The thought of people who would rather have bodies rot in the ground or be burnt into ashes than be used for something that could potentially help others (which I know wasn't the case here) is also funny.
None of the above. It just doesn't make sense to care so much about a dead body. You should care more about the memories of the person, not the body that they can no longer use. Especially since all their body is going to be doing is rotting in the ground or getting burnt when they could be used for something useful (which apparently wasn't the case here).
"Yes, your life is more important than your freedom or privacy."
Nobody is saying that you have to kill yourself to at least acknowledge these poor state of affairs.
Besides that, what is life without freedom or fun? Not a life worth living.
"This should be pretty uncontroversial."
Sorry, but it's not. Let's just enslave the entire population and see how people react to that. After all, as long as they are fed and kept alive, who needs freedom or privacy?
Perhaps because a majority of the population consists both of indoctrinated drones and people who feel that carrying on with their little unimportant activities is more important than defending their freedom and privacy?
"He should have the brains to understand what this legislation (written by the lobbyists) is proposing?"
Of course he does. He just doesn't care because of the money he's getting for doing it.
"What *would* be abridged here as hate speech is the bullshit that Westboro Baptist Church tries."
So in other words, if certain people are offended by it, it's bad? What terrible, terrible laws. No matter how 'insane' the speech is, it should be protected. What needs protecting is the 'offensive' speech (but offensive is subjective anyway), and usually not normal everyday speech that no one has a problem with.
"I don't think they've ever advocated assault, genocide, or unfair treatment of a specific group of people."
Yeah, that free speech (which everyone will clearly listen to, yes) is just terrible! It's so offensive, and anything offensive must be immediately banned!
""Hate speech" isn't the same thing as having an opinion"
Yes, it is. You can't have free speech without hate speech.
"To be fair, the UK doesn't have a Section 7 in its Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect against this sort of thing like Canada does."
To be fair, the governments of the world usually don't follow the follows unless they're forced to follow the rules (or it's in their best interest to do so). If they can indoctrinate enough drones to believe that what they are doing is good, distract the drones with other petty endeavors, or merely inch their freedom-violating bills into effect so slowly that the average person won't find it worth the effort to take action, they can easily get around any rule that stands in their way.
"It's very easy to look at the short story and go "The government wants to read my packets?!?!? Oh Noes this must be bad!" Usually that can get a +5 insightful."
For good reason. Invading the privacy of the people is absolutely disgusting and corrupt. Anyone who thinks that the government won't abuse this is insane (not that you said that they won't).
"The Law Enforcement Agencies want to be able to read internet traffic, real time"
Too bad. If they want to do that, they should have to get permission to do that (and have a good reason to be doing it in the first place).
"When was the last time a person with an English Degree really had value in society?"
Teachers that teach other people how to speak and write in English? Sort of a bad example there, but I've sort of been saying what you've been saying for a while now.
Forcing students to take classes which have nothing to do with their desired professions instead of just teaching them the basics early on and then letting them choose the classes in high school merely increases the rate of failures and wastes a tremendous amount of time. Usually people don't do so well in classes that don't interest them, and if they do manage to do well, they will have wasted their time as they will likely forget this useless information quickly. It's a lose-lose situation. You run the risk of failing an entire year because of one useless class. That is inefficient. Also, changing the educational system to what I said above may also increase expertise in desired subjects (as they could put more of their time into learning that).
Naturally, some students may change their mind about their desired profession later on, but as I said, information that you don't use is quickly forgotten, so even if they are forced to take every class in existence, they will need to take another class on the subject that they need anyway because they will likely have forgotten it. There's simply no reason for things to be as they are now.
Poor, poor excuse. It doesn't take that long to realize that they are ruled mostly by the rich and by people who couldn't care less about them except for their vote. It's just that the average person is so indoctrinated that they think they're making a difference with their pointless little votes for the same two parties over and over.
". . . until signed away, by Executive Agreement, despite the will of the people."
Uh, the people never really had much power (which, as we see here, was a mistake). The government is making this already bad situation worse, yes, but it was always broken.
If the people really wanted to, they could overthrow the government using their sheer numbers, but too many people are preoccupied with their unimportant little activities to care about things such as freedom and privacy, leaving people who would actually do something if the situation presented itself outnumbered.
"It's bad now, but it could be worse! Everyone just stop trying to get rid of the ACTA, because if something could be worse, there's no sense in improving it!"
I fear that's what some people are going to think. Either that or they will figure that it's not as bad as before and not want to waste their time. The ACTA is, was, and always will be a terrible idea and it must be eliminated.
"How do you know people are still so oversensitive? This happened 30 years ago. Your message = diluted."
Is it so hard to understand that I'm talking about everyone? Don't pretend they don't exist. Anyone who gets offended by mere words is oversensitive, and there are plenty of those people around.
"So, we're back to where we were and it *does* seem reasonable to involve the law in its role as peace keeper then?"
If they don't get off the property, yes.
"And if you aren't going to volunteer then I think you exclude yourself from the set of people entitled to judge how valuable volunteers' time is(n't)."
Not really. Just because I don't do something or don't know how to do something doesn't mean that I can't give criticism to those that do. That's like saying you can't criticize a chefs cooking because you yourself are not a chef.
"Spoken like someone who obviously has never been on the receiving end of serious bullying issues."
Spoken like someone making incorrect assumptions. You're actually incorrect. I used to be bullied (luckily, I was merely bullied with words). Quite often, in fact. At the time, I was upset, but eventually I realized that all they were doing was using strings of imaginary letters in an attempt to hurt me, and that in reality, I was the one that was making myself get hurt by letting it hurt me. Words alone can't hurt, but believing that they can and letting yourself get upset over them can hurt you (which is your own doing). Think about it.
So, yes, these people do indeed need to toughen up, just as I did.
"Speak not of which you know nothing."
It's been said that it doesn't take a gourmet chef to taste bad food.
That's a very poor excuse. If it isn't 'fair', as you put it, the answer isn't to make it worse, it's to make it better. That can never be accomplished with this attitude.
That said, I wasn't talking about your actions specifically, I just hear people who can't justify their own actions saying this often (which, again, it doesn't really help their case). I do agree that website operators should be able to do as they please with their own websites, though.
Yeah! I just got through playing a violent video game, reading a violent book, being exposed to pornography, viewing violent shows on television, and reading violent comic books, and I instantly became a murderer/rapist because I couldn't differentiate between fiction and reality (which, by the way, is something that all normal people are unable to do)! The video game truly helped me focus on the kill.
Slashdot Mirror
The thought of people who would rather have bodies rot in the ground or be burnt into ashes than be used for something that could potentially help others (which I know wasn't the case here) is also funny.
None of the above. It just doesn't make sense to care so much about a dead body. You should care more about the memories of the person, not the body that they can no longer use. Especially since all their body is going to be doing is rotting in the ground or getting burnt when they could be used for something useful (which apparently wasn't the case here).
"but others may not want to."
No, they'd rather the body rot in the ground (or be burnt), making it completely useless to absolutely everything.
How dare the organs be used for anything other than rotting in the ground!
"Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral?"
Not really. They're dead, why would I care?
"It's about the living; and respect; doofus."
The dead don't need their bodies any longer. If the living object, well, simply remind them they're talking about a dead body.
I didn't mean to imply that volunteer jobs were worthless or easy.
"That's exactly what the persistent vandals were refusing to do."
I thought we were talking about the vandalism itself, but alright. I agree with you then.
"Yes, your life is more important than your freedom or privacy."
Nobody is saying that you have to kill yourself to at least acknowledge these poor state of affairs.
Besides that, what is life without freedom or fun? Not a life worth living.
"This should be pretty uncontroversial."
Sorry, but it's not. Let's just enslave the entire population and see how people react to that. After all, as long as they are fed and kept alive, who needs freedom or privacy?
"And, why was this guy elected again to office?"
Perhaps because a majority of the population consists both of indoctrinated drones and people who feel that carrying on with their little unimportant activities is more important than defending their freedom and privacy?
"He should have the brains to understand what this legislation (written by the lobbyists) is proposing?"
Of course he does. He just doesn't care because of the money he's getting for doing it.
I'll take freedom of speech any day, not government sanctioned monopolies and artificial scarcity.
"but I don't think we can ever rightfully expect to completely eliminate security screening."
As long as no one does anything about it, this is true. Until then, terrorism works!
"What *would* be abridged here as hate speech is the bullshit that Westboro Baptist Church tries."
So in other words, if certain people are offended by it, it's bad? What terrible, terrible laws. No matter how 'insane' the speech is, it should be protected. What needs protecting is the 'offensive' speech (but offensive is subjective anyway), and usually not normal everyday speech that no one has a problem with.
"I don't think they've ever advocated assault, genocide, or unfair treatment of a specific group of people."
Yeah, that free speech (which everyone will clearly listen to, yes) is just terrible! It's so offensive, and anything offensive must be immediately banned!
""Hate speech" isn't the same thing as having an opinion"
Yes, it is. You can't have free speech without hate speech.
"To be fair, the UK doesn't have a Section 7 in its Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect against this sort of thing like Canada does."
To be fair, the governments of the world usually don't follow the follows unless they're forced to follow the rules (or it's in their best interest to do so). If they can indoctrinate enough drones to believe that what they are doing is good, distract the drones with other petty endeavors, or merely inch their freedom-violating bills into effect so slowly that the average person won't find it worth the effort to take action, they can easily get around any rule that stands in their way.
"Amazing what one (albeit largely successful) terrorist attack can achieve"
Which just goes to show that terrorism does indeed work!
"It's very easy to look at the short story and go "The government wants to read my packets?!?!? Oh Noes this must be bad!" Usually that can get a +5 insightful."
For good reason. Invading the privacy of the people is absolutely disgusting and corrupt. Anyone who thinks that the government won't abuse this is insane (not that you said that they won't).
"The Law Enforcement Agencies want to be able to read internet traffic, real time"
Too bad. If they want to do that, they should have to get permission to do that (and have a good reason to be doing it in the first place).
"When was the last time a person with an English Degree really had value in society?"
Teachers that teach other people how to speak and write in English? Sort of a bad example there, but I've sort of been saying what you've been saying for a while now.
Forcing students to take classes which have nothing to do with their desired professions instead of just teaching them the basics early on and then letting them choose the classes in high school merely increases the rate of failures and wastes a tremendous amount of time. Usually people don't do so well in classes that don't interest them, and if they do manage to do well, they will have wasted their time as they will likely forget this useless information quickly. It's a lose-lose situation. You run the risk of failing an entire year because of one useless class. That is inefficient. Also, changing the educational system to what I said above may also increase expertise in desired subjects (as they could put more of their time into learning that).
Naturally, some students may change their mind about their desired profession later on, but as I said, information that you don't use is quickly forgotten, so even if they are forced to take every class in existence, they will need to take another class on the subject that they need anyway because they will likely have forgotten it. There's simply no reason for things to be as they are now.
Poor, poor excuse. It doesn't take that long to realize that they are ruled mostly by the rich and by people who couldn't care less about them except for their vote. It's just that the average person is so indoctrinated that they think they're making a difference with their pointless little votes for the same two parties over and over.
". . . until signed away, by Executive Agreement, despite the will of the people."
Uh, the people never really had much power (which, as we see here, was a mistake). The government is making this already bad situation worse, yes, but it was always broken.
If the people really wanted to, they could overthrow the government using their sheer numbers, but too many people are preoccupied with their unimportant little activities to care about things such as freedom and privacy, leaving people who would actually do something if the situation presented itself outnumbered.
"It's bad now, but it could be worse! Everyone just stop trying to get rid of the ACTA, because if something could be worse, there's no sense in improving it!"
I fear that's what some people are going to think. Either that or they will figure that it's not as bad as before and not want to waste their time. The ACTA is, was, and always will be a terrible idea and it must be eliminated.
"How do you know people are still so oversensitive? This happened 30 years ago. Your message = diluted."
Is it so hard to understand that I'm talking about everyone? Don't pretend they don't exist. Anyone who gets offended by mere words is oversensitive, and there are plenty of those people around.
"So, we're back to where we were and it *does* seem reasonable to involve the law in its role as peace keeper then?"
If they don't get off the property, yes.
"And if you aren't going to volunteer then I think you exclude yourself from the set of people entitled to judge how valuable volunteers' time is(n't)."
Not really. Just because I don't do something or don't know how to do something doesn't mean that I can't give criticism to those that do. That's like saying you can't criticize a chefs cooking because you yourself are not a chef.
"Spoken like someone who obviously has never been on the receiving end of serious bullying issues."
Spoken like someone making incorrect assumptions. You're actually incorrect. I used to be bullied (luckily, I was merely bullied with words). Quite often, in fact. At the time, I was upset, but eventually I realized that all they were doing was using strings of imaginary letters in an attempt to hurt me, and that in reality, I was the one that was making myself get hurt by letting it hurt me. Words alone can't hurt, but believing that they can and letting yourself get upset over them can hurt you (which is your own doing). Think about it.
So, yes, these people do indeed need to toughen up, just as I did.
"Speak not of which you know nothing."
It's been said that it doesn't take a gourmet chef to taste bad food.
There's that possibility. You could always just kick them off the property or call the police to remove them if they don't comply.
"bored teenager"
Or an adult.
"As stated Previously - Life ain't fair"
That's a very poor excuse. If it isn't 'fair', as you put it, the answer isn't to make it worse, it's to make it better. That can never be accomplished with this attitude.
That said, I wasn't talking about your actions specifically, I just hear people who can't justify their own actions saying this often (which, again, it doesn't really help their case). I do agree that website operators should be able to do as they please with their own websites, though.
Yeah! I just got through playing a violent video game, reading a violent book, being exposed to pornography, viewing violent shows on television, and reading violent comic books, and I instantly became a murderer/rapist because I couldn't differentiate between fiction and reality (which, by the way, is something that all normal people are unable to do)! The video game truly helped me focus on the kill.