Re:No one seems opposed to TLD expansion
on
ICANN Elections
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· Score: 1
Follow-up: After browsing information about all the candidates, I've found that the nominee with views closest to mine is Chris Stewart. So I have endorsed him this evening.
Mr. Stewart is wary of unconstrained TLD expansion, as am I, as he sees the major dangers inherent in such a move. I want to elect a director who wants to make any move to expand TLD's with a very careful eye on all the issues involved, whether they be social, economic or technical.
Since MP3's don't provide the same quality you get on a music CD, then in fact, the person downloading the music isn't getting "the real thing" for free.
Thus, this is piracy and not theft. And theft is the immoral act. Piracy wasn't mentioned in any biblical text.
Steve Magruder
No one seems opposed to TLD expansion
on
ICANN Elections
·
· Score: 2
Most of the candidates seem to be brown-nosing on the "artificial scarcity" tenet (i.e., LIE). What a shame. We'll end up with a huge mess after the expansion, and cleaning it up will be "someone else's problem." ICANN is heading toward becoming one big irresponsible glob.
Steve Magruder
Online Voting: Tip of Iceberg?
on
Online Voting?
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· Score: 1
While all the big media outlets hype online voting, my feeling is that they (and the masses who follow them) are obfuscating the true future of online citizen participation.
In the near future, citizens won't simply be voting, they will be building and deliberating initiatives, in other words, legislating! With citizen-sponsored initiatives already legal in 24 U.S. states and hundreds of municipalities, it's only a matter of time (and a few technical steps) before we see not-for-profit online sites dedicated to ordinary citizenry posting initiative ideas and asking other citizens to "sign their petition," followed by the constructing of the legislation, deliberating on that, then finally, voting.
There are already cases of individual initiative sponsors putting up web sites to promote their initiatives and to get individuals to snail-mail them their petition signature. And with digital signatures becoming legally binding, it thus becomes easier to gather signatures online.
The bottom line is that the citizenry inevitably won't just settle for voting on their representatives every two years. They will want to decide individual issues and implement them in real-time. Direct, digital, deliberative democracy is the next big thing.
For great discussion about direct democracy, I recommend taking a look at cicdd.
Here I go again! Here's my reasons why TLD expansion is a shitty solution to a nonexistent problem:
"Limited domain choice" is a LIE - To suggest that there are no or few domains left to choose from is denial or ignorance at best and "lyin' thru the teeth" at worst. Sure, most good or great names are already taken, but a great many of those are not being used at all (or used in a worthwhile manner) by their owners! Call them squatters, but I dare say that most of these domain owners would part with their property for a paltry sum. Further, there's a great [inevitable] churning going on in the dot-com marketplace, whereas many of the dot-com's in business today won't be around in a couple years (see f**kedcompany.com). So if you want a specific dot-com for your business, and it's already taken, patience and/or a good cash offer are your friends.
Domain "land" values will become depressed - Isn't this obvious? Triple the availability of beachfront property, and the value of the original properties' owners will plummet. Why shouldn't a clever domain namer reap the reward from their own creativity?
Domain marketing effectiveness will become diluted - For those fledgling companies that cannot easily afford purchasing their domain name in all the new TLDs, how do they deal with the dilution that will rip their marketing efforts to shreds? The answer is: They're dead meat.
The biggest benefactors are the domain registration companies - Who makes the real money from this TLD expansion? Again, obvious.
A trademark-related litigation feeding frenzy will ensue - Many big corporations will certainly be able to grab all the new TLDs for their company, but what about the companies who are unable to do this before someone else squats on them, and what about the smaller/medium companies who cannot afford to handle this? So, you either have voluminous litigation arising out of trademark disputes, or trademark violation that goes uncontested, thereby hurting fledgling businesses. It's going to be a g-d mess!
A big land grab will negate the expansion - After all is said and done, won't we have the same "problem" we started with? At some point will arise again the perception that there aren't enough good/great domain names to choose from, which will again be a LIE.
As an at-large voter, I will only vote for candidates who are opposed to the ridiculous proposal for TLD expansion. If you want to know my full position, see the earlier ICANN topic.
Supposedly, ICANN is making the final decision on the expansion before the election. So much for democracy at ICANN.
"TBI morphed into software-startup Maxager, which intends to offer Bionomical tools to companies. Borsook wonders what meaning can be ascribed to the success or the failure of the company. If Maxager fails, is it because it wasn't Bionomically good enough, or just because of the many uncontrollable factors that cause the vast majority of startups to fail? If it succeeds, does it validate Bionomics, or just the good connections the founder has with Silicon Valley venture capitalists?"
First, Maxager doesn't "intend" to offer bionomical tools. Maxager Technology has just released Maxager® 4.0! Maxager is the only Advanced Profit Analysis tool available for manufacturers. (See maxager.com for more details.)
Second, Maxager Technology doesn't work like "Darwin's world" internally, but rather like most other Silicon Valley startups, where there's plenty of teamwork, perks and fun (it's not "each man for himself").
Last, I don't believe that the success or failure of Maxager validates or invalidates the concept of Bionomics, as the Maxager product, when it's boiled down to its essence, simply provides manufacturers the ability to determine the product mixes that provide for the greatest profit velocity and machine utilization efficiency. Now wouldn't any manufacturer want to enhance their profits?
Sure, I'm biased, but I wouldn't work for a company that didn't produce and sell a product that didn't have practical value in the marketplace.
It's never "throwing away" one's vote to vote for the candidate you actually want to become President. Voting for the lesser of two evils is indeed throwing away the vote.
Since both Bush and Gore are not worthy of this high office, I don't care who of them wins if and when I vote for my consumer rights hero, Ralph Nader. Ralph is the only candidate running who I can put my full faith and trust in. Of course, I don't agree with Ralph on every issue, but at least he and his party are not bought and paid for. Their positions on the issues are *their* positions on the issues.
Hey CmdrTaco, beware the Protectorate of the Empty Suit. These Shrub shills will find many ways to belittle anyone who has the common sense to see Shrub for the complete moron he is.
You're right in that these polls do provide new fodder for the "American people are stupid" argument. The empty suit gives the blandest speech in convention history, chock full of platitudes, and his numbers go up. Simply depressing.
It's not about Republican vs. Democratic financial values.
It's about Bush's unwillingness to pare down the public debt and instead release most of the surplus funds for economically unneeded tax cuts. And it's about Gore's continuing to reduce the debt and thus reduce the gargantuan interest payments on same. After the debt is substantially reduced or gone, we will all get a much much larger tax cut!
I don't really like Gore, but at least he has economic sense.
"Not surprisingly, this techno-civilization has little interest in the political systems that still dominate society, so it radically underestimates their power and has an inflated sense of its own."
It's not as much an underestimation as it is contempt (of that which is easily contemptible by anyone with half-a-brain). Further, I believe techies understand their universe is narrow, but it's a matter of most techies not having yet realized their true power to effect change in the real world. With the Internet, techies have a tool for change that wields incredible power and influence.
"Having known only one reality, the young and techno-savvy can't quite imagine any other."
Oh come on! These techies took the same tests everyone else did while getting their early education. To suggest that most techies only care about technology and not subjects like history or politics is quite a smear.
"As a culture, it mistakes mechanical skills -- like programming an operating system -- with technological knowledge and power."
Programming an operating system is an art, my friend! And certainly an ability to build an Internet concept and an organization around it again can wield tremendous political power, if the purpose is noble and grand (such as "direct democracy") and the applications therein, specific.
"It tolerates an alarming amount of hostility and abuse, both of which make any political communications -- at least those in public -- nearly impossible."
Quite the contrary. Have you ever had to deal with the public as a service employee? Heck, if I were a McDonald's employee, I'd *rather* deal with level-headed techies than most other people! Further, our innate ability to deliberate and make decisions through a thick air of hostility and/or incredible roadblocks gives techies a distinct advantage over traditional politicians or civic-interested citizenry.
"The techno-young correctly grasp that many of the country's seminal institutions -- politics, journalism, education -- have failed them and the larger society. But nobody seems to have given much thought to what might replace them, or to how they might defend themselves against increasingly encroachments from the off-line world."
When techies realize their full power, and I know they will (sooner, rather than later), this will all change.
"The techno-world eschews even the most marginal understanding of the tortured history of technology, the awareness that periods of technological advancement are always followed by periods of fear and retrenchment."
Except for now, since we've already passed into the age of Technopoly. Read Neil Postman's book (c) 1993. I don't agree with his conclusions, but the rest of the book is a great read and "oh, so true."
"Granted an unprecented opportunity to speak, we have not bothered to learn how to listen. Our freedom to speak out becomes illusory when most of us are shouting into a void, because nobody really cares what we say. Meanwhile, the real social and political agendas are being set by older people with little knowledge of technology, working out of l9th century institutions corrupted by corporate money."
That is, until techies _invent_ digital direct democracy.
"It's a great question. Liberalism and conservatism have been discredited, Libertarianism seems rigid and stagnant. In fact, conventional political ideologies seem far too narrow and inflexible for these times."
The vast numbers of independent voters in America will agree with this, and perhaps even some of those who are party members.
"[Individualism is] the only possible antidote to life in country evolving steady towards a corporate rather than democratic republic."
That's why any version of direct democracy must address not only traditional public policy, but also corporate policy insofar as it relates to the communities they reside in and the customers/consumers they serve.
"We think the individual's primary responsibility is to speak freely and become prosperous. Neither of those are small or inconsequential things, but as a cultural or social philosophy, they ring hollow. They promote cynicism, hostility, alienation, superiority, and most of all, they leave this culture vulnerable to better organized and powerful elites -- media, Congress, corporations."
Does freedom of speech and of opportunity detract from or add to our political power? Your answer will determine if you are a democrat (small 'd') or not. And to call freedom "hollow" is quite a hoot!
"We hear political truth daily -- we are vaguely conscious of threats to privacy, the looming menace of genetic and other technologies, poorly made, unnecessary and overpriced technology, challenges to the environment, human dignity, etc. -- but don't much want to deal with them. People worried about these issues are derided -- in this techno-culture as crackpots and extremists. We either laugh at them or dismiss them."
These concerned individuals are derided by the media elite, who continually decide "who's up and who's down," far more than by other techies.
"Technology can either be the vehicle through which those voices are re-democratized, or it can provide the tools through which corporatism can generate even more money."
It's always "nice" to see Congress hand a big present to the vicious credit industry and banks via the bankruptcy "reform" (nee hard-nosed squeezing of consumers who run into bad financial times largely due to extremely high credit card interest rates and creditors extending waaaay too much credit to those who can't handle it, but I digress).
But the idea of extending the anti-human war on drugs in any way defies rationality. The fact of multitudes of otherwise innocent people in prison simply due to drug possession should make any decent person sick to their stomach, esp. those who have known people to have suffered in jail or prison (just because someone is convicted of a crime doesn't always make them a bad person or someone who actually committed a crime...there are many people who are framed, in many cases by prosecutors, but again, I digress). Also consider how blacks are especially picked on by the narcs and imprisoned in high proportion to non-blacks, as if blacks are using/dealing drugs *that* much more than non-blacks (get real!).
Big surprise, but I support the full legalization of marijuana and the decriminalization of using other "illicit" drugs. And guess what? I've never used any of these drugs. I could give a laundry list of reasons for my position (like "treatment works", "saving people's lives from the hard time of prison" and "using hemp will save trees"), but I'll just say this: I dare say that anyone who open-mindedly examines the "war on drugs" closely enough for a good period of time will come to the same conclusions.
The war on drugs is an evil scourge and must be ended. For more info on drug policy reform, go here.
Strange thought: Are the government and big corporations coming up with yet another way to imprison the innocent? Behold the "war on piracy." Watch your back.
Have I just realized the obvious? That copyright law no longer effectively applies to artistic works that that can be digitized? Can the legal authorities really stop the Internet and the multitudinous technical minions from mirroring Napster's capabilities around the world, esp. when there's already many such sites up and running? I'm not questioning copyright law here (although perhaps it should be looked at). I question the RIAA's intelligence in fighting Napster, when they should have realized that the cat is outta the bag, bigtime. There is really no effective way to reel this "problem" in. The RIAA should give up the ghost. Music, movies, art, photos, software, etc. are now all FREE. That is, the monetized (not aesthetic, emotional, social, etc.) value of art is vanishing and cannot be recovered. Companies and artists that provide these neo-freebies will now have to make money through alternative methods. Re: music, artists can sell collectibles and give concerts (what a concept!) Re: software, companies can sell support and paper-based documentation (open source rules!). And so on. In ten years, copyright law will be the shell of what it once was. They will only do one thing: Assign a work of art to the one who created it. And the direct cause of this? TECHNOPOLY
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Follow-up: After browsing information about all the candidates, I've found that the nominee with views closest to mine is Chris Stewart. So I have endorsed him this evening.
Mr. Stewart is wary of unconstrained TLD expansion, as am I, as he sees the major dangers inherent in such a move. I want to elect a director who wants to make any move to expand TLD's with a very careful eye on all the issues involved, whether they be social, economic or technical.
Steve Magruder
Since MP3's don't provide the same quality you get on a music CD, then in fact, the person downloading the music isn't getting "the real thing" for free.
Thus, this is piracy and not theft. And theft is the immoral act. Piracy wasn't mentioned in any biblical text.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder
While all the big media outlets hype online voting, my feeling is that they (and the masses who follow them) are obfuscating the true future of online citizen participation.
In the near future, citizens won't simply be voting, they will be building and deliberating initiatives, in other words, legislating! With citizen-sponsored initiatives already legal in 24 U.S. states and hundreds of municipalities, it's only a matter of time (and a few technical steps) before we see not-for-profit online sites dedicated to ordinary citizenry posting initiative ideas and asking other citizens to "sign their petition," followed by the constructing of the legislation, deliberating on that, then finally, voting.
There are already cases of individual initiative sponsors putting up web sites to promote their initiatives and to get individuals to snail-mail them their petition signature. And with digital signatures becoming legally binding, it thus becomes easier to gather signatures online.
The bottom line is that the citizenry inevitably won't just settle for voting on their representatives every two years. They will want to decide individual issues and implement them in real-time. Direct, digital, deliberative democracy is the next big thing.
For great discussion about direct democracy, I recommend taking a look at cicdd.
Steve Magruder
Here I go again! Here's my reasons why TLD expansion is a shitty solution to a nonexistent problem:
Steve Magruder
As an at-large voter, I will only vote for candidates who are opposed to the ridiculous proposal for TLD expansion. If you want to know my full position, see the earlier ICANN topic.
Supposedly, ICANN is making the final decision on the expansion before the election. So much for democracy at ICANN.
Steve Magruder
This is yet another forced [death] march of IBM's warm bodies onto a hot "new" technology.
And lookie! They have Linux running on top of VM/ESA on the S/390! Who gives a rat's arse???
Steve Magruder
Addendum:
If the success of Maxager validates anything, that would be the Theory of Constraints.
Steve Magruder
"TBI morphed into software-startup Maxager, which intends to offer Bionomical tools to companies. Borsook wonders what meaning can be ascribed to the success or the failure of the company. If Maxager fails, is it because it wasn't Bionomically good enough, or just because of the many uncontrollable factors that cause the vast majority of startups to fail? If it succeeds, does it validate Bionomics, or just the good connections the founder has with Silicon Valley venture capitalists?"
First, Maxager doesn't "intend" to offer bionomical tools. Maxager Technology has just released Maxager® 4.0! Maxager is the only Advanced Profit Analysis tool available for manufacturers. (See maxager.com for more details.)
Second, Maxager Technology doesn't work like "Darwin's world" internally, but rather like most other Silicon Valley startups, where there's plenty of teamwork, perks and fun (it's not "each man for himself").
Last, I don't believe that the success or failure of Maxager validates or invalidates the concept of Bionomics, as the Maxager product, when it's boiled down to its essence, simply provides manufacturers the ability to determine the product mixes that provide for the greatest profit velocity and machine utilization efficiency. Now wouldn't any manufacturer want to enhance their profits?
Sure, I'm biased, but I wouldn't work for a company that didn't produce and sell a product that didn't have practical value in the marketplace.
Steve Magruder
It's never "throwing away" one's vote to vote for the candidate you actually want to become President. Voting for the lesser of two evils is indeed throwing away the vote.
Since both Bush and Gore are not worthy of this high office, I don't care who of them wins if and when I vote for my consumer rights hero, Ralph Nader. Ralph is the only candidate running who I can put my full faith and trust in. Of course, I don't agree with Ralph on every issue, but at least he and his party are not bought and paid for. Their positions on the issues are *their* positions on the issues.
Go Nader go!
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder
It's not about Republican vs. Democratic financial values.
It's about Bush's unwillingness to pare down the public debt and instead release most of the surplus funds for economically unneeded tax cuts. And it's about Gore's continuing to reduce the debt and thus reduce the gargantuan interest payments on same. After the debt is substantially reduced or gone, we will all get a much much larger tax cut!
I don't really like Gore, but at least he has economic sense.
Steve Magruder
Correction: "... + Sum(i=1 to 6a) NT 4 SPi + Win2000 + Win2000 SP1Beta"
Aren't I a stinker? :)
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder
And this is why Moody's intentions are transparent. :)
There's too much "sun" shining re: the reality of Linux to let this moron get away with this article.
Steve Magruder
"Not surprisingly, this techno-civilization has little interest in the political systems that still dominate society, so it radically underestimates their power and has an inflated sense of its own."
It's not as much an underestimation as it is contempt (of that which is easily contemptible by anyone with half-a-brain). Further, I believe techies understand their universe is narrow, but it's a matter of most techies not having yet realized their true power to effect change in the real world. With the Internet, techies have a tool for change that wields incredible power and influence.
"Having known only one reality, the young and techno-savvy can't quite imagine any other."
Oh come on! These techies took the same tests everyone else did while getting their early education. To suggest that most techies only care about technology and not subjects like history or politics is quite a smear.
"As a culture, it mistakes mechanical skills -- like programming an operating system -- with technological knowledge and power."
Programming an operating system is an art, my friend! And certainly an ability to build an Internet concept and an organization around it again can wield tremendous political power, if the purpose is noble and grand (such as "direct democracy") and the applications therein, specific.
"It tolerates an alarming amount of hostility and abuse, both of which make any political communications -- at least those in public -- nearly impossible."
Quite the contrary. Have you ever had to deal with the public as a service employee? Heck, if I were a McDonald's employee, I'd *rather* deal with level-headed techies than most other people! Further, our innate ability to deliberate and make decisions through a thick air of hostility and/or incredible roadblocks gives techies a distinct advantage over traditional politicians or civic-interested citizenry.
"The techno-young correctly grasp that many of the country's seminal institutions -- politics, journalism, education -- have failed them and the larger society. But nobody seems to have given much thought to what might replace them, or to how they might defend themselves against increasingly encroachments from the off-line world."
When techies realize their full power, and I know they will (sooner, rather than later), this will all change.
"The techno-world eschews even the most marginal understanding of the tortured history of technology, the awareness that periods of technological advancement are always followed by periods of fear and retrenchment."
Except for now, since we've already passed into the age of Technopoly. Read Neil Postman's book (c) 1993. I don't agree with his conclusions, but the rest of the book is a great read and "oh, so true."
"Granted an unprecented opportunity to speak, we have not bothered to learn how to listen. Our freedom to speak out becomes illusory when most of us are shouting into a void, because nobody really cares what we say. Meanwhile, the real social and political agendas are being set by older people with little knowledge of technology, working out of l9th century institutions corrupted by corporate money."
That is, until techies _invent_ digital direct democracy.
"It's a great question. Liberalism and conservatism have been discredited, Libertarianism seems rigid and stagnant. In fact, conventional political ideologies seem far too narrow and inflexible for these times."
The vast numbers of independent voters in America will agree with this, and perhaps even some of those who are party members.
"[Individualism is] the only possible antidote to life in country evolving steady towards a corporate rather than democratic republic."
That's why any version of direct democracy must address not only traditional public policy, but also corporate policy insofar as it relates to the communities they reside in and the customers/consumers they serve.
"We think the individual's primary responsibility is to speak freely and become prosperous. Neither of those are small or inconsequential things, but as a cultural or social philosophy, they ring hollow. They promote cynicism, hostility, alienation, superiority, and most of all, they leave this culture vulnerable to better organized and powerful elites -- media, Congress, corporations."
Does freedom of speech and of opportunity detract from or add to our political power? Your answer will determine if you are a democrat (small 'd') or not. And to call freedom "hollow" is quite a hoot!
"We hear political truth daily -- we are vaguely conscious of threats to privacy, the looming menace of genetic and other technologies, poorly made, unnecessary and overpriced technology, challenges to the environment, human dignity, etc. -- but don't much want to deal with them. People worried about these issues are derided -- in this techno-culture as crackpots and extremists. We either laugh at them or dismiss them."
These concerned individuals are derided by the media elite, who continually decide "who's up and who's down," far more than by other techies.
"Technology can either be the vehicle through which those voices are re-democratized, or it can provide the tools through which corporatism can generate even more money."
It can certainly do both.
Steve Magruder
It's always "nice" to see Congress hand a big present to the vicious credit industry and banks via the bankruptcy "reform" (nee hard-nosed squeezing of consumers who run into bad financial times largely due to extremely high credit card interest rates and creditors extending waaaay too much credit to those who can't handle it, but I digress).
But the idea of extending the anti-human war on drugs in any way defies rationality. The fact of multitudes of otherwise innocent people in prison simply due to drug possession should make any decent person sick to their stomach, esp. those who have known people to have suffered in jail or prison (just because someone is convicted of a crime doesn't always make them a bad person or someone who actually committed a crime...there are many people who are framed, in many cases by prosecutors, but again, I digress). Also consider how blacks are especially picked on by the narcs and imprisoned in high proportion to non-blacks, as if blacks are using/dealing drugs *that* much more than non-blacks (get real!).
Big surprise, but I support the full legalization of marijuana and the decriminalization of using other "illicit" drugs. And guess what? I've never used any of these drugs. I could give a laundry list of reasons for my position (like "treatment works", "saving people's lives from the hard time of prison" and "using hemp will save trees"), but I'll just say this: I dare say that anyone who open-mindedly examines the "war on drugs" closely enough for a good period of time will come to the same conclusions.
The war on drugs is an evil scourge and must be ended. For more info on drug policy reform, go here.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Technopolist
Steve Magruder, Technopolist
Steve Magruder, Technopolist
Steve Magruder, Technopolist