Right, the "simulation" could be any algorithm, there needent be designers at all. We could all be living in the 10^10^10^10th iteration of Wolfram's Rule 30.
We only don't see the encoding and decoding steps because we are inside the system that is doing the computation. If the universe were a simulation, those inside the simulation would see a ball trace a parabola with no encoding or decoding steps. Those who designed the simulation would be well aware of those steps.
That's not silly at all. It directly follows from what you are arguing. If you say that you are not guilty, the government can always claim you are not being truthful.
There were definitely gaming cards in the 486 era. A VLB video card will run DOOM faster than an ISA card. A Tseng ET4000 will run DOOM faster than a crappy Trident.
I went on to explain how this was caused by a sampling error -- Professor Duane was looking only at the people who talked to the police and ended up getting arrested.
And you're only looking at the people who didn't talk to police, and got away with a crime because of it. Try thinking about all the innocent people who would be imprisoned if the police could force them to testify against themselves.
To examine such a precept through the lens of its utilitarian value to broader society is to fail completely to understand at all its reason for being.
I don't understand this statement. You clearly understand that the 5th amendment exists because of utilitarian concerns. Your next sentence reads:
the author must accept that the consequences of abolishing the 5th will likely include a further degradation of our society into an authoritarian police state that will compel and coerce confessions from citizens.
And that is exactly why the 5th amendment is useful. That is why the benefits of the 5th amendment outweigh the costs.
Why then do you decry the utilitarian analysis of the 5th amendment?
It's not coercion unless there's usage of force or threats. Otherwise, it's simply rewarding honest behavior.
What sort of "reward" are we talking about here? Is the officer going to give you a cookie? No, what you mean here is that the officer might choose not to punish you. What's the real difference between "confess, and I won't punish you" and "If you don't confess, I'll punish you"? Both are extortionate.
The form of your argument essentially admits that a police state is desirable because it ignores "rights" that are bad for the whole of society. This is a dangerous opinion.
We don't value rights because they are sacred, and we are willing to suffer simply to preserve the rights handed down to us by our forefathers (or founding fathers, as the case may be). We value rights *because* they are good for the whole of society. There is no conflict between our rights and our security, because our rights are what keep us secure.
In this case, we preserve the right of the individual to remain silent because the alternative is worse. By allowing a suspect to remain silent, we will let some unspecified portion of murderers etc. walk free. By allowing the government to compel testimony, we ensure that the government can imprison anyone it wants by compelling their confession, or imprisoning them for failing to testify. The primary effects of this are that many innocent people would be unjustly imprisoned as scapegoats, and murderers would go free because cases would be prematurely closed. The secondary effect of this is that the government will use this power to quash political dissent, leading to policies that ultimately harm far more people than would be hurt by the murderers that slip through the 5th amendment cracks.
The rights we have in the US are based in utility. The founding fathers suffered a government that ignored those rights and knew from experience the harms it caused. Individual rights are not something that derives from starry eyed idealism; they are ideas that have been tried both ways and found to work.
The solution is to ban discrimination based on prior arrests. Make the accused, but unconvicted a protected class. And then enforce that protected class status. Run stings against employers, landlords, credit agencies, etc. (as we should be doing for other protected classes...).
We can stop this behavior without criminalizing free speech, or damaging government transparency. All it takes is for the people to decide they want a country that treats people fairly, and to enforce laws in a way that treats people fairly. But no, we'd rather have a justice system that persecutes sluts and brown people than one that treats people fairly.
Besides that, I think anyone predicting a sudden collapse of supply is silly.
A sudden collapse of supply is not the problem. The problem is that even maintaining todays output is insufficient. Energy use grows exponentially. It doubles in about 30 years. So 30 years from now we're going to need twice as much output, and 60 years from now we're going to need 4 times as much output and after 90 years, 16 times the output. Even a steady linear increase in production capacity will be outpaced in a few doubling times.
But we don't get a steady linear increase in production. We get an exponential growth at the beginning, that levels off, and then tapers downwards. There is no sudden collapse of supply, but there is a sudden disparity between supply and demand.
1) You ignore the costs to society of coerced confessions.
2) Some fraction of those who speak to cops suffer. The amount they suffer is quite high, so even if that is a small fraction, speaking to cops is still a high risk activity. There is little to be gained from speaking with cops, so the cost benefit analysis does not work out in favor of speaking with cops.
You have a point here, that the numbers we have don't let us do the actual math. But by estimation, I think it's a firm no.
3) Leniancy is a lie cops tell you to get you to confess.
4) That situation is indeed possible in a coutroom.
5) Yes. And so are the judges, attorneys, and members of the jury.
Of course it's illegal. The laws that they claim make it legal are unconstitutional, and therefore completely null. Congress has no authority to pass a law that makes generalized surveillance legal.
What the NSA is doing is unacceptable whether or not a foreign government access any of the data. Unless the US government obtains a warrant, based on probable cause, that specifically describes the places to be searched and things to be siezed, this activity is illegal.
When you're dealing with a government as corrupt as this one, you don't know that the warrant is actually based on probable cause, you don't know that law enforcement isn't being used for political purposes, and you don't know that even if the warrant is legal, that the law is just. What you do know is that the government we have today in no way, shape, or form approaches anything resembling the will of the people. A government with a 90% disapproval rate in conjunction with a 90% incumbency rate is not a democracy.
You're right, I am assuming that a warrant is invalid because unjust warrants have been issued in the past. They have thoroughly demonstrated that the purpose of our justice system is not to increase justice, but to increase the political power of a corrupt few. We live in a "free country" that imprisons more people, by raw number and per capita, than any other country in the world. We live in a country where 98% of federal defendents are denied their right to a trial. We live in a country that holds more black men in chains today than it ever did under slavery. That's the injustice system we have, and it deserves no respect whatsoever.
The only principled stance is resistance. Now, that may not always be the most prodcutive stance, and it's probably not in most cases. I completely respect those who make strategic decisions to remain free so they can keep fighting. But I also honor selfless individuals who take a stand.
"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." Henry David Thoreau.
That makes sense only if you assume the judge is impartial, and the suspect in question is not persecuted for political reasons. Those are bad assumptions in todays America. We already have a lawless society, as demonstrated by the complete lack of prosecutions against anyone involved in illegal surveillance, any bankers whose fraud destroyed the economy and thousands of lives, and against anyone who committed or authorized torture during the Bush regime.
You have to decide which side you are on. The side who breaks the law for the greater good? Or the side who uses the law to commit evil? This is the reality in which we live.
Slashdot Mirror
Buying on a black market is never good.
When you live under an authoritarian regime, black markets make you more free. That's good.
Buyers are the low hanging fruit. They're the ones who actually needed to provide a physical address somewhere along the way.
I doubt they had any personal information on the site. I suspect they failed to launder their bitcoins sufficienty.
One could easily argue that those rules were discovered, not designed. All Wolfram really did was design a numbering system.
Right, the "simulation" could be any algorithm, there needent be designers at all. We could all be living in the 10^10^10^10th iteration of Wolfram's Rule 30.
We only don't see the encoding and decoding steps because we are inside the system that is doing the computation. If the universe were a simulation, those inside the simulation would see a ball trace a parabola with no encoding or decoding steps. Those who designed the simulation would be well aware of those steps.
That's not silly at all. It directly follows from what you are arguing. If you say that you are not guilty, the government can always claim you are not being truthful.
the people buying them wanted something more than today's brainless run through a maze and shoot continuously at everything that moves experience
I think you mean "something more than todays brainless rundown a hallway and shoot at everything that moves, unless it's a cutscne.
A good key-maze FPS with constant shooting would be a breath of fresh air today.
There were definitely gaming cards in the 486 era. A VLB video card will run DOOM faster than an ISA card. A Tseng ET4000 will run DOOM faster than a crappy Trident.
I went on to explain how this was caused by a sampling error -- Professor Duane was looking only at the people who talked to the police and ended up getting arrested.
And you're only looking at the people who didn't talk to police, and got away with a crime because of it. Try thinking about all the innocent people who would be imprisoned if the police could force them to testify against themselves.
To examine such a precept through the lens of its utilitarian value to broader society is to fail completely to understand at all its reason for being.
I don't understand this statement. You clearly understand that the 5th amendment exists because of utilitarian concerns. Your next sentence reads:
the author must accept that the consequences of abolishing the 5th will likely include a further degradation of our society into an authoritarian police state that will compel and coerce confessions from citizens.
And that is exactly why the 5th amendment is useful. That is why the benefits of the 5th amendment outweigh the costs.
Why then do you decry the utilitarian analysis of the 5th amendment?
It's not coercion unless there's usage of force or threats. Otherwise, it's simply rewarding honest behavior.
What sort of "reward" are we talking about here? Is the officer going to give you a cookie? No, what you mean here is that the officer might choose not to punish you. What's the real difference between "confess, and I won't punish you" and "If you don't confess, I'll punish you"? Both are extortionate.
The form of your argument essentially admits that a police state is desirable because it ignores "rights" that are bad for the whole of society. This is a dangerous opinion.
We don't value rights because they are sacred, and we are willing to suffer simply to preserve the rights handed down to us by our forefathers (or founding fathers, as the case may be). We value rights *because* they are good for the whole of society. There is no conflict between our rights and our security, because our rights are what keep us secure.
In this case, we preserve the right of the individual to remain silent because the alternative is worse. By allowing a suspect to remain silent, we will let some unspecified portion of murderers etc. walk free. By allowing the government to compel testimony, we ensure that the government can imprison anyone it wants by compelling their confession, or imprisoning them for failing to testify. The primary effects of this are that many innocent people would be unjustly imprisoned as scapegoats, and murderers would go free because cases would be prematurely closed. The secondary effect of this is that the government will use this power to quash political dissent, leading to policies that ultimately harm far more people than would be hurt by the murderers that slip through the 5th amendment cracks.
The rights we have in the US are based in utility. The founding fathers suffered a government that ignored those rights and knew from experience the harms it caused. Individual rights are not something that derives from starry eyed idealism; they are ideas that have been tried both ways and found to work.
That won't stop them from writing you a ticket.
Can we get another Lost Vikings game?
Half the random assholes on slashdot are better informed than the actual, y'know, law professor in the oval office.
The solution is to ban discrimination based on prior arrests. Make the accused, but unconvicted a protected class. And then enforce that protected class status. Run stings against employers, landlords, credit agencies, etc. (as we should be doing for other protected classes...).
We can stop this behavior without criminalizing free speech, or damaging government transparency. All it takes is for the people to decide they want a country that treats people fairly, and to enforce laws in a way that treats people fairly. But no, we'd rather have a justice system that persecutes sluts and brown people than one that treats people fairly.
That is why Dale Carson suggests in the book that you don't dress in clothing that is commonly worn by criminals or at least the street walking kind.
Uhuh. What you really mean is, "Don't dress in clothing that is commonly worn by young black men".
The better that you look and act like an honest upstanding citizen
If you want to look and act like an honest, upstanding citizen, you certainly don't want to dress like a banker.
You might call that profiling and it is, but that's reality.
Yes, and the reality is that our police and justice system is racist to the core.
Besides that, I think anyone predicting a sudden collapse of supply is silly.
A sudden collapse of supply is not the problem. The problem is that even maintaining todays output is insufficient. Energy use grows exponentially. It doubles in about 30 years. So 30 years from now we're going to need twice as much output, and 60 years from now we're going to need 4 times as much output and after 90 years, 16 times the output. Even a steady linear increase in production capacity will be outpaced in a few doubling times.
But we don't get a steady linear increase in production. We get an exponential growth at the beginning, that levels off, and then tapers downwards. There is no sudden collapse of supply, but there is a sudden disparity between supply and demand.
1) You ignore the costs to society of coerced confessions.
2) Some fraction of those who speak to cops suffer. The amount they suffer is quite high, so even if that is a small fraction, speaking to cops is still a high risk activity. There is little to be gained from speaking with cops, so the cost benefit analysis does not work out in favor of speaking with cops.
You have a point here, that the numbers we have don't let us do the actual math. But by estimation, I think it's a firm no.
3) Leniancy is a lie cops tell you to get you to confess.
4) That situation is indeed possible in a coutroom.
5) Yes. And so are the judges, attorneys, and members of the jury.
He was not being a bad person he just has no idea about reality for 99% of people.
Attempting to lead people, while having no idea what reality is for 99% of those people is being a bad person.
Of course it's illegal. The laws that they claim make it legal are unconstitutional, and therefore completely null. Congress has no authority to pass a law that makes generalized surveillance legal.
What the NSA is doing is unacceptable whether or not a foreign government access any of the data. Unless the US government obtains a warrant, based on probable cause, that specifically describes the places to be searched and things to be siezed, this activity is illegal.
When you're dealing with a government as corrupt as this one, you don't know that the warrant is actually based on probable cause, you don't know that law enforcement isn't being used for political purposes, and you don't know that even if the warrant is legal, that the law is just. What you do know is that the government we have today in no way, shape, or form approaches anything resembling the will of the people. A government with a 90% disapproval rate in conjunction with a 90% incumbency rate is not a democracy.
You're right, I am assuming that a warrant is invalid because unjust warrants have been issued in the past. They have thoroughly demonstrated that the purpose of our justice system is not to increase justice, but to increase the political power of a corrupt few. We live in a "free country" that imprisons more people, by raw number and per capita, than any other country in the world. We live in a country where 98% of federal defendents are denied their right to a trial. We live in a country that holds more black men in chains today than it ever did under slavery. That's the injustice system we have, and it deserves no respect whatsoever.
The only principled stance is resistance. Now, that may not always be the most prodcutive stance, and it's probably not in most cases. I completely respect those who make strategic decisions to remain free so they can keep fighting. But I also honor selfless individuals who take a stand.
"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." Henry David Thoreau.
That makes sense only if you assume the judge is impartial, and the suspect in question is not persecuted for political reasons. Those are bad assumptions in todays America. We already have a lawless society, as demonstrated by the complete lack of prosecutions against anyone involved in illegal surveillance, any bankers whose fraud destroyed the economy and thousands of lives, and against anyone who committed or authorized torture during the Bush regime.
You have to decide which side you are on. The side who breaks the law for the greater good? Or the side who uses the law to commit evil? This is the reality in which we live.