And for a long time we had no idea how penicillin worked. Not understanding the mechanism of the cure isn't the same as not having any idea what the problem is, or as scientific basis for knowing what works and what doesn't work.
But phones are often used in positions where they could be recording, and no, you can't easily tell. Glass can't be recording if the screen isn't lit... so it's actually easier to verify that Glass isn't being used to record than it is for a phone. If the Glass screen is lit then you have an indicator it might be recording, not proof that it is, and users may well want to look at things while they're not recording (indeed that's most of the purpose of the device).
IMO, this problem is simply solved by adding a recording light to Glass... and to phones. So we have a clear and obvious indicator when the camera is being used.
In the past, governments routinely used horrific tortures like breaking on the wheel for relatively minor crimes, or even just political disagreements, even though the tortured was part of the torturer's "tribe".
I suspect that the phrase "pour encourager les autres" applies....
Absolutely. But the point is that those sorts of encouragements are no longer even thinkable, because we empathize too much with the wrongdoer. This is a big change, and it's completely independent of questions of religious belief.
>Mental health treatment is, I think, much where medicine was shortly *before* the discovery of the germ theory of disease
fixed that for you
No, you broke it. I think we actually do understand some of the fundamental mechanisms. Not all of them, and not in great depth, but we're beyond the stage of mysticism and humors, and there is a scientific basis for much of what is done.
The reason I'm pointing you at the book is that the ideas are not simple, and the very thorough research supporting them is something I cannot reproduce in a slashdot post. Not everything can be reduced to simple language in a few paragraphs.
I, unfortunately, have had far too much exposure to the mental health system, due to mental illness in my immediate family. I'll give you my perspective on your questions, based primarily on my anecdotal experience, plus some research-based discussions with practitioners.
I think the answer is a qualified yes, people can be made better, though "cured" may be too strong.
Mental health treatment is, I think, much where medicine was shortly after the discovery of the germ theory of disease. It's beginning to become a capable, scientific endeavor, and it is very useful within the areas that it works, but there's lots we don't understand, about what goes wrong, about why it goes wrong, about what will and won't work to fix it, and even about why the stuff that does work, works.
My daughter's condition is a good example. She has Borderline Personality Disorder (which is a really terrible, inaccurate name, and everyone knows it, but that's the label that got stuck on it). There is no cure but time; most BPD sufferers eventually achieve fairly normal functioning by their mid 30s. There are some treatments that help, though. Sometimes. The best one is a particular form of psychotherapy called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which is at root mindfulness training. It's effectiveness is definitely better than nothing, but whether or not it will help a person become a functional member of society is very hit or miss. My daughter's doing okay, but has real challenges.
My sister's son, on the other hand, has Bipolar Disorder. There are great meds that almost completely fix the problem for a large percentage of sufferers, including him. In addition, it appears that specific dietary restrictions can do just as much as the meds. I understand that schizophrenia is eminently treatable with medication, though the severe side effects often discourage its use.
I have ADD, and so do all three of my sons. There are very effective medications for it, but there are also learned habits that can be used to work around it. My older sons and I use the latter plus a little self-medication with caffeine. My youngest takes Concerta.
Depending on the disorder, sometime diagnoses are clear and incontrovertible, and proof of "cure" (or management) is equally incontrovertible. Sometimes it's really fuzzy. Sometimes treatment is effective and well-understood. Sometimes it isn't.
The answer, I think, is to be very clear about what we can and cannot do, and to do what we can. And, of course, to continue research into improving our ability to understand and treat.
Interesting point, although you can also pin the lack of creative output on the inability to exchange ideas outside of a small sphere. I can't refute your claim, but I see other possibilities as well.
It's not assault if I'm protecting her from harassment.
Yes, it is. Criminal law includes the concept of justification for very good reasons, but it only extends to actions necessary to prevent the crime. What you described is punitive, not preventative, and is not justifiable. Perhaps turning up the volume a bit will make this clearer. In most US states, you are justified in killing a man to stop him from raping your wife (or another woman; your wife isn't especially privileged in the eyes of the law). But if you catch him raping her and he stands up and starts running away, you can no longer kill him, because punishment is the responsibility and prerogative of the system, not you.
In addition, if the photographer's actions do not actually constitute a crime (perhaps they do, perhaps they don't, look up your local statutes on harassment and public photography), then you can't even assault him in order to stop his actions. You cannot commit a crime to prevent a non-crime.
Of course, there's always the chance that you'll get a sympathetic jury. But I wouldn't want to bet my freedom on that, and my wife wouldn't want me to either.
That's reasonable to me. We do need to figure out as a society how we incorporate these new technologies into our lives, so we can reap the benefits without doing too much damage. I just think it's silly to single out one technology while ignoring other, equivalent, devices.
Personally, I think we should incorporate recording lights into all portable video cameras, phones as well as Glass. I don't think we need to find technological solutions for disabling recording, just ways to make it obvious, so that normal social methods for inhibiting undesirable action can be brought into play. Of course, people can find ways to disable the lights, but people can also bring hidden spycams, which will obviously be designed without recording lights.
the majority of their money touring? Last I heard unless you made it through your first few record deals with your popularity intact and could re-negotiate you weren't making anything on record sales. Heck, at times you were paying the studio to sell your records in the form of loan interest.
No. The big pop acts make their money from record sales. Yes, it's true that early in their careers they tend to get a lower royalty rate than later on, but if their early albums are going multi-platinum, they make lots and lots from royalties.
(I should mention my source: I spent a while working for Universal Music Group, building a royalty calculation engine, and in the process talked extensively with several label account reps who'd been around for a long time. I spent lots of time with the guy who managed U2 for most of their career.)
The way the labels work is that for new bands they do give them with a moderately low royalty rate, meaning the band gets a fairly small percentage of each album's wholesale price. But that's not where they stick it to them. Where they stick it to them is in all of the other deductions and fees. Basically, every penny the label spends to promote the band is recorded and -- usually -- dramatically inflated. During the band's recording session, the label puts the band up in a swanky hotel (either owned or partially owned by the label, or with inflated prices and some kickbacks), provides a limo (owned by the label) to whisk them to and from, buys all their drinks and meals (and drugs and hookers), provides the sound studio (owned by the label) and engineers (employed by the label), etc., etc., etc., all at very inflated prices. Plus there's also all of the expenses around promotions, getting airplay, etc., and all of the touring expenses. Oh and typically there's also an advance on the royalties, cash paid to the band up front.
The labels tally up all of that stuff, with interest, and "recoup" it from the royalty payments that the band would otherwise be due. It's not uncommon for the recoupable expenses associated with an album to reach almost to seven figures. Combine that with the low-ish royalty rate and the band has to sell a lot of records, tapes or CDs to pay back what they "owe" before they ever see a dime. Most bands never do, because most bands don't reach the level of sales required.
There are some other tricks as well, such as "breakage". Back in the days when music was sold on shellac records (before nylon), it was common for a high percentage of records to break in transit. Since it was too hard to track what the actual percentage was, the labels just assumed a certain breakage percentage (10% IIRC) and deducted that from the retailer's price, and passed the deduction on to the artist, taking all of it out of the artist's royalties, not sharing the pain. When new technology came along, more durable nylon, and later very durable 8-track and cassette tapes and CDs, labels continued this practice, giving the retailers a free discount on the wholesale price and making the artists eat all of it. When questioned they say "oh, it's just a promotional discount, under the old name". And promotions are charged to the artist.
However, bands that really make it big do sell enough records to recoup, and start making big bucks on royalties. Later they get wealthy enough -- and smart enough -- that they don't take all of the extremely expensive handouts from the record labels. They have money so they don't need advances. They have their own cars and drivers and don't need limos. Maybe they use the label's studio and maybe they don't, but if they do they have lawyers and agents who negotiate more favorable terms. And they buy their own hookers and blow. So recoupment becomes less of an issue. And eventually they may even negotiate better royalty rates, though that's less common than you might think. The really big stars eventually just create their own labels and contract out distribution through existing la
Of course that only applies for monotheistic religions. In polytheism, it's easy: Our god favours us, and the other tribe's god favours them.
A very valid point... and one that highlights the fact that it's not the religion that generates the violence. Whether the argument is that my god favors me and not you so I'll kill you, or that my god hates your god, so I'll kill you, or you oppose the rise of the proletariat, so I'll kill you, or you're a dirty thieving gypsy, so I'll kill you, or... the rational justifications are endless, but they're only justifications. The real issue is tribalism and lack of empathy for others.
One of the points that Pinker really pounds on in the book is that lack of empathy was endemic in the past (in the future they'll probably say the same of our age; we say it of times just a few generations past). For example, a few hundred years ago I might not only have thought nothing of murdering the heathen, even torturing him to death in order to save his soul, but I would also have thought nothing of brutal punishments and tortures for people of my own village who I perceived to have done wrong, or to have offended me or my family. In the past, governments routinely used horrific tortures like breaking on the wheel for relatively minor crimes, or even just political disagreements, even though the tortured was part of the torturer's "tribe".
a belief in God's favor... Tribalism and lack of empathy
If god favors my group, then the other groups are not favored and are therefore inferior and unworthy of my concern. His reasoning why a belief in god's favor does not cause violence is the reason why it causes violence.
No. Seriously, read the book.
What it boils down to is that such logical deduction isn't how people work at the level where what sort of violence we're comfortable with is decided. The logical arguments are a veneer laid over the top to justify the lizard-brain reactions to "otherness", and the psychological infrastructure that's been built up to determine who is "other", which is based primarily on familiarity. At the end of the day, whether god was invoked or not, the same evaluation of otherness occurs and the same impact on empathy or the lack thereof.
For a modern example which easily cuts out the religious question, look at discussions on immigration. I often have a very different perspective on it from others around me, and I can see exactly where that perspective arose, my own life experiences. I spent years living and working in southern Mexico, with people from all walks of life, and specifically trying to build empathic rapport with them. As a result, my attitude about immigration and global competition in general is that all of the people in other countries have just as much right to my job as I do, and if they can do it better, or cheaper, or faster, then they should. Because to me they're not "other". This is not the case for the majority of Americans, at least, so I often get blank stares of complete incomprehension when I make such statements, and a response of "their lives aren't my problem, and my government should be protecting me". It boils down to foreigners being perceived as "other".
Now, I'm not holding myself up as any kind of paragon. I fully recognize that there are groups around me that I perceive as "other", and my reactions to them are much less empathic than they should be. Of late I've become strongly aware of this as my daughter has moved herself to such a group, and it's difficult for me to reconcile my conflicting reactions. Rationally, I recognize that they are not "other", and she certainly isn't, but my brain isn't wired to think that way, and at 45 years of age it's hard for me to re-program (particularly, when I am both emotionally and rationally quite certain that her choices will lead to unhappiness, but that's just a complication, not the core issue).
It's been well understood in the music business for decades that different genres have different business models, and metal's has always been to use album sales as a way to promote concert attendance. It was rockers who first began giving performances in sports stadiums, because the nature of the music is quite amenable to being played over low-fidelity sound systems, especially because the sheer energy of a big crowd all rocking out far more than offsets any loss in audio quality. And even as stadium rock died out, hard rock and heavy metal bands still made the majority of their money by touring... concert tickets and merchandise, especially t-shirts.
So, while I think it's awesome that Maiden is continuing to make good money doing their thing (I'm a fan, though not hardcore), and that the Internet is even helping them execute their old business model with even greater efficiency, by allowing them to track their fan base through bittorrent statistics, it's not a new model at all. And I think there's a good argument to be made that it's a model that won't work as well for other genres, especially pop and other more "casual" genres. Which may not be such a big loss.
Snark aside, I have no doubt that pop stars will continue to be able to rake in big bucks even if the current model of selling copies of music vanishes entirely. Whether they get paid for touring, or for shilling products, or whatever else, if they can achieve widespread fame through their music, then there will be a way for them to make a living. IMO, the Internet makes the first part of that equation -- achieving widespread notoriety -- much easier. I look at some of my favorite YouTube acts, Lindsey Stirling and The Piano Guys, and I think the success they're achieving would have been impossible pre-Internet, and they've done it by essentially giving their music away for free in a model that's partially ad-supported, but mostly just about building notoriety which they can then exploit in other ways (currently, by selling albums, but other models of exploiting fame would work as well).
So did most Europeans. It's one of the reasons that European history is such an unmitigated meatgrinder
Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature" (which also thoroughly discusses the demons of our nature) argues that the idea that a belief in God's favor caused the violence is false. Tribalism and lack of empathy (the evolution of empathy, especially empathy for people outside of your closest circle, is fascinating and non-obvious) were the cause of the unmitigated meatgrinder, and it wasn't just Europe, it was everywhere. In fact, recorded European history is mild compared to the pre-history archaeology shows us came before it.
I could try to summarize the arguments, but I wouldn't do them justice. I highly recommend the book.
It's also worth considering that privacy is a relatively new concept in human history. Until the last few hundred years, at most, the vast majority of humanity lived in small villages or tribes where basically everyone knew everything about everyone else, at least within their village. Secrets could be kept, but only with difficulty and usually not for a long time.
I think it's worth considering that perhaps privacy is neither necessary nor desirable, and the real problem that we're struggling with isn't privacy but asymmetry of information. In a small village everyone knew everything you did, but you also knew everything they did, so no one was at a disadvantage.
I'm not saying that's how it should be or even that that's how I want it to be. I really don't know where we're going to go with respect to privacy. The one thing I am sure of is that it can be very bad when people believe they have privacy, and make decisions accordingly, only to later find out that they really didn't.
Of course, if *I* caught somebody trying to upskirt-video *my* wife, I'd feed him his camera--sideways--any law to the contrary be damned.
That's assault. If you do him any permanent damage it's aggravated assault and likely maiming as well (two felonies). You might want to think about who's going to protect your wife from photographers while you're in prison.
Everything you say is correct as applied to still photography. Video recording is actually not well covered in the law, but audio recording follows rules closer to what the GP described, and since video usually incorporates audio, those laws apply.
Some states are one-party consent states and some are two-party (that's the nomenclature, though "all-party" would be more accurate). In one-party states, if you're part of the conversation you can record without other participants' knowledge. In two-party states, all participants must be aware or it's a crime. Note that they don't have a legal right to tell you not to record. You just have to make them aware, and then they can decide what they do and don't want to say.
However, questions of public vs private still come into play. In a location where there is no expectation of privacy, there is no expectation of privacy. Police officers in several states have tried to use these wiretap laws to slap down people who recorded them, and the courts have rejected their arguments. Public is public.
Smart phones aren't what's being discussed here; and people aren't being asked to leave places for having smartphones, so that's not a problem that needs to be solved.
So why does it need to be solved for Glass, if it doesn't need to be solved for smartphones? Because people can't, or won't, think. That's the only sensible explanation I can come up with.
Because properly generated client certs would be distributed by the sites not a third party signing authority.
That still requires a secure connection to the site at least once, or the attacker can MITM the cert distribution. It's not much different from having the browser watch for unexpected server cert changes; get the true certificate once, and you're good.
I think Moxie Marlinspike's Convergence system is a simpler, cheaper (to the end user, which is where the real cost is) and more flexible solution to the possibility of CA compromise. Certificate pinning is also a very useful tool, though it's of necessity more limited in scope than change notification (Chrome's certificate pinning is how the DigiNotar compromise was found).
I think the most flexible and resilient solution I've seen to date is a combination of Convergence with a set of pinned Convergence server certificates. Oh, and server operators should periodically validate what a common set of Convergence servers see from them. This would be a solution to augment the CA system, but it would provide a sufficiently solid backstop to enable self-signed certs to be used with a high degree of confidence as well (though important sites should get CA certs also).
Slashdot Mirror
And for a long time we had no idea how penicillin worked. Not understanding the mechanism of the cure isn't the same as not having any idea what the problem is, or as scientific basis for knowing what works and what doesn't work.
There are hundreds of millions of Glass units? I'm not sure what you're talking about.
But phones are often used in positions where they could be recording, and no, you can't easily tell. Glass can't be recording if the screen isn't lit... so it's actually easier to verify that Glass isn't being used to record than it is for a phone. If the Glass screen is lit then you have an indicator it might be recording, not proof that it is, and users may well want to look at things while they're not recording (indeed that's most of the purpose of the device).
IMO, this problem is simply solved by adding a recording light to Glass... and to phones. So we have a clear and obvious indicator when the camera is being used.
I suspect that the phrase "pour encourager les autres" applies....
Absolutely. But the point is that those sorts of encouragements are no longer even thinkable, because we empathize too much with the wrongdoer. This is a big change, and it's completely independent of questions of religious belief.
Perhaps. You make some interesting assertions, but I'm not convinced.
>Mental health treatment is, I think, much where medicine was shortly *before* the discovery of the germ theory of disease fixed that for you
No, you broke it. I think we actually do understand some of the fundamental mechanisms. Not all of them, and not in great depth, but we're beyond the stage of mysticism and humors, and there is a scientific basis for much of what is done.
The reason I'm pointing you at the book is that the ideas are not simple, and the very thorough research supporting them is something I cannot reproduce in a slashdot post. Not everything can be reduced to simple language in a few paragraphs.
I, unfortunately, have had far too much exposure to the mental health system, due to mental illness in my immediate family. I'll give you my perspective on your questions, based primarily on my anecdotal experience, plus some research-based discussions with practitioners.
I think the answer is a qualified yes, people can be made better, though "cured" may be too strong.
Mental health treatment is, I think, much where medicine was shortly after the discovery of the germ theory of disease. It's beginning to become a capable, scientific endeavor, and it is very useful within the areas that it works, but there's lots we don't understand, about what goes wrong, about why it goes wrong, about what will and won't work to fix it, and even about why the stuff that does work, works.
My daughter's condition is a good example. She has Borderline Personality Disorder (which is a really terrible, inaccurate name, and everyone knows it, but that's the label that got stuck on it). There is no cure but time; most BPD sufferers eventually achieve fairly normal functioning by their mid 30s. There are some treatments that help, though. Sometimes. The best one is a particular form of psychotherapy called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which is at root mindfulness training. It's effectiveness is definitely better than nothing, but whether or not it will help a person become a functional member of society is very hit or miss. My daughter's doing okay, but has real challenges.
My sister's son, on the other hand, has Bipolar Disorder. There are great meds that almost completely fix the problem for a large percentage of sufferers, including him. In addition, it appears that specific dietary restrictions can do just as much as the meds. I understand that schizophrenia is eminently treatable with medication, though the severe side effects often discourage its use.
I have ADD, and so do all three of my sons. There are very effective medications for it, but there are also learned habits that can be used to work around it. My older sons and I use the latter plus a little self-medication with caffeine. My youngest takes Concerta.
Depending on the disorder, sometime diagnoses are clear and incontrovertible, and proof of "cure" (or management) is equally incontrovertible. Sometimes it's really fuzzy. Sometimes treatment is effective and well-understood. Sometimes it isn't.
The answer, I think, is to be very clear about what we can and cannot do, and to do what we can. And, of course, to continue research into improving our ability to understand and treat.
Interesting point, although you can also pin the lack of creative output on the inability to exchange ideas outside of a small sphere. I can't refute your claim, but I see other possibilities as well.
It's not assault if I'm protecting her from harassment.
Yes, it is. Criminal law includes the concept of justification for very good reasons, but it only extends to actions necessary to prevent the crime. What you described is punitive, not preventative, and is not justifiable. Perhaps turning up the volume a bit will make this clearer. In most US states, you are justified in killing a man to stop him from raping your wife (or another woman; your wife isn't especially privileged in the eyes of the law). But if you catch him raping her and he stands up and starts running away, you can no longer kill him, because punishment is the responsibility and prerogative of the system, not you.
In addition, if the photographer's actions do not actually constitute a crime (perhaps they do, perhaps they don't, look up your local statutes on harassment and public photography), then you can't even assault him in order to stop his actions. You cannot commit a crime to prevent a non-crime.
Of course, there's always the chance that you'll get a sympathetic jury. But I wouldn't want to bet my freedom on that, and my wife wouldn't want me to either.
That's reasonable to me. We do need to figure out as a society how we incorporate these new technologies into our lives, so we can reap the benefits without doing too much damage. I just think it's silly to single out one technology while ignoring other, equivalent, devices.
Personally, I think we should incorporate recording lights into all portable video cameras, phones as well as Glass. I don't think we need to find technological solutions for disabling recording, just ways to make it obvious, so that normal social methods for inhibiting undesirable action can be brought into play. Of course, people can find ways to disable the lights, but people can also bring hidden spycams, which will obviously be designed without recording lights.
the majority of their money touring? Last I heard unless you made it through your first few record deals with your popularity intact and could re-negotiate you weren't making anything on record sales. Heck, at times you were paying the studio to sell your records in the form of loan interest.
No. The big pop acts make their money from record sales. Yes, it's true that early in their careers they tend to get a lower royalty rate than later on, but if their early albums are going multi-platinum, they make lots and lots from royalties.
(I should mention my source: I spent a while working for Universal Music Group, building a royalty calculation engine, and in the process talked extensively with several label account reps who'd been around for a long time. I spent lots of time with the guy who managed U2 for most of their career.)
The way the labels work is that for new bands they do give them with a moderately low royalty rate, meaning the band gets a fairly small percentage of each album's wholesale price. But that's not where they stick it to them. Where they stick it to them is in all of the other deductions and fees. Basically, every penny the label spends to promote the band is recorded and -- usually -- dramatically inflated. During the band's recording session, the label puts the band up in a swanky hotel (either owned or partially owned by the label, or with inflated prices and some kickbacks), provides a limo (owned by the label) to whisk them to and from, buys all their drinks and meals (and drugs and hookers), provides the sound studio (owned by the label) and engineers (employed by the label), etc., etc., etc., all at very inflated prices. Plus there's also all of the expenses around promotions, getting airplay, etc., and all of the touring expenses. Oh and typically there's also an advance on the royalties, cash paid to the band up front.
The labels tally up all of that stuff, with interest, and "recoup" it from the royalty payments that the band would otherwise be due. It's not uncommon for the recoupable expenses associated with an album to reach almost to seven figures. Combine that with the low-ish royalty rate and the band has to sell a lot of records, tapes or CDs to pay back what they "owe" before they ever see a dime. Most bands never do, because most bands don't reach the level of sales required.
There are some other tricks as well, such as "breakage". Back in the days when music was sold on shellac records (before nylon), it was common for a high percentage of records to break in transit. Since it was too hard to track what the actual percentage was, the labels just assumed a certain breakage percentage (10% IIRC) and deducted that from the retailer's price, and passed the deduction on to the artist, taking all of it out of the artist's royalties, not sharing the pain. When new technology came along, more durable nylon, and later very durable 8-track and cassette tapes and CDs, labels continued this practice, giving the retailers a free discount on the wholesale price and making the artists eat all of it. When questioned they say "oh, it's just a promotional discount, under the old name". And promotions are charged to the artist.
However, bands that really make it big do sell enough records to recoup, and start making big bucks on royalties. Later they get wealthy enough -- and smart enough -- that they don't take all of the extremely expensive handouts from the record labels. They have money so they don't need advances. They have their own cars and drivers and don't need limos. Maybe they use the label's studio and maybe they don't, but if they do they have lawyers and agents who negotiate more favorable terms. And they buy their own hookers and blow. So recoupment becomes less of an issue. And eventually they may even negotiate better royalty rates, though that's less common than you might think. The really big stars eventually just create their own labels and contract out distribution through existing la
Or is sous-veillance the antidote? I think there are legitimate questions here, and the answers are neither as simple nor as obvious as you imply.
Of course that only applies for monotheistic religions. In polytheism, it's easy: Our god favours us, and the other tribe's god favours them.
A very valid point... and one that highlights the fact that it's not the religion that generates the violence. Whether the argument is that my god favors me and not you so I'll kill you, or that my god hates your god, so I'll kill you, or you oppose the rise of the proletariat, so I'll kill you, or you're a dirty thieving gypsy, so I'll kill you, or... the rational justifications are endless, but they're only justifications. The real issue is tribalism and lack of empathy for others.
One of the points that Pinker really pounds on in the book is that lack of empathy was endemic in the past (in the future they'll probably say the same of our age; we say it of times just a few generations past). For example, a few hundred years ago I might not only have thought nothing of murdering the heathen, even torturing him to death in order to save his soul, but I would also have thought nothing of brutal punishments and tortures for people of my own village who I perceived to have done wrong, or to have offended me or my family. In the past, governments routinely used horrific tortures like breaking on the wheel for relatively minor crimes, or even just political disagreements, even though the tortured was part of the torturer's "tribe".
a belief in God's favor... Tribalism and lack of empathy
If god favors my group, then the other groups are not favored and are therefore inferior and unworthy of my concern. His reasoning why a belief in god's favor does not cause violence is the reason why it causes violence.
No. Seriously, read the book.
What it boils down to is that such logical deduction isn't how people work at the level where what sort of violence we're comfortable with is decided. The logical arguments are a veneer laid over the top to justify the lizard-brain reactions to "otherness", and the psychological infrastructure that's been built up to determine who is "other", which is based primarily on familiarity. At the end of the day, whether god was invoked or not, the same evaluation of otherness occurs and the same impact on empathy or the lack thereof.
For a modern example which easily cuts out the religious question, look at discussions on immigration. I often have a very different perspective on it from others around me, and I can see exactly where that perspective arose, my own life experiences. I spent years living and working in southern Mexico, with people from all walks of life, and specifically trying to build empathic rapport with them. As a result, my attitude about immigration and global competition in general is that all of the people in other countries have just as much right to my job as I do, and if they can do it better, or cheaper, or faster, then they should. Because to me they're not "other". This is not the case for the majority of Americans, at least, so I often get blank stares of complete incomprehension when I make such statements, and a response of "their lives aren't my problem, and my government should be protecting me". It boils down to foreigners being perceived as "other".
Now, I'm not holding myself up as any kind of paragon. I fully recognize that there are groups around me that I perceive as "other", and my reactions to them are much less empathic than they should be. Of late I've become strongly aware of this as my daughter has moved herself to such a group, and it's difficult for me to reconcile my conflicting reactions. Rationally, I recognize that they are not "other", and she certainly isn't, but my brain isn't wired to think that way, and at 45 years of age it's hard for me to re-program (particularly, when I am both emotionally and rationally quite certain that her choices will lead to unhappiness, but that's just a complication, not the core issue).
It's been well understood in the music business for decades that different genres have different business models, and metal's has always been to use album sales as a way to promote concert attendance. It was rockers who first began giving performances in sports stadiums, because the nature of the music is quite amenable to being played over low-fidelity sound systems, especially because the sheer energy of a big crowd all rocking out far more than offsets any loss in audio quality. And even as stadium rock died out, hard rock and heavy metal bands still made the majority of their money by touring... concert tickets and merchandise, especially t-shirts.
So, while I think it's awesome that Maiden is continuing to make good money doing their thing (I'm a fan, though not hardcore), and that the Internet is even helping them execute their old business model with even greater efficiency, by allowing them to track their fan base through bittorrent statistics, it's not a new model at all. And I think there's a good argument to be made that it's a model that won't work as well for other genres, especially pop and other more "casual" genres. Which may not be such a big loss.
Snark aside, I have no doubt that pop stars will continue to be able to rake in big bucks even if the current model of selling copies of music vanishes entirely. Whether they get paid for touring, or for shilling products, or whatever else, if they can achieve widespread fame through their music, then there will be a way for them to make a living. IMO, the Internet makes the first part of that equation -- achieving widespread notoriety -- much easier. I look at some of my favorite YouTube acts, Lindsey Stirling and The Piano Guys, and I think the success they're achieving would have been impossible pre-Internet, and they've done it by essentially giving their music away for free in a model that's partially ad-supported, but mostly just about building notoriety which they can then exploit in other ways (currently, by selling albums, but other models of exploiting fame would work as well).
So did most Europeans. It's one of the reasons that European history is such an unmitigated meatgrinder
Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature" (which also thoroughly discusses the demons of our nature) argues that the idea that a belief in God's favor caused the violence is false. Tribalism and lack of empathy (the evolution of empathy, especially empathy for people outside of your closest circle, is fascinating and non-obvious) were the cause of the unmitigated meatgrinder, and it wasn't just Europe, it was everywhere. In fact, recorded European history is mild compared to the pre-history archaeology shows us came before it.
I could try to summarize the arguments, but I wouldn't do them justice. I highly recommend the book.
It's also worth considering that privacy is a relatively new concept in human history. Until the last few hundred years, at most, the vast majority of humanity lived in small villages or tribes where basically everyone knew everything about everyone else, at least within their village. Secrets could be kept, but only with difficulty and usually not for a long time.
I think it's worth considering that perhaps privacy is neither necessary nor desirable, and the real problem that we're struggling with isn't privacy but asymmetry of information. In a small village everyone knew everything you did, but you also knew everything they did, so no one was at a disadvantage.
I'm not saying that's how it should be or even that that's how I want it to be. I really don't know where we're going to go with respect to privacy. The one thing I am sure of is that it can be very bad when people believe they have privacy, and make decisions accordingly, only to later find out that they really didn't.
Of course, if *I* caught somebody trying to upskirt-video *my* wife, I'd feed him his camera--sideways--any law to the contrary be damned.
That's assault. If you do him any permanent damage it's aggravated assault and likely maiming as well (two felonies). You might want to think about who's going to protect your wife from photographers while you're in prison.
He's not banning cameras, he's banning an always-on head mounted camera that you cannot tell when it's recording.
It's not always on. You can tell when it's recording.
Everything you say is correct as applied to still photography. Video recording is actually not well covered in the law, but audio recording follows rules closer to what the GP described, and since video usually incorporates audio, those laws apply.
Some states are one-party consent states and some are two-party (that's the nomenclature, though "all-party" would be more accurate). In one-party states, if you're part of the conversation you can record without other participants' knowledge. In two-party states, all participants must be aware or it's a crime. Note that they don't have a legal right to tell you not to record. You just have to make them aware, and then they can decide what they do and don't want to say.
However, questions of public vs private still come into play. In a location where there is no expectation of privacy, there is no expectation of privacy. Police officers in several states have tried to use these wiretap laws to slap down people who recorded them, and the courts have rejected their arguments. Public is public.
Well, he may have broken a law if he was recording. There's no evidence he was, though.
Your mastery of the English language is astounding. Such eloquence.
Smart phones aren't what's being discussed here; and people aren't being asked to leave places for having smartphones, so that's not a problem that needs to be solved.
So why does it need to be solved for Glass, if it doesn't need to be solved for smartphones? Because people can't, or won't, think. That's the only sensible explanation I can come up with.
Because properly generated client certs would be distributed by the sites not a third party signing authority.
That still requires a secure connection to the site at least once, or the attacker can MITM the cert distribution. It's not much different from having the browser watch for unexpected server cert changes; get the true certificate once, and you're good.
I think Moxie Marlinspike's Convergence system is a simpler, cheaper (to the end user, which is where the real cost is) and more flexible solution to the possibility of CA compromise. Certificate pinning is also a very useful tool, though it's of necessity more limited in scope than change notification (Chrome's certificate pinning is how the DigiNotar compromise was found).
I think the most flexible and resilient solution I've seen to date is a combination of Convergence with a set of pinned Convergence server certificates. Oh, and server operators should periodically validate what a common set of Convergence servers see from them. This would be a solution to augment the CA system, but it would provide a sufficiently solid backstop to enable self-signed certs to be used with a high degree of confidence as well (though important sites should get CA certs also).