The lesser light reference was introduced in 1953, six years after the Roswell aliens gave the Democrats time travel technology and fertilizer. All editions of the Bible were retrofitted to make this new satellite agreeable to proper God fearing Republicans.
Sure, we can arbitrarily tighten the noose until they comply or stop running for office, whichever is fine with me - the end result just has to be that unbiased-good-for-all-of-us decision has to become the norm.
As an inhabitant of one of those countries in that direction, I can tell you that there is no hard limit on the salaries of CEOs, but even so they tend to significantly lower than their counterparts in other countries. I'm not quite sure of the reason for this, other than we have very strong unions here, that are not mafia fronts - and a general consensus that a company's profit isn't all made on the top floor. But it's all guesswork, and I'm sure someone can ferret out an example that will put all my reasoning to shame, but meh.
No Google link either, since I'm nobody search bitch, do your own digging:)
Who ever promised writers that they absolutely must be able to make a living producing drivel for the masses? I think it would be a lot more productive for all of us, if rapper #400 went out and got a real job, and produced "music" on the side, maybe we could also have some cultural influences that does not revolve around how many chains you wear, but are actual commentary on society.
When just one of those idiots who deem themselves writer's these days, produce something of genuinely novel character, I'd be happy to shell out for it, but the sad fact is that most of what is produced is reiterations of centuries old plots. Produce stuff of value, then maybe we can talk about protecting your rights.
Also of note is pricing, why the hell does so much of an AAA title's budget get allotted to marketing? If their works are of such profound nature, maybe they'd be able to sell themselves. Why do we need yet another movie about alien invasions, or zombie apocalypses costing millions to make and more millions to market? If we cut all the marketing and handed the savings down to the consumer, in the form of cheaper tickets, maybe movie theaters wouldn't be in such dire straits. And just maybe we don't need yet another kids animation movie produced in head ache inducing 3D along with regular 2D, maybe if you're producing novel content, one copy is enough, yes?
It's much easier to hide discrepancies in data when it has been propagandized passing through several layers. It's also really hard to apply the scientific method to this algorithm, when a drone strike took out everyone, sons, cousins, relatives and people passing by. Who gives a shit? It's in a desert on the other side of the world, and we didn't know these people.
"Cracking some eggs", what the fuck dude? When it's your egg on the block, slated for cracking, would you not want a fucking DUE PROCESS, or at least some semblance of it? Have you been in a cave the last month, you know, the month where everybody suddenly got handed troves of proof that the due process has been subverted, and in essence, you're fucking next - you see, the algorithm that identifies "terrorists" also identifies a lot of other people, for doing nothing but acting outside of the tight constraints of the "normal" box. And the big stinking turd in the room is that "normal" is defined by people you don't even know who are, or what qualifies them to brand something normal.
always insisting the US must do things to make everybody like us no matter whether the actions will have long term negative effects
The opposite of that is what spawns the terrorist boogeyman. You're deluding yourself if you think anything is done, that does not directly or indirectly put money in the pockets of those in power. Whatever people feel about the Americans as a nation, it is completely of your own doing, and invoking long term negative consequences as a boogeyman works both ways. The only significant difference in either school of thought is when the negative consequences manifest themselves, stop doing shit for profit all the time and you might actually see an improvement. That being said, this proposal is beyond stupid, in that we can agree.
It should be possible, without a law degree, to deduct the laws of a society directly from common sense. If that is not possible, law makers have failed. Full stop. Problem now is, that whenever a hole in a legislation is found, it is patched with more text, not rewritten. This creates a demand for people who can read obscure texts (lawyers, who are otherwise completely useless to society), but more dangerously, it also creates a system in which you can't be sure you are following the law, even if you're just going about your business.
And once someone breaks one of the obscure laws, revenge is enacted (as opposed to justice) and a prison gains a new resident. Without regard for the fact that a prison is little more than a higher education in criminal conduct. Fixing problems is not on anyone's radar, filling prisons is, because it makes you look tough on [whatever] and let's face it, the person was a criminal, so who cares? There is no incentive to fix the problem, because if crime went away completely you would have to come up with a new topic to appear tough on. Crime is easy, because everyone agrees that it's bad, and that the solution is to take the criminals off the streets, not examine what lead to them becoming a criminal to begin with (and that is even ignoring all the people who didn't know they were committing a crime to begin with).
So, how about revising the Boot a bit? We don't need to keep recycling people in and out of office to have a workable system, in that respect you're absolutely right.
How about outlawing lobbying altogether, and demand that incumbents be left alone to do their job? That sounds like a good idea. Oh, even better, how about, when you hold a public office, you're expected to do that job, and it is expected to be a full time job - so we could mandate that while in office, you may not have any other for-profit activities. Yes, that could work, incumbents doing their job and not doing another job on top of it, after all, they're all public servants, not the other way around.
Hmm, what else? Well, we could demand complete 100% transparency with regard to a representative's economy (both time and money) while in office, seeing as they already know everything about us, maybe we should demand to know all that they do, they are acting on our behalf right, now we'd have a tool to verify that.
Oh, and we could borrow from the Athenians a few thousand years ago, and immediately put elected officials on trial after their stint in office ends (even if they are elected for another term). We could scrutinize their doings and pass judgement on them, according to the laws we all agreed to follow, that should keep them on their toes.
The key word about these situations is placed, they aren't designed to hold up under scrutiny, and gun supporters seem to forget this. They're designed to seed the desire to own a gun. The video is a really poor example though, do you think that adding a gun would make any kind of difference there? At all? The woman seems quite unprepared, and I highly doubt she'd be any better off with a gun nearby, on the contrary, I assert that she and her daughter would be dead now, if there had been a gun in the house, especially if she attempted to use it. For a gun to improve that situation, she'd have to be sitting with it in her lap on the couch, waiting...
What bothers me in this debate is that common sense goes out the window at the first mention of gun control. Everyone seems to think that they're Lucky Luke and that encounters with a criminal will amount to a western style shootout. But unless you're the really paranoid crazy or a highly trained secret agent, the element of surprise is against you. You can imagine all sorts of scenarios, add a gun to it, and you can show that the situation gets worse by adding that gun, furthermore, most of those situations can be avoided by different means (lock the door?), or if you want to go all philosophical, creating a lower ROI on work than crime for the people who commit them, and the criminals will vanish. But there are strong interests in keeping you afraid of the mythical home invasion, or the kid held hostage situations. Interests that don't really care why crimes are committed or by whom, but only care about making you feel safer with a weapon around, because those interests also happen to profit from selling you that gun.
Crime isn't a mystical otherworldly being that nobody understands, the human mind is remarkably predictable, and faced with a choice, will always pick the optimal solution given the information available. Creating an environment where the optimal solution is not to hold up people on the street for petty cash will completely turn this upside down, but nobody cares - the answer is of course to add more guns, because guns kill criminals, and when they don't kill a criminal, it must be because someone mishandled it. It can't possibly be because the gun was there in the first place.
To add insult to injury, the debate also tends to completely ignore, that data from pretty much the rest of the world is telling us that owning/not-owning a gun has no correlation to crime statistics, no correlation to survivability of an incident. But there is a strong correlation between owning a gun and your own kid shooting her head off playing with it - or one of her friends. Or the horror scenario where she takes it to school, shoots a bunch of kids then kills herself when the cops show up.
I don't think there is anything special in the logic employed by people branded terrorists as opposed to anyone else. Basic instinctual functions of the brain are being manipulated by people who know how, and once that is done, you can insert whatever cause you will. We see this every day around us. Do you have a coworker who's also a die hard climate change denier? Sport's fan? Pretty much whatever. The brain takes in information, if you control that flow you can make people believe whatever the hell you feel like. Like going to war in a desert is a super idea, and a fight for freedom, while the ones in the desert see it as an invasion and a ploy for their oil resources.
To think that it can be simplified to something like "They want to inforce Sharia Law" is pretty retarded and is a sign that indoctrination happens everywhere. Religion has nothing to do with this, if it had, the western world would be ashes and dust right now (we're heavily outnumbered, and have been for hundreds of years). Religion is a pretense to get everyone on the same page in order to have a common point of reference to build a brainwashing session around.
But for a fun ride, try following Al Jazeera's english version website for a while, they're just as biased as western news, but it provides some insights that western news never seem to pick up on.
If so, you may wish to hold forth as to why the police should be armed
Remind me again what the argument for armed police is? Anyways, there are plenty of non lethal alternatives to carrying a gun, ones that don't apply the death penealty before the jury has even heard the case. Police officers aren't exactly on record for being a level headed bunch of chaps.
exactly what posture someone being beaten to death should take to be most noble in your eyes. Is that the fetal position, or some sort of supplication toward the east?
I don't know, whatever is more comfortable to him. How would a gun make a difference here? Do you think the situation would be different if guns were ubiquitous, and if so, why is that? If you have a gun to avoid the assault, he has a gun to avoid yours - whe the fuck do you think you are, Lucky Luke? Are going to bring up the home invasion boogeyman next? That's always amusing.
And, just to be crystal clear, are you saying that people in the east (east of what?) have less guns, or less gun control, or just don't care about guns, more than people in the west (again, west of what?)
Who the hell are you to decide when an action is grounds for the death penalty? Self defense comes in many different forms, and effective self defense does not have anything to do with guns, and does not have to be lethal to be effective. Pushing the gun agenda under the banner of self defense is primitive and simplistic, it puts the judge and jury duty into the hands of unqualified people, for no other reason than fear mongering.
Right, I'm sure one of the considerations of the deranged minds who take a gun to school is "uh, could I possibly be shot back at?". What you're saying sounds like a thinly veiled NRA talk point, like the idiotic meme that "a hero with a gun could have avoided [whatever]".
Jesus fucking Christ, the data rape going on there is brutal. You conveniently forget to mention that the year 1683 lies at the end of a 700 year period of brutal persecution, crusades and general mayhem, all founded on religion (on the surface) but boiling down to "more power for me, less for you". And you could probably tally the losses on both "sides" of that conflict, but in reality it was everybody against everybody.
It seems to me like you have absolutely no clue what these groups want, and why they're acting the way they do. It's so much easier to just attribute their motives to a fucking 400 year old battle, than actually spending a bit of time reading something other than the party pamphlet you've been handed. Or hey, how about this, you talk to some of the people that knows, I'm sure they're all around you. A good point to start is reading the english version of Al Jazeera, they're just as biased in their news coverage as the western medias, but it will give you a good glimpse of what is actually, truly going on. It also provides a counter balance to the deep indoctrination you've experienced.
Yes, Bush' reign constituted a brief interlude where there were no spies, no government abuse, no secret agendas, no profit driven wars - only lilies and cake for everyone. The presidents before him and after him were demons, and people just doesn't seem to grasp that the benevolent rule of the one true Bush was cut short prematurely. A God among men should not have to suffer the laws of men, Bush for a third period! Huzzah!
I hope I'm wrong, but I just can't see anything else that would reverse the trend. It seems to me that we have something of a cycle - we get a liberal government which progressively tends towards oppressiveness, eventually it becomes too oppressive, the people revolt and the whole cycle starts over.
I think you're right, but I'm loathe to accept the logical conclusion to that line of reasoning. I firmly believe that there must be another way, but attempts at an alternative logical conclusion have been feeble, we've had debates on everything in our society except the foundation of society itself (I don't count the debates about free speech and the right to insult large swathes of the population on that ground as actual debate though). I guess to meet you halfway I could argue that the threat of violence would work almost as well.
I would go on to say that I'm not a big believer in democracy - I think its right that an informed public have a choice, but its my opinion that the vast majority of the electorate are not informed and have no desire to become informed, yet will still vote and dilute the choice of the people who *actually* know what theyr'e talking about.
I also tend to agree that democracy is not an optimal solution, and I think some great minds have said something to that effect too (something about democracy being the least repulsive option for governance). I think what you're referring to is technocracy?
Regarding the power generation issue, there are other concerns with nuclear power that are not immediately obvious. For instance, imagine we replaced all power plants in existence now with nuclear plants, we'd in effect just shift the reason to go to war from oil to uranium. There is also the issue of waste, and the current solution of shoveling it into a pit and hope nobody digs it up right away is unsustainable. The environmentalist in me would rejoice if nuclear power was used to replace industrial revolution era coal and oil plants, but with the stipulation that the waste problem be solved beforehand, and that a viable source of fuel were to be found - fusion would solve that, but meh.
Pandering to the media's short-term stories is a more effective vote winner than pandering to the big long-term issues.
The media plays too large a role in modern politics, and that causes everything to devolve into a fight for the lowest common denominator. This is detrimental to us all, because the lowest common denominator is also the easiest to manipulate. A form of blind democracy could be formulated, where there are no spokesperson for a cause, and you could only vote for a proposed solution on it's merit, without a charming figurehead to shovel it down your throat.
Imagine an election where the ballot only consisted of 4 year plans (or any other number of years, perhaps even variable) with accompanying information to help you decide, no names, no parties, just solutions to problems.
Hey, here's a novel idea: how about we assume innocence until proven guilty. How about we examine the reasons and motives of people who try to harm you, and not just chalking it up to the in fashion meme of terrorist. Maybe even take a looooong hard look at foreign policy and maybe try to identify the overall reasons as to why someone would go to such great lengths to inflict harm on total strangers halfway around the world. I think you will find that the commonly perceived reason of religion is just as much a sham as the terrorist boogeyman is for the police state.
Yeah, I realise that would undermine your agenda (of which we've seen plenty here on/. already), but you should really give it a try, it might even make for some more good talking points.
Very well thought out reply, so thank you for that. I agree with pretty much all your points, and I see it as an elaboration of my initial point on the voting public in general not being willing enough to understand the issues. Where I vote it's the exact same problems as you list, fellow voters voting for the usual suspects, because that's how it's always been, and 100 years ago, this or that party was [insert group]'s voice. I also agree that it is a huge problem that we cannot pick a subset from the manifestos presented, but have to swallow it all. Add to that, the performance angle of politics, where Goldilocks Pearltooth gets his votes based on his looks on camera or his ability to speak to a crowd without pissing himself. And I hate it when you can engage in a discussion with a coworker, and after 2 minutes they're out of arguments, because they only read the headlines and didn't bother forming their own opinion.
I would however like to point out that the system in place now is a continuation of centuries, if not millennia, of violent revolutions giving room for new kinds of governments (in some cases, re-instituting old ones), and as such we could argue that violent revolution has led us here once already. Violence is a short cut frequently taken to affect change more rapidly, but we really ought to be able to affect the same change with debate now. The crucial missing piece in this puzzle, as I see it, is combating apathy. It will take a hell of a lot longer to achieve the same goal, but I do think the quality of the result will be significantly better.
Also, I do believe in the right to live, and that it extends to everyone, no matter how retarded their views may be. I can relate to the sentiment of wanting to punch someone in the mouth for regurgitating the same nonsense they heard on the evening news last night, but so far I've refrained:)
Well, that and beer, no political problems have ever been solved on an empty glass.
I get your point, that encrypting your communications would solve the current problem of surveillance. The thing is though, that the surveillance is just a symptom of a much more profound problem, i.e. rotten governments. Encrypting your email is only patching a hole, not really solving a problem.
I think that would only amount to a reset of capitalistic tendencies, similar to how it was done in Germany after the second world war. It would favor people who already have assets not explicitly covered by the reset, people with networks and flexible morality would still come out ahead of the rest of us. The vast majority of people who have nothing already would only temporarily gain from it, and my concern is that society would settle back into a track we're already very familiar with.
The problem, as I see it, is the notion of property to begin with. The right to own property is deeply ingrained in the constitutions of most democracies, but there really is no justification as to why someone should own part of the globe we're all inhabitants of. It's a relic of feudalism, a necessary evil to make democracy tolerable to the nobility that would stand to loose power in the shift, and I can't really see any argument that it should continue to be so.
I like the idea of resetting, and cleaning the slate and to do away with the centuries old family fortunes. I think it needs to be done from a vantage point of a revised understanding of society, where we acknowledge that we need to work together and look beyond personal gains in order to promote the welfare of the entire group we belong to. For instance, if the grocer at the store didn't ask me for money when I do my shopping, I would have no need to ask my employer for a paycheck every month to pay the grocer.
Why not? Off the top of my head I can think of a number of different angles that could justify an expansion. Play the game from a different character, the opposing side, after the ending of the original.
Slashdot Mirror
The lesser light reference was introduced in 1953, six years after the Roswell aliens gave the Democrats time travel technology and fertilizer. All editions of the Bible were retrofitted to make this new satellite agreeable to proper God fearing Republicans.
Sure, we can arbitrarily tighten the noose until they comply or stop running for office, whichever is fine with me - the end result just has to be that unbiased-good-for-all-of-us decision has to become the norm.
As an inhabitant of one of those countries in that direction, I can tell you that there is no hard limit on the salaries of CEOs, but even so they tend to significantly lower than their counterparts in other countries. I'm not quite sure of the reason for this, other than we have very strong unions here, that are not mafia fronts - and a general consensus that a company's profit isn't all made on the top floor. But it's all guesswork, and I'm sure someone can ferret out an example that will put all my reasoning to shame, but meh.
No Google link either, since I'm nobody search bitch, do your own digging :)
Who ever promised writers that they absolutely must be able to make a living producing drivel for the masses? I think it would be a lot more productive for all of us, if rapper #400 went out and got a real job, and produced "music" on the side, maybe we could also have some cultural influences that does not revolve around how many chains you wear, but are actual commentary on society.
When just one of those idiots who deem themselves writer's these days, produce something of genuinely novel character, I'd be happy to shell out for it, but the sad fact is that most of what is produced is reiterations of centuries old plots. Produce stuff of value, then maybe we can talk about protecting your rights.
Also of note is pricing, why the hell does so much of an AAA title's budget get allotted to marketing? If their works are of such profound nature, maybe they'd be able to sell themselves. Why do we need yet another movie about alien invasions, or zombie apocalypses costing millions to make and more millions to market? If we cut all the marketing and handed the savings down to the consumer, in the form of cheaper tickets, maybe movie theaters wouldn't be in such dire straits. And just maybe we don't need yet another kids animation movie produced in head ache inducing 3D along with regular 2D, maybe if you're producing novel content, one copy is enough, yes?
It's much easier to hide discrepancies in data when it has been propagandized passing through several layers. It's also really hard to apply the scientific method to this algorithm, when a drone strike took out everyone, sons, cousins, relatives and people passing by. Who gives a shit? It's in a desert on the other side of the world, and we didn't know these people.
"Cracking some eggs", what the fuck dude? When it's your egg on the block, slated for cracking, would you not want a fucking DUE PROCESS, or at least some semblance of it? Have you been in a cave the last month, you know, the month where everybody suddenly got handed troves of proof that the due process has been subverted, and in essence, you're fucking next - you see, the algorithm that identifies "terrorists" also identifies a lot of other people, for doing nothing but acting outside of the tight constraints of the "normal" box. And the big stinking turd in the room is that "normal" is defined by people you don't even know who are, or what qualifies them to brand something normal.
always insisting the US must do things to make everybody like us no matter whether the actions will have long term negative effects
The opposite of that is what spawns the terrorist boogeyman. You're deluding yourself if you think anything is done, that does not directly or indirectly put money in the pockets of those in power. Whatever people feel about the Americans as a nation, it is completely of your own doing, and invoking long term negative consequences as a boogeyman works both ways. The only significant difference in either school of thought is when the negative consequences manifest themselves, stop doing shit for profit all the time and you might actually see an improvement. That being said, this proposal is beyond stupid, in that we can agree.
It should be possible, without a law degree, to deduct the laws of a society directly from common sense. If that is not possible, law makers have failed. Full stop. Problem now is, that whenever a hole in a legislation is found, it is patched with more text, not rewritten. This creates a demand for people who can read obscure texts (lawyers, who are otherwise completely useless to society), but more dangerously, it also creates a system in which you can't be sure you are following the law, even if you're just going about your business.
And once someone breaks one of the obscure laws, revenge is enacted (as opposed to justice) and a prison gains a new resident. Without regard for the fact that a prison is little more than a higher education in criminal conduct. Fixing problems is not on anyone's radar, filling prisons is, because it makes you look tough on [whatever] and let's face it, the person was a criminal, so who cares? There is no incentive to fix the problem, because if crime went away completely you would have to come up with a new topic to appear tough on. Crime is easy, because everyone agrees that it's bad, and that the solution is to take the criminals off the streets, not examine what lead to them becoming a criminal to begin with (and that is even ignoring all the people who didn't know they were committing a crime to begin with).
So, how about revising the Boot a bit? We don't need to keep recycling people in and out of office to have a workable system, in that respect you're absolutely right.
How about outlawing lobbying altogether, and demand that incumbents be left alone to do their job? That sounds like a good idea. Oh, even better, how about, when you hold a public office, you're expected to do that job, and it is expected to be a full time job - so we could mandate that while in office, you may not have any other for-profit activities. Yes, that could work, incumbents doing their job and not doing another job on top of it, after all, they're all public servants, not the other way around.
Hmm, what else? Well, we could demand complete 100% transparency with regard to a representative's economy (both time and money) while in office, seeing as they already know everything about us, maybe we should demand to know all that they do, they are acting on our behalf right, now we'd have a tool to verify that.
Oh, and we could borrow from the Athenians a few thousand years ago, and immediately put elected officials on trial after their stint in office ends (even if they are elected for another term). We could scrutinize their doings and pass judgement on them, according to the laws we all agreed to follow, that should keep them on their toes.
The key word about these situations is placed, they aren't designed to hold up under scrutiny, and gun supporters seem to forget this. They're designed to seed the desire to own a gun.
The video is a really poor example though, do you think that adding a gun would make any kind of difference there? At all? The woman seems quite unprepared, and I highly doubt she'd be any better off with a gun nearby, on the contrary, I assert that she and her daughter would be dead now, if there had been a gun in the house, especially if she attempted to use it. For a gun to improve that situation, she'd have to be sitting with it in her lap on the couch, waiting...
What bothers me in this debate is that common sense goes out the window at the first mention of gun control. Everyone seems to think that they're Lucky Luke and that encounters with a criminal will amount to a western style shootout. But unless you're the really paranoid crazy or a highly trained secret agent, the element of surprise is against you. You can imagine all sorts of scenarios, add a gun to it, and you can show that the situation gets worse by adding that gun, furthermore, most of those situations can be avoided by different means (lock the door?), or if you want to go all philosophical, creating a lower ROI on work than crime for the people who commit them, and the criminals will vanish. But there are strong interests in keeping you afraid of the mythical home invasion, or the kid held hostage situations. Interests that don't really care why crimes are committed or by whom, but only care about making you feel safer with a weapon around, because those interests also happen to profit from selling you that gun.
Crime isn't a mystical otherworldly being that nobody understands, the human mind is remarkably predictable, and faced with a choice, will always pick the optimal solution given the information available. Creating an environment where the optimal solution is not to hold up people on the street for petty cash will completely turn this upside down, but nobody cares - the answer is of course to add more guns, because guns kill criminals, and when they don't kill a criminal, it must be because someone mishandled it. It can't possibly be because the gun was there in the first place.
To add insult to injury, the debate also tends to completely ignore, that data from pretty much the rest of the world is telling us that owning/not-owning a gun has no correlation to crime statistics, no correlation to survivability of an incident. But there is a strong correlation between owning a gun and your own kid shooting her head off playing with it - or one of her friends. Or the horror scenario where she takes it to school, shoots a bunch of kids then kills herself when the cops show up.
Yes it does, but after the fact. The consideration that "I might die from this" does not stop the act.
I don't think there is anything special in the logic employed by people branded terrorists as opposed to anyone else. Basic instinctual functions of the brain are being manipulated by people who know how, and once that is done, you can insert whatever cause you will. We see this every day around us. Do you have a coworker who's also a die hard climate change denier? Sport's fan? Pretty much whatever. The brain takes in information, if you control that flow you can make people believe whatever the hell you feel like. Like going to war in a desert is a super idea, and a fight for freedom, while the ones in the desert see it as an invasion and a ploy for their oil resources.
To think that it can be simplified to something like "They want to inforce Sharia Law" is pretty retarded and is a sign that indoctrination happens everywhere. Religion has nothing to do with this, if it had, the western world would be ashes and dust right now (we're heavily outnumbered, and have been for hundreds of years). Religion is a pretense to get everyone on the same page in order to have a common point of reference to build a brainwashing session around.
But for a fun ride, try following Al Jazeera's english version website for a while, they're just as biased as western news, but it provides some insights that western news never seem to pick up on.
If so, you may wish to hold forth as to why the police should be armed
Remind me again what the argument for armed police is? Anyways, there are plenty of non lethal alternatives to carrying a gun, ones that don't apply the death penealty before the jury has even heard the case. Police officers aren't exactly on record for being a level headed bunch of chaps.
exactly what posture someone being beaten to death should take to be most noble in your eyes. Is that the fetal position, or some sort of supplication toward the east?
I don't know, whatever is more comfortable to him. How would a gun make a difference here? Do you think the situation would be different if guns were ubiquitous, and if so, why is that? If you have a gun to avoid the assault, he has a gun to avoid yours - whe the fuck do you think you are, Lucky Luke? Are going to bring up the home invasion boogeyman next? That's always amusing.
And, just to be crystal clear, are you saying that people in the east (east of what?) have less guns, or less gun control, or just don't care about guns, more than people in the west (again, west of what?)
Who the hell are you to decide when an action is grounds for the death penalty? Self defense comes in many different forms, and effective self defense does not have anything to do with guns, and does not have to be lethal to be effective. Pushing the gun agenda under the banner of self defense is primitive and simplistic, it puts the judge and jury duty into the hands of unqualified people, for no other reason than fear mongering.
Right, I'm sure one of the considerations of the deranged minds who take a gun to school is "uh, could I possibly be shot back at?". What you're saying sounds like a thinly veiled NRA talk point, like the idiotic meme that "a hero with a gun could have avoided [whatever]".
But, but, I... they... we...
Yes sir *bows head*
Jesus fucking Christ, the data rape going on there is brutal. You conveniently forget to mention that the year 1683 lies at the end of a 700 year period of brutal persecution, crusades and general mayhem, all founded on religion (on the surface) but boiling down to "more power for me, less for you". And you could probably tally the losses on both "sides" of that conflict, but in reality it was everybody against everybody.
It seems to me like you have absolutely no clue what these groups want, and why they're acting the way they do. It's so much easier to just attribute their motives to a fucking 400 year old battle, than actually spending a bit of time reading something other than the party pamphlet you've been handed. Or hey, how about this, you talk to some of the people that knows, I'm sure they're all around you. A good point to start is reading the english version of Al Jazeera, they're just as biased in their news coverage as the western medias, but it will give you a good glimpse of what is actually, truly going on. It also provides a counter balance to the deep indoctrination you've experienced.
Yes, Bush' reign constituted a brief interlude where there were no spies, no government abuse, no secret agendas, no profit driven wars - only lilies and cake for everyone. The presidents before him and after him were demons, and people just doesn't seem to grasp that the benevolent rule of the one true Bush was cut short prematurely. A God among men should not have to suffer the laws of men, Bush for a third period! Huzzah!
I hope I'm wrong, but I just can't see anything else that would reverse the trend. It seems to me that we have something of a cycle - we get a liberal government which progressively tends towards oppressiveness, eventually it becomes too oppressive, the people revolt and the whole cycle starts over.
I think you're right, but I'm loathe to accept the logical conclusion to that line of reasoning. I firmly believe that there must be another way, but attempts at an alternative logical conclusion have been feeble, we've had debates on everything in our society except the foundation of society itself (I don't count the debates about free speech and the right to insult large swathes of the population on that ground as actual debate though). I guess to meet you halfway I could argue that the threat of violence would work almost as well.
I would go on to say that I'm not a big believer in democracy - I think its right that an informed public have a choice, but its my opinion that the vast majority of the electorate are not informed and have no desire to become informed, yet will still vote and dilute the choice of the people who *actually* know what theyr'e talking about.
I also tend to agree that democracy is not an optimal solution, and I think some great minds have said something to that effect too (something about democracy being the least repulsive option for governance). I think what you're referring to is technocracy?
Regarding the power generation issue, there are other concerns with nuclear power that are not immediately obvious. For instance, imagine we replaced all power plants in existence now with nuclear plants, we'd in effect just shift the reason to go to war from oil to uranium. There is also the issue of waste, and the current solution of shoveling it into a pit and hope nobody digs it up right away is unsustainable. The environmentalist in me would rejoice if nuclear power was used to replace industrial revolution era coal and oil plants, but with the stipulation that the waste problem be solved beforehand, and that a viable source of fuel were to be found - fusion would solve that, but meh.
Pandering to the media's short-term stories is a more effective vote winner than pandering to the big long-term issues.
The media plays too large a role in modern politics, and that causes everything to devolve into a fight for the lowest common denominator. This is detrimental to us all, because the lowest common denominator is also the easiest to manipulate. A form of blind democracy could be formulated, where there are no spokesperson for a cause, and you could only vote for a proposed solution on it's merit, without a charming figurehead to shovel it down your throat.
Imagine an election where the ballot only consisted of 4 year plans (or any other number of years, perhaps even variable) with accompanying information to help you decide, no names, no parties, just solutions to problems.
Hey, here's a novel idea: how about we assume innocence until proven guilty. How about we examine the reasons and motives of people who try to harm you, and not just chalking it up to the in fashion meme of terrorist. Maybe even take a looooong hard look at foreign policy and maybe try to identify the overall reasons as to why someone would go to such great lengths to inflict harm on total strangers halfway around the world. I think you will find that the commonly perceived reason of religion is just as much a sham as the terrorist boogeyman is for the police state.
Yeah, I realise that would undermine your agenda (of which we've seen plenty here on /. already), but you should really give it a try, it might even make for some more good talking points.
Thanks, I didn't know that. I only played the original Half Life in multiplayer.
Very well thought out reply, so thank you for that. I agree with pretty much all your points, and I see it as an elaboration of my initial point on the voting public in general not being willing enough to understand the issues. Where I vote it's the exact same problems as you list, fellow voters voting for the usual suspects, because that's how it's always been, and 100 years ago, this or that party was [insert group]'s voice. I also agree that it is a huge problem that we cannot pick a subset from the manifestos presented, but have to swallow it all. Add to that, the performance angle of politics, where Goldilocks Pearltooth gets his votes based on his looks on camera or his ability to speak to a crowd without pissing himself. And I hate it when you can engage in a discussion with a coworker, and after 2 minutes they're out of arguments, because they only read the headlines and didn't bother forming their own opinion.
I would however like to point out that the system in place now is a continuation of centuries, if not millennia, of violent revolutions giving room for new kinds of governments (in some cases, re-instituting old ones), and as such we could argue that violent revolution has led us here once already. Violence is a short cut frequently taken to affect change more rapidly, but we really ought to be able to affect the same change with debate now. The crucial missing piece in this puzzle, as I see it, is combating apathy. It will take a hell of a lot longer to achieve the same goal, but I do think the quality of the result will be significantly better.
Also, I do believe in the right to live, and that it extends to everyone, no matter how retarded their views may be. I can relate to the sentiment of wanting to punch someone in the mouth for regurgitating the same nonsense they heard on the evening news last night, but so far I've refrained :)
Why is that relevant?
Well, that and beer, no political problems have ever been solved on an empty glass.
I get your point, that encrypting your communications would solve the current problem of surveillance. The thing is though, that the surveillance is just a symptom of a much more profound problem, i.e. rotten governments. Encrypting your email is only patching a hole, not really solving a problem.
I think that would only amount to a reset of capitalistic tendencies, similar to how it was done in Germany after the second world war. It would favor people who already have assets not explicitly covered by the reset, people with networks and flexible morality would still come out ahead of the rest of us. The vast majority of people who have nothing already would only temporarily gain from it, and my concern is that society would settle back into a track we're already very familiar with.
The problem, as I see it, is the notion of property to begin with. The right to own property is deeply ingrained in the constitutions of most democracies, but there really is no justification as to why someone should own part of the globe we're all inhabitants of. It's a relic of feudalism, a necessary evil to make democracy tolerable to the nobility that would stand to loose power in the shift, and I can't really see any argument that it should continue to be so.
I like the idea of resetting, and cleaning the slate and to do away with the centuries old family fortunes. I think it needs to be done from a vantage point of a revised understanding of society, where we acknowledge that we need to work together and look beyond personal gains in order to promote the welfare of the entire group we belong to. For instance, if the grocer at the store didn't ask me for money when I do my shopping, I would have no need to ask my employer for a paycheck every month to pay the grocer.
Why not? Off the top of my head I can think of a number of different angles that could justify an expansion. Play the game from a different character, the opposing side, after the ending of the original.