The fact that they are minority parties is a symptom of the way most Americans approach elections.
No, they're a symptom of the first-past-the-post voting system. The countries that have more than two parties don't have those parties because of anything the voters think. It's not that americans have a hard time with numbers greater than two.
The fact that so many slashdotters think third parties are the only way to get issues addressed is a symptom of the way few people pay any attention to primaries, which fill the role of multiple parties in this country. The only difference is that in multiparty systems, the coalition is formed before the election instead of after.
This is an issue where republicans can be held accountable. You should not act like it isn't, especially now that you've seen the votes.
As someone who has always voted democrat, I'm not particularly broken up if you for some reason pin this on the republicans. You should realize though that the democrats didn't come out fighting against it either. For the most part, those that didn't vote FOR it passed the chance to bring up the issue. They avoided the opportunity to educate the public that "your children are still a zillion times more likely to die from choking on a hotdog than they are to die in a terrorist attack of any sort, so calm the fuck down about it and don't give up your rights to vainly try to prevent it."
In my book, there's little difference between a republican who passes something I'm opposed to, and a democrat who cowers in the corner and lets the republicans pass things I'm opposed to.
Maybe people will start to finally learn that the choices they are fed are bullshit and that both A and B are part of the greater subject -- C. If you vote for A, it benefits C. If you vote for B, it benefits C. Instead of idiots arguing "derp derp derp red versus blue" they might finally invest that energy into understanding what is really going on and doing something about it. Then again, probably not.
It might help if you were a little more specific... I mean, are we talking A and B as in the parties and C is corporate overlords?
I mean, idiots like me aren't idiots because we catch on really quickly...
Don't vote for them again unless you want this shit to continue.
I would point out that the primary season would be most effective time to raise the issue. If you're merely going to wait for the general election and choose between R, D, or whatever, you've likely missed the opportunity. I mean, you can probably make a symbolic statement by voting 3rd party, and can earn a pat on the back for that, but if you actually want it gone, it's not so simple.
There are unfortunately only two options in US politics: The Frying pan and the shiny new futuristic looking Frying pan with a non-stick coating
This is not an issue of the two party system, this is an issue of "the public is largely ignorant."
It always annoys me in these discussions when someone suggests the structure of our politics is somehow to blame. That's blaming someone else for our failings, it has nothing to with the number of boxes on a ballot. If more than 50% of the voters wanted the patriot act gone, republicans AND democrats would be slinging mud about "I'd get rid of it a FULL DAY SOONER than my opponent would!" Getting rid of it does -not- require voting in a third party (which, not for nothing, would require us to get rid of the first-past-the-post voting system we have, a move which WOULD require a third party to be voted in).
It's stuck with us because the voters these days are morons who are scared of foreigners with bombs, and are exactly the type of fools who would give up essential liberty for a little bit of security. Politicians are salesmen: they're going to give the customer what they want, not what they need.
We're too gullible when they're campaigning if we seriously believe voting for anyone of any party and then doing nothing else has a good chance of changing anything. Politicians usually don't have the power to lead us very far, politicians can't convince us that the patriot act is an abomination, most of them don't even try. Cable news isn't going to try, terrorism and stoking our fears is too sexy and gets too many viewers to kill that golden goose. To get rid of the PATRIOT act requires those US to inform other voters of what a bad idea it is. Voting for a third party candidate is, in my humble opinion, purely a waste of time if you're just going to check "libertarian" or "green" and do nothing else about it.
That is a tall order. And, full disclosure, I'm busy trying to cure spinal cord injuries and play videogames to campaign against the patriot act. I don't have a problem with apathy, but I do find fault with lying to ourselves that the 2 party system is the problem.
"All that HB 1937 does is require that the TSA abide by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution," Simpson continued. "We aren't even prohibiting the pat-downs, per se. We're just saying you can't go straight to third base. You have to have a reason-you have to have probable cause-before groping someone's sexual organs."
If I want to go right to oral sex without obtaining probable cause, I should be able to dammit!
Stepping up exactly one level of seriousness: I hope Rep. Simpson wasn't exactly clear on what "third base" actually entailed. If there are going to be new TSA regulations actually involve "third base" and they don't hire new gate agents...
What, do you want an oversized knife switch with electricity arcing all around it so you can shout "IT'S ALIVE! ALIVE!!! AAAAH HA HA HA!" whenever you need to flip it? Because... well, okay, I want that, too, come to think of it...
I'd prefer it as a USB device. Actually having it turn on and off the computer would be annoying.
Also on my wishlist would be a mouse that when wiggled would shoot blue sparks, then the pointer would rocket across the screen. Preferably while making Yoshi sounds.
How much money has Rihanna made from me ? ZERO. I wouldn't even download her shit for free. I actually WANT Die Antwoord to succeed, I'm interested in their offerings, I appreciate what they're doing, and the entertainment they're providing me is worth every penny.
You lost my remaining mod point when you went negative here, since I am not afraid to admit I like Rihanna, both her songs and what little I know about her personal life. Furthermore, what are you implying? That's one mainstream act you don't like, fine. If you're saying that -no- mainstream acts that sell music rather than giving it away meet your approval, well, we should just agree to disagree. And I'll jokingly call you a hipster.
The larger point is this: not wanting to give away your work does not make you evil, a bad artist, or a bad musician. It's all well and good that some acts can follow your model of "making it by concerts and shirt sales" while giving their music away free. I see no reason to suggest that could work with all or even most acts. I see no reason why your standard of "if they do that, it's good music" is better than my standard of "if it's good music, it's good music." I see no reason to fault acts that don't choose to go with your model, just as I see no fault with software developers that choose to charge money for their products rather than simply asking for donations.
Wikipedia's whole point is in constantly improving amount and accuracy of collected information through a large co-operative effort. Currently Wikipedia arguably defeated its own purpose by having content controlled by incompetent people who care more about stroking their own egos than about anything productive.
I've never tried to edit wikipedia, but I'd still need to see some type of quantification on that before I'd accept that is the norm rather than the exception.
I have worked in an academic field for awhile as a researcher PhD student, and have noticed that some people of the Principal Investigator status are more politicians and administrators than scientists anymore
(emphasis added)
I'll wager that this was always true. We tend to remember the PIs of yesteryear who did great science, and not the ones who didn't do much besides keeping their universities running. That doesn't mean they weren't there. They had to have been. I don't think there were -ever- enough people who were great at science AND at soliciting funds from donors AND doing housekeeping to keep all the universities going and do amazing science at the same time.
In fact, even when they are wrong they are not as capable of admitting to themselves they are wrong because of their credentials.
You should have added the "some" again here, and again I'd say that has always been true for SOME PIs. Mine, on the other hand, has no problem admitting mistakes. I'd go so far as to say that in my experience, damn near all PIs admit error. Some more readily than others, yes.
I make an argument to you against your bias towards a person needing qualifications. A Bachelors student could be inspired and do just as good of a job as a Masters student in an article. I remember one time I completed a mathematical proof in Dynamics as a Sophomore that blew my Professor away due to its simplicity in linear algebra terms and outside-the-box thinking.
Of course both are needed in science, but on wikipedia, outside-the-box thinking is not as necessary. I don't look to wikipedia as a source of "outside the box" thinking, I use it when I want facts, when I want to know what the current state of the box is.
But Wikipedia resembles less the masterpiece of a genius than the fixation of an idiot savant. You know: grinding out articles through endless pedantic debate. Wikipedia’s strength lies in thousands volunteers who care desperately about things most people have never even heard of.
This description, which was given as criticism directed towards wikipedia and intentionally done so with the intent of making it look bad, has the strange problem of also describing how the scientific process unrolls in the scientific community. Well, with the single difference of the majority of scientists not being volunteers, at least in the sense of wikipedia.
Maybe his objection was over the "volunteer" part. Pyramids weren't built by volunteers, those were slaves. Same for the great wall of china. Get out your whip, round up some nerds, and make them edit wikipedia, and then it will pass A. Chen's criteria.
Is "long lasting" actually a criteria for "world wonder" though? I think it's just that "world wonder" means "something that is impressive that is around at the time the list is compiled." That tends to be old stuff since there's a lot more things built in history than there are current construction projects. And not all world wonders ARE hundreds of years old. The "Christ the Redeemer" statue in Rio de Janeiro is a new world wonder and only dates back to 1922.
Furthermore, wiki is going to be around a long time, even if it's not sure it's going to be the dominant online source of information. Honestly, out of any of the world wonders, wikipedia is the one most likely to last. How many of the other world wonders are backed up at all, let alone as thoroughly as wikipedia is?
What's so egotistic about wiki? That it has, in its short history, become more rigid and inflexible than it was initially? That some of the people who maintain it are idiots who are just doing it for their own egos?
While that may or may not be a fair criticism, let's compare wiki to one of the other world wonders: the pyramids. I know a lot of people have problems with how often change is rejected from wikipedia, but you can often do it. It might involve arguing with some basement-dwelling troll, but trying to make "edits" to the pyramids would get you shot or thrown in an Egyptian jail. Wikipedia has been criticized as being too inflexible, but the pyramids haven't really changed much in thousands of years. And there may be some strong egos behind wiki, but the pharaohs actually considered themselves gods. Few wikipedians would actually say "I am a god, worship me," if only because they don't have a citation for that and would get slapped down immediately.
Because we DO have 3TB harddrives we DESERVE "a raw dump of data."
Was that ever the goal of wikipedia though? They have had rules concerning relevance since I heard about it. That implies the goal was not "all information."
If you want an "all inclusive wiki" that will err more on the side of too much information rather than too much deleted information, and will be more secure against deletion abuses, then by all means, make your own wikipedia.
The old man murray example is an abuse, yes, fine. There are going to be abuses no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT. And wiki is the most comprehensive encyclopedia out there, no matter how many specific examples of individuals deleting too much you can find. I mean, how many encyclopedias out there do mention old man murray? My guess? Exactly one: wikipedia.
Unfortunately, as long as the 'terrorism and intelligence' loophole exists, the present bill is sort of a waste of effort.
It seems to me that this is a valid first step towards what you want. One senator and one bill usually can't solve a major issue like this in one shot. Many of the voters are still scared little idiots, seems like not exempting terrorism would doom this bill, as it would be a liability to anyone who voted for it in midterms. "The CIA says that you, senator smith, voted FOR ONLINE TERRORISM [gasp!]" Hopefully the voters can be educated that terrorists are not something they should be worried about to the point of giving up all their rights. While it's easy to be cynical and say that will never happen, I'd prefer at least my legislators to continue fighting for our rights.
Second, I don't know a lot about law enforcement, but this seems like a smaller loophole than you suggest. "Terrorism and intelligence" doesn't sound like a justification that just anyone can use (though that would be common sense, often lacking in law). How likely is it that your local prosecutor will be able to go on a fishing trip and just thumb through all your online data because you're friends with a guy who liked coke? Seems like it would be a stretch to say that's terrorism or intelligence related, though again I would not be too surprised to hear otherwise.
Hmm... I'd be interested in where most of the edits to conservapedia originate from, organized by length of edits and blue or red district. My hypothesis would be that most of the short, trollish edits were from blue states.
While I'd like to think ALL of it is trolling, I don't have that much faith in humanity.
"Knowledge" doesn't imply "a raw dump of data." There's some implication of important data being retained and trivial information, or untrue stuff, being weeded out. I've heard your brain dumps most incoming information, things like the sensation of your socks rubbing on your feet, but that obviously is your personal repository of knowledge. You can't possibly suggest that wikipedia shouldn't delete ANYTHING.
I'm aware there are examples of petty little people letting the power go to their head, deleting more information than they should, but that's an unavoidable abuse, just as it's unavoidable that there are going to be people who spam Wikipedia with trivial information (and then whine about it on slashdot). From my perspective, the information I search for on wiki is always there, so it's not suffering from deleting too much.
and we could shitcan the Chinese economy in 24 secs announcing our intent to default on that debt, and stopping the purchase of their exports.
1. That would require agreement between democrats and republicans against what would be massive lobbying efforts.
2. Doing so would be so stupid that even elected officials would be able to appreciate what a bad idea it would be.
3. If we had some reason to do that, why would we do that and risk a backlash instead of nuking them? It would have about the same economic and political consequences, but would be faster and would prevent the Chinese from attacking us.
4. I don't think that mutually assured economic destruction could work in this case. If we did that and our economies crumbled, seems to me like the Chinese would have a decent shot of recovering pretty quickly compared to us. Again, command economy. We default and both our economies go to zero, everyone's job evaporates. The next day, the Chinese government announces that the Chinese economy is high again because they say it is, that every chinese citizen has a duty to work for two weeks without pay, and everyone who says otherwise will be shot. Chinese economy recovers. Conversely, the US economy hits zero, and the US government can't even get the word out to ask people to go back to work as the TV stations have already started burning from the looting.
I think there IS a significant difference in scope, efficiency, and actor that still makes the chinese situation worse. It seems like there are far more examples of the great firewall censoring than assholes misusing the DMCA here. There are certainly far more topics censored via great firewall as opposed to DMCA. Second, bleble appeared to be referring only to his ability to download movies, not suppression of free speech.
Last, however true or false the parallel is, saying they're basically the same will make fewer Americans take our side seriously, not more. It's kind of like godwining an argument: even if you feel there are strong parallels between someone you're talking about and Hitler, it's best to avoid making that comparison, unless you're just trying to get attention at all costs.
By the way, the subject line should not be the exact same thing as the comment. Maybe elaborate a little in the comment, and or trim down the subject line.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that they are minority parties is a symptom of the way most Americans approach elections.
No, they're a symptom of the first-past-the-post voting system. The countries that have more than two parties don't have those parties because of anything the voters think. It's not that americans have a hard time with numbers greater than two.
The fact that so many slashdotters think third parties are the only way to get issues addressed is a symptom of the way few people pay any attention to primaries, which fill the role of multiple parties in this country. The only difference is that in multiparty systems, the coalition is formed before the election instead of after.
This is an issue where republicans can be held accountable. You should not act like it isn't, especially now that you've seen the votes.
As someone who has always voted democrat, I'm not particularly broken up if you for some reason pin this on the republicans. You should realize though that the democrats didn't come out fighting against it either. For the most part, those that didn't vote FOR it passed the chance to bring up the issue. They avoided the opportunity to educate the public that "your children are still a zillion times more likely to die from choking on a hotdog than they are to die in a terrorist attack of any sort, so calm the fuck down about it and don't give up your rights to vainly try to prevent it."
In my book, there's little difference between a republican who passes something I'm opposed to, and a democrat who cowers in the corner and lets the republicans pass things I'm opposed to.
Maybe people will start to finally learn that the choices they are fed are bullshit and that both A and B are part of the greater subject -- C. If you vote for A, it benefits C. If you vote for B, it benefits C. Instead of idiots arguing "derp derp derp red versus blue" they might finally invest that energy into understanding what is really going on and doing something about it. Then again, probably not.
It might help if you were a little more specific... I mean, are we talking A and B as in the parties and C is corporate overlords?
I mean, idiots like me aren't idiots because we catch on really quickly...
Don't vote for them again unless you want this shit to continue.
I would point out that the primary season would be most effective time to raise the issue. If you're merely going to wait for the general election and choose between R, D, or whatever, you've likely missed the opportunity. I mean, you can probably make a symbolic statement by voting 3rd party, and can earn a pat on the back for that, but if you actually want it gone, it's not so simple.
There are unfortunately only two options in US politics: The Frying pan and the shiny new futuristic looking Frying pan with a non-stick coating
This is not an issue of the two party system, this is an issue of "the public is largely ignorant."
It always annoys me in these discussions when someone suggests the structure of our politics is somehow to blame. That's blaming someone else for our failings, it has nothing to with the number of boxes on a ballot. If more than 50% of the voters wanted the patriot act gone, republicans AND democrats would be slinging mud about "I'd get rid of it a FULL DAY SOONER than my opponent would!" Getting rid of it does -not- require voting in a third party (which, not for nothing, would require us to get rid of the first-past-the-post voting system we have, a move which WOULD require a third party to be voted in).
It's stuck with us because the voters these days are morons who are scared of foreigners with bombs, and are exactly the type of fools who would give up essential liberty for a little bit of security. Politicians are salesmen: they're going to give the customer what they want, not what they need.
We're too gullible when they're campaigning if we seriously believe voting for anyone of any party and then doing nothing else has a good chance of changing anything. Politicians usually don't have the power to lead us very far, politicians can't convince us that the patriot act is an abomination, most of them don't even try. Cable news isn't going to try, terrorism and stoking our fears is too sexy and gets too many viewers to kill that golden goose. To get rid of the PATRIOT act requires those US to inform other voters of what a bad idea it is. Voting for a third party candidate is, in my humble opinion, purely a waste of time if you're just going to check "libertarian" or "green" and do nothing else about it.
That is a tall order. And, full disclosure, I'm busy trying to cure spinal cord injuries and play videogames to campaign against the patriot act. I don't have a problem with apathy, but I do find fault with lying to ourselves that the 2 party system is the problem.
"All that HB 1937 does is require that the TSA abide by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution," Simpson continued. "We aren't even prohibiting the pat-downs, per se. We're just saying you can't go straight to third base. You have to have a reason-you have to have probable cause-before groping someone's sexual organs."
If I want to go right to oral sex without obtaining probable cause, I should be able to dammit!
Stepping up exactly one level of seriousness: I hope Rep. Simpson wasn't exactly clear on what "third base" actually entailed. If there are going to be new TSA regulations actually involve "third base" and they don't hire new gate agents...
What, do you want an oversized knife switch with electricity arcing all around it so you can shout "IT'S ALIVE! ALIVE!!! AAAAH HA HA HA!" whenever you need to flip it? Because... well, okay, I want that, too, come to think of it...
I'd prefer it as a USB device. Actually having it turn on and off the computer would be annoying.
Also on my wishlist would be a mouse that when wiggled would shoot blue sparks, then the pointer would rocket across the screen. Preferably while making Yoshi sounds.
On Windows PCs at least, the BIOS will perform a hard power-off if you hold down the "soft" off button for 5 seconds.
And yet, when I actually have to hold that button for 5 seconds, I feel like it's actually 5 eternities.
So what you're saying is that the -users- not computers are devolving.
Well, that's just depressing...
Tell that to the millions of people who "incorrectly" say "decelerate," when they're technically talking about acceleration.
How much money has Rihanna made from me ? ZERO. I wouldn't even download her shit for free. I actually WANT Die Antwoord to succeed, I'm interested in their offerings, I appreciate what they're doing, and the entertainment they're providing me is worth every penny.
You lost my remaining mod point when you went negative here, since I am not afraid to admit I like Rihanna, both her songs and what little I know about her personal life. Furthermore, what are you implying? That's one mainstream act you don't like, fine. If you're saying that -no- mainstream acts that sell music rather than giving it away meet your approval, well, we should just agree to disagree. And I'll jokingly call you a hipster.
The larger point is this: not wanting to give away your work does not make you evil, a bad artist, or a bad musician. It's all well and good that some acts can follow your model of "making it by concerts and shirt sales" while giving their music away free. I see no reason to suggest that could work with all or even most acts. I see no reason why your standard of "if they do that, it's good music" is better than my standard of "if it's good music, it's good music." I see no reason to fault acts that don't choose to go with your model, just as I see no fault with software developers that choose to charge money for their products rather than simply asking for donations.
Wikipedia's whole point is in constantly improving amount and accuracy of collected information through a large co-operative effort. Currently Wikipedia arguably defeated its own purpose by having content controlled by incompetent people who care more about stroking their own egos than about anything productive.
I've never tried to edit wikipedia, but I'd still need to see some type of quantification on that before I'd accept that is the norm rather than the exception.
I have worked in an academic field for awhile as a researcher PhD student, and have noticed that some people of the Principal Investigator status are more politicians and administrators than scientists anymore
(emphasis added)
I'll wager that this was always true. We tend to remember the PIs of yesteryear who did great science, and not the ones who didn't do much besides keeping their universities running. That doesn't mean they weren't there. They had to have been. I don't think there were -ever- enough people who were great at science AND at soliciting funds from donors AND doing housekeeping to keep all the universities going and do amazing science at the same time.
In fact, even when they are wrong they are not as capable of admitting to themselves they are wrong because of their credentials.
You should have added the "some" again here, and again I'd say that has always been true for SOME PIs. Mine, on the other hand, has no problem admitting mistakes. I'd go so far as to say that in my experience, damn near all PIs admit error. Some more readily than others, yes.
I make an argument to you against your bias towards a person needing qualifications. A Bachelors student could be inspired and do just as good of a job as a Masters student in an article. I remember one time I completed a mathematical proof in Dynamics as a Sophomore that blew my Professor away due to its simplicity in linear algebra terms and outside-the-box thinking.
Of course both are needed in science, but on wikipedia, outside-the-box thinking is not as necessary. I don't look to wikipedia as a source of "outside the box" thinking, I use it when I want facts, when I want to know what the current state of the box is.
But Wikipedia resembles less the masterpiece of a genius than the fixation of an idiot savant. You know: grinding out articles through endless pedantic debate. Wikipedia’s strength lies in thousands volunteers who care desperately about things most people have never even heard of.
This description, which was given as criticism directed towards wikipedia and intentionally done so with the intent of making it look bad, has the strange problem of also describing how the scientific process unrolls in the scientific community. Well, with the single difference of the majority of scientists not being volunteers, at least in the sense of wikipedia.
Maybe his objection was over the "volunteer" part. Pyramids weren't built by volunteers, those were slaves. Same for the great wall of china. Get out your whip, round up some nerds, and make them edit wikipedia, and then it will pass A. Chen's criteria.
Is "long lasting" actually a criteria for "world wonder" though? I think it's just that "world wonder" means "something that is impressive that is around at the time the list is compiled." That tends to be old stuff since there's a lot more things built in history than there are current construction projects. And not all world wonders ARE hundreds of years old. The "Christ the Redeemer" statue in Rio de Janeiro is a new world wonder and only dates back to 1922.
Furthermore, wiki is going to be around a long time, even if it's not sure it's going to be the dominant online source of information. Honestly, out of any of the world wonders, wikipedia is the one most likely to last. How many of the other world wonders are backed up at all, let alone as thoroughly as wikipedia is?
What's so egotistic about wiki? That it has, in its short history, become more rigid and inflexible than it was initially? That some of the people who maintain it are idiots who are just doing it for their own egos?
While that may or may not be a fair criticism, let's compare wiki to one of the other world wonders: the pyramids. I know a lot of people have problems with how often change is rejected from wikipedia, but you can often do it. It might involve arguing with some basement-dwelling troll, but trying to make "edits" to the pyramids would get you shot or thrown in an Egyptian jail. Wikipedia has been criticized as being too inflexible, but the pyramids haven't really changed much in thousands of years. And there may be some strong egos behind wiki, but the pharaohs actually considered themselves gods. Few wikipedians would actually say "I am a god, worship me," if only because they don't have a citation for that and would get slapped down immediately.
Because we DO have 3TB harddrives we DESERVE "a raw dump of data."
Was that ever the goal of wikipedia though? They have had rules concerning relevance since I heard about it. That implies the goal was not "all information."
If you want an "all inclusive wiki" that will err more on the side of too much information rather than too much deleted information, and will be more secure against deletion abuses, then by all means, make your own wikipedia.
The old man murray example is an abuse, yes, fine. There are going to be abuses no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT. And wiki is the most comprehensive encyclopedia out there, no matter how many specific examples of individuals deleting too much you can find. I mean, how many encyclopedias out there do mention old man murray? My guess? Exactly one: wikipedia.
Unfortunately, as long as the 'terrorism and intelligence' loophole exists, the present bill is sort of a waste of effort.
It seems to me that this is a valid first step towards what you want. One senator and one bill usually can't solve a major issue like this in one shot. Many of the voters are still scared little idiots, seems like not exempting terrorism would doom this bill, as it would be a liability to anyone who voted for it in midterms. "The CIA says that you, senator smith, voted FOR ONLINE TERRORISM [gasp!]" Hopefully the voters can be educated that terrorists are not something they should be worried about to the point of giving up all their rights. While it's easy to be cynical and say that will never happen, I'd prefer at least my legislators to continue fighting for our rights.
Second, I don't know a lot about law enforcement, but this seems like a smaller loophole than you suggest. "Terrorism and intelligence" doesn't sound like a justification that just anyone can use (though that would be common sense, often lacking in law). How likely is it that your local prosecutor will be able to go on a fishing trip and just thumb through all your online data because you're friends with a guy who liked coke? Seems like it would be a stretch to say that's terrorism or intelligence related, though again I would not be too surprised to hear otherwise.
Well there's still that "trivial information" bit...
Well good, then hopefully fewer people will actually propose we do that. I was not endorsing either course of action, by the way.
Hmm... I'd be interested in where most of the edits to conservapedia originate from, organized by length of edits and blue or red district. My hypothesis would be that most of the short, trollish edits were from blue states.
While I'd like to think ALL of it is trolling, I don't have that much faith in humanity.
"Knowledge" doesn't imply "a raw dump of data." There's some implication of important data being retained and trivial information, or untrue stuff, being weeded out. I've heard your brain dumps most incoming information, things like the sensation of your socks rubbing on your feet, but that obviously is your personal repository of knowledge. You can't possibly suggest that wikipedia shouldn't delete ANYTHING.
I'm aware there are examples of petty little people letting the power go to their head, deleting more information than they should, but that's an unavoidable abuse, just as it's unavoidable that there are going to be people who spam Wikipedia with trivial information (and then whine about it on slashdot). From my perspective, the information I search for on wiki is always there, so it's not suffering from deleting too much.
and we could shitcan the Chinese economy in 24 secs announcing our intent to default on that debt, and stopping the purchase of their exports.
1. That would require agreement between democrats and republicans against what would be massive lobbying efforts.
2. Doing so would be so stupid that even elected officials would be able to appreciate what a bad idea it would be.
3. If we had some reason to do that, why would we do that and risk a backlash instead of nuking them? It would have about the same economic and political consequences, but would be faster and would prevent the Chinese from attacking us.
4. I don't think that mutually assured economic destruction could work in this case. If we did that and our economies crumbled, seems to me like the Chinese would have a decent shot of recovering pretty quickly compared to us. Again, command economy. We default and both our economies go to zero, everyone's job evaporates. The next day, the Chinese government announces that the Chinese economy is high again because they say it is, that every chinese citizen has a duty to work for two weeks without pay, and everyone who says otherwise will be shot. Chinese economy recovers. Conversely, the US economy hits zero, and the US government can't even get the word out to ask people to go back to work as the TV stations have already started burning from the looting.
I think there IS a significant difference in scope, efficiency, and actor that still makes the chinese situation worse. It seems like there are far more examples of the great firewall censoring than assholes misusing the DMCA here. There are certainly far more topics censored via great firewall as opposed to DMCA. Second, bleble appeared to be referring only to his ability to download movies, not suppression of free speech.
Last, however true or false the parallel is, saying they're basically the same will make fewer Americans take our side seriously, not more. It's kind of like godwining an argument: even if you feel there are strong parallels between someone you're talking about and Hitler, it's best to avoid making that comparison, unless you're just trying to get attention at all costs.
He seems to be doing fine so far
By the way, the subject line should not be the exact same thing as the comment. Maybe elaborate a little in the comment, and or trim down the subject line.