Racism is the believe that people of one race are intrinsically superior to people of other races.
I would define it more as 'generalizing about a race' (without a disclaimer that you are generalizing in that instance). Because after all, Asians are intrinsically superior to whites because they handle the sun better (in general!), so your definition doesn't work there.
(Sorry if that sounds anal, I realise that you were speaking loosely).
Although, there are some of us who are not racist but also would never consider banning a cartoon because of its content (there would be extreme exceptions of course, like a cartoon showing how to make a real life bomb etc.). I feel this is why you had to consider archiving them or not. They show our cultural history in a way, and are insightful (obviously not insightful for their moral content).
The day is rapidly approaching when we wake up and our rights will not mean anything ALL IN THE NAME OF PROTECTING US FROM [insert irrational fear here].
When you will people educate yourselves that there is a very strong republican voting block that:
a) Are agnostic/atheist.
b) Believe very strongly in personal freedom and privacy.
Our rights will never be restricted beyond reason because this voting block (libertarians mainly), will not stand for it. The US still has virtually unlimited freedom, especially compared to most other countries. Most often you will find the constant complaints about loss of freedoms come from the same *subset* of left-leaning voters who generaize the republicans to be a group of religous hicks etc.. (How often do you see the reverse, trolls generalizing democrats as union thugs or communists. It is much more rare, and just as untrue).
Read some recent history (WW2 etc.) and you will see that our country has come a long way from many of the atrocities that have affected humanity throughout the world. Try visiting many of the socialist countries and see if your rights are still 'going down the toilet' in the US. People aren't idiots, and will never allow basic rights to be taken away. It is just fear (often political scaremongering) to think that people will allow rights to be taken away *unreasonably* (and yes 'unreasonable' is not as subjective as you may think, here).
You believe that documented genocide is no reason to forcefully remove a leader?
I believe that either it is or it isn't...
Considering you didn't answer yes or no, I can only assume you think there are hypothetical cases where it would be wrong to forcefully stop documented genocide. I would be interested to hear any hypothetical situation where you think that would be the case.
and you can't decide based on the country's strategic value.
I agree, that is clearly morally wrong.
I am not interested in what the US has actually done (nothing in the cases you list), but I am interested if you were for or against forcefully stopping genocide in say, Rwanda, or if you believe that "No it isn't" a reason still.
I am obviously against genocide, but I consider its use in justifying Iraq a weak cover for what really happened, and find it insulting that I am expected to believe it.
Firstly, it is not obvious that you are against genocide. By taking a position against me that it is not always right to forcefully stop a genocide in action, you are possibly not against it in my eyes (that is, you choose to let it continue, similar to allowing domestic violence to continue if you heard it).
Secondly, you say genocide was a 'weak cover'. Is thousands of dead bodies in mass graves, + photo evidence, + victim family evidence a 'weak cover'?
Thirdly, I specifically asked about Rwanda, and wondered if you thought the world or US should have halted the genocide with military power. I didn't ask about Iraq or the US intentions there. You don't seem to want to answer that one. I can respect your privacy if you wish but it would be more honest to just tell me if don't wish to devulge it.
It is clearly a logical fallacy to say...
Pure logic has no place in world politics.
So logical fallacies are ok because they are 'pure' logic, not just normal logic? I'll have to remember that one, I should be able to back cleanly out of any position using that rule.
What my examples show is that world leaders apparently don't view internal genocide as any reason to invade someone, they just use it as justification after the fact.
Many world leaders do in fact view it is one of the most compelling reasons for forceful action, but a few countries always block it in the UN votes. I remember seeing many of them saying 'Never again' after the first recent genocide in Africa, but the ones afterwards still weren't stopped.
Furthermore, the reason computers are bad in the first place is because of developers who expose internals of the product without reason. If developers truly focused on the car analogy (ie. actually tested their interfaces scientifically, with real random user groups), I can promise you that 99% of newbie problems would disappear.
The solution is simple but requires careful thought and a perfectionist attitude to implement properly. Of course, many companies do know this and have hired people who are naturally good communicators to design great human/machine interfaces.
Anyway, I would try to explain how an image is stored as a file, taking the uncompressed BMP as an example.
I like that strategy.
Total newbies interested in computers often start the conversation with "So computers are all ones and zeros?", I'm not sure why they choose that line so frequently. Without showing them an example of converting 'normal' information to binary, they are eternally lost at how the computer can actually hold such wildly different objects as a video and an mp3 in binary. They must have a very mixed up mental picture of storage, it would essentially be magic to them.
But rather than start with the BMP header I would show an example of converting a tiny 2d black & white digital image to a string of binary (no mention of bytes or hex etc., of course). Perhaps then introduce 8 bit color storage format showing how each 8 bit combination represents and arbitrary real world color etc., still without introducing bytes explicitly on the first lesson.
A good reason to invade however was that he was murdering civilians...
No it isn't, or else we'd be obligated to invade Rwanda about 5-7 years ago, Somalia before that, and North Korea and China today.
So let me get this straight. You believe that documented genocide is no reason to forcefully remove a leader?
I am not interested in what the US has actually done (nothing in the cases you list), but I am interested if you were for or against forcefully stopping genocide in say, Rwanda, or if you believe that "No it isn't" a reason still.
It is clearly a logical fallacy to say that removing a genocidal dictator is wrong because we have not removed other, worse dictators. It merely shows that the US acted differently (and wrongly IMO) in those cases.
Oddly geeks and nerds are not protected classes in discrimination laws. Perhaps they should be, but no law that I know of has been passed to protect them.
It's actually strange to me when people are banned from discriminating by religion but not by other beliefs. For instance, I can refuse to hire someone in a stock market job because they believe that analog cameras are worth investing in, but I can't refuse them because they believe in the bible (in my mind showing that they have no interest in scientific method, perhaps essential for stock trading).
I would rather the laws stop discrimination against phyiscal attributes only, rather than beliefs or other vague things that are hard to define.
Words like "flamebait" and "troll" are most often used seriously by those who are trying to incite trouble amongst people who are pointing out real, solid facts.
We see this today in the media, where various governments label their opponents as "terrorists". Of course, in many cases those governments are partking in the very same actions that may be construed as "terrorism".
You claim that the US government is involved in terrorist activities right after lecturing us on trolls, bravo!
BTW, there was no other tangible evidence. The British "corroborating" evidence was the same Niger forgeries, this time routed through British intelligence.
At the very least nearly every country, their leaders liberal or conservative, believed Saddam had nukes. There is no evidence for instance, that the weapons were destroyed years ago (it is a very strict requirement that photos of the destruction etc. are supplied to the UN, for obvious reasons). But I agree it was no reason to invade (I never saw anything that proved he still had them).
A good reason to invade however was that he was murdering civilians who believed in a different political strain than his (documented with plenty of _real_ evidence), torturing the families of those innocent civilians who had the nerve to have differing beliefs.
Some documented forms of torture used were deadly amounts electricity to the body and head, rape of wives and daughters in front of families, decapitation and other awful things. These are fully documented and further documented by the many mass graves and anecdotes of victims who made it out alive.
This is all real, and should at least be glanced over by anyone objecting the invasion, at least if they wish to feel objective about the matter. After all, it is only fair to take allegations of genocide seriously before forming a strong opinion.
So any eligible citizens who wanted to use military force to stop genocide (their opinion of course), should serve in the army instead of doing what they enjoy? That seems like a very simplistic view that gets thrown around here quite a bit.
Hypothetically, say the Australian government started slaughtering (innocent) native Aboriginals and the US came down with force to stop it. I know it is a ridiculous hypothetical, but I am just interested in whether you would insist on US force supporters to serve in the Army (given that conscription was not needed, like Iraq).
You are correct. I very much want to be on the side where random corporations refuse to run paid ads produced by those who's opinions differ from mine.
Like all the republican sponsored ads on democraticunderground.com?
A MMORPG is a rather bad place to learn a language. What with abbreviations and unavoidable typos and the like.
You're forgetting that a game is a far superior place to learn a foreign language than reading a book. Think about how easy it is to learn facts while playing a game, especially when they are relevant to your mission.
Also, when you take into account the way brains store location data with new knowledge in an associative way (as in, you sometimes think of a certain, unrelated 3d scene in your life when you think of a concept), I think learning language through games is a real winner.
Learning a few useless slang words doesn't matter, in fact one could reasonably argue that the jargon is actually useful for the scope of the game, just as useful as any other word in that player's life (ie. it imparts meaning like any other words do).
It is a global law that restricts everyone who incites opposition to the government or crown - even if they are an individual.
It is nothing of the sort.
It is now illegal to support those fighting to defend their land against foreign military occupations and that includes Australian forces.
If by 'support' you mean give money, then yes, I can't imagine why you would want it to be legal to finance a force that is at war with your own country (feel free to explain why you'd ever want such a thing legal).
For example opposing the occupation of Iraq by Australian and American forces and speaking in favour of the right of Iraqi citizens to resist this occupation fall within the definition of the new offence.
You can speak in favor of whoever you choose, so again, that is 100% false. I suggest you read the actual sedition laws before continuing making false statements about it (it's as if you want to make them seem as draconian as possible, through lies. Try being objective).
The last time these laws were used was in 1960 when Brian Cooper urged the natives of Papua New Guinea to oppose Australian occupation. He suicided after being arrested.
I am sad to hear he suicided. I'm not sure if you are implying they killed him, perhaps some evidence would be best before accusing someone of murder, just out of courtesy.
That aside, would you then agree that this man should have been allowed to urge the natives to kill Australian troops without arrest? I would be very interested in your answer to that one.
Just think if these laws had been in use in 1970 in the Vietnam protests. Thousands of people would have been arrested.
Were they urging North Vietnamese to kill Australian/US troops? If not then they still would not be touched by the new sedition laws.
Likewise the clause about inciting the overthrow of a legal government. Can I say 1975, the Liberals and Sir John Kerr? Yes, Sir John was being seditious in seeking the overthrow of a lawfull government.
Do you mean unlawfully overthrow or lawfully overthrow here? If he incited unlawful or violent overthrow, then yes I see no problem with sedition kicking in (do you?). If he incited lawful overthrow (e.g. voting, rallying, protesting) then sedition has nothing to say on the matter.
You mention the Sydney race riots and how they should be seen as seditious.
I was vague but was actually referring to problems in Western Syd over the last couple of years. The race riots are a different problem again and were the result of ethnic tension at the beaches where the muslim and australian cultures were clashing. Nothing has happened since those drunken idiots had their run through the streets, at least compared to riots in other countries recently (France comes to mind).
You are aware that they occurred almost two months after the laws passed aren't you? Was anyone prosecuted under these particular laws? NO! Why? Because they were Anglo spreading hate against Arabs.
If anyone was outputting hate speech against Arabs then they were already doing so illegally (no need for the new sedition laws). I am sure you will agree that the race of the alleged speaker should not be taken into account when sentencing.
...threatened to shut down the power plants and oil refinery infrastrure via programming...
It's just amazing that it takes governments so long to learn this lesson. Any proprietry software is effectively hidden, and so is effectively a key that can be used by the company who has the source code. Billions and billions of taxpayer dollars could have been saved by using open, standard and commodity systems (IMO), instead of spending it on wasted client side CPU cycles, expensive windows licenses etc..
I think governments have no business in entreprises that involve shaping what media citizens see.
I agree. If I were an advisor to a government in that position I would tell them to secretly adjust search rankings so that pro-capitalist / pro-socialist etc. results came up with a greater weighting, but use a secret complex weighting formula to stop anyone from proving wrongdoing (like any search engine would reveal its full algorithm anyway).
Government has no place in media except for party-sponsored, clearly-labelled broadcasts. In Australia we have the ABC which is a government run station, it gets maybe 1/4 of the tv watching audience on average (a million people or so, I guess).
Spending on the ABC is always minimized by the right wing party, and increased by the left wing party. So you end up with bias against the party they 'dislike', and it's understandable from their point of view. Sadly this situation doesn't get fixed because it is very easy to be biased without it being provable, and half of the voters benefit from this anyway.
And so your statement that government has no place in media is a very important one to me. Hopefully one day we can remove the government from control of all media entirely.
If we decide that the Australian government is doing the wrong thing in Iraq or Afganistan and we mention this publicly we can be arrested and held without trial or warrant for 14 days.
This is 100% false. Sedition laws are extremely narrowly defined and were written for the case where an organization is urging people to use violence against any person(s).
It is fine to be against a law like this, but what is your solution? If a person were to distribute a newsletter that called for killing of a minority race, would you let it continue under 'free speech'? Until now that has been legal and actually has been occuring in the wild (e.g. South Western Sydney). Some of the more nasty recent newsletters and religous teachings were what got the sedition laws fast tracked in the first place.
...I would suggest that you stop using envelopes when mailing letters and just use postcards instead, that way everybody along the way can read them much more easily. You don't have anything to hide, do you?
But our internet communications are already effectively enveloped. Try ringing my ISP to get any of my details other than IP address some time. Police need a warrant for this information also (I don't know that for a fact though).
No real reason for secret ballots either, now that I think about it. After all, you're not attemting to make an illegal vote.
Again, our personal internet usage is shielded from public view through the use of 'anonymous' IP addresses. Just like voting is. In fact, voting is currently less anonymous than browsing because you can see who is voting but you cannot 'see' who is currently browsing (unless they choose to connect to you, and even then you only get an IP).
The police ought to be able to search your house at will, too. If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear, right?
Yes they should, as long as their reason is not 'mallicous'. Is that not unreasonable? If so I would be interested in what policy you would put in place if you removed 'reasonable search'. The policy would have to be robust against scrutiny at least as well as the current law is.
Oh, remember that sooner or later if you stop defending your freedoms you lose them. When it becomes illegal to criticize the government and you say "but that wasn't what I meant" it's just a tad too late.
It is, of course, not currently illegal to criticize government. And if it ever gets that way, I don't know a single person who would rest until it is fixed (left or right wing).
I agree that you should be constantly worried about freedoms disappearing, especially with the amazing spin machines that have been honed over the years (on both sides of politics). I disagree with the implied 'slippery slope' argument of your post, and you should note that it is often a logical fallacy when used.
I totally agree that the Patriot act goes way too far. By removing our basic freedoms, George W. has given the victory to the terrorists.
Might want to double check who was actually behind the Patriot Act (hint: it was before Bush was voted in the first time), before looking like a blind worshipper of your particular politics.
The so called "anarchists" get all over the news acting like total fuckwads at WTO "protests".
As an anarchist, somebody who was at the WTO protests, and someone who strongly supports online privacy and the cypherpunk perspective, I'd like to ask what the hell you're talking about?
His point was that people who are interested in 'internet freedom' (I am not familiar with 'cypherpunks' although I assume they hold ideals similar to EFF) are not necessarily left leaning when it comes to globalization (I use the term 'left' loosely here).
In fact, I would go far enough to say that minimal-government types (libertarians, right wing economics etc.) are just as concerned over privacy as left leaning types are.
In conclusion, I am sure most of those on the right, who are typically pro-globalization, would not like to be associated with some of the rubbish that occurs during a typical WTO protest, whatsoever.
Still after reading that link I get stuck on the first line, where he introduces a magic dictionary/program into the room that somehow outputs correctly formed replies. Such a dictionary does not exist and if it did then it really would describe the language entirely.
So as I see it, Searle invents a hypothetical program which, if it actually existed, would prove him exactly wrong! (prove that AI is possible, i.e. the program would pass the turing test). I don't get it.
I don't really understand the chinese book riddle, because anyone who learns a foreign language knows that you cannot form proper replies from a dictionary alone (you need a grammar reference, list of exceptions and current slang etc.). So it seems to depend on how you define the dictionary.
Now what if every atom has atomic DNA and we just dont know it?
I think most scientists would agree with you that this is even likely (strings vibrating at certain frequencies are thought to be electrons at one frequency and protons at another etc.).
just trying to say that we really dont know and there's a chance we never will know, but meh.. uh, what was my point again?
I think your point was that we should not say that atoms are 'proven' without also adding that their make-up is still being researched at smaller scales.
Slashdot Mirror
I am sincerely interested any examples of speech that you wish were legal in the US.
Racism is the believe that people of one race are intrinsically superior to people of other races.
I would define it more as 'generalizing about a race' (without a disclaimer that you are generalizing in that instance). Because after all, Asians are intrinsically superior to whites because they handle the sun better (in general!), so your definition doesn't work there.
(Sorry if that sounds anal, I realise that you were speaking loosely).
Although, there are some of us who are not racist but also would never consider banning a cartoon because of its content (there would be extreme exceptions of course, like a cartoon showing how to make a real life bomb etc.). I feel this is why you had to consider archiving them or not. They show our cultural history in a way, and are insightful (obviously not insightful for their moral content).
The day is rapidly approaching when we wake up and our rights will not mean anything ALL IN THE NAME OF PROTECTING US FROM [insert irrational fear here].
When you will people educate yourselves that there is a very strong republican voting block that:
a) Are agnostic/atheist.
b) Believe very strongly in personal freedom and privacy.
Our rights will never be restricted beyond reason because this voting block (libertarians mainly), will not stand for it. The US still has virtually unlimited freedom, especially compared to most other countries. Most often you will find the constant complaints about loss of freedoms come from the same *subset* of left-leaning voters who generaize the republicans to be a group of religous hicks etc.. (How often do you see the reverse, trolls generalizing democrats as union thugs or communists. It is much more rare, and just as untrue).
Read some recent history (WW2 etc.) and you will see that our country has come a long way from many of the atrocities that have affected humanity throughout the world. Try visiting many of the socialist countries and see if your rights are still 'going down the toilet' in the US. People aren't idiots, and will never allow basic rights to be taken away. It is just fear (often political scaremongering) to think that people will allow rights to be taken away *unreasonably* (and yes 'unreasonable' is not as subjective as you may think, here).
I believe that either it is or it isn't...
Considering you didn't answer yes or no, I can only assume you think there are hypothetical cases where it would be wrong to forcefully stop documented genocide. I would be interested to hear any hypothetical situation where you think that would be the case.
and you can't decide based on the country's strategic value.
I agree, that is clearly morally wrong.
I am obviously against genocide, but I consider its use in justifying Iraq a weak cover for what really happened, and find it insulting that I am expected to believe it.
Firstly, it is not obvious that you are against genocide. By taking a position against me that it is not always right to forcefully stop a genocide in action, you are possibly not against it in my eyes (that is, you choose to let it continue, similar to allowing domestic violence to continue if you heard it).
Secondly, you say genocide was a 'weak cover'. Is thousands of dead bodies in mass graves, + photo evidence, + victim family evidence a 'weak cover'?
Thirdly, I specifically asked about Rwanda, and wondered if you thought the world or US should have halted the genocide with military power. I didn't ask about Iraq or the US intentions there. You don't seem to want to answer that one. I can respect your privacy if you wish but it would be more honest to just tell me if don't wish to devulge it.
Pure logic has no place in world politics.
So logical fallacies are ok because they are 'pure' logic, not just normal logic? I'll have to remember that one, I should be able to back cleanly out of any position using that rule.
What my examples show is that world leaders apparently don't view internal genocide as any reason to invade someone, they just use it as justification after the fact.
Many world leaders do in fact view it is one of the most compelling reasons for forceful action, but a few countries always block it in the UN votes. I remember seeing many of them saying 'Never again' after the first recent genocide in Africa, but the ones afterwards still weren't stopped.
Furthermore, the reason computers are bad in the first place is because of developers who expose internals of the product without reason. If developers truly focused on the car analogy (ie. actually tested their interfaces scientifically, with real random user groups), I can promise you that 99% of newbie problems would disappear.
The solution is simple but requires careful thought and a perfectionist attitude to implement properly. Of course, many companies do know this and have hired people who are naturally good communicators to design great human/machine interfaces.
Take what is logical throw it out the window.
But keep the nag system impeccable.
Anyway, I would try to explain how an image is stored as a file, taking the uncompressed BMP as an example.
I like that strategy.
Total newbies interested in computers often start the conversation with "So computers are all ones and zeros?", I'm not sure why they choose that line so frequently. Without showing them an example of converting 'normal' information to binary, they are eternally lost at how the computer can actually hold such wildly different objects as a video and an mp3 in binary. They must have a very mixed up mental picture of storage, it would essentially be magic to them.
But rather than start with the BMP header I would show an example of converting a tiny 2d black & white digital image to a string of binary (no mention of bytes or hex etc., of course). Perhaps then introduce 8 bit color storage format showing how each 8 bit combination represents and arbitrary real world color etc., still without introducing bytes explicitly on the first lesson.
No it isn't, or else we'd be obligated to invade Rwanda about 5-7 years ago, Somalia before that, and North Korea and China today.
So let me get this straight. You believe that documented genocide is no reason to forcefully remove a leader?
I am not interested in what the US has actually done (nothing in the cases you list), but I am interested if you were for or against forcefully stopping genocide in say, Rwanda, or if you believe that "No it isn't" a reason still.
It is clearly a logical fallacy to say that removing a genocidal dictator is wrong because we have not removed other, worse dictators. It merely shows that the US acted differently (and wrongly IMO) in those cases.
Oddly geeks and nerds are not protected classes in discrimination laws. Perhaps they should be, but no law that I know of has been passed to protect them.
It's actually strange to me when people are banned from discriminating by religion but not by other beliefs. For instance, I can refuse to hire someone in a stock market job because they believe that analog cameras are worth investing in, but I can't refuse them because they believe in the bible (in my mind showing that they have no interest in scientific method, perhaps essential for stock trading).
I would rather the laws stop discrimination against phyiscal attributes only, rather than beliefs or other vague things that are hard to define.
Words like "flamebait" and "troll" are most often used seriously by those who are trying to incite trouble amongst people who are pointing out real, solid facts.
We see this today in the media, where various governments label their opponents as "terrorists". Of course, in many cases those governments are partking in the very same actions that may be construed as "terrorism".
You claim that the US government is involved in terrorist activities right after lecturing us on trolls, bravo!
BTW, there was no other tangible evidence. The British "corroborating" evidence was the same Niger forgeries, this time routed through British intelligence.
At the very least nearly every country, their leaders liberal or conservative, believed Saddam had nukes. There is no evidence for instance, that the weapons were destroyed years ago (it is a very strict requirement that photos of the destruction etc. are supplied to the UN, for obvious reasons). But I agree it was no reason to invade (I never saw anything that proved he still had them).
A good reason to invade however was that he was murdering civilians who believed in a different political strain than his (documented with plenty of _real_ evidence), torturing the families of those innocent civilians who had the nerve to have differing beliefs.
Some documented forms of torture used were deadly amounts electricity to the body and head, rape of wives and daughters in front of families, decapitation and other awful things. These are fully documented and further documented by the many mass graves and anecdotes of victims who made it out alive.
This is all real, and should at least be glanced over by anyone objecting the invasion, at least if they wish to feel objective about the matter. After all, it is only fair to take allegations of genocide seriously before forming a strong opinion.
So, um, why aren't you over in Iraq?
So any eligible citizens who wanted to use military force to stop genocide (their opinion of course), should serve in the army instead of doing what they enjoy? That seems like a very simplistic view that gets thrown around here quite a bit.
Hypothetically, say the Australian government started slaughtering (innocent) native Aboriginals and the US came down with force to stop it. I know it is a ridiculous hypothetical, but I am just interested in whether you would insist on US force supporters to serve in the Army (given that conscription was not needed, like Iraq).
You are correct. I very much want to be on the side where random corporations refuse to run paid ads produced by those who's opinions differ from mine.
Like all the republican sponsored ads on democraticunderground.com?
A MMORPG is a rather bad place to learn a language. What with abbreviations and unavoidable typos and the like.
You're forgetting that a game is a far superior place to learn a foreign language than reading a book. Think about how easy it is to learn facts while playing a game, especially when they are relevant to your mission.
Also, when you take into account the way brains store location data with new knowledge in an associative way (as in, you sometimes think of a certain, unrelated 3d scene in your life when you think of a concept), I think learning language through games is a real winner.
Learning a few useless slang words doesn't matter, in fact one could reasonably argue that the jargon is actually useful for the scope of the game, just as useful as any other word in that player's life (ie. it imparts meaning like any other words do).
It is a global law that restricts everyone who incites opposition to the government or crown - even if they are an individual.
It is nothing of the sort.
It is now illegal to support those fighting to defend their land against foreign military occupations and that includes Australian forces.
If by 'support' you mean give money, then yes, I can't imagine why you would want it to be legal to finance a force that is at war with your own country (feel free to explain why you'd ever want such a thing legal).
For example opposing the occupation of Iraq by Australian and American forces and speaking in favour of the right of Iraqi citizens to resist this occupation fall within the definition of the new offence.
You can speak in favor of whoever you choose, so again, that is 100% false. I suggest you read the actual sedition laws before continuing making false statements about it (it's as if you want to make them seem as draconian as possible, through lies. Try being objective).
The last time these laws were used was in 1960 when Brian Cooper urged the natives of Papua New Guinea to oppose Australian occupation. He suicided after being arrested.
I am sad to hear he suicided. I'm not sure if you are implying they killed him, perhaps some evidence would be best before accusing someone of murder, just out of courtesy.
That aside, would you then agree that this man should have been allowed to urge the natives to kill Australian troops without arrest? I would be very interested in your answer to that one.
Just think if these laws had been in use in 1970 in the Vietnam protests. Thousands of people would have been arrested.
Were they urging North Vietnamese to kill Australian/US troops? If not then they still would not be touched by the new sedition laws.
Likewise the clause about inciting the overthrow of a legal government. Can I say 1975, the Liberals and Sir John Kerr? Yes, Sir John was being seditious in seeking the overthrow of a lawfull government.
Do you mean unlawfully overthrow or lawfully overthrow here? If he incited unlawful or violent overthrow, then yes I see no problem with sedition kicking in (do you?). If he incited lawful overthrow (e.g. voting, rallying, protesting) then sedition has nothing to say on the matter.
You mention the Sydney race riots and how they should be seen as seditious.
I was vague but was actually referring to problems in Western Syd over the last couple of years. The race riots are a different problem again and were the result of ethnic tension at the beaches where the muslim and australian cultures were clashing. Nothing has happened since those drunken idiots had their run through the streets, at least compared to riots in other countries recently (France comes to mind).
You are aware that they occurred almost two months after the laws passed aren't you? Was anyone prosecuted under these particular laws? NO! Why? Because they were Anglo spreading hate against Arabs.
If anyone was outputting hate speech against Arabs then they were already doing so illegally (no need for the new sedition laws). I am sure you will agree that the race of the alleged speaker should not be taken into account when sentencing.
...threatened to shut down the power plants and oil refinery infrastrure via programming...
It's just amazing that it takes governments so long to learn this lesson. Any proprietry software is effectively hidden, and so is effectively a key that can be used by the company who has the source code. Billions and billions of taxpayer dollars could have been saved by using open, standard and commodity systems (IMO), instead of spending it on wasted client side CPU cycles, expensive windows licenses etc..
I think governments have no business in entreprises that involve shaping what media citizens see.
I agree. If I were an advisor to a government in that position I would tell them to secretly adjust search rankings so that pro-capitalist / pro-socialist etc. results came up with a greater weighting, but use a secret complex weighting formula to stop anyone from proving wrongdoing (like any search engine would reveal its full algorithm anyway).
Government has no place in media except for party-sponsored, clearly-labelled broadcasts. In Australia we have the ABC which is a government run station, it gets maybe 1/4 of the tv watching audience on average (a million people or so, I guess).
Spending on the ABC is always minimized by the right wing party, and increased by the left wing party. So you end up with bias against the party they 'dislike', and it's understandable from their point of view. Sadly this situation doesn't get fixed because it is very easy to be biased without it being provable, and half of the voters benefit from this anyway.
And so your statement that government has no place in media is a very important one to me. Hopefully one day we can remove the government from control of all media entirely.
If we decide that the Australian government is doing the wrong thing in Iraq or Afganistan and we mention this publicly we can be arrested and held without trial or warrant for 14 days.
This is 100% false. Sedition laws are extremely narrowly defined and were written for the case where an organization is urging people to use violence against any person(s).
It is fine to be against a law like this, but what is your solution? If a person were to distribute a newsletter that called for killing of a minority race, would you let it continue under 'free speech'? Until now that has been legal and actually has been occuring in the wild (e.g. South Western Sydney). Some of the more nasty recent newsletters and religous teachings were what got the sedition laws fast tracked in the first place.
...I would suggest that you stop using envelopes when mailing letters and just use postcards instead, that way everybody along the way can read them much more easily. You don't have anything to hide, do you?
But our internet communications are already effectively enveloped. Try ringing my ISP to get any of my details other than IP address some time. Police need a warrant for this information also (I don't know that for a fact though).
No real reason for secret ballots either, now that I think about it. After all, you're not attemting to make an illegal vote.
Again, our personal internet usage is shielded from public view through the use of 'anonymous' IP addresses. Just like voting is. In fact, voting is currently less anonymous than browsing because you can see who is voting but you cannot 'see' who is currently browsing (unless they choose to connect to you, and even then you only get an IP).
The police ought to be able to search your house at will, too. If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear, right?
Yes they should, as long as their reason is not 'mallicous'. Is that not unreasonable? If so I would be interested in what policy you would put in place if you removed 'reasonable search'. The policy would have to be robust against scrutiny at least as well as the current law is.
Oh, remember that sooner or later if you stop defending your freedoms you lose them. When it becomes illegal to criticize the government and you say "but that wasn't what I meant" it's just a tad too late.
It is, of course, not currently illegal to criticize government. And if it ever gets that way, I don't know a single person who would rest until it is fixed (left or right wing).
I agree that you should be constantly worried about freedoms disappearing, especially with the amazing spin machines that have been honed over the years (on both sides of politics). I disagree with the implied 'slippery slope' argument of your post, and you should note that it is often a logical fallacy when used.
I totally agree that the Patriot act goes way too far. By removing our basic freedoms, George W. has given the victory to the terrorists.
Might want to double check who was actually behind the Patriot Act (hint: it was before Bush was voted in the first time), before looking like a blind worshipper of your particular politics.
As an anarchist, somebody who was at the WTO protests, and someone who strongly supports online privacy and the cypherpunk perspective, I'd like to ask what the hell you're talking about?
His point was that people who are interested in 'internet freedom' (I am not familiar with 'cypherpunks' although I assume they hold ideals similar to EFF) are not necessarily left leaning when it comes to globalization (I use the term 'left' loosely here).
In fact, I would go far enough to say that minimal-government types (libertarians, right wing economics etc.) are just as concerned over privacy as left leaning types are.
In conclusion, I am sure most of those on the right, who are typically pro-globalization, would not like to be associated with some of the rubbish that occurs during a typical WTO protest, whatsoever.
Still after reading that link I get stuck on the first line, where he introduces a magic dictionary/program into the room that somehow outputs correctly formed replies. Such a dictionary does not exist and if it did then it really would describe the language entirely.
So as I see it, Searle invents a hypothetical program which, if it actually existed, would prove him exactly wrong! (prove that AI is possible, i.e. the program would pass the turing test). I don't get it.
I don't really understand the chinese book riddle, because anyone who learns a foreign language knows that you cannot form proper replies from a dictionary alone (you need a grammar reference, list of exceptions and current slang etc.). So it seems to depend on how you define the dictionary.
Now what if every atom has atomic DNA and we just dont know it?
I think most scientists would agree with you that this is even likely (strings vibrating at certain frequencies are thought to be electrons at one frequency and protons at another etc.).
just trying to say that we really dont know and there's a chance we never will know, but meh.. uh, what was my point again?
I think your point was that we should not say that atoms are 'proven' without also adding that their make-up is still being researched at smaller scales.
For non-technical people who don't grok filesystems, there's a good story about FAT here: CyberSnare.
Don't waste your time. It's a rant from some primadonna who 'outsmarted' an average windows computer user, somehow proving how shit FAT is.