The subversion of actual, real, useful international bodies like the U.N.O. by fradulent/'legalistic' capitalist poseurs such as the 'WIPO', the 'WTO' -- and whatnot -- to ends which have next to nothing to do what the great mass of the world's people need and require. This outcome is a predictable result of the degeneration of the ideals of the U.N.O. at the hands of these capitalist roaders in the present post-soviet period.
And I can imagine any reply to the above from/.'s libertarian fringe mouth-frothers...
Re:Biggest problem with astronomy...
on
Shapes of Time
·
· Score: 1
I second the motion. To such a succinct retort, I will only add that 'metaphysics' (nice ten-dollar word, huh?) is a poor relation to its vastly superior successor: a materialist understanding of 'emergent behavior' -- something
Dennett does indeed excel at teasing out of empirical facts.
OS fanatics have been busy yabbering to anyone who'll listen why their utopian communist way
I do not understand why you think that OpenSource is exempted from capitalist market forces. It is precisely the market forces that the OpenSource movement wants put into play and that MS et al is afraid of.
Actually, Open Source -- or more accurately, Free Software -- is indeed communistic/communalist by its very nature; But it is also true that this phenomenon is being presently, uh, 'mediated' thru a distorting lens of capitalist relations...
That fella who first discovered that you can ignite fire by rubbing two pieces of dry wood vigorously deserved a patent (too bad, the instrument was not yet available, neither was money).
Ah... the bourgeois mind yet again projecting its narrow world-view into the distant past -- and naturally coming up with a ridiculous result.
Before you go all holier-than-thou with academia, I would suggest to you that with out the finanical support of the biotech firms much of that research would not be funded or possible.
Idiot.
Academia -- and all other public infrastructure, for that matter -- wouldn't BE in financial straits if the corporations weren't so successful in evading taxes -- and foisting them on a bewildered and beknighted populace.
But then, I would just nationalize the lot and be done with this bullshit. Humanity can exist just FINE without greedy fucks like you and your idols.
Capitalism and individualism to a maximum we are talking about. Everything MUST have a price, so that there can be a monetary incentive. If you have someone that may have other motives than money, show them POVERTY:) and you'll get them on your side.
Really, capitalism still works better than comunism (comunism = no matter what you do, you wont have ANY of it).
What incoherent tripe.
Capitalism is the system which famously eats its young alive -- and is proving this more and more with each passing year.
Many people don't really know what to make of all this, even though they KNOW they don't like it one bit -- but out of ignorance of an alternative, mostly, they grudgingly go along with this shite...
However, at some point -- sooner than they might think -- most people are going to realize/finally admit that this monster of greed has to be stopped, and an egalitarian society created in its place.
Don't think committees work? Look at the Free Software movement.
I posted above, but here it is again - my mom helped start Compute! back when I was growing up. If you have some kind words for her, I'll be glad to pass them on.
It bothers me that no one replied to the first one..
Tell your mom that I and many others remember, and enjoyed greatly, magazines like Compute! Of which I'm sure I have a boxfull around here somewhere still..!
As someone who has been the recipient of CDN gov't, uh, ATTENTIONS, for many years, it's with the greatest of clarity and ease that I can assure you: the CDN gov't is every bit the police state that the U.S./Brit/etc. gov'ts are -- and anything they are planning like this WILL be used to control people. We must resist this stuff. I, for one, will never use it -- to say the least.
This increasingly ominous use of Internet technology by the state could only become a debateable issue for (FI) suburban working people -- mall-goers; geeks -- who have essentially uncritically supported such governments up till now, only because the state has never needed -- yet -- to more directly control them. Not so lucky the poor, the immigrant, the colored -- the politically-active. Not so lucky the imperial subjects in the colonies. And certainly no one is offering them any Brave New World at 456 degrees Fahrenheit. Such people are not part of the/. demographic, and are not going to be asked for their opinions on such benevolent offerings of the state...
And then again: some people think it would be so kewl to actually get a microchip imbedded in their necks (I've had this little gem of hope put point-blank to me more than once).
Hey -- go to IndyMedia and ask them what they think of this use of technology.
I'm not exactly sure I understand the "idiocy" of property laws. Only intellectual property. Are you talking about property in general or intellectual property? If you're talking about property in general, please explain.
Speaking of not being clear: are we talking 'personal' property -- as in beer? Or 'property' -- as in owning media conglomerates which control 90% of all information flow in a country, or transnationals which own more wealth than whole mid-sized countries?
It's an old propaganda trick to whip up fear and ignorance about someone taking away your little 'freehold' suburban bungalow, when the issue has always been: why should an elite of selfish individuals be allowed to contol most of the public wealth and even use it in ways which harm the people who created it?
'Private Property' is one of those false gods which enslaves the people who pray to it. It has been created to codify exploitation. Applying it, fetish-like, in more and more ridiculous ways is only a symptom of a decaying system which can no longer find useful outlets for such practices -- which in the past at least expressed a kind of horrid logic.
The deeper in crisis the capitalist economy gets, the more idiotic its property laws reveal themselves to be; but I don't expect libertarians to grasp this essential truth for some time to come yet...
On and on we go about THIS country's laws and THAT country's laws, GPL vs yadda yadda...
The ONE option most every libertarian skirts around: getting rid of capitalism and its idiot 'laws' altogether. They are holding the whole world back, and this is being proven more and more clearly every day.
I don't buy into the WWF's doomsday warning, but I do think that we shouldn't just ignore all environmentalist reasoning. We ARE causing damage to the earth. Can we stop the impact? Not unless we cease to exist. But if we can do our best to highten the quality of life for every living thing on earth, why not? It pisses me off that people have to be one extreme or another.. neither helps us in the long run.
I didn't read most of the replies on this, but I don't have to, really:/. readers are a pretty predictable demografik...
The problem with the article is not with its alarmism; it's with its too-typical assumption that capitalism -- the total 'collective' culprit here -- is somehow with us forever. It is not. It is a passing historical phase of human relations which may have initially provided us with the industrial means to rise above sleepy peasant feudalism -- but which has now entirely overstayed its welcome, like some doped-up crazy who started out as the life of the party...
This crisis is part of the very death rattle of this system of hyper-exploitation.
Ya, libertarians are notoriously dumb about anything outside their narrow vision of 'free markets'. 'People's this and that' my ass -- timothy doesn't have a clue. What does he suppose GNU/Linux is?? 'Innovation' is so much a sacred cow with these people that they can only conceive of it in a neo-liberal context. Pathetic.
Enuff with the sneering backhands against socialism. Your enemy is capitalism -- which will always end up in monopoly -- the antithesis of 'freedom'.
It was pretty clearly meant to imply that Star Wars-type projection -- even full motion -- holography was finally here. I'm glad someone besides me noticed the obvious: that this is technology which still uses a piece of (rather large, I gather) film. No Princess Leia's moving around here.
I remember this type of of computer-generated hologram being discussed -- and produced - in the 1980's (a lot of small, 'commercial' holograms are computer-generated, aren't they?) -- the only difference here apparently being that these are large and impressive, elegant holograms; and that a cost-effective way has been developed to make them in full color. That's all. Just an 'incremental' step, really.
In the short-term, the only way things will break out of the control of the U.S.G. is if during a probable world-wide trade war between blocs, each of them carves out their 'sphere of influence' on the internet; and I suppose, 'negotiates' the 'interface' to each of the other 'root' domains. It wouldn't surprise me if China were to be the first to break out of a U.S.-controlled Internet, followed by the EU and/or the 'muslim'/african world...
But, clearly the BEST way to go? A socialist world without corporate behemoths -- and a democratically-controlled Internet (among other things) based on just such a 'bottom-up' approach.
I know libertarians don't like the prospect of communism -- being brought up in a knee-jerk ultra-capitalist environment -- but I point out that it is such as their laissez-faire attitude which has allowed the corporations to pull this very maneuver on us. It was bound to happen, given the amount of 'good faith' allowed the U.S.G. and its corporate backers -- a VERY ugly and criminal group of people, really!
Us commies could, and did, easily predict this state of afairs.
The incessant augmentation of police state powers is NOT a cool thing at all.
The way a lot of people around/. talk about these things, it's pretty clear that they don't ever expect to be the object of these new 'toys'. I find the complacent, pseudo-cool, abstract discussion of these matters to be almost as scary as this police state 'apparatus'.
Tell me people: just when do the warning bells go off in your heads (the 'crime' issue is always meant to sidetrack your critical reasoning powers, BTW)?
Public awareness of this issue is probably very low.
As most of us understand, this is about censorship and accountability -- and not about 'protecting the public' or whatever. These authoritarian bureaucrats always thrive on anonymity and obscurity. They don't give a damn about democracy -- only about dictating to the rest of us, that's for sure. It's just easier to get away with this shit, when they can use these 'mom & apple pie' kneejerk excuses. Of course they intend to use these lists to censor their political opponents -- if they are not already doing so -- which is the point of the disclosure request.
Their biggest enemy, and their greatest fear is public disclosure and openness. People should understand that these are political decisions and not 'policy' or 'regulations' or whatever they would call it this time to give it that 'official' 'look & feel'. With a concerted effort -- and tying this in with all the other mischief these types are up to, we can break their little games into pieces -- because politics trumps 'law' any day of the week.
Slashdot Mirror
Gonna have to put my old ST back together...
What program was that again?
The real issue?
The subversion of actual, real, useful international bodies like the U.N.O. by fradulent/'legalistic' capitalist poseurs such as the 'WIPO', the 'WTO' -- and whatnot -- to ends which have next to nothing to do what the great mass of the world's people need and require. This outcome is a predictable result of the degeneration of the ideals of the U.N.O. at the hands of these capitalist roaders in the present post-soviet period.
And I can imagine any reply to the above from /.'s libertarian fringe mouth-frothers...
I second the motion. To such a succinct retort, I will only add that 'metaphysics' (nice ten-dollar word, huh?) is a poor relation to its vastly superior successor: a materialist understanding of 'emergent behavior' -- something Dennett does indeed excel at teasing out of empirical facts.
I do not understand why you think that OpenSource is exempted from capitalist market forces. It is precisely the market forces that the OpenSource movement wants put into play and that MS et al is afraid of.
Actually, Open Source -- or more accurately, Free Software -- is indeed communistic/communalist by its very nature; But it is also true that this phenomenon is being presently, uh, 'mediated' thru a distorting lens of capitalist relations...
Why am I getting the sneaking suspicion that some of these AC's come across uncannily like drug company ringers?
Ah... the bourgeois mind yet again projecting its narrow world-view into the distant past -- and naturally coming up with a ridiculous result.
Fred Flintstone Lives!
And I'd especially like to see YOUR pro-capitalist ass nationalized first, Hot Shot.
Idiot.
Academia -- and all other public infrastructure, for that matter -- wouldn't BE in financial straits if the corporations weren't so successful in evading taxes -- and foisting them on a bewildered and beknighted populace.
But then, I would just nationalize the lot and be done with this bullshit. Humanity can exist just FINE without greedy fucks like you and your idols.
What incoherent tripe.
Capitalism is the system which famously eats its young alive -- and is proving this more and more with each passing year.
Many people don't really know what to make of all this, even though they KNOW they don't like it one bit -- but out of ignorance of an alternative, mostly, they grudgingly go along with this shite...
However, at some point -- sooner than they might think -- most people are going to realize/finally admit that this monster of greed has to be stopped, and an egalitarian society created in its place.
Don't think committees work? Look at the Free Software movement.
It bothers me that no one replied to the first one..
Tell your mom that I and many others remember, and enjoyed greatly, magazines like Compute! Of which I'm sure I have a boxfull around here somewhere still..!
Anti-communist hysteria -- not to mention bald-faced lies and disinfo -- don't play nearly so well outside North America, jerk.
As someone who has been the recipient of CDN gov't, uh, ATTENTIONS, for many years, it's with the greatest of clarity and ease that I can assure you: the CDN gov't is every bit the police state that the U.S./Brit/etc. gov'ts are -- and anything they are planning like this WILL be used to control people. We must resist this stuff. I, for one, will never use it -- to say the least.
This increasingly ominous use of Internet technology by the state could only become a debateable issue for (FI) suburban working people -- mall-goers; geeks -- who have essentially uncritically supported such governments up till now, only because the state has never needed -- yet -- to more directly control them. Not so lucky the poor, the immigrant, the colored -- the politically-active. Not so lucky the imperial subjects in the colonies. And certainly no one is offering them any Brave New World at 456 degrees Fahrenheit. Such people are not part of the /. demographic, and are not going to be asked for their opinions on such benevolent offerings of the state...
And then again: some people think it would be so kewl to actually get a microchip imbedded in their necks (I've had this little gem of hope put point-blank to me more than once).
Hey -- go to IndyMedia and ask them what they think of this use of technology.
Actually, yeah.
And why not stop thinking in stereotypes? It makes you a lesser person.
Speaking of not being clear: are we talking 'personal' property -- as in beer? Or 'property' -- as in owning media conglomerates which control 90% of all information flow in a country, or transnationals which own more wealth than whole mid-sized countries?
It's an old propaganda trick to whip up fear and ignorance about someone taking away your little 'freehold' suburban bungalow, when the issue has always been: why should an elite of selfish individuals be allowed to contol most of the public wealth and even use it in ways which harm the people who created it?
'Private Property' is one of those false gods which enslaves the people who pray to it. It has been created to codify exploitation. Applying it, fetish-like, in more and more ridiculous ways is only a symptom of a decaying system which can no longer find useful outlets for such practices -- which in the past at least expressed a kind of horrid logic.
Cute.
The deeper in crisis the capitalist economy gets, the more idiotic its property laws reveal themselves to be; but I don't expect libertarians to grasp this essential truth for some time to come yet...
Another sneering -- yet completely evasive -- non-reply. I am so humbled.
I'm sorry -- but you SO TOTALLY don't understand. What a narrow view of humanity!
On and on we go about THIS country's laws and THAT country's laws, GPL vs yadda yadda...
The ONE option most every libertarian skirts around: getting rid of capitalism and its idiot 'laws' altogether. They are holding the whole world back, and this is being proven more and more clearly every day.
I didn't read most of the replies on this, but I don't have to, really: /. readers are a pretty predictable demografik...
The problem with the article is not with its alarmism; it's with its too-typical assumption that capitalism -- the total 'collective' culprit here -- is somehow with us forever. It is not. It is a passing historical phase of human relations which may have initially provided us with the industrial means to rise above sleepy peasant feudalism -- but which has now entirely overstayed its welcome, like some doped-up crazy who started out as the life of the party...
This crisis is part of the very death rattle of this system of hyper-exploitation.
The above just about completely proving my point.
Up the Revolution -- and up yours, fella.
Ya, libertarians are notoriously dumb about anything outside their narrow vision of 'free markets'. 'People's this and that' my ass -- timothy doesn't have a clue. What does he suppose GNU/Linux is?? 'Innovation' is so much a sacred cow with these people that they can only conceive of it in a neo-liberal context. Pathetic.
Enuff with the sneering backhands against socialism. Your enemy is capitalism -- which will always end up in monopoly -- the antithesis of 'freedom'.
It was pretty clearly meant to imply that Star Wars-type projection -- even full motion -- holography was finally here. I'm glad someone besides me noticed the obvious: that this is technology which still uses a piece of (rather large, I gather) film. No Princess Leia's moving around here.
I remember this type of of computer-generated hologram being discussed -- and produced - in the 1980's (a lot of small, 'commercial' holograms are computer-generated, aren't they?) -- the only difference here apparently being that these are large and impressive, elegant holograms; and that a cost-effective way has been developed to make them in full color. That's all. Just an 'incremental' step, really.
In the short-term, the only way things will break out of the control of the U.S.G. is if during a probable world-wide trade war between blocs, each of them carves out their 'sphere of influence' on the internet; and I suppose, 'negotiates' the 'interface' to each of the other 'root' domains. It wouldn't surprise me if China were to be the first to break out of a U.S.-controlled Internet, followed by the EU and/or the 'muslim'/african world...
But, clearly the BEST way to go? A socialist world without corporate behemoths -- and a democratically-controlled Internet (among other things) based on just such a 'bottom-up' approach.
I know libertarians don't like the prospect of communism -- being brought up in a knee-jerk ultra-capitalist environment -- but I point out that it is such as their laissez-faire attitude which has allowed the corporations to pull this very maneuver on us. It was bound to happen, given the amount of 'good faith' allowed the U.S.G. and its corporate backers -- a VERY ugly and criminal group of people, really!
Us commies could, and did, easily predict this state of afairs.
We also still have the only practical solution.
The incessant augmentation of police state powers is NOT a cool thing at all.
The way a lot of people around /. talk about these things, it's pretty clear that they don't ever expect to be the object of these new 'toys'. I find the complacent, pseudo-cool, abstract discussion of these matters to be almost as scary as this police state 'apparatus'.
Tell me people: just when do the warning bells go off in your heads (the 'crime' issue is always meant to sidetrack your critical reasoning powers, BTW)?
As most of us understand, this is about censorship and accountability -- and not about 'protecting the public' or whatever. These authoritarian bureaucrats always thrive on anonymity and obscurity. They don't give a damn about democracy -- only about dictating to the rest of us, that's for sure. It's just easier to get away with this shit, when they can use these 'mom & apple pie' kneejerk excuses. Of course they intend to use these lists to censor their political opponents -- if they are not already doing so -- which is the point of the disclosure request.
Their biggest enemy, and their greatest fear is public disclosure and openness. People should understand that these are political decisions and not 'policy' or 'regulations' or whatever they would call it this time to give it that 'official' 'look & feel'. With a concerted effort -- and tying this in with all the other mischief these types are up to, we can break their little games into pieces -- because politics trumps 'law' any day of the week.