Jeremy Clarkson (UK motoring journalist) once said - Driving a car is a privilege not a right.
He was wrong for a variety of reasons, but was attempting to say something that was right.
Here is the primary reason why he was wrong:
Freedom of movement is one of the basic components of the right to liberty. Denying people the right to employ the most common and effective means of moving from one place to another is an infringement on that right, just as dennying people the right to publish or broadcast their opinions would be an infringement on their right to freedom of speech.
Here is what he was trying to say:
Like most rights, the right to freedom of movement can be regulated by the state, and like most rights it can be forfeited if one violates the rights of others, or violates the regulations set by the state. The state can, for example, make regulations about how the airwaves can be used so long as these regulations are designed to facilitate the use of the airwaves, and not to make it more difficult for people to publish their opinions. Likewise the state can regulate the use of the roads, so long as these regulations are designed to facilitate the use of the roads, and not to make it harder for individuals to exercise their right to move freely. In either case, people who break the law can lose their rights to free speech and freedom of movement.
Here is why all this turns out to be relevant in this case:
Lots of people have argued that freedom of speech requires the availability of a certain degree of anonymity, both on the part of speaker an audience. Readers need to be able to check out or buy a copy of, say, Mein Kampf without having to worry about whether they will later be acused of being Nazis. Without the ability to read anonymously readers would start to self-censor the ideas available to them. A similar argument can be made for freedom of movement. Individuals may start to think twice about attending protests, or private political meetings, or religious meetings, if they know that their movements may be made public later.
There are several reasons why the EU is unlikely to ever become an competing military power.
1. EU countries spend a tiny fraction of their GDP on defense, and that is unlikely to change. The EU economy is also expected to shrink relative to the world economy while the US economy is not. So the idea that the EU will become an alternate power to the US is implausible. Just to stay near the US in defense spending they would have to collectively increase their spending from around 1% (where it is now) to around 6%, over the next decade or two. No country in Europe appears to be interested in raising defense spending at all, let alone raising it by a factor of six.
2. EU governments occasionally find it uncomfortable to follow the US lead in security matters, but you can bet that most of them find the prospect of following a French or German lead even less attractive. As the recent events in the UN showed, most European governments would rather follow the US, even when they think the US is in the wrong, than follow France, even when they think France is in the right.
3. The countries that would most likely make up the core of the EU's future military power are not, at present, able to make creadible promises to protect the security of other EU members. The UK is uniniterested in parting ways with the US. France tends to persue national self-interest even more rigorously than the US. The Germans had a reputation as being war-mongers, and only managed to shed that reputation by getting a new reputation for being pacifists. Neither the old reputation nor the new one is exactly a good basis for giving security garantees to other countries.
The same way it does now, only more so. Nine times out of ten when companies are successfully prosecuted the crucial evidence is drawn from their own documents.
Get government involved in corporations as much as they are with us humans. Personify a corporation by it's Officers.
In fact the law already treats corporations as persons. A corporations is legally responsible for the actions of its employees, and both civil and criminal sanctions can be imposed on the corporation itself. What you want is something else. You want individual people to be held responsible for the actions of other individuals, or for the actions of corporations, even in cases where no direct responsibility can be proven. I think the courts would regard that as akin to collective punishment and would reject any such law as unconstitutional.
More government control doesn't necessarily help that much.
Some of the most serious problems with defective products in recent history have occured when government was entirely in control. In some cases they screw up because, like business executives, they want to cut costs (providing HIV/AIDS infected blood for example). Sometimes they wind up killing people because they are too cautious. Scandals usually occur when actions kill people, not so much when inaction kills people (delays in FDA approval for new treatments cost thousands of lives).
If you think this is a problem with Capitalism then you should take a look at the sorts of things that went on in Communist countries like the USSR and still go on in places like Communist China.
Cover-ups make me sick.
I think that the only effective remedy for this sort of problem is greater transparency in both business and government. These kinds of problems thend to occur when the people involved think that they can get away with a cover-up.
Judging from the abstract it looks like they plan to take advantage of the PS2's ability to handle graphics. I doubt if you could get a PC that could handle graphics as well as a PS2 for under $400.
What the hell does free software have to do with killing or slavery?
Perhaps you should go read you original message again. In it you said:
The word "free" indicates to me "the freedom to do whatever the hell you want"...
I was just checking to see whether you really meant that, or whether you were confused.
Second, it *does* place constraints on what you can do with software. If a developer uses portions of code that was released under the GPL, their product must also be released under the GPL.
This is not an example of a limit on what you can do with the software. It's not a limit on how you can use it. It's not a limit on what purpose you can use it for. It is a limit on the licensing terms you can attach to it but, as I said before, that is merely a limit on your legal power to limit the actions of others.
I've already been marked a troll because I spoke up against the *attitudes* of the FSF and the way that the GPL is enforced...
I didn't think you were a troll, but I did think that you were making a pretty common mistake. There is no equivalence between Software vendors who say "you can't use this unless you pay us" and the FSF that says "you can use this, so long as you don't try to stop others from doing the same". See the difference?
I suspect the developers of Apache and its related tools, not to mention Perl, Python, and the various BSD-derived OSs might disagree with you.
Why? People are generous even when they expect no one else will be, but there is plenty of evidence to support the claim that they are more generous when they have some assurance that their generosity will be reciprocated. You only have to read some of the writings of people who write free software to see that many of them are motivated by the ideal of freedom that the GPL protects.
The word "free" indicates to me "the freedom to do whatever the hell you want"...
Does that include killing other people, or enslaving them, or taking their property? Hobbes thought so, but of course he was an authoritarian who was trying to undermine the very idea of political freedom. Most political and ethical theorists who actually liked the idea of freedom have understood political freedom to be a state where you can do what you want to do, so long as it does not harm others. Considerable disagreement arises over what qualifies as harming others, but I think there would be very little disagreement between the various different theories of freedom when it comes to the GPL. It places no constraints on what you can do with software covered by the GPL, it merely places constraints on the licensing terms that can be applied to such software. In other words it limits the legal power of some people to limit the freedom of action of others. I don't think there is any theory of freedom that would count that kind of constraint as a limit on freedom, just as there is no theory of freedom that would count a prohibition against murder as a limit on freedom.
I would contend that the reason the Linux kernel has progressed so well has little to do with the license and everything to do with the spirit of the community.
I would contend that the GPL has quite a lot to do with the spirit of the community. It is much easier to be generous when you can be sure that your generosity will not be turned against you.
I keep hearing claims that the GPL is paramount to open-source software development. Why is this?
Take a look at the history of Unix. It started out free (in Stallman's sense) because of constraints imposed on AT&T due to its monopoly status. Later when those constraints were lifted it became unfree, and splintered into a number of different proprietary versions. It was largely this set of events that motivated Stallman to found the FSF and come up with the GPL.
If the GPL disappeared then Linux and other open source projects would not just disappear (just as Unix has not disappeared) but many of those projects might well cease to be open-source (just as Unix ceased to be open).
No, it wasn't. Nuclear attack was an example of a disaster which might happen to a communications network.
Yes it was. The desire for a communications network that could survive a first strike was the only reason why the DoD started research into distributed communication. Later researchers realized that such networks had all sorts of other desirable features, but when they started out, and when they commisioned ARPANET, nuclear attack was what they were interested in.
The Internet may seem new, but it actually began in the 1960s. In 1964 Paul Baran at RAND designed a packet-switching network which could survive a nuclear attack. In 1969 the Department of Defense commissioned ARPANET, a decentralized network, built so that messages could be rerouted in the event that part of the country's communications system was destroyed by a nuclear attack.
I thought that was pretty funny as well. The internet was developed as part of an effort to build a communications network that could survive a nuclear attack by the Soviets. Ah...the good old days, when the nuclear clock stood at a few minutes to midnight, and sensible people lived like there might be no tomorrow.
Einstein was a communist, and some communists really did give the Soviets secret information about US nuclear weapons programs, and the Soviets really did want to use those weapons to kill everyone in the US. The FBI was just doing its job.
I doubt if Apple would have taken the risk if various p2p services had not shown how great a demand there was for online music. As it happens the developers of these p2p services were not detered by the threat of being sued out of existence, so this particular innovation was not stifled. However, Lessig's argument is really about all the innovations that we have not seen, and are unlikely to ever see. He has identified a significant disincentive to inovation (if your innovation threatens existing business models then you will get sued, and probably sued out of existence). Assuming that people respond rationally to such disincentives we have to suppose that many of the people who might have produced innovations in this area are not even bothering to think about it.
His point is that innovation has been slowed, not that it has been stopped, so the fact that some innovation still takes place shows nothing.
Critics of Malthus usually bring up the changing means of food production. Technological change has meant that on a global scale (but not always at the local level) food production has more than kept pace with population growth. An objection that does not get as much attention is the fact that bith control methods have significantly altered the demographics of industrialized nations. Most industrialized nations have shrinking populations with no food shortage in sight.
I think this is right. For example, the article compares the IT industry with certain parts of the transportation industry (rail, auto), rather than with the transportation industry as a whole. If you look at the industry as a whole then you see a long series of exponential bursts as new technologies appear on the scene (steam shipping, container tech, rail, auto, air, and so on). Still if you take that into account then what they are saying might still be very significant. If they are right then all of the tech's that make up IT right now are looking at a period of flatter growth (i.e. PC's, networks, the web, and everything else that we now think of as IT). We may not see exponential growth again until a new innovation comes along that is qualitatively on the same scale as the invention of the web or the PC.
I find it hypocritical that the Economist singles out the IT industry...
That's odd because I could have sworn that the even the summary said that the Economist "Compares IT to growth industries of the past like railroads and automobiles." In other words they did not single it out. What they did was point out that IT was very much like a bunch of other tech industries that have been through periods of exponetial growth.
I know that RTFA is too much trouble for most people, but do you really have to skip the summary as well?
Just focus on (1) and (3) - this is legalese for writing two paragraphs to say why you are selecting the proprietary system you want to purchase.
Actually this is more important than you realize. If you are innocent of a crime then of course providing a solid alibi is the best way to get yourself off the suspects list. If you are guilty of a crime then providing a false alibi is often the worst thing you can do. Saying nothing at all is usually better. Why? Because as soon as you say something the police have something to work on, and at the very least will probably be able to show that you lied.
Likewise there is no way to attack the government's reasons for acting if they do not tell you want those reasons were. A law like this effectively forces beurocrats to give an alibi. If they are faking it, then critics will have something to work on.
Your analogy is damn near perfect, although it might not get you the conclusion you want. In "Seeing Like a State" James Scott argued that all sorts of government actions are driven by the need of government to re-shape society so that it is more comprehensible from the point of view of government beaurocrats. He gave street plans as an example. In old cities you find very complex street layouts, with lots of twists and turns, and dead ends, and different sized streets. Locals who live in these places have no problem understanding all of this and finding their way around. In fact these old disorderly layouts often make a good deal of sense given the local geogrpahy. Still, to outsiders who visit, and to the government that is trying to manage all of this, it looks like a mess. They much prefer orderly grid layouts that can be comprehended at a glance, and managed easily.
I think the situations with the layout of Unix filesystems is very similar. "Locals" have no trouble finding their way around, and even find that the layout makes a good deal of sense. Unfortunately Unix is getting a lot more visitors than it used to, and those visitors are starting to feel like tourists in Venice (i.e. lost). If you want those visitors to find Unix "useful" rather than "quaint" you need to re-think the street plan.
Re:Stupid White Men
on
Shuttle Politics
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· Score: 3, Informative
Michael Moore is pretty funny at times, but he is not exactly a reliable source of information. If you want to learn something about American politics you would be better off reading a good biography of a President or two. You will find plenty of sensational dirt to keep you entertained, and you might actually learn something.
Seriously, saying that you learned about US politics from "Stupid White Men" would be like me saying that I learned everything I need to know about German politics by listening to "Die Gerd Show".
Re:Do we always have to scream "FIRST!"?
on
Life on Mars? Why Not?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Kuhn actually said that most scientists, most of the time, are engaged in what he dismissively refered to as "puzzle solving". So even according to Kuhn, most science involves gradual progress in solving relatively small problems. Every now and again this gradual progress is punctuated by revolutionary "paradigm shifts". Kuhn was much more interested in, and wrote much more about, these revolutionary jumps. Unfortunately this has led many of his readers to mistakenly conclude that science is all about such jumps, when in fact (as Kuhn himself correctly observed) they are the exception rather than the norm.
Critics of Kuhn have also pointed out that if he had paid more attention to the 99% of science that he called "puzzle-solving" then he might have seen that the episodes of "revolution" involved more continuity with prior scientific thinking than he realized.
If you cannot travel without identifying yourself then you are being obstructed by others, aren't you?
No more so that you are being obstructed when the government requires you to drive on only one side of the road. It doesn't stop you from doing what you wanted to do (namely drive somewhere) so it doesn't really infringe on your liberty. Of course it becomes a different matter when the requirements imposed become very costly in one way or another. Requiring that you pay a US$10,000 departure tax, or submit to extensive anal probing before you fly, would certainly be an infringment upon your liberty (and in the second case your privacy as well).
(I'm curious, would the Fourth Ammendment be about liberty or about a claim right, by these definitions?)
Typically rights are classified into four types, namely claim-rights, liberties, powers, and immunities. The rights protected by the fourth Amendment are immunities and claim rights.
Let me be blunt: "The United States made us do it" cannot be a sufficient or acceptable justification for the Government to intrude on a fundamental right of Canadians.
It is not unusual for the governments of other countries to blame the US government when they do something that is unpopular. The Japanese government does this all the time. I do not know enough about Canadian politics to say whether it is as common there as it is in Japan, but you might want to consider the possibility.
More importantly Canada and Canadians get privileged access to the US. They can travel to the US more freely and export to the US more freely than the citizens of any other country in the world. However, one result of this is that when the US wants to improve security they now have to make a choice between tightening security on the Canadian border, or asking Canada to tighten its own security. The US has a right to make the request, and Canada does have a choice in the matter.
The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom...
I think this is profoundly wrong. If you read the classic works on liberty (like say those by Kant or Locke) then you will find barely any mention of privacy. In a genuinely free society the citizens would have no need for anonimity. Not because they have would nothing to hide, but because they would have nothing to fear.
Slashdot Mirror
Jeremy Clarkson (UK motoring journalist) once said - Driving a car is a privilege not a right.
He was wrong for a variety of reasons, but was attempting to say something that was right.
Here is the primary reason why he was wrong:
Freedom of movement is one of the basic components of the right to liberty. Denying people the right to employ the most common and effective means of moving from one place to another is an infringement on that right, just as dennying people the right to publish or broadcast their opinions would be an infringement on their right to freedom of speech.
Here is what he was trying to say:
Like most rights, the right to freedom of movement can be regulated by the state, and like most rights it can be forfeited if one violates the rights of others, or violates the regulations set by the state. The state can, for example, make regulations about how the airwaves can be used so long as these regulations are designed to facilitate the use of the airwaves, and not to make it more difficult for people to publish their opinions. Likewise the state can regulate the use of the roads, so long as these regulations are designed to facilitate the use of the roads, and not to make it harder for individuals to exercise their right to move freely. In either case, people who break the law can lose their rights to free speech and freedom of movement.
Here is why all this turns out to be relevant in this case:
Lots of people have argued that freedom of speech requires the availability of a certain degree of anonymity, both on the part of speaker an audience. Readers need to be able to check out or buy a copy of, say, Mein Kampf without having to worry about whether they will later be acused of being Nazis. Without the ability to read anonymously readers would start to self-censor the ideas available to them. A similar argument can be made for freedom of movement. Individuals may start to think twice about attending protests, or private political meetings, or religious meetings, if they know that their movements may be made public later.
Maybe you should reconsider your loony conspiracy theory. This policy change originated with the Bush administration.
There are several reasons why the EU is unlikely to ever become an competing military power.
1. EU countries spend a tiny fraction of their GDP on defense, and that is unlikely to change. The EU economy is also expected to shrink relative to the world economy while the US economy is not. So the idea that the EU will become an alternate power to the US is implausible. Just to stay near the US in defense spending they would have to collectively increase their spending from around 1% (where it is now) to around 6%, over the next decade or two. No country in Europe appears to be interested in raising defense spending at all, let alone raising it by a factor of six.
2. EU governments occasionally find it uncomfortable to follow the US lead in security matters, but you can bet that most of them find the prospect of following a French or German lead even less attractive. As the recent events in the UN showed, most European governments would rather follow the US, even when they think the US is in the wrong, than follow France, even when they think France is in the right.
3. The countries that would most likely make up the core of the EU's future military power are not, at present, able to make creadible promises to protect the security of other EU members. The UK is uniniterested in parting ways with the US. France tends to persue national self-interest even more rigorously than the US. The Germans had a reputation as being war-mongers, and only managed to shed that reputation by getting a new reputation for being pacifists. Neither the old reputation nor the new one is exactly a good basis for giving security garantees to other countries.
Outlook for the future: expect more of the same.
How will transparency work to stop this?
The same way it does now, only more so. Nine times out of ten when companies are successfully prosecuted the crucial evidence is drawn from their own documents.
Get government involved in corporations as much as they are with us humans. Personify a corporation by it's Officers.
In fact the law already treats corporations as persons. A corporations is legally responsible for the actions of its employees, and both civil and criminal sanctions can be imposed on the corporation itself. What you want is something else. You want individual people to be held responsible for the actions of other individuals, or for the actions of corporations, even in cases where no direct responsibility can be proven. I think the courts would regard that as akin to collective punishment and would reject any such law as unconstitutional.
More government control doesn't necessarily help that much.
Some of the most serious problems with defective products in recent history have occured when government was entirely in control. In some cases they screw up because, like business executives, they want to cut costs (providing HIV/AIDS infected blood for example). Sometimes they wind up killing people because they are too cautious. Scandals usually occur when actions kill people, not so much when inaction kills people (delays in FDA approval for new treatments cost thousands of lives).
If you think this is a problem with Capitalism then you should take a look at the sorts of things that went on in Communist countries like the USSR and still go on in places like Communist China.
Cover-ups make me sick.
I think that the only effective remedy for this sort of problem is greater transparency in both business and government. These kinds of problems thend to occur when the people involved think that they can get away with a cover-up.
Judging from the abstract it looks like they plan to take advantage of the PS2's ability to handle graphics. I doubt if you could get a PC that could handle graphics as well as a PS2 for under $400.
What the hell does free software have to do with killing or slavery?
Perhaps you should go read you original message again. In it you said:
The word "free" indicates to me "the freedom to do whatever the hell you want"...
I was just checking to see whether you really meant that, or whether you were confused.
Second, it *does* place constraints on what you can do with software. If a developer uses portions of code that was released under the GPL, their product must also be released under the GPL.
This is not an example of a limit on what you can do with the software. It's not a limit on how you can use it. It's not a limit on what purpose you can use it for. It is a limit on the licensing terms you can attach to it but, as I said before, that is merely a limit on your legal power to limit the actions of others.
I've already been marked a troll because I spoke up against the *attitudes* of the FSF and the way that the GPL is enforced...
I didn't think you were a troll, but I did think that you were making a pretty common mistake. There is no equivalence between Software vendors who say "you can't use this unless you pay us" and the FSF that says "you can use this, so long as you don't try to stop others from doing the same". See the difference?
Maybe you had better contact the DoD and set them straight. They seem to be pretty sure that they commisioned ARPANET with nuclear attack in mind.
I suspect the developers of Apache and its related tools, not to mention Perl, Python, and the various BSD-derived OSs might disagree with you.
Why? People are generous even when they expect no one else will be, but there is plenty of evidence to support the claim that they are more generous when they have some assurance that their generosity will be reciprocated. You only have to read some of the writings of people who write free software to see that many of them are motivated by the ideal of freedom that the GPL protects.
The word "free" indicates to me "the freedom to do whatever the hell you want"...
Does that include killing other people, or enslaving them, or taking their property? Hobbes thought so, but of course he was an authoritarian who was trying to undermine the very idea of political freedom. Most political and ethical theorists who actually liked the idea of freedom have understood political freedom to be a state where you can do what you want to do, so long as it does not harm others. Considerable disagreement arises over what qualifies as harming others, but I think there would be very little disagreement between the various different theories of freedom when it comes to the GPL. It places no constraints on what you can do with software covered by the GPL, it merely places constraints on the licensing terms that can be applied to such software. In other words it limits the legal power of some people to limit the freedom of action of others. I don't think there is any theory of freedom that would count that kind of constraint as a limit on freedom, just as there is no theory of freedom that would count a prohibition against murder as a limit on freedom.
I would contend that the reason the Linux kernel has progressed so well has little to do with the license and everything to do with the spirit of the community.
I would contend that the GPL has quite a lot to do with the spirit of the community. It is much easier to be generous when you can be sure that your generosity will not be turned against you.
I keep hearing claims that the GPL is paramount to open-source software development. Why is this?
Take a look at the history of Unix. It started out free (in Stallman's sense) because of constraints imposed on AT&T due to its monopoly status. Later when those constraints were lifted it became unfree, and splintered into a number of different proprietary versions. It was largely this set of events that motivated Stallman to found the FSF and come up with the GPL.
If the GPL disappeared then Linux and other open source projects would not just disappear (just as Unix has not disappeared) but many of those projects might well cease to be open-source (just as Unix ceased to be open).
No, it wasn't. Nuclear attack was an example of a disaster which might happen to a communications network.
Yes it was. The desire for a communications network that could survive a first strike was the only reason why the DoD started research into distributed communication. Later researchers realized that such networks had all sorts of other desirable features, but when they started out, and when they commisioned ARPANET, nuclear attack was what they were interested in.
According to The Naval War College Library notes:
The Internet may seem new, but it actually began in the 1960s. In 1964 Paul Baran at RAND designed a packet-switching network which could survive a nuclear attack. In 1969 the Department of Defense commissioned ARPANET, a decentralized network, built so that messages could be rerouted in the event that part of the country's communications system was destroyed by a nuclear attack.
Innocent times like the good ol' 50s...
I thought that was pretty funny as well. The internet was developed as part of an effort to build a communications network that could survive a nuclear attack by the Soviets. Ah...the good old days, when the nuclear clock stood at a few minutes to midnight, and sensible people lived like there might be no tomorrow.
Einstein was a communist, and some communists really did give the Soviets secret information about US nuclear weapons programs, and the Soviets really did want to use those weapons to kill everyone in the US. The FBI was just doing its job.
Modus Ponens has the following form:
P
If P then Q
Therefore Q.
Your argument did not contain a conditional (an "If P the Q" statement) so it cannot be an instance of Modus Ponens.
In fact your argument is an instance of the fallacy of composition (mistakenly transfering a property of a part to the whole).
I doubt if Apple would have taken the risk if various p2p services had not shown how great a demand there was for online music. As it happens the developers of these p2p services were not detered by the threat of being sued out of existence, so this particular innovation was not stifled. However, Lessig's argument is really about all the innovations that we have not seen, and are unlikely to ever see. He has identified a significant disincentive to inovation (if your innovation threatens existing business models then you will get sued, and probably sued out of existence). Assuming that people respond rationally to such disincentives we have to suppose that many of the people who might have produced innovations in this area are not even bothering to think about it.
His point is that innovation has been slowed, not that it has been stopped, so the fact that some innovation still takes place shows nothing.
Critics of Malthus usually bring up the changing means of food production. Technological change has meant that on a global scale (but not always at the local level) food production has more than kept pace with population growth. An objection that does not get as much attention is the fact that bith control methods have significantly altered the demographics of industrialized nations. Most industrialized nations have shrinking populations with no food shortage in sight.
I think this is right. For example, the article compares the IT industry with certain parts of the transportation industry (rail, auto), rather than with the transportation industry as a whole. If you look at the industry as a whole then you see a long series of exponential bursts as new technologies appear on the scene (steam shipping, container tech, rail, auto, air, and so on). Still if you take that into account then what they are saying might still be very significant. If they are right then all of the tech's that make up IT right now are looking at a period of flatter growth (i.e. PC's, networks, the web, and everything else that we now think of as IT). We may not see exponential growth again until a new innovation comes along that is qualitatively on the same scale as the invention of the web or the PC.
I find it hypocritical that the Economist singles out the IT industry...
That's odd because I could have sworn that the even the summary said that the Economist "Compares IT to growth industries of the past like railroads and automobiles." In other words they did not single it out. What they did was point out that IT was very much like a bunch of other tech industries that have been through periods of exponetial growth.
I know that RTFA is too much trouble for most people, but do you really have to skip the summary as well?
Just focus on (1) and (3) - this is legalese for writing two paragraphs to say why you are selecting the proprietary system you want to purchase.
Actually this is more important than you realize. If you are innocent of a crime then of course providing a solid alibi is the best way to get yourself off the suspects list. If you are guilty of a crime then providing a false alibi is often the worst thing you can do. Saying nothing at all is usually better. Why? Because as soon as you say something the police have something to work on, and at the very least will probably be able to show that you lied.
Likewise there is no way to attack the government's reasons for acting if they do not tell you want those reasons were. A law like this effectively forces beurocrats to give an alibi. If they are faking it, then critics will have something to work on.
Your analogy is damn near perfect, although it might not get you the conclusion you want. In "Seeing Like a State" James Scott argued that all sorts of government actions are driven by the need of government to re-shape society so that it is more comprehensible from the point of view of government beaurocrats. He gave street plans as an example. In old cities you find very complex street layouts, with lots of twists and turns, and dead ends, and different sized streets. Locals who live in these places have no problem understanding all of this and finding their way around. In fact these old disorderly layouts often make a good deal of sense given the local geogrpahy. Still, to outsiders who visit, and to the government that is trying to manage all of this, it looks like a mess. They much prefer orderly grid layouts that can be comprehended at a glance, and managed easily.
I think the situations with the layout of Unix filesystems is very similar. "Locals" have no trouble finding their way around, and even find that the layout makes a good deal of sense. Unfortunately Unix is getting a lot more visitors than it used to, and those visitors are starting to feel like tourists in Venice (i.e. lost). If you want those visitors to find Unix "useful" rather than "quaint" you need to re-think the street plan.
Michael Moore is pretty funny at times, but he is not exactly a reliable source of information. If you want to learn something about American politics you would be better off reading a good biography of a President or two. You will find plenty of sensational dirt to keep you entertained, and you might actually learn something.
Seriously, saying that you learned about US politics from "Stupid White Men" would be like me saying that I learned everything I need to know about German politics by listening to "Die Gerd Show".
Kuhn actually said that most scientists, most of the time, are engaged in what he dismissively refered to as "puzzle solving". So even according to Kuhn, most science involves gradual progress in solving relatively small problems. Every now and again this gradual progress is punctuated by revolutionary "paradigm shifts". Kuhn was much more interested in, and wrote much more about, these revolutionary jumps. Unfortunately this has led many of his readers to mistakenly conclude that science is all about such jumps, when in fact (as Kuhn himself correctly observed) they are the exception rather than the norm.
Critics of Kuhn have also pointed out that if he had paid more attention to the 99% of science that he called "puzzle-solving" then he might have seen that the episodes of "revolution" involved more continuity with prior scientific thinking than he realized.
If you cannot travel without identifying yourself then you are being obstructed by others, aren't you?
No more so that you are being obstructed when the government requires you to drive on only one side of the road. It doesn't stop you from doing what you wanted to do (namely drive somewhere) so it doesn't really infringe on your liberty. Of course it becomes a different matter when the requirements imposed become very costly in one way or another. Requiring that you pay a US$10,000 departure tax, or submit to extensive anal probing before you fly, would certainly be an infringment upon your liberty (and in the second case your privacy as well).
(I'm curious, would the Fourth Ammendment be about liberty or about a claim right, by these definitions?)
Typically rights are classified into four types, namely claim-rights, liberties, powers, and immunities. The rights protected by the fourth Amendment are immunities and claim rights.
Let me be blunt: "The United States made us do it" cannot be a sufficient or acceptable justification for the Government to intrude on a fundamental right of Canadians.
It is not unusual for the governments of other countries to blame the US government when they do something that is unpopular. The Japanese government does this all the time. I do not know enough about Canadian politics to say whether it is as common there as it is in Japan, but you might want to consider the possibility.
More importantly Canada and Canadians get privileged access to the US. They can travel to the US more freely and export to the US more freely than the citizens of any other country in the world. However, one result of this is that when the US wants to improve security they now have to make a choice between tightening security on the Canadian border, or asking Canada to tighten its own security. The US has a right to make the request, and Canada does have a choice in the matter.
The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom...
I think this is profoundly wrong. If you read the classic works on liberty (like say those by Kant or Locke) then you will find barely any mention of privacy. In a genuinely free society the citizens would have no need for anonimity. Not because they have would nothing to hide, but because they would have nothing to fear.