Indeed. While places like Israel and Australia are indeed in a bit of a trouble in relation to water, there are plenty of spots in the world where rainfalls are significant enough to reduce the need for such extreme measures to ensure irrigation needs are met. Incidentally, that's where most of the world's food is produced as well.
Actually, modern agriculture is exceptionally efficient. Problems lie in other things:
1. Our diet, specifically that of Western nations. Meat production is far more water-intensive then similar value (in terms of energy received from eating produce) plant production. 2. Our numbers. Amount of the people on the planet has exploded over last hundred years or so as child and adult mortality basically collapsed with advent of modern medicine. 3. People born in the cities having never encountered the reality of food production. We have things like "organically grown food", which is essentially an older, far less efficient way of doing agriculture (among other things in terms of water efficiency).
So as a result, we have agriculture that is forced to support an ever growing appetites of ever growing amount of people. As a result we're forced to use large amounts of water to irrigate the fields and mind you, this irrigation is far more efficient then it ever was in our history in terms of water used per yields received!
Correct, hence "no change". The change is about legally disallowing the "granting IRREVOCABLE right to use personal information..." clause in the commercial licenses. It basically allows you to legally revoke the license to use your personal information. Such right has existed for "offline" information for a long time.
My gun example was aimed at people from US being confused about the difference, and was probably an improper one in this context.
Well, excel is also one, as is photoshop. Calc and GIMP make for very poor alternatives.
It's good to know that libreoffice folks are working on it though. One of the main reasons most companies cannot migrate off MS office is the fact that there is just no way to replace excel due to its superior functionality (and conversion problems).
You're strawmanning the argument. Right to be forgotten exists for commercial indexes, like google and facebook. This is what this is being compared to, not public libraries carrying newspaper archives.
In various EU countries, there are various exceptions to privacy laws when relating to "matters of state, importance to society" and so on. These usually cover things like politicians, celebrities and to a limited amount, criminals.
What these do not cover are average people. On purpose.
I suspect that would be impossible. Right to free speech often is in direct conflict with right to privacy, and you will have to decide which one to prioritise.
That said, I agree that both free speech and privacy both being respected is important for the modern Western society.
Well, my taxes that went to EU paid for, among other things, MS monopoly investigation. I'd say that was worth every penny.
And yes, there will be wasteful spending. Newsflash: there is wasteful spending in everything that humans manage. The only reason you hear about public but not private wasteful spending is because private corporations are not legally required to disclose such things until they're under criminal investigation Take a loot at Enron for a great example how wastefully private corporation finances are often managed.
First of all, you're not going to be shutting down your presence in the biggest economic zone of the world. That's suicide, because someone else will pick up your slack, end up having more resources then you because they are functioning in the biggest economic zone of the world, and then come to challenge you in your favourite territories.
It's the reason why MS makes a point of not really caring about piracy in the 3rd world countries beyond mandatory whining in various "reports". Alternative, linux taking over MS desktop market share in those countries and thus becoming a viable alternative to windows on desktop is simply far worse of an alternative.
So we have a case of a right for privacy, vs right for free speech.
Both are fundamental. Both are in direct conflict with each other in this particular case. One will have to give. That's the brutal reality under the pretty "save the free speech" demagogy.
Your argument is similar to arguing that you can murder someone by shooting them repeatedly in the chest and face in the middle of the busy city centre.
Sure, you can. But it's illegal. So is shouting "fire" in the theatre. By this measure, you can not "delete" someone's posts who wants to "be forgotten".
You'll just be liable for damages. Just like with the fire shouting.
Mass is just one of the forms of energy. Conventional ammunition uses kinetic energy. Lasers use massless artificially excited photons as ammunition, and are very effective at "burning through" armour that has mass.
At the same time if it were possible to devise fully massless highly energetic energy flux, it would likely make a far better armour then anything with mass ever could achieve (i.e. "shields).
If you want to go down that lane, you have to start at the real problem, we cannot be sure that "we" exist the way we think we exist. As all observations made by us are based on assumption that "we" exist, we can never be certain of anything based on what we observe.
As a result we can never be certain of anything. At all. However we can be "reasonably certain", and this is one such case.
Woosh granddad. You need to take your medication to keep senility in check and become once again able to pay attention to the subtle message between the lines.
Then look at their imaginary size (our yearly piracy losses are bigger then world's GDP says report given to congress!), then look at modern economy being about imaginary values rather then real values (stock market, derivatives, futures...).
Then get a big bottle of your favourite alcohol and drown the sorrow.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for that clarification.
Indeed. While places like Israel and Australia are indeed in a bit of a trouble in relation to water, there are plenty of spots in the world where rainfalls are significant enough to reduce the need for such extreme measures to ensure irrigation needs are met. Incidentally, that's where most of the world's food is produced as well.
Actually, modern agriculture is exceptionally efficient. Problems lie in other things:
1. Our diet, specifically that of Western nations. Meat production is far more water-intensive then similar value (in terms of energy received from eating produce) plant production.
2. Our numbers. Amount of the people on the planet has exploded over last hundred years or so as child and adult mortality basically collapsed with advent of modern medicine.
3. People born in the cities having never encountered the reality of food production. We have things like "organically grown food", which is essentially an older, far less efficient way of doing agriculture (among other things in terms of water efficiency).
So as a result, we have agriculture that is forced to support an ever growing appetites of ever growing amount of people. As a result we're forced to use large amounts of water to irrigate the fields and mind you, this irrigation is far more efficient then it ever was in our history in terms of water used per yields received!
Smart TVs already exist. They're called "personal computers".
Correct, hence "no change". The change is about legally disallowing the "granting IRREVOCABLE right to use personal information..." clause in the commercial licenses. It basically allows you to legally revoke the license to use your personal information. Such right has existed for "offline" information for a long time.
My gun example was aimed at people from US being confused about the difference, and was probably an improper one in this context.
May I suggest that microsoft does more then serve as a pipe? Things like QC cost money.
Well, excel is also one, as is photoshop. Calc and GIMP make for very poor alternatives.
It's good to know that libreoffice folks are working on it though. One of the main reasons most companies cannot migrate off MS office is the fact that there is just no way to replace excel due to its superior functionality (and conversion problems).
Only in reference to privacy, yes. "Offline" speech has been managed by similar law for decades with minimal problems.
You two are having a case of cultural clash. In EU, culturally and legally privacy often trumps free speech. In USA it's the polar opposite.
Neither of you is wrong or right. There is no "right way" in issues like this, only opinions and intentions.
You're strawmanning the argument. Right to be forgotten exists for commercial indexes, like google and facebook. This is what this is being compared to, not public libraries carrying newspaper archives.
In various EU countries, there are various exceptions to privacy laws when relating to "matters of state, importance to society" and so on. These usually cover things like politicians, celebrities and to a limited amount, criminals.
What these do not cover are average people. On purpose.
You can in EU, which is what is being talked about here. Privacy in USA is taken far less seriously then in EU, all the way to the cultural level.
I suspect that would be impossible. Right to free speech often is in direct conflict with right to privacy, and you will have to decide which one to prioritise.
That said, I agree that both free speech and privacy both being respected is important for the modern Western society.
Well, my taxes that went to EU paid for, among other things, MS monopoly investigation. I'd say that was worth every penny.
And yes, there will be wasteful spending. Newsflash: there is wasteful spending in everything that humans manage. The only reason you hear about public but not private wasteful spending is because private corporations are not legally required to disclose such things until they're under criminal investigation Take a loot at Enron for a great example how wastefully private corporation finances are often managed.
Neither is absolute right to free speech. On the other hand, both right to privacy and right to free speech are human rights.
You're using a strawman to disrupt the argument.
The point of the legislation is to make it illegal to misuse such data. Not to "nullify ownership".
As in you can own the gun. You cannot go and shoot people with it.
First of all, you're not going to be shutting down your presence in the biggest economic zone of the world. That's suicide, because someone else will pick up your slack, end up having more resources then you because they are functioning in the biggest economic zone of the world, and then come to challenge you in your favourite territories.
It's the reason why MS makes a point of not really caring about piracy in the 3rd world countries beyond mandatory whining in various "reports". Alternative, linux taking over MS desktop market share in those countries and thus becoming a viable alternative to windows on desktop is simply far worse of an alternative.
So we have a case of a right for privacy, vs right for free speech.
Both are fundamental. Both are in direct conflict with each other in this particular case. One will have to give. That's the brutal reality under the pretty "save the free speech" demagogy.
Your argument is similar to arguing that you can murder someone by shooting them repeatedly in the chest and face in the middle of the busy city centre.
Sure, you can. But it's illegal. So is shouting "fire" in the theatre. By this measure, you can not "delete" someone's posts who wants to "be forgotten".
You'll just be liable for damages. Just like with the fire shouting.
Mass is just one of the forms of energy. Conventional ammunition uses kinetic energy. Lasers use massless artificially excited photons as ammunition, and are very effective at "burning through" armour that has mass.
At the same time if it were possible to devise fully massless highly energetic energy flux, it would likely make a far better armour then anything with mass ever could achieve (i.e. "shields).
If you want to go down that lane, you have to start at the real problem, we cannot be sure that "we" exist the way we think we exist. As all observations made by us are based on assumption that "we" exist, we can never be certain of anything based on what we observe.
As a result we can never be certain of anything. At all. However we can be "reasonably certain", and this is one such case.
Gotta love people missing the point, getting called on it, and then trying to shift attention by shooting the messenger.
Woosh granddad. You need to take your medication to keep senility in check and become once again able to pay attention to the subtle message between the lines.
You have the freedom to do whatever you want. As long as it's legal. Of course, we're the ones making the laws...
Then look at their imaginary size (our yearly piracy losses are bigger then world's GDP says report given to congress!), then look at modern economy being about imaginary values rather then real values (stock market, derivatives, futures...).
Then get a big bottle of your favourite alcohol and drown the sorrow.