I'm getting so soft lately, I can't even keep a bigoted flamewar going.
Jogia, that post was pure flamebait. Please don't take it personally. Sometimes I forget that there are still people who take slashdot discussions seriously, as opposed to viewing it as some laboratory for experiments in trolling.
And I do agree with you: if all people were as moral and decent as their God, this species would be a great one.
I think God is different things to different people. For men like Lenin, God was something like dialectical materialism, a Marxist perversion of reality. He thought it was infallible. He probably really believed that what he was doing was, in some sense, commanded by God.
I fear I'm betraying my intent by bringing up more philosophy, and I apologize. I'm just confused, and I'm trying to make some sense of all this. I just feel that there have been so many false prophets in history that it would not be right to unquestioningly believe any higher moral truth from another human being.
I think that's a teaching of Islam: that only God can tell you what is right or wrong. I believe it. I really do think that God is guiding all of us towards good. That might sound fake, because anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm a nihilist and a atheist. But I think the label is just that: a superficial covering that hides the substance of the matter.
I think that even the most ardent athiests are really guided by some purpose that defies logic. Why do we atheists choose to wake up in the morning? Why is this thing we call "love" feel right? Or even to the most strict darwinist, someone who thinks that man is just another natural process, like a forest fire, in that his only goal is to propogate himself: he may think he understands the cause and logic of his morality, but can he explain WHY he chooses to go on? And yet he does.
I don't know if you share my feelings about religion, that the particulars don't matter one bit, but that we are all united by some illogical sense or purpose, a sense that in some way, the universe would be better with humans in it than without, or even a childish lust for some future where all people are far happier and loving than they are today. I can't speak for anyone else. I'm not argumentative enough to try to build some straw man and burn it.
I just hope that some day we will stop using God as an excuse for war and evil, or something to brag about to your friends, or a place to go on the weekends, or as some list of shortcomings for which to harass and injure other people, or a reason why some group of people have more rights than another group.
And I also hope that you have a better understanding, if not agreement, of the real reason why I get angry at legislators and statesmen who claim to know God better than I, and try to impose their understanding of God's teachings on everyone else (I don't really know if this was the case in Malaysia). They are only men.
I don't claim to have any better understanding than they do. I just feel that freedom was what God intended - freedom to do God's work, however one may choose. I've heard quite a few horror stories from supposedly Islamic nations (Iran comes to mind). Things that, to me, seem evil and wrong, and certainly not God's will. For example, I've heard that women are forced to wear shrouds over their faces in Afghanistan, and I've heard that some criminals are killed by throwing stones at them in Iran. Also I don't agree with laws many countries (even the USA, of which I am a resident) have against certain kinds of sex, specifically non-heterosexual non-"missionary position" sex. I don't know how often people are stoned to death, or how many women are forced against their will to wear shrouds, and I admit this. It could just be western propoganda, or some bias against non-Christian religions endemic to the US. I don't know. What I think, though, is that there have been enough examples of things I consider to be wrong (for example, the crusades, or pogroms) that were done in the name of God that I do not believe any man who claims to know what God is, or what God wants from me, or what is right or wrong. I think that God tells everyone what is right and wrong. I can't believe that humanity is inherently corrupt or immoral. Some religions claim this; I don't know if it is a Muslim tenet. I feel that other people are decent and good at the core. I think they are Godly at the core.
I also think that your outlook for America - "Morals don't exist anymore" - is a little too bleak. I can understand why you might post that, in response to a flame like the one I wrote. I feel that the human race is at a very confused point in its development, and that we don't know how to deal with the way that our lives are changing. But I don't feel that things are getting worse, in the long run. I think immorality now is nothing more that birthing pain, and I think that we are on the brink of an unimaginably great future. This may sound heretical, or even obscene, and I don't blame you if you feel it is wrong-headed, but I really think that humanity is not destined to worship God, but to create him.
Heh. Once and a while I find myself in an especially bad mood and decide to start flamewars on slashdot. Don't take things here so seriously. Come on, is there any expectation of meaningful content on slashdot anymore? I can't find any. Oh well. Now I feel bad because all these people took it very personally and replied with these huge philosophical critiques of my flame baiting. Wait, I guess that's what flame-baiting is supposed to do. Ah well, this is starting to lose it's appeal. Whatever.
BTW, that other post was an attempt to indict a government, based on absolutely NO evidence, in a whole slew of criminal enterprises. It really didn't work too well.
And the previous bigoted post was an attempt to take a legitimate complaint - that this Malaysian government seems to be imposing moral laws on a population that may not agree with them - and transmogrify it into a terrible comparison between Muslims and monkeys.
use of the term "we" to refer to the actions of one's government is common.
But it's deceptive and ambiguous. It implies the legitimacy of one's government, as well as some homogenous sentiment among the governed, which can be perfectly expressed by a government.
I feel the only legitimate government is one that exists only for the protection of the minority, not to express the will of the majority. And even this sort of government is superfluous, in my opinion. If we as a species are so brutal that we can't help but lynch each other, then I don't want to be a part of this species. So I'm betting on good.
I'd like to know what you mean by proposing that the Malaysian government be "brought to justice."
I think the Malaysian people are almost entirely decent human beings, just like Americans and everyone else. As a decent human being, I feel that other humans who are indecent, and would like to bolster their power by regulating and ruling everyone else, should not be tolerated. Ever.
Assuming that the people of Malaysia approve of their government, what right do we, the almighty United States of America, have to destroy it?
Those Malaysians who frequent arcades are people too. If EVERY Malaysian approved of his government, then yes, I would agree with you. That's an impossibility.
I support the destruction of their government unconditionally. The Malaysian people will rise or they will be crushed, just like the Russian people. At the very least, I don't want to have to look back on a decimated Malaysia and think "But my opinions of what is right and wrong are no better than anyone else's, so I had no right to try to fix what I thought to be wrong."
then an Islamic government is going to take what ever steps that are neccesary to ensure that the moral fiber of their people is held intact.
What does God need with a state?
And when somthing like this happens in a predominantly Muslim country(our way of thought is entirely different from Western thought, trust me), you whine and complain and start shouting about censorship and how this should scare us all.
Great. A predominantly Muslim country. And what are the the other people going to do?
Look. For all I care, the Muslims of the world can make all the decrees they want. Just one thing: I don't want to be Muslim, and I don't want to follow Islamic law. If a Muslim tries to force me or anyone else - even another Muslim - to follow Islamic law, any Islamic law, I will kill him.
If you, as a Muslim, think yourself and your fellow Muslims so corrupt and stupid as to warrant a coercive government to keep you in line, then coercion you deserve.
If you think that I am as corrupt and stupid as you, and that I need to be ruled over like you, well, I don't know what to say. I guess I'll have to buy some big guns.
In my opinion, you are a dying breed. Man is evolving. He is vaulting away from his barbaric monkey past. Monkeys need a Leviathon to keep their "moral fiber" intact.
Men don't. I will NOT hoot, hollar, or climb trees for Islam!
As a Muslim, I aplaud the move by the Malaysian government in banning these arcades.
As a thinking human being, I applaud evolution. Get out of the way.
Maybe you should give (at least some) laws something like an expiration date after that they must be reconsidered. Interesting idea, come to think of it.
You're too late. Laws expired the day we evolved from brutish monkeys into enlightened men.
So, please/.-ters, don't judge too hastily. It's the knee-jerk reaction that, unfortunately, permeates too many people (including/. people) nowadays.
I promise, I won't judge hastily. I'll take my time, assess the situation, put it in context, and arrive at a logical and reasonable conclusion.
Okay, I've taken some time to think. And I have judged.
The poster of the parent post, efuseekay, a resident of Malaysia, claims that an entity known as "we" has banned the following things:
Austin Powers, Prince of Egypt, Schindler's list, Saving Private Ryan, countless others
kissing scenes in American TV movies : they are always hilariously cut/bleeped off.
Ellen Degeneres' appearance in David Letterman
I have deliberated on this a bit, and have concluded that there is no such entity as "we". If, indeed, the whole of Singapore was banning these things, would they not all simply refuse to watch them? Thus it is clear that this nebulous "we" could not possibly refer to the people of Singapore.
It refers to their "state", the group of thieves, kidnapers, batterers, and murderers among them who have created a "legislature", an entity that they have designed to make their crimes appear moral, and worse, necessary.
For example, if I were to decide that I am the only person who has the right to post to Slashdot, and in order to enforce my decision, I tracked down and caned every other Slashdot user, or I stole five thousand dollars from each, I would be branded a criminal, and punished severely. Even if posting to Slashdot was proven scientifically to be a "BadThing(tm)", no leniency would be granted.
Now, when a group of people known as a "state" decides that nobody else has the right to, say, carry a firearm, they go to their "legislature" and pass "legislation" forbidding it. Now, they may search every man for firearms, and if they find any, they may assault, kidnap, and detain him for years, and steal his property. Strangely, these acts are not regarded as criminal. In fact, they are seen to be legitimate, and even necessary.
It is my opinion that there is no distinction between the above two actions. They are both criminal, and a sane society must not tolerate them.
I conclude, in light of the evidence presented, that Malaysia has been terrorized by a group of criminals, known as a "government" or a "state". This group uses "legislation" to enforce its will arbitrarily on the defenseless people.
I recommend, for the good of the Malaysian people, and in the end, the welfare of all people, that these criminals be swiftly brought to justice.
Justice knows no borders, no cultural distinctions, and certainly no laws. If you take someone's liberty, life, or property, you will be dealt with.
To distribute RedHat ISO images (or any large file) with Freenet:
Download the 0.3.1 release, or check out the CVS.
Modify your rc.local script (or equivalent) to run the node on boot. No, this in not optional!
Use rar to break the ISO into a reasonable number of segments. I'd recommend a size of 10 megabytes each.
Insert each file as a CHK (in bash):
#for PART in *.rar ; do echo "$(./freenet_insert CHK@ $PART 2>&1 | grep "Inserted Key" | cut -b 18-) $PART" >>parts.txt ; done
This command will insert all the.rar files into Freenet and record their keys to parts.txt.
Insert the parts.txt file into freenet under the keytype of your choice. KSKs are human readable, but you have the option of using a SVK or SSK subspace, both of which are cryptographically signed by the publisher. Specifically, consider using an SSK if you intend to insert many related files.
An example of inserting a KSK: #./freenet_insert KSK@my_inserted_data parts.txt
Requesting your data is simple. You first request the list of parts -- KSK@my_inserted_data. You then request each of the parts in the list, concurrently if you've got the bandwidth! Obviously, if you need to request 50 files, you're going to want to write a simple script to do it.
Say you only request 25 files at once, and they all come in at 3 kilobytes/sec (everyone else has a 56k modem). You thus download the file at 75kbyte/sec! Of course, most nodes run on fatter pipes, so speeds will be even better.
And did I mention that the files cache and mirror themselves automatically as demand increases?
There is no cure for corrupt node syndrome. This is similar to NNTP. Your NNTP server could replace every one of the articles you read with goatsex advertising.
Buzzz! Incorrect answer. The bulk of data in Freenet will be inserted under CHKs - content hash keys. Tampering with the contents is impossible, because the key used to request it is unique to the data.
But how can I get these hashes to request? Meet SVKs. These keys are cryptographically signed, and their data is intended to redirect the user to CHKs containing the real data. Also check out SSKs - these permit a publisher to insert plaintext keys under his own "subspace", all signed by his private key. For example, you might request "freenet:SSK@down_with_the_state,ut8hLKSEDHt9ut3OT GDIty40", where the string after the comma is the publisher's public key. Cool, huh?
So it's really simple. Content is guaranteed to be what you expect through secure hashing. Built-in cryptographic signing provides an elegant way to find out exactly what data to request.
The claim that Freenet is completely anonymous is not entirely true.
Right. Only the first node in the chain knows who you are. That's why you MUST run your own node.
When you request data from Freenet, you send a request from your Freenet client to your local Freenet node, saying "I am looking for X". Your node relays this to the node most likely to have this data. It probably won't, but it'll forward the request again to the node it thinks is most likely to have the data. After ten hops or so the data will almost certainly be found, and it'll travel back down the chain.
Now what does this mean for anonymity? Well, if you're running a local node, and you request data through it, for all the other nodes know your node is just relaying a request from someone else. So there's no way to prove you've actually requested anything!
Slashdot Mirror
I'm getting so soft lately, I can't even keep a bigoted flamewar going.
Jogia, that post was pure flamebait. Please don't take it personally. Sometimes I forget that there are still people who take slashdot discussions seriously, as opposed to viewing it as some laboratory for experiments in trolling.
And I do agree with you: if all people were as moral and decent as their God, this species would be a great one.
I think God is different things to different people. For men like Lenin, God was something like dialectical materialism, a Marxist perversion of reality. He thought it was infallible. He probably really believed that what he was doing was, in some sense, commanded by God.
I fear I'm betraying my intent by bringing up more philosophy, and I apologize. I'm just confused, and I'm trying to make some sense of all this. I just feel that there have been so many false prophets in history that it would not be right to unquestioningly believe any higher moral truth from another human being.
I think that's a teaching of Islam: that only God can tell you what is right or wrong. I believe it. I really do think that God is guiding all of us towards good. That might sound fake, because anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm a nihilist and a atheist. But I think the label is just that: a superficial covering that hides the substance of the matter.
I think that even the most ardent athiests are really guided by some purpose that defies logic. Why do we atheists choose to wake up in the morning? Why is this thing we call "love" feel right? Or even to the most strict darwinist, someone who thinks that man is just another natural process, like a forest fire, in that his only goal is to propogate himself: he may think he understands the cause and logic of his morality, but can he explain WHY he chooses to go on? And yet he does.
I don't know if you share my feelings about religion, that the particulars don't matter one bit, but that we are all united by some illogical sense or purpose, a sense that in some way, the universe would be better with humans in it than without, or even a childish lust for some future where all people are far happier and loving than they are today. I can't speak for anyone else. I'm not argumentative enough to try to build some straw man and burn it.
I just hope that some day we will stop using God as an excuse for war and evil, or something to brag about to your friends, or a place to go on the weekends, or as some list of shortcomings for which to harass and injure other people, or a reason why some group of people have more rights than another group.
And I also hope that you have a better understanding, if not agreement, of the real reason why I get angry at legislators and statesmen who claim to know God better than I, and try to impose their understanding of God's teachings on everyone else (I don't really know if this was the case in Malaysia). They are only men.
I don't claim to have any better understanding than they do. I just feel that freedom was what God intended - freedom to do God's work, however one may choose. I've heard quite a few horror stories from supposedly Islamic nations (Iran comes to mind). Things that, to me, seem evil and wrong, and certainly not God's will. For example, I've heard that women are forced to wear shrouds over their faces in Afghanistan, and I've heard that some criminals are killed by throwing stones at them in Iran. Also I don't agree with laws many countries (even the USA, of which I am a resident) have against certain kinds of sex, specifically non-heterosexual non-"missionary position" sex. I don't know how often people are stoned to death, or how many women are forced against their will to wear shrouds, and I admit this. It could just be western propoganda, or some bias against non-Christian religions endemic to the US. I don't know. What I think, though, is that there have been enough examples of things I consider to be wrong (for example, the crusades, or pogroms) that were done in the name of God that I do not believe any man who claims to know what God is, or what God wants from me, or what is right or wrong. I think that God tells everyone what is right and wrong. I can't believe that humanity is inherently corrupt or immoral. Some religions claim this; I don't know if it is a Muslim tenet. I feel that other people are decent and good at the core. I think they are Godly at the core.
I also think that your outlook for America - "Morals don't exist anymore" - is a little too bleak. I can understand why you might post that, in response to a flame like the one I wrote. I feel that the human race is at a very confused point in its development, and that we don't know how to deal with the way that our lives are changing. But I don't feel that things are getting worse, in the long run. I think immorality now is nothing more that birthing pain, and I think that we are on the brink of an unimaginably great future. This may sound heretical, or even obscene, and I don't blame you if you feel it is wrong-headed, but I really think that humanity is not destined to worship God, but to create him.
Heh. Once and a while I find myself in an especially bad mood and decide to start flamewars on slashdot. Don't take things here so seriously. Come on, is there any expectation of meaningful content on slashdot anymore? I can't find any. Oh well. Now I feel bad because all these people took it very personally and replied with these huge philosophical critiques of my flame baiting. Wait, I guess that's what flame-baiting is supposed to do. Ah well, this is starting to lose it's appeal. Whatever.
BTW, that other post was an attempt to indict a government, based on absolutely NO evidence, in a whole slew of criminal enterprises. It really didn't work too well.
And the previous bigoted post was an attempt to take a legitimate complaint - that this Malaysian government seems to be imposing moral laws on a population that may not agree with them - and transmogrify it into a terrible comparison between Muslims and monkeys.
I'm really growing far too old for this shit.
But it's deceptive and ambiguous. It implies the legitimacy of one's government, as well as some homogenous sentiment among the governed, which can be perfectly expressed by a government.
I feel the only legitimate government is one that exists only for the protection of the minority, not to express the will of the majority. And even this sort of government is superfluous, in my opinion. If we as a species are so brutal that we can't help but lynch each other, then I don't want to be a part of this species. So I'm betting on good.
- I'd like to know what you mean by proposing that the Malaysian government be "brought to justice."
I think the Malaysian people are almost entirely decent human beings, just like Americans and everyone else. As a decent human being, I feel that other humans who are indecent, and would like to bolster their power by regulating and ruling everyone else, should not be tolerated. Ever.Those Malaysians who frequent arcades are people too. If EVERY Malaysian approved of his government, then yes, I would agree with you. That's an impossibility.
I support the destruction of their government unconditionally. The Malaysian people will rise or they will be crushed, just like the Russian people. At the very least, I don't want to have to look back on a decimated Malaysia and think "But my opinions of what is right and wrong are no better than anyone else's, so I had no right to try to fix what I thought to be wrong."
The people know best, and I will fight for them.
What does God need with a state?
Great. A predominantly Muslim country. And what are the the other people going to do?
Look. For all I care, the Muslims of the world can make all the decrees they want. Just one thing: I don't want to be Muslim, and I don't want to follow Islamic law. If a Muslim tries to force me or anyone else - even another Muslim - to follow Islamic law, any Islamic law, I will kill him.
If you, as a Muslim, think yourself and your fellow Muslims so corrupt and stupid as to warrant a coercive government to keep you in line, then coercion you deserve.
If you think that I am as corrupt and stupid as you, and that I need to be ruled over like you, well, I don't know what to say. I guess I'll have to buy some big guns.
In my opinion, you are a dying breed. Man is evolving. He is vaulting away from his barbaric monkey past. Monkeys need a Leviathon to keep their "moral fiber" intact.
Men don't. I will NOT hoot, hollar, or climb trees for Islam!
- As a Muslim, I aplaud the move by the Malaysian government in banning these arcades.
As a thinking human being, I applaud evolution. Get out of the way.You're too late. Laws expired the day we evolved from brutish monkeys into enlightened men.
I promise, I won't judge hastily. I'll take my time, assess the situation, put it in context, and arrive at a logical and reasonable conclusion.
Okay, I've taken some time to think. And I have judged.
The poster of the parent post, efuseekay, a resident of Malaysia, claims that an entity known as "we" has banned the following things:
I have deliberated on this a bit, and have concluded that there is no such entity as "we". If, indeed, the whole of Singapore was banning these things, would they not all simply refuse to watch them? Thus it is clear that this nebulous "we" could not possibly refer to the people of Singapore.
It refers to their "state", the group of thieves, kidnapers, batterers, and murderers among them who have created a "legislature", an entity that they have designed to make their crimes appear moral, and worse, necessary.
For example, if I were to decide that I am the only person who has the right to post to Slashdot, and in order to enforce my decision, I tracked down and caned every other Slashdot user, or I stole five thousand dollars from each, I would be branded a criminal, and punished severely. Even if posting to Slashdot was proven scientifically to be a "BadThing(tm)", no leniency would be granted.
Now, when a group of people known as a "state" decides that nobody else has the right to, say, carry a firearm, they go to their "legislature" and pass "legislation" forbidding it. Now, they may search every man for firearms, and if they find any, they may assault, kidnap, and detain him for years, and steal his property. Strangely, these acts are not regarded as criminal. In fact, they are seen to be legitimate, and even necessary.
It is my opinion that there is no distinction between the above two actions. They are both criminal, and a sane society must not tolerate them.
I conclude, in light of the evidence presented, that Malaysia has been terrorized by a group of criminals, known as a "government" or a "state". This group uses "legislation" to enforce its will arbitrarily on the defenseless people.
I recommend, for the good of the Malaysian people, and in the end, the welfare of all people, that these criminals be swiftly brought to justice.
Justice knows no borders, no cultural distinctions, and certainly no laws. If you take someone's liberty, life, or property, you will be dealt with.
- Download the 0.3.1 release, or check out the CVS.
- Modify your rc.local script (or equivalent) to run the node on boot. No, this in not optional!
- Use rar to break the ISO into a reasonable number of segments. I'd recommend a size of 10 megabytes each.
- Insert each file as a CHK (in bash):
- Insert the parts.txt file into freenet under the keytype of your choice. KSKs are human readable, but you have the option of using a SVK or SSK subspace, both of which are cryptographically signed by the publisher. Specifically, consider using an SSK if you intend to insert many related files.
Requesting your data is simple. You first request the list of parts -- KSK@my_inserted_data. You then request each of the parts in the list, concurrently if you've got the bandwidth! Obviously, if you need to request 50 files, you're going to want to write a simple script to do it.#for PART in *.rar ; do echo "$(./freenet_insert CHK@ $PART 2>&1 | grep "Inserted Key" | cut -b 18-) $PART" >>parts.txt ; done
This command will insert all the .rar files into Freenet and record their keys to parts.txt.
An example of inserting a KSK: #./freenet_insert KSK@my_inserted_data parts.txt
Say you only request 25 files at once, and they all come in at 3 kilobytes/sec (everyone else has a 56k modem). You thus download the file at 75kbyte/sec! Of course, most nodes run on fatter pipes, so speeds will be even better.
And did I mention that the files cache and mirror themselves automatically as demand increases?
Buzzz! Incorrect answer. The bulk of data in Freenet will be inserted under CHKs - content hash keys. Tampering with the contents is impossible, because the key used to request it is unique to the data.
But how can I get these hashes to request? Meet SVKs. These keys are cryptographically signed, and their data is intended to redirect the user to CHKs containing the real data. Also check out SSKs - these permit a publisher to insert plaintext keys under his own "subspace", all signed by his private key. For example, you might request "freenet:SSK@down_with_the_state,ut8hLKSEDHt9ut3OT GDIty40", where the string after the comma is the publisher's public key. Cool, huh?
So it's really simple. Content is guaranteed to be what you expect through secure hashing. Built-in cryptographic signing provides an elegant way to find out exactly what data to request.
Right. Only the first node in the chain knows who you are. That's why you MUST run your own node.
When you request data from Freenet, you send a request from your Freenet client to your local Freenet node, saying "I am looking for X". Your node relays this to the node most likely to have this data. It probably won't, but it'll forward the request again to the node it thinks is most likely to have the data. After ten hops or so the data will almost certainly be found, and it'll travel back down the chain.
Now what does this mean for anonymity? Well, if you're running a local node, and you request data through it, for all the other nodes know your node is just relaying a request from someone else. So there's no way to prove you've actually requested anything!