otherwise you are condoning stealing because that too is cheaper.
Stealing also removes a copy from the owner. In the likely event that this is an undesirable outcome, it's highly likely that no one is condoning stealing even if it appears that price is their main concern.
If that were a valid viewpoint, then I would be forced to conclude that there is nothing wrong with the freedoms inherent in, say, Iranian or Chinese society.
That doesn't make any sense. You as an individual have opinions. The fact that you don't believe in natural rights doesn't mean your opinions about what rights you think people should have simply vanish. So no, you would not be forced to conclude that there's "nothing wrong" with those things.
Does that mean your will is setup to give everything you own to the state in the event of your untimely death?
What do physical goods have to do with copyright? Copyright is just a temporary artificial monopoly that attempts to limit what others can do with their own real property.
Quality > quantity. If schools actually did a decent job of teaching children in the first place, we wouldn't (we actually don't) need to get rid of long summer vacations. For those that are able, homeschooling may be the answer.
Well, I certainly don't. They seem to enjoy molesting people at airports and spying on people's communications. Anyone they don't like is labeled a terrorist. The people who get into the government are not and never have been perfect beings; trusting them with such ridiculous amounts of power is foolhardy.
if I've committed some crime
I'm sure you have. If you're in the US, for instance, there are so many laws that it's nearly impossible to know whether or not you have.
I said that it was similar to collective punishment. And it is: the solution is to 'punish'/regulate everyone due to the actions of a few.
because I don't see any reason anyone would do that.
Just because you don't see any reason that they would do that doesn't mean you should be able to restrict it. Many times I fail to understand why people take certain courses of action, but that doesn't mean I think the action should be banned. To me, not banning it would have to result in catastrophe before I would even consider it.
Which I've already done and have come to the conclusion that it's a bad decision here.
Is regulating their ownership really "punishment"
I'd certainly say so. At the very least, I'd claim it's a bad thing. I don't care about rebels, defense, or combating the big, evil government with the guns; I just don't think they should be banned for everyone just because a few people abuse them (and it's not as if they're nuclear weapons). A few lives lost here and there are acceptable to me (just like how the TSA is unacceptable to me even if the risk they claim is there is real). Some people just want to feel safe, and then we end up with organizations like the TSA. But their desire to feel safe is what is important.
Ironically, the idea that the Constitution is immutable
Who thinks this? The constitution can be amended or disregarded entirely. A constitution won't help at all if the citizens are apathetic about violations of freedom, either.
To me, the idea that the document is to be revered for the position it has rather than its content
Its content is what is important to me. I do not claim that the constitution is perfect, but I agree with many of the concepts there. Times have changed, and I believe our rights are being violated in ways never thought possible at that time, so I would say it needs to be updated, and in a way that makes its message explicitly clear.
The Second Amendment is an excellent example of an idea which has no real relevance for the purpose intended in the old days, which should really not be a part of the US Constitution.
I think we need more protection against collective punishment-like restrictions ("Some people abuse guns; ban them for everyone."). Again, I don't think the current amendments go far enough in this regard. I believe it needs to be made explicitly clear.
Why wouldn't you care? Do you also not care if the government has access to all that information? If the government lacks information, and they know a privacy company has it, I'd say it's highly likely that they'll go after that information (and they'll probably get it, too).
Neither one of them seems to care about rights. TSA, free speech zones, Patriot Act, and all that other "sacrifice your freedom for safety" nonsense. There are differences, but they're not meaningful to me. All people seem to care about is the economy and feeling safe from the big, evil terrorists.
If you didn't take him seriously and it was infact a real threat
Utopias where no one gets hurt do not exist. If we have to resort to overreacting to every potential threat and violating people's freedom because of an insatiable desire for security, I'd rather we just accept the (minuscule) chance that it's real.
Do you want to be the guy who ignored a "bin laden plans to hijack planes" memo?
I don't want to be the guy who overreacts to everything and harasses people who intended no harm, either.
Let me make it simple here, don't threaten to blow up public infrastructure on a public forum like the internet.
Don't overreact to all potential threats. Period. I don't want to end up with another TSA.
Most people are not experts on judging the validity of threats.
They don't need to be! Judging from context alone (and similar events that happen daily but aren't posted on the Internet), I'd say it's pretty easy to tell he meant no harm. But I don't have an insatiable desire for security, so...
That's why we have police.
They don't seem to be doing a very good job.
Jokes are only jokes until things start blowing up
Which doesn't happen often at all, and isn't what happened in this case. The actual message was a joke and remains as such. Just because there's a minuscule chance that someone might be serious doesn't mean that none of them are jokes.
Most people who are actually responsible for things, don't have the luxury of ignoring things like this.
I believe we need to give them the luxury.
I suspect this message seemed completely normal to this guy. He didn't even think about it; he had no ill intentions. He could never have predicted that people overreact to everything because they have some unrealistic expectation to have absolute security.
"Freedom of religion" doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want to other people. You can believe whatever you want, but just because you deem something to be "not very harmful," that doesn't mean you should be able to do it to other people. Punching someone in the face probably doesn't have long-lasting consequences in most cases, but that doesn't mean you should be able to do it to others (even if your religion commands it in some cases). I would label forcing a child to undergo an unnecessary medical procedure thing brings negligible benefits as harmful. You want to be circumcised? Go get circumcised, but don't force your kids to do it.
That list demonstrates the slippery slope I believe we're sliding down. While I don't agree with any of them, a few of them seem particularly ridiculous. Obscenity (child pornography seems to fall under this category no matter the arguments against it), fighting words, and offensive speech seem extremely ridiculous and ambiguous. The "reasonable person' nonsense just makes things worse. They just interpret whatever they want into the constitution at this point. Sometimes they interpret it literally (when it's convenient for them) and sometimes not (when it's convenient for them).
Honestly? I don't care at all. There likely cannot be a utopia where no one ever dies, and I'd much rather a few people die than we harass people who intended no harm and/or overreact to everything that may or may not be a threat. But your chances of dying in a terrorist attack are still extremely slim even if you take into account that the UK has more terrorist attacks.
Even if there are a few terrorist attacks here and there, I believe anyone should be able to tell that this guy very likely intended no harm.
Again, this paranoia and ridiculous desire for safety is how the TSA successfully began in the US.
Wait, abortion without killing the fetus? Please explain. I'm curious as to what you mean.
Right now, killing the fetus is required. However, if a way to remove the fetus without killing it was somehow developed, I'd have no problem with it. That's all I meant.
And whether or not this is child abuse is really a matter of opinion.
That's not what I meant. He argued that pro-choice people should have no problems with this since abortion kills babies, but in that case, he may as well argue that pro-choice people should have no problems with anything done to a child.
If I am in a room with a man and say "You are an f'ing a-hole" and as a consequence, he pulls out a gun and kills me, then I'd say I wasn't able to speak freely.
Freedom of speech is generally meant to mean freedom from being punished by the government for your speech. If something like that happened, I sure hope that guy would be sent to prison.
Under his definition (where you have the ability to say it, but you might get punished by the government), even China has freedom of speech.
by LAW be free to speak them, by REALITY I am not.
Using the definition above, you very much do have freedom of speech in reality. At least if it hasn't been 'interpreted' away by the supreme court.
The two are not the same thing.
Indeed they're not. But I'm always speaking of the former.
Let me repeat myself: "Paranoia is how we get useless organizations like the TSA who violate everyone's rights."
I don't believe you're helping in this regard. You will never be perfectly safe, and the solution is to not overreact. If it appears to be a joke, then there is nothing that can be done.
I'd tell you to stop worrying about nearly nonexistent threats, but I think that just isn't going to happen.
online actions have very real consequences and unless you are prepared for them, maybe you should keep your "jokes" to yourself.
Then there is no free speech. This is entirely the fault of people who misinterpret other people's messages or take them out of context.
Perhaps you should have kept your comment to yourself. Someone might misinterpret it completely.
Do we want to live in a world where it's perfectly acceptable to broadcast threats of mass violence with the expectation of no reprisal at all?
Even if you arrest people for credible threats, this doesn't fit that criteria in the least. So, yes. Enough with the paranoia of terrorists.
the next time some threat is made, and it is summarily ignored but it IS carried out
Ah, yes: "But what if it really happens!?" The solution is not to overreact to everything and harass people who intended no harm. There cannot be a utopia where everyone is perfectly safe even if you have a police state (in that case, the government would be a larger threat). People are so scared of a single person dying that they'll willingly allow the government to molest people at airports and violate everyone's rights.
are we going to be OK with the conclusion that "well there was nothing we could do, who knew the guy who tweeted to tell us he was going to shoot up the place was serious?"
I would be. There is no way to prevent all deaths, and sometimes it just isn't worth it. The problem lies with the people who actually commit the murders, not random people who aren't actually serious.
We typically don't wait for someone to die before deciding that exceedingly risky behavior should be discouraged by way of law.
I'd much rather risk someone's death than overreact to everything, take everything out of context, and harass people who intended no harm.
Paranoia is how we get useless organizations like the TSA who violate everyone's rights.
You are clearly very passionate about free speech, which is a good thing.
You don't seem to act like it is.
You are also clearly very naive when it comes to what is required of a civilized society to not break down under the weight of trying to preserve every idiot's right to it.
By no means would society break down by not overreacting to what I believe was clearly not an actual threat. But of course, such a society doesn't have much free speech, anyway.
It is? Probably only if you're paranoid about nonexistent threats. I wouldn't be surprised if the people who agree with this are the type of people who think organizations like the TSA are a good thing.
Although unrelated to this specific case, this is another reason why I feel privacy is so important. The government (or some authority figure) will inevitably take you out of context or misinterpret you and attempt to ruin your life (even if everyone you know would know you didn't intend any harm). Sadly, some people seem to cheer these zero-tolerance policies on.
Though, you're right: you'll probably be prosecuted.
Slashdot Mirror
otherwise you are condoning stealing because that too is cheaper.
Stealing also removes a copy from the owner. In the likely event that this is an undesirable outcome, it's highly likely that no one is condoning stealing even if it appears that price is their main concern.
A bit of privacy. Some people use it to decrease the chances that they'll receive a copyright notice, too.
Don't you mean "raping"?
If that were a valid viewpoint, then I would be forced to conclude that there is nothing wrong with the freedoms inherent in, say, Iranian or Chinese society.
That doesn't make any sense. You as an individual have opinions. The fact that you don't believe in natural rights doesn't mean your opinions about what rights you think people should have simply vanish. So no, you would not be forced to conclude that there's "nothing wrong" with those things.
Probably not. Might as well get to work on changing that, because it doesn't sound like a good situation.
Does that mean your will is setup to give everything you own to the state in the event of your untimely death?
What do physical goods have to do with copyright? Copyright is just a temporary artificial monopoly that attempts to limit what others can do with their own real property.
simply isn't as acceptable as it used to be for any number of reasons.
Paranoia.
Quality > quantity. If schools actually did a decent job of teaching children in the first place, we wouldn't (we actually don't) need to get rid of long summer vacations. For those that are able, homeschooling may be the answer.
is that it creates an incentive to cause an early death to authors to get their products for free.
I think that's more of a problem with murderers than anything else...
I do trust my government
Well, I certainly don't. They seem to enjoy molesting people at airports and spying on people's communications. Anyone they don't like is labeled a terrorist. The people who get into the government are not and never have been perfect beings; trusting them with such ridiculous amounts of power is foolhardy.
if I've committed some crime
I'm sure you have. If you're in the US, for instance, there are so many laws that it's nearly impossible to know whether or not you have.
I said that it was similar to collective punishment. And it is: the solution is to 'punish'/regulate everyone due to the actions of a few.
because I don't see any reason anyone would do that.
Just because you don't see any reason that they would do that doesn't mean you should be able to restrict it. Many times I fail to understand why people take certain courses of action, but that doesn't mean I think the action should be banned. To me, not banning it would have to result in catastrophe before I would even consider it.
it's a risk/benefit assessment.
Which I've already done and have come to the conclusion that it's a bad decision here.
Is regulating their ownership really "punishment"
I'd certainly say so. At the very least, I'd claim it's a bad thing. I don't care about rebels, defense, or combating the big, evil government with the guns; I just don't think they should be banned for everyone just because a few people abuse them (and it's not as if they're nuclear weapons). A few lives lost here and there are acceptable to me (just like how the TSA is unacceptable to me even if the risk they claim is there is real). Some people just want to feel safe, and then we end up with organizations like the TSA. But their desire to feel safe is what is important.
Ironically, the idea that the Constitution is immutable
Who thinks this? The constitution can be amended or disregarded entirely. A constitution won't help at all if the citizens are apathetic about violations of freedom, either.
Who is them?
The exceptions.
To me, the idea that the document is to be revered for the position it has rather than its content
Its content is what is important to me. I do not claim that the constitution is perfect, but I agree with many of the concepts there. Times have changed, and I believe our rights are being violated in ways never thought possible at that time, so I would say it needs to be updated, and in a way that makes its message explicitly clear.
The Second Amendment is an excellent example of an idea which has no real relevance for the purpose intended in the old days, which should really not be a part of the US Constitution.
I think we need more protection against collective punishment-like restrictions ("Some people abuse guns; ban them for everyone."). Again, I don't think the current amendments go far enough in this regard. I believe it needs to be made explicitly clear.
Why wouldn't you care? Do you also not care if the government has access to all that information? If the government lacks information, and they know a privacy company has it, I'd say it's highly likely that they'll go after that information (and they'll probably get it, too).
Neither one of them seems to care about rights. TSA, free speech zones, Patriot Act, and all that other "sacrifice your freedom for safety" nonsense. There are differences, but they're not meaningful to me. All people seem to care about is the economy and feeling safe from the big, evil terrorists.
If you didn't take him seriously and it was infact a real threat
Utopias where no one gets hurt do not exist. If we have to resort to overreacting to every potential threat and violating people's freedom because of an insatiable desire for security, I'd rather we just accept the (minuscule) chance that it's real.
Do you want to be the guy who ignored a "bin laden plans to hijack planes" memo?
I don't want to be the guy who overreacts to everything and harasses people who intended no harm, either.
Let me make it simple here, don't threaten to blow up public infrastructure on a public forum like the internet.
Don't overreact to all potential threats. Period. I don't want to end up with another TSA.
Most people are not experts on judging the validity of threats.
They don't need to be! Judging from context alone (and similar events that happen daily but aren't posted on the Internet), I'd say it's pretty easy to tell he meant no harm. But I don't have an insatiable desire for security, so...
That's why we have police.
They don't seem to be doing a very good job.
Jokes are only jokes until things start blowing up
Which doesn't happen often at all, and isn't what happened in this case. The actual message was a joke and remains as such. Just because there's a minuscule chance that someone might be serious doesn't mean that none of them are jokes.
Most people who are actually responsible for things, don't have the luxury of ignoring things like this.
I believe we need to give them the luxury.
I suspect this message seemed completely normal to this guy. He didn't even think about it; he had no ill intentions. He could never have predicted that people overreact to everything because they have some unrealistic expectation to have absolute security.
As long as we have freedom of religion
"Freedom of religion" doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want to other people. You can believe whatever you want, but just because you deem something to be "not very harmful," that doesn't mean you should be able to do it to other people. Punching someone in the face probably doesn't have long-lasting consequences in most cases, but that doesn't mean you should be able to do it to others (even if your religion commands it in some cases). I would label forcing a child to undergo an unnecessary medical procedure thing brings negligible benefits as harmful. You want to be circumcised? Go get circumcised, but don't force your kids to do it.
Wikipedia has a good list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions
That list demonstrates the slippery slope I believe we're sliding down. While I don't agree with any of them, a few of them seem particularly ridiculous. Obscenity (child pornography seems to fall under this category no matter the arguments against it), fighting words, and offensive speech seem extremely ridiculous and ambiguous. The "reasonable person' nonsense just makes things worse. They just interpret whatever they want into the constitution at this point. Sometimes they interpret it literally (when it's convenient for them) and sometimes not (when it's convenient for them).
Honestly? I don't care at all. There likely cannot be a utopia where no one ever dies, and I'd much rather a few people die than we harass people who intended no harm and/or overreact to everything that may or may not be a threat. But your chances of dying in a terrorist attack are still extremely slim even if you take into account that the UK has more terrorist attacks.
Even if there are a few terrorist attacks here and there, I believe anyone should be able to tell that this guy very likely intended no harm.
Again, this paranoia and ridiculous desire for safety is how the TSA successfully began in the US.
Wait, abortion without killing the fetus? Please explain. I'm curious as to what you mean.
Right now, killing the fetus is required. However, if a way to remove the fetus without killing it was somehow developed, I'd have no problem with it. That's all I meant.
And whether or not this is child abuse is really a matter of opinion.
That's not what I meant. He argued that pro-choice people should have no problems with this since abortion kills babies, but in that case, he may as well argue that pro-choice people should have no problems with anything done to a child.
If I am in a room with a man and say "You are an f'ing a-hole" and as a consequence, he pulls out a gun and kills me, then I'd say I wasn't able to speak freely.
Freedom of speech is generally meant to mean freedom from being punished by the government for your speech. If something like that happened, I sure hope that guy would be sent to prison.
Under his definition (where you have the ability to say it, but you might get punished by the government), even China has freedom of speech.
by LAW be free to speak them, by REALITY I am not.
Using the definition above, you very much do have freedom of speech in reality. At least if it hasn't been 'interpreted' away by the supreme court.
The two are not the same thing.
Indeed they're not. But I'm always speaking of the former.
Let me repeat myself: "Paranoia is how we get useless organizations like the TSA who violate everyone's rights."
I don't believe you're helping in this regard. You will never be perfectly safe, and the solution is to not overreact. If it appears to be a joke, then there is nothing that can be done.
I'd tell you to stop worrying about nearly nonexistent threats, but I think that just isn't going to happen.
but not everyone is as comfortable doing that.
Their problem.
online actions have very real consequences and unless you are prepared for them, maybe you should keep your "jokes" to yourself.
Then there is no free speech. This is entirely the fault of people who misinterpret other people's messages or take them out of context.
Perhaps you should have kept your comment to yourself. Someone might misinterpret it completely.
Do we want to live in a world where it's perfectly acceptable to broadcast threats of mass violence with the expectation of no reprisal at all?
Even if you arrest people for credible threats, this doesn't fit that criteria in the least. So, yes. Enough with the paranoia of terrorists.
the next time some threat is made, and it is summarily ignored but it IS carried out
Ah, yes: "But what if it really happens!?" The solution is not to overreact to everything and harass people who intended no harm. There cannot be a utopia where everyone is perfectly safe even if you have a police state (in that case, the government would be a larger threat). People are so scared of a single person dying that they'll willingly allow the government to molest people at airports and violate everyone's rights.
are we going to be OK with the conclusion that "well there was nothing we could do, who knew the guy who tweeted to tell us he was going to shoot up the place was serious?"
I would be. There is no way to prevent all deaths, and sometimes it just isn't worth it. The problem lies with the people who actually commit the murders, not random people who aren't actually serious.
We typically don't wait for someone to die before deciding that exceedingly risky behavior should be discouraged by way of law.
I'd much rather risk someone's death than overreact to everything, take everything out of context, and harass people who intended no harm.
Paranoia is how we get useless organizations like the TSA who violate everyone's rights.
You are clearly very passionate about free speech, which is a good thing.
You don't seem to act like it is.
You are also clearly very naive when it comes to what is required of a civilized society to not break down under the weight of trying to preserve every idiot's right to it.
By no means would society break down by not overreacting to what I believe was clearly not an actual threat. But of course, such a society doesn't have much free speech, anyway.
Yeah, that's pretty bad.
It is? Probably only if you're paranoid about nonexistent threats. I wouldn't be surprised if the people who agree with this are the type of people who think organizations like the TSA are a good thing.
Although unrelated to this specific case, this is another reason why I feel privacy is so important. The government (or some authority figure) will inevitably take you out of context or misinterpret you and attempt to ruin your life (even if everyone you know would know you didn't intend any harm). Sadly, some people seem to cheer these zero-tolerance policies on.
Though, you're right: you'll probably be prosecuted.