but did no one grasp the importance that one nation is capable of SHOOTING DOWN SATELLITES?!?
Meanwhile the US is perfecting it's capabilities at maneuvering one unmanned orbital object around a second unmanned orbital object and, possibly, docking the two. The US has been able to shoot down satellites for a long time. It's really not that hard, especially if you just use a cheap "buckshot" payload approach. Now, intelligently maneuvering around other orbital objects without a remote controller present, and being able to dock with them, that's the newest, latest and greatest game changing ability in the arms race in space.
Pedantic much? Or did you just miss the fact that the engineers working on the project at NASA, when talking to the reporters/PR people, realized saying, "0.84 meters squared, 0.85 cm thick, and approximately 18.14 kg," wouldn't have told them diddly squat about what the actual dimensions of the hardware This is a NASA mission. Thus, it is going to generate a lot of publicity/press in the United States. Most folk in the United States think in terms of feet and inches. Using numbers like 9 square feet, and one-third of an inch give dimensions that people can visualize easily while reading a press release (I can look at my size 12 foot and say, "Well, it's about three of those long on one side). Using point something something centimeters or meters is just going to make people sit around and say, "Okay, a meter is a bit longer than a yard, what's 85% of a meter? Oh wait, it's square meters we're talking about? Screw this, I'm going to go watch the new Twilight movie instead."
When it comes down to it, if an engineer is going to be bragging about one of their projects to the press, they are going to use some off-the-cuff estimates, "Yeah, it's about a third of an inch thick," rather than the specific dimensions they used in their design because they realize that people don't know, or care, what 0.8495672331 cm looks like. Similarly, the press realizes it needs to report units that can actually help people visualize since the majority of the readers are not going to be sitting their with engineering paper and a ruler trying to do some kind of calculations/estimates with the information. Thus, I would say that both the press, and the engineers, did their job just find by, essentially, saying something along the lines of, "It's about this big, if you want to visualize it."
So all that, "I wouldn't call a 15% discrepancy 'close'" mumbo jumbo you just warbled out is nothing more than you spouting an overly pedantic analysis of a, "Hey look at this cool piece of hardware," article. You need to find yourself a hobby other than posting to slashdot if you have nothing better than that to do with your spare time.
Oh don't be so damn paranoid. I went to school as an aerospace engineer and both myself, and many of my friends have spent the better part of the last few years lighting off model rockets out of our backyards (in residential areas, not in the sticks). We haven't even gotten a complaint from neighbors. Hell, we've even done it drunk a few times (never a good idea, but always a fun one), and none of us have been seized by the Gestapo or whatever scary government organization you think it is that rules your life.
"The rationale is that this is the best they can do with a legislative branch in the pocket of telecom providers."
*snicker*
Too bad US Senators are unlikely to read such words themselves. It would be fun to see their reactions at being lambasted for being the corrupt morons they are. I doubt they would change their ways over such accusations, but watching them get all puffy faced and dramatic in their excuses/responses to such outright disrespect would be funnier than most of the crap I can find on TV nowadays.
You know, I've discussed this issue with my mother and some of my closest friends quite often. You see, being raised in the country, I was subjected to a lot of typcal, 'orthodox' Christian upbringing. I was always taught homosexuality was wrong and blah blah blah...When I grew up I got a brain and started thinking for myself. So then I started discussing these matters, with more rigor and critical thought than previously, with my family and friends. My mother and a few of my friends are, quite openly, appalled by homosexuality. As such, I have tried to discuss with them, many times, what kind of logical reasoning they can use to discriminate against homosexuals. After various discussions where I shot the, 'sanctity of marriage, unhealthy lifestyles, think of the children,' and other such reasons full of logical holes, I was pretty convinced that I had demonstrated, successfully, that there was no good, objective reason to oppress homosexual rights. I was pretty proud of this matter because I've never enjoyed the idea of targeting a specific group for being different (part of growing up in a subculture click of friends I suppose).
So, after all that, I figured those folks I'd talked to would change their mind. Did they? Nah. When it boiled down to it, after all that, I got this simple, one line answer:
I don't care what anyone says, homosexuality is just plain wrong. That's all there is to it!
So in the end, this kind of stubborn bigotry isn't founded on logic or intelligence. It's not well-reasoned or thought out. It's simple, biased, self-comforting, fear-of-change, stubbornness. Looking for an angle, or trying to figure out why folks want to put down homosexuals is folly for that reason alone. There is no logic to it. It's simple faith-based stupidity. This one simple fact is probably the single largest contributor to making me abandon my own faith a few years back. In the end, it was all just a bunch of silly crap.
The basic story shows up in lots of other cultures and goes something like this:
That's the case for most stories in the Bible. The Bible, like almost all other important cultural works, pulled upon and drew from its predecessors for inspiration and content. There is very little, if any, original material (in terms of anecdotes) in the Bible. I'm not saying this to thrash the Bible, just to point out that it, like so many other books, is a great reference for the evolution and mixing of various human cultural themes.
And there is no guarantee that the new government will be better than the old government.
There was no guarantee that the US entering WWII would result in a victory for the Allies. We did it anyways.
There was no guarantee that the Apollo moon program would provide anything of benefit to society. We did it anyway.
There was no guarantee that 13 colonies could overthrow British rule. We did it anyway.
There was no guarantee that Ghandi or MLK's civil disobedience campaigns would result in any type of change. They did it anyway.
There was no guarantee that overthrowing Czarist Russia would result in a better system of government for the working class. They did it anyway.
There is no guarantee that you getting out of bed every day will do anything but get you killed. You do it anyway.
The steady progress of human society, at all levels, personal and grand, occurs because people take risks, people shed blood, people try something new, and people have the balls to do ridiculous things like love, care, laugh, smile, hate, cry, and fight.
In short, stop making up excuses for being a pussy.
See, that's utter rubbish. There are scores of old people that have fought for principles and causes that are alive today. Many of them are veterans of one country or another. I happen to know quite a few of them. If you don't like that example, I know of a half dozen authors that are in their golden years that successfully penned creations which went on to change the values and mindset of society. Robert Pirsig comes to mind...Chomsky is also a big one, though not my personal favorite. And then there are the men and women who worked, and continue to work in the space program. They help to embody and spread the virtues of hard work, discipline, and rigorous engineering. They also help to inspire young folk all around the world. Many of the men and women that first worked in the space program back in the 50's and 60's are still alive and not jailed today....
So maybe it's not a problem with the system, as you seem to think. Perhaps, you just don't know enough old people. But quite frankly, there are a lot of elderly, free, and alive people that have fought and worked for change their entire lives. You're just seeing things through a bitter filter which you imposed on yourself.
Is there a Blackwater for publicity? All joking aside, a separate organization that fights a bit dirty might be the best course of action.
Off the top of my head....
Wikileaks
Independent reporters (bloggers that actually have talent)
Local activist groups (Ever seen a hardcore, emo, or punk kid advertise for or campaign against a particular event? They make religious evangelists look like slackers).
Indie bands that tour a lot (A good indie band can get a riot started)
And there are others. In fact, there are a lot of alt culture/underground groups that are good at activism and publicity, especially in the realm of music and film. You just have to be willing to give your money to, and be seen in public with someone who has 5 piercings in their face and thinks looking like a vampire is cool.
Oh, I'd also like to point out, just for the sake of inflammatory goodness on the interwebs, that America is entirely green and homogenous, thus scientifically proving that we are the best at gravity as well as everything else. Also, we officially qualify as normal and neutral so take that all you backwards-ass, long-haired, rock-and-roll loving, high/low gravity hippy nutjobs on the rest of the continents! Give me back my 9.806 m/s^2.... I mean...32.174 ft/sec^2....aww hell, I made it back to my OP.
If you look at the map, a lot of the high-gravity areas tend to appear near highly volcanic areas like the ring of fire (and, as the reader pointed out, Iceland). I wonder if this has something to do with more magma being closer to the surface in those areas...or something similar?
So, Obama, you want to encourage US participation, both commercial and government, in the international market in the space industry? I have the first, most important step for you right here:
1. Mandate, by law, that we switch our outdated asses over to the standard metric unit system. Trying to explain to a Russian, what slugs and ft-lbf's are is about as much fun as you had trying to explain the U.S. healthcare bill to Sarah Palin.
Alright, here's my favorite. Suppose you do a lot of hiking/exploring/traveling/outdoors sports. Suppose you are the type of person that does this so often you risk severe injury regularly. Now, wouldn't it be logical to have your blood type, you medical allergies, and perhaps even a brief summary of any important medical history (i.e. heart murmurs, missing kidney, whatever) tattooed on your upper arm? If there is a nontrivial chance that you could fall/crash/slip/have an accident in such a manner as to cause severe bleeding or some other severe injury that requires you to undergo emergency medical services in another country, another town, or just some place where people don't know you and don't have your medical records on hand, then it is pretty damn logical to get some basic information permanently attached to your body (i.e. a tattoo).
So in your first post you criticize the parent for not doing anything. His response is to explain to you that he has at least been spreading awareness and asks you what you've done to help. To which you respond, in a condescending manner, by telling him that what he is doing is essentially useless and then justifying your own values regarding Chomsky's notions. Simultaneously, you avoid his entire accusation of you having done nothing. Frankly, of the two of you, it sounds like Apple has the right to stand up and call people out for living in a democracy and not taking action. However, you don't.
You sit there and preach about how you look up to Chomsky because he criticizes the government. Whoopty fuckin' do. Criticism is completely useless if action isn't taken as a result. At least Apple is trying to take some action. For that I can respect him. You, sir, however, appear to be an intellectual dick.
Huh. Well it seems to me that you're really making an effort to be offended and/or to pick a fight. If that's what you're looking for, you're not going to find it here. I do want to set the record straight regarding these types of comments:
And the best I've heard from yourself and the GP boils down to "you're not really qualified to hold that opinion" which I reject.
I, for one, never made an assertion that I, nor anyone on this site was unqualified to hold any opinion. I was simply stating that the parent post seems to be a request to further analyze those opinions you do hold. So, please don't go around pretending that I am trying to talk anyone down. I was simply commenting on the general theme that I felt the parent expressed.
And regarding quips along these lines:
....identifying yourself with a side of the debate that you don't especially seem to support.
I never made any assertion, in my original post, as to my stance on ACTA. If you want to know my thoughts regarding it, I consider the entire treaty to be flagrantly criminal. It is one of many things that my government is doing right now that I am ashamed of. The reason I did not vocally spew this into the void of the internet originally is because I find that expressing such sentiments on the internet is about as useful as sitting on my ass and staring at the wall. I prefer to make my opinions on such matters apparent through action, rather than words (if you want more details on what I have done/do do, let me know).
But the simple existence of differing viewpoints is hardly an argument for one side or another.
See, I think this outlines the crux of our discussion right here. You seem to be trying to argue a particular viewpoint. That's fine. My point was, I don't think the grandparent was trying to argue any particular position. You read manipulation and bias in his post...well, fine, you're entitled to your interpretations. I was simply trying to explain how and why I did not read his post to be of that same nature. Furthermore, I would like to assert that my intentions certainly weren't to argue ACTA one way or another...so, yeah. I'm not trying to paint you as a kicker of puppies. To be specific, the part of your response that seemed unfair to me was this:
So what, then? We should all sit tight and wait for someone in authority to tell us what everyone thinks?
It was an attempt to develop a false dichotomy: Either we accept what we consider to be obvious as the entire truth/picture and, thus, liberate ourselves from misinformation from outside sources, or we assess our own biases only to come to the conclusion that we are unqualified to think and, therefore, have to accept nothing but information from outside sources. Effectively, you tried to sum his post down to something along the lines of, "You're all biased and, therefore wrong," while painting your response to be something along the lines of, "We may be biased but at least we aren't brainwashed by the powers that be!" That seemed disingenuous to me with no acknowledgment of the middle-ground. You can just as easily think along the lines of, "ACTA is rubbish, it is shit, and here is why I think it is shit. It seems so obvious to me that it is shit, so why doesn't everyone else also think it is shit? Well maybe others don't see it quite like I do, or they are misinformed. So maybe my considering it to be obvious shit is unjustified. Perhaps it is really unobvious shit."
And I think that was more what the parent was trying to get at. And your attacking of that is what seemed unfair to me. Quiet honestly, he doesn't seem to be some intellectual elitist or any crap like that. He just seemed to advocating that slashdotters should consider the fact that what is obvious to us isn't as obvious to everyone else.
Now, you are correct to request his evidence...which is something I am highly interested in seeing myself. But the rest of your post just seems like you are looking for a good fight without particularly considering who you are fighting or what is being fought for.
I like your analogy on this one, but I am not sure the media can, any longer, be cast as the fuddy-duddy middle aged parent. Rather, I think they could be better cast of the overly-dramatic, never quite learned how to speak without hyperbole, middle aged parent. Don't get me wrong, I know that mainstream media really does try to report the news and the facts to some degree or another. It just seems to me like they present it, at least in my lifetime, like a bunch of deranged 16 y/o girls that always think everything will be the end of the world.
I know the mainstream media is biased. I know it can be a good source of information when approached with a healthy level of critical thought. I just really wish they would do away with the overblown sky-is-falling crap that gets attached on the ass-end of every single freakin' news story that's reported. In this regard, it varies very little from informal media source. The variance that does exist is usually just a matter of scale.
So does anyone with a phone book. I really don't care. I don't expect Google or anyone else to come kick in my door anytime soon.
what you think
No, they really don't. If they think they do, they are terribly mistaken. If anyone thinks they can know what a person thinks, based purely by their actions on the internet, they are seriously underestimating the process of thinking within the human mind.
who you're communicating with
Correction, they know who I am communicating with on the internet. That's very different from who I am communicating with.
where you're trying to go
Half the time, even I don't know that.
what websites you're a member of
Who cares? I sign up for memberships to lots of websites with fake personal information just to use them as throwaways at my convenience. For example, I have over 36 web based e-mail accounts that I use for nothing more than plugging into, 'e-mail address?' fields on other random websites. I haven't checked those inboxes in years.
what you're trying to find out
No, they know what I am looking at. Quite often, that has nothing to do with what I am trying to find out. Usually I have to talk to a person to establish a proper correlation between what I am trying to find out and what I should look for.
what you're buying
Yeah, I do all my grocery shopping online. Also, I purchase all of the parts I need for maintaining my gizmos online...not at local hardware stores or anything....because, you know, waiting a week for a part that I could just buy today makes a lot of sense.
what news you've been exposed to
I didn't realize Google owned the local newspaper copies that my coworkers leave in the lunchroom every day...
To make my point clear...I think you are overestimating things by far. Either that, or you really do spend far too much time on the internet.
Just for the record, a troll, by slashdot standards, is not the same thing as a troll anywhere else on the internet. Basically the troll mod option just substitutes for, "You're posting an opinion I don't like so I am going to use my uber-l337 mod point powers to censor you!"
Likewise, insightful does not always mean what you might think it should mean...for instance, in this case, insightful means that combining tough-talking words with a popular sentiment from an anonymous avatar wins you popularity points for expressing how most nerds on/. feel about ACTA.
You know, I think the parent was simply attempting to get the 'dotters to examine their own self-justification in their hatred of ACTA. It is very easy for those of us on this website to kick back, read a news story, and say, 'well duh!' regarding any particular assertion in this story. We do it all the time because, quite frankly, we are smug, intelligent, self-assured folk that have successfully surrounded ourselves with like-minded individuals in this medium (nerds and such). That said, there most certainly is a group-think/confirmation bias epidemic that runs rampant on hot topic threads like anything related to ACTA. We nerds often spend our time researching things like copyright law, it's origins, it's intentions, and so on because we have to deal with it personally. Some of us publish music. Others publish code. Still others publish technical documents and books. As such, this is a topic very dear to our heart and we pay close attention to it (as we should). However, as soon as a story comes up about increasing the scope of copyright law, our knee-jerk reaction is something along the lines of, "WTF?! It already sucks as it is! Can't everyone else see that?!"
Well, the answer is, apparently, "No."
Not everyone in the world sees things the way we do. Not everyone understands the issue from our viewpoint. Hell, there are quite a few people who consider copyright infringement to be on the exact scale of morality as physical theft. (And if you don't believe that, go down to your local farmer's market/community center sometime and try debating it with some non-tech oriented folks. They will look at you like you just ate a baby).
That said, it seemed like the parent was simply trying to point this out to his fellow 'dotters and tell them, in no ambiguous terms, that ACTA sucking is not obvious to everyone. To a lot of folk (including the politicians backing this crap), ACTA may seem like a legitimate attempt to make the world a better place. As such, the parent was championing the cause of providing a clear, explicit analysis (as the meeting at Washington University was supposed to to) of ACTA in order to make it more apparent to other people that ACTA is not a good thing. The one line in his post seems to demonstrate this sentiment with an elegant brevity:
That doesn't mean I think they are wrong that the treaty is a bad thing, I think they are arriving at that conclusion incorrectly and that is why they might think it "obvious" when maybe it isn't.
So in other words, I don't think lashing out at the parent is really in the best interest of discussion. He was merely trying to tell 'dotters to rethink their own biases and keep in mind that things that seem obvious to us are not as obvious to others. I don't see a reason to pick apart his post and try to paint him as some sort of biased shill.
In other words, choose your battles, buddy. The parent isn't trying to make the case that ACTA, or harsher copyright, is a good thing. He is just saying that he likes to see people spending their time actually doing research and analysis on this topic (which, in cased you missed it, is precisely what this summary is about).
Slashdot Mirror
but did no one grasp the importance that one nation is capable of SHOOTING DOWN SATELLITES?!?
Meanwhile the US is perfecting it's capabilities at maneuvering one unmanned orbital object around a second unmanned orbital object and, possibly, docking the two. The US has been able to shoot down satellites for a long time. It's really not that hard, especially if you just use a cheap "buckshot" payload approach. Now, intelligently maneuvering around other orbital objects without a remote controller present, and being able to dock with them, that's the newest, latest and greatest game changing ability in the arms race in space.
Pedantic much? Or did you just miss the fact that the engineers working on the project at NASA, when talking to the reporters/PR people, realized saying, "0.84 meters squared, 0.85 cm thick, and approximately 18.14 kg," wouldn't have told them diddly squat about what the actual dimensions of the hardware This is a NASA mission. Thus, it is going to generate a lot of publicity/press in the United States. Most folk in the United States think in terms of feet and inches. Using numbers like 9 square feet, and one-third of an inch give dimensions that people can visualize easily while reading a press release (I can look at my size 12 foot and say, "Well, it's about three of those long on one side). Using point something something centimeters or meters is just going to make people sit around and say, "Okay, a meter is a bit longer than a yard, what's 85% of a meter? Oh wait, it's square meters we're talking about? Screw this, I'm going to go watch the new Twilight movie instead."
When it comes down to it, if an engineer is going to be bragging about one of their projects to the press, they are going to use some off-the-cuff estimates, "Yeah, it's about a third of an inch thick," rather than the specific dimensions they used in their design because they realize that people don't know, or care, what 0.8495672331 cm looks like. Similarly, the press realizes it needs to report units that can actually help people visualize since the majority of the readers are not going to be sitting their with engineering paper and a ruler trying to do some kind of calculations/estimates with the information. Thus, I would say that both the press, and the engineers, did their job just find by, essentially, saying something along the lines of, "It's about this big, if you want to visualize it."
So all that, "I wouldn't call a 15% discrepancy 'close'" mumbo jumbo you just warbled out is nothing more than you spouting an overly pedantic analysis of a, "Hey look at this cool piece of hardware," article. You need to find yourself a hobby other than posting to slashdot if you have nothing better than that to do with your spare time.
Oh don't be so damn paranoid. I went to school as an aerospace engineer and both myself, and many of my friends have spent the better part of the last few years lighting off model rockets out of our backyards (in residential areas, not in the sticks). We haven't even gotten a complaint from neighbors. Hell, we've even done it drunk a few times (never a good idea, but always a fun one), and none of us have been seized by the Gestapo or whatever scary government organization you think it is that rules your life.
"The rationale is that this is the best they can do with a legislative branch in the pocket of telecom providers."
*snicker*
Too bad US Senators are unlikely to read such words themselves. It would be fun to see their reactions at being lambasted for being the corrupt morons they are. I doubt they would change their ways over such accusations, but watching them get all puffy faced and dramatic in their excuses/responses to such outright disrespect would be funnier than most of the crap I can find on TV nowadays.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
--William Congreve, (paraphrased).
'Nuff said.
So, after all that, I figured those folks I'd talked to would change their mind. Did they? Nah. When it boiled down to it, after all that, I got this simple, one line answer:
I don't care what anyone says, homosexuality is just plain wrong. That's all there is to it!
So in the end, this kind of stubborn bigotry isn't founded on logic or intelligence. It's not well-reasoned or thought out. It's simple, biased, self-comforting, fear-of-change, stubbornness. Looking for an angle, or trying to figure out why folks want to put down homosexuals is folly for that reason alone. There is no logic to it. It's simple faith-based stupidity. This one simple fact is probably the single largest contributor to making me abandon my own faith a few years back. In the end, it was all just a bunch of silly crap.
The basic story shows up in lots of other cultures and goes something like this:
That's the case for most stories in the Bible. The Bible, like almost all other important cultural works, pulled upon and drew from its predecessors for inspiration and content. There is very little, if any, original material (in terms of anecdotes) in the Bible. I'm not saying this to thrash the Bible, just to point out that it, like so many other books, is a great reference for the evolution and mixing of various human cultural themes.
And there is no guarantee that the new government will be better than the old government.
There was no guarantee that the US entering WWII would result in a victory for the Allies. We did it anyways.
There was no guarantee that the Apollo moon program would provide anything of benefit to society. We did it anyway.
There was no guarantee that 13 colonies could overthrow British rule. We did it anyway.
There was no guarantee that Ghandi or MLK's civil disobedience campaigns would result in any type of change. They did it anyway.
There was no guarantee that overthrowing Czarist Russia would result in a better system of government for the working class. They did it anyway.
There is no guarantee that you getting out of bed every day will do anything but get you killed. You do it anyway.
The steady progress of human society, at all levels, personal and grand, occurs because people take risks, people shed blood, people try something new, and people have the balls to do ridiculous things like love, care, laugh, smile, hate, cry, and fight.
In short, stop making up excuses for being a pussy.
Most people who fight end in jail or dead.
See, that's utter rubbish. There are scores of old people that have fought for principles and causes that are alive today. Many of them are veterans of one country or another. I happen to know quite a few of them. If you don't like that example, I know of a half dozen authors that are in their golden years that successfully penned creations which went on to change the values and mindset of society. Robert Pirsig comes to mind...Chomsky is also a big one, though not my personal favorite. And then there are the men and women who worked, and continue to work in the space program. They help to embody and spread the virtues of hard work, discipline, and rigorous engineering. They also help to inspire young folk all around the world. Many of the men and women that first worked in the space program back in the 50's and 60's are still alive and not jailed today....
So maybe it's not a problem with the system, as you seem to think. Perhaps, you just don't know enough old people. But quite frankly, there are a lot of elderly, free, and alive people that have fought and worked for change their entire lives. You're just seeing things through a bitter filter which you imposed on yourself.
The people who try to change the world are the first people to be hunted down by the inquisition.
And that's when the game gets fun. ;)
Is there a Blackwater for publicity? All joking aside, a separate organization that fights a bit dirty might be the best course of action.
Off the top of my head....
Wikileaks
Independent reporters (bloggers that actually have talent)
Local activist groups (Ever seen a hardcore, emo, or punk kid advertise for or campaign against a particular event? They make religious evangelists look like slackers).
Indie bands that tour a lot (A good indie band can get a riot started)
And there are others. In fact, there are a lot of alt culture/underground groups that are good at activism and publicity, especially in the realm of music and film. You just have to be willing to give your money to, and be seen in public with someone who has 5 piercings in their face and thinks looking like a vampire is cool.
Wow, yeah, it does correspond to the deformation map really well...good catch. Thanks.
I came here to make the same correction. What lowbrow editor posted this summary with such an ass-backwards statement in it?
....
...
*checks*
kdawson....\sigh
Oh, I'd also like to point out, just for the sake of inflammatory goodness on the interwebs, that America is entirely green and homogenous, thus scientifically proving that we are the best at gravity as well as everything else. Also, we officially qualify as normal and neutral so take that all you backwards-ass, long-haired, rock-and-roll loving, high/low gravity hippy nutjobs on the rest of the continents! Give me back my 9.806 m/s^2 .... I mean...32.174 ft/sec^2....aww hell, I made it back to my OP.
If you look at the map, a lot of the high-gravity areas tend to appear near highly volcanic areas like the ring of fire (and, as the reader pointed out, Iceland). I wonder if this has something to do with more magma being closer to the surface in those areas...or something similar?
So, Obama, you want to encourage US participation, both commercial and government, in the international market in the space industry? I have the first, most important step for you right here:
1. Mandate, by law, that we switch our outdated asses over to the standard metric unit system. Trying to explain to a Russian, what slugs and ft-lbf's are is about as much fun as you had trying to explain the U.S. healthcare bill to Sarah Palin.
Best. Analogy. Ever.
Alright, here's my favorite. Suppose you do a lot of hiking/exploring/traveling/outdoors sports. Suppose you are the type of person that does this so often you risk severe injury regularly. Now, wouldn't it be logical to have your blood type, you medical allergies, and perhaps even a brief summary of any important medical history (i.e. heart murmurs, missing kidney, whatever) tattooed on your upper arm? If there is a nontrivial chance that you could fall/crash/slip/have an accident in such a manner as to cause severe bleeding or some other severe injury that requires you to undergo emergency medical services in another country, another town, or just some place where people don't know you and don't have your medical records on hand, then it is pretty damn logical to get some basic information permanently attached to your body (i.e. a tattoo).
...but he's going to have a lot more work than the guy with short hair and a suit.
You've obviously never met a business major...
So in your first post you criticize the parent for not doing anything. His response is to explain to you that he has at least been spreading awareness and asks you what you've done to help. To which you respond, in a condescending manner, by telling him that what he is doing is essentially useless and then justifying your own values regarding Chomsky's notions. Simultaneously, you avoid his entire accusation of you having done nothing. Frankly, of the two of you, it sounds like Apple has the right to stand up and call people out for living in a democracy and not taking action. However, you don't.
You sit there and preach about how you look up to Chomsky because he criticizes the government. Whoopty fuckin' do. Criticism is completely useless if action isn't taken as a result. At least Apple is trying to take some action. For that I can respect him. You, sir, however, appear to be an intellectual dick.
And the best I've heard from yourself and the GP boils down to "you're not really qualified to hold that opinion" which I reject.
I, for one, never made an assertion that I, nor anyone on this site was unqualified to hold any opinion. I was simply stating that the parent post seems to be a request to further analyze those opinions you do hold. So, please don't go around pretending that I am trying to talk anyone down. I was simply commenting on the general theme that I felt the parent expressed.
And regarding quips along these lines:
....identifying yourself with a side of the debate that you don't especially seem to support.
I never made any assertion, in my original post, as to my stance on ACTA. If you want to know my thoughts regarding it, I consider the entire treaty to be flagrantly criminal. It is one of many things that my government is doing right now that I am ashamed of. The reason I did not vocally spew this into the void of the internet originally is because I find that expressing such sentiments on the internet is about as useful as sitting on my ass and staring at the wall. I prefer to make my opinions on such matters apparent through action, rather than words (if you want more details on what I have done/do do, let me know).
But the simple existence of differing viewpoints is hardly an argument for one side or another.
See, I think this outlines the crux of our discussion right here. You seem to be trying to argue a particular viewpoint. That's fine. My point was, I don't think the grandparent was trying to argue any particular position. You read manipulation and bias in his post...well, fine, you're entitled to your interpretations. I was simply trying to explain how and why I did not read his post to be of that same nature. Furthermore, I would like to assert that my intentions certainly weren't to argue ACTA one way or another...so, yeah. I'm not trying to paint you as a kicker of puppies. To be specific, the part of your response that seemed unfair to me was this:
So what, then? We should all sit tight and wait for someone in authority to tell us what everyone thinks?
It was an attempt to develop a false dichotomy: Either we accept what we consider to be obvious as the entire truth/picture and, thus, liberate ourselves from misinformation from outside sources, or we assess our own biases only to come to the conclusion that we are unqualified to think and, therefore, have to accept nothing but information from outside sources. Effectively, you tried to sum his post down to something along the lines of, "You're all biased and, therefore wrong," while painting your response to be something along the lines of, "We may be biased but at least we aren't brainwashed by the powers that be!" That seemed disingenuous to me with no acknowledgment of the middle-ground. You can just as easily think along the lines of, "ACTA is rubbish, it is shit, and here is why I think it is shit. It seems so obvious to me that it is shit, so why doesn't everyone else also think it is shit? Well maybe others don't see it quite like I do, or they are misinformed. So maybe my considering it to be obvious shit is unjustified. Perhaps it is really unobvious shit."
And I think that was more what the parent was trying to get at. And your attacking of that is what seemed unfair to me. Quiet honestly, he doesn't seem to be some intellectual elitist or any crap like that. He just seemed to advocating that slashdotters should consider the fact that what is obvious to us isn't as obvious to everyone else.
Now, you are correct to request his evidence...which is something I am highly interested in seeing myself. But the rest of your post just seems like you are looking for a good fight without particularly considering who you are fighting or what is being fought for.
I like your analogy on this one, but I am not sure the media can, any longer, be cast as the fuddy-duddy middle aged parent. Rather, I think they could be better cast of the overly-dramatic, never quite learned how to speak without hyperbole, middle aged parent. Don't get me wrong, I know that mainstream media really does try to report the news and the facts to some degree or another. It just seems to me like they present it, at least in my lifetime, like a bunch of deranged 16 y/o girls that always think everything will be the end of the world.
I know the mainstream media is biased. I know it can be a good source of information when approached with a healthy level of critical thought. I just really wish they would do away with the overblown sky-is-falling crap that gets attached on the ass-end of every single freakin' news story that's reported. In this regard, it varies very little from informal media source. The variance that does exist is usually just a matter of scale.
They know who you are,
By name and number only, not personality.
where you live,
So does anyone with a phone book. I really don't care. I don't expect Google or anyone else to come kick in my door anytime soon.
what you think
No, they really don't. If they think they do, they are terribly mistaken. If anyone thinks they can know what a person thinks, based purely by their actions on the internet, they are seriously underestimating the process of thinking within the human mind.
who you're communicating with
Correction, they know who I am communicating with on the internet. That's very different from who I am communicating with.
where you're trying to go
Half the time, even I don't know that.
what websites you're a member of
Who cares? I sign up for memberships to lots of websites with fake personal information just to use them as throwaways at my convenience. For example, I have over 36 web based e-mail accounts that I use for nothing more than plugging into, 'e-mail address?' fields on other random websites. I haven't checked those inboxes in years.
what you're trying to find out
No, they know what I am looking at. Quite often, that has nothing to do with what I am trying to find out. Usually I have to talk to a person to establish a proper correlation between what I am trying to find out and what I should look for.
what you're buying
Yeah, I do all my grocery shopping online. Also, I purchase all of the parts I need for maintaining my gizmos online...not at local hardware stores or anything....because, you know, waiting a week for a part that I could just buy today makes a lot of sense.
what news you've been exposed to
I didn't realize Google owned the local newspaper copies that my coworkers leave in the lunchroom every day...
To make my point clear...I think you are overestimating things by far. Either that, or you really do spend far too much time on the internet.
Just for the record, a troll, by slashdot standards, is not the same thing as a troll anywhere else on the internet. Basically the troll mod option just substitutes for, "You're posting an opinion I don't like so I am going to use my uber-l337 mod point powers to censor you!"
/. feel about ACTA.
Likewise, insightful does not always mean what you might think it should mean...for instance, in this case, insightful means that combining tough-talking words with a popular sentiment from an anonymous avatar wins you popularity points for expressing how most nerds on
Well, the answer is, apparently, "No."
Not everyone in the world sees things the way we do. Not everyone understands the issue from our viewpoint. Hell, there are quite a few people who consider copyright infringement to be on the exact scale of morality as physical theft. (And if you don't believe that, go down to your local farmer's market/community center sometime and try debating it with some non-tech oriented folks. They will look at you like you just ate a baby).
That said, it seemed like the parent was simply trying to point this out to his fellow 'dotters and tell them, in no ambiguous terms, that ACTA sucking is not obvious to everyone. To a lot of folk (including the politicians backing this crap), ACTA may seem like a legitimate attempt to make the world a better place. As such, the parent was championing the cause of providing a clear, explicit analysis (as the meeting at Washington University was supposed to to) of ACTA in order to make it more apparent to other people that ACTA is not a good thing. The one line in his post seems to demonstrate this sentiment with an elegant brevity:
That doesn't mean I think they are wrong that the treaty is a bad thing, I think they are arriving at that conclusion incorrectly and that is why they might think it "obvious" when maybe it isn't.
So in other words, I don't think lashing out at the parent is really in the best interest of discussion. He was merely trying to tell 'dotters to rethink their own biases and keep in mind that things that seem obvious to us are not as obvious to others. I don't see a reason to pick apart his post and try to paint him as some sort of biased shill.
In other words, choose your battles, buddy. The parent isn't trying to make the case that ACTA, or harsher copyright, is a good thing. He is just saying that he likes to see people spending their time actually doing research and analysis on this topic (which, in cased you missed it, is precisely what this summary is about).