HTC and sony? Is there ANYONE that pushes updates in a reasonable manner?
Samsung took quite a while to upgrade to their version ICS. ICS was released in october 2011, it didn't come to the note or skyrocket until July 2012. Which is weird, because they seemed to have done very little aside from changing the graphics. They broke "unauthorized" tethering, maybe that counts as a feature. I guess they figured everyone who would bother upgrading had already installed cyanogenmod.
That's not cynical. The only groups who go against their self-interests are voters and consumers.
Cynical would be assuming the lawyers and the corporations are going to come to some sort of agreement where the lawyers will still get paid but the consumers will still not be able to band together to hold corporations responsible for things.
Of course, most of us are cynical enough about it to think that's pretty much what we have already with class-action lawsuits.
I'm surprised it's taken amazon this long. Several other big companies have done it and have not faced revolts, lynchings, or even much noise that I've heard about barring such clauses via legislation. What were they worried about, it couldn't possibly be that they respected their customers too much: they're a large corporation.
Are there any countries running a form of capitalism which is comparable, in which class action lawsuits are barred? Any indication that this hurts or helps consumer rights? I could see no class action lawsuits on average helping consumer rights if they resulted in less apathetic politicans and consumers. However, I could also see that hypothesis being totally wrong, and people just accepting whatever minor abuses companies throw at them.
Seems like something which would have been researched by some economist at some point.
What are you talking about? Most of the websites I go to have ads with naked women in them.
I think that would be wooshable if there weren't people out there who would think that would be a good idea. Cutting an article up into ten pieces to get more ad clicks is about as fun as what Sentrion was suggesting.
And actually, there is one website I know of, geared at adults, that does exactly that. And yet I keep visiting it. Hmm... stupid brain...
That sounds like zero websites I visit more than once.