And if it's done through speech alone, shouldn't that be more protected than the right of the person being bullied to avoid harassment? That's what I keep getting told here.
I don't understand what you wanted to say with this phrase. If you mean that people should be protected from verbal assault? They are as long as it is really an assault, as the legal definition requires. If you mean a person should be more protected from verbal assault than physical assault, well, then I strongly disagree.
Now, none of this applies to this case anyway, because there was no assault at all.
How do you assault someone verbally? That is what I have been assured, many times, is impossible.
Sure it is, just start yelling at and threatening somebody and you will likely be doing exactly that. The legal definition requires you to have the intend to frighten and intimidate and actually succeed at that.
To clarify, from the legal dictionary:
Although words alone are insufficient, they might create an assault when coupled with some action that indicates the ability to carry out the threat. A mere threat to harm is not an assault; however, a threat combined with a raised fist might be sufficient if it causes a reasonable apprehension of harm in the victim
Sure society decides what is acceptable. Actually society can decide pretty much whatever it wishes. Society can decide white people would be executed for being white, for example, or black people. Or that women should be stoned for disobeying their husbands. Society can decide to burn books and kill anyone that says anything it does not want to be said. As you see what society decides aren't always good decisions, and there can certainly be a lot of conflicts between these decisions and freedom of speech.
But that is besides the point, here. In this case, society, through its laws decided that what these guys did was acceptable and certainly not a criminal behavior. Furthermore, by just sampling this thread you will see what is the general opinion of the IT community about this case. So in fact, both society as a whole (as defined by the law) and the social subgroup where these guys profession fits finds whatever they did acceptable. On the other hand what Richards did was slander and bullying, which is against the law and against the moral code of the professional group to which she belonged.
Do you know what is showing consideration? It is practicing tolerance. It is being a grown up and realizing that people have different opinions and are entitled to have them. Realizing that different opinions enrich us a whole and homogeneity is a flaw not a virtue. Realizing that you do not have the right to demand not being offended.
Bullying has nothing to do with a person expressing his opinions. Bullying has to do with persecution and intimidation. Telling jokes, writing texts or speaking in public places is not and will never be bullying by itself. To characterize bullying you need to direct the assault upon the bullied and preferably establish a relation of power towards him.
What the guys did was anything but bullying. They were talking among themselves and having fun when someone else that they weren't even aware of took offence. What Richards did, on the other hand, by publicly exposing, slandering (by misinterpreting what they were saying) and shaming them can be called bullying on the other hand.
As I said, although you do have all the right in the world to feel offended by anything you dislike and even to speak against it, but you do not have the right to feel entitled to not be offended by anyone and anything.
If you feel offended avoid the offender, if you cannot learn to ignore him and accept people have different opinions, that is what grown ups do. That is called tolerance, and you should start to practice it.
Unless someone stalks you or to directly assaults you, physically or verbally ( that would be bullying), you have no place demanding from them to stop. You can politely ask, that work most of the times, unless your request is absurd, but I guess that would require a degree of civility that seems above you.
Last but not least, you do have the right of solitude, as long as you isolate yourself, and that also gives you the right to avoid unwanted speech too. Now if you want to live in society and go to public places, you won't have either.
Even if that were true (which is not), the company caused itself a considerably greater negative reflection by firing him. Do you consider that a good decision?
Everybody has the right to feel offended. Nobody has the right to expect to live his life without ever been offended. That is called intolerance.
And more pretty much anything you say can be interpreted in a way that will offend at least somebody. The dystopia you seem to be so fond about would be a world were nobody would be able to speak without consulting a lawyer first.
That means, if it was a perfect representation of the work market (which probably is not the case), that for each woman we have 4 men, which is pretty much what he said, a primarily male realm. I would bet the real ratio is even worse for women that this convention sample, though.
Maybe because not all situations are potentially violent, like for example. a programmers convention full of security personal, but even if she was very paranoid and thought she would have been physically assaulted by two programmers in front of a crowd, the proper course of action was to complain to the event managers.
Have you ever heard about the relation between prices and demand? When the price is 0 the demand is immensely greater than when the price is not 0. These 90% of people that pirate are just the added demand that wouldn't exist if the price was not 0, as found here:
At first certainly not. After he and his affiliates destroyed all political opposition and turned Germany into a dictatorship, well, then yes, but it was not a democracy anymore, was it?
Group 3 wouldn't buy even if they couldn't pirate. Group 2 is not the largest. It is by far the smaller, as many studies already pointed, and you would be very shocked to realize that the people you lose from group 1 by adding DRM offsets any gain you may have by "converting" group 2 people.
That is what I said from the start, if you are unable to read and comprehend text it is your fault.
And unless you find a democracy where the representative elected has absolute powers, is not restricted by the law and can do pretty much whatever he wishes without the possibility to be deposed within the rules of the system, a democracy cannot be tyrannical.
Nope. DRM is actually an attempt to control the use of the products you sell, and to manage to extract money from your customers in several ways, by transforming products in services. DRM as a measure of preventing copies it is a failed idea from conception and thinking it can be really used for that is naivete.
A King that does not obey his kingdom's laws is a tyrant. A King that makes harsh laws to which he is subjected too is not. Same applies to theocracy or any other type of government. To be a tyrannical a rule body needs either to have usurped power by force from the former rightful ruler or use it absolutely, without any restraint, even those imposed by himself on others.
By the definition the rightful rulers of a democracy are the people, the majority. A tyranny is a regimen where the power has been taken from its rightfully rulers and its ruler is not subjected to any law or constitution. Well, as such the oxymoron that is "the tyranny of the majority in a democracy" cannot simply exist. In a democracy the power is exerted accordingly to the will of the rightful rulers, the people, through elected representatives, and those representatives are bounded by the law and constitution.
Even if these elected representatives decide to pass some very oppressive laws or alter the constitution in a similar way, that is still not a tyranny as they would do that within their legal rights and through the rightful support of the people who elected them.
So no, it is simply impossible to have a democratic tyranny, even though you can do almost anything a tyrant can do with enough popular support in a democracy.
And the constitution is created by the representatives elected by the majority. If, for example, most of these representatives decide to change the constitution to, lets say, make it perfectly fine to have a law making a death penalty crime to be taller than 1,90 m for example, they can. The only thing that prevents this from happening is that the majority does not want this to happen, but in a democracy often things as absurd will become law when the majority supports it.
Democracy is the rule of the majority. The rightful rulers can't be tyrants by the definition of the term. Tyranny of the majority in democracy is a paradox based on the delusion that democracy is anything but this.
Your point is that you think the ISS was not really constructed to be primarily a research laboratory, which is not substantiated by anything you were capable of providing until now.
The fact that there was cooperation between US, Russia (and many other countries) after the cold war was over does not imply in any way that there was a significant technology transfer or that the ISS was made to this end (which would be a very expensive and stupid way of transferring technology, by the way).
And please, the congressional records do not say anything of the sorts, well except for the words the little men only you can see keep speaking to you .
Last but not least, people wanting to cut funds from space projects is something very common and the ISS is no different than many other projects, valuable or not. People and especially governments seldom think in long term and space projects are long term investments without any assurances of success.
You can believe in whatever absurdities you see fit, but I ask you to refrain from bothering us with your ridiculous and nonsensical theories.
The Cold War was very true, but the fantasy resides in associating it with the ISS. That is the conspiracy theorist bullshit.
And I don't need to rebut claims that have nothing to sustain them. It would be a waste of my time. I can just call them bullshit and wait for the person who claimed them (in this case you) to try and fail to prove his absurdities.
I don't need to rebut claims that have nothing to sustain them. I can just call them bullshit and wait for the person who claimed them to try and fail to prove his absurdities.
Slashdot Mirror
Because you know the future, right?
And no, you can't assault a demographic group, especially when you are not talking to anyone from it.
And if it's done through speech alone, shouldn't that be more protected than the right of the person being bullied to avoid harassment? That's what I keep getting told here.
I don't understand what you wanted to say with this phrase. If you mean that people should be protected from verbal assault? They are as long as it is really an assault, as the legal definition requires. If you mean a person should be more protected from verbal assault than physical assault, well, then I strongly disagree.
Now, none of this applies to this case anyway, because there was no assault at all.
How do you assault someone verbally? That is what I have been assured, many times, is impossible.
Sure it is, just start yelling at and threatening somebody and you will likely be doing exactly that. The legal definition requires you to have the intend to frighten and intimidate and actually succeed at that.
To clarify, from the legal dictionary:
Although words alone are insufficient, they might create an assault when coupled with some action that indicates the ability to carry out the threat. A mere threat to harm is not an assault; however, a threat combined with a raised fist might be sufficient if it causes a reasonable apprehension of harm in the victim
To demand, I don't think so. To ask politely, always.
Sure society decides what is acceptable. Actually society can decide pretty much whatever it wishes. Society can decide white people would be executed for being white, for example, or black people. Or that women should be stoned for disobeying their husbands. Society can decide to burn books and kill anyone that says anything it does not want to be said. As you see what society decides aren't always good decisions, and there can certainly be a lot of conflicts between these decisions and freedom of speech.
But that is besides the point, here. In this case, society, through its laws decided that what these guys did was acceptable and certainly not a criminal behavior. Furthermore, by just sampling this thread you will see what is the general opinion of the IT community about this case. So in fact, both society as a whole (as defined by the law) and the social subgroup where these guys profession fits finds whatever they did acceptable. On the other hand what Richards did was slander and bullying, which is against the law and against the moral code of the professional group to which she belonged.
Do you know what is showing consideration? It is practicing tolerance. It is being a grown up and realizing that people have different opinions and are entitled to have them. Realizing that different opinions enrich us a whole and homogeneity is a flaw not a virtue. Realizing that you do not have the right to demand not being offended.
Bullying has nothing to do with a person expressing his opinions. Bullying has to do with persecution and intimidation. Telling jokes, writing texts or speaking in public places is not and will never be bullying by itself. To characterize bullying you need to direct the assault upon the bullied and preferably establish a relation of power towards him.
What the guys did was anything but bullying. They were talking among themselves and having fun when someone else that they weren't even aware of took offence. What Richards did, on the other hand, by publicly exposing, slandering (by misinterpreting what they were saying) and shaming them can be called bullying on the other hand.
As I said, although you do have all the right in the world to feel offended by anything you dislike and even to speak against it, but you do not have the right to feel entitled to not be offended by anyone and anything.
If you feel offended avoid the offender, if you cannot learn to ignore him and accept people have different opinions, that is what grown ups do. That is called tolerance, and you should start to practice it.
Unless someone stalks you or to directly assaults you, physically or verbally ( that would be bullying), you have no place demanding from them to stop. You can politely ask, that work most of the times, unless your request is absurd, but I guess that would require a degree of civility that seems above you.
Last but not least, you do have the right of solitude, as long as you isolate yourself, and that also gives you the right to avoid unwanted speech too. Now if you want to live in society and go to public places, you won't have either.
Even if that were true (which is not), the company caused itself a considerably greater negative reflection by firing him. Do you consider that a good decision?
Everybody has the right to feel offended. Nobody has the right to expect to live his life without ever been offended. That is called intolerance.
And more pretty much anything you say can be interpreted in a way that will offend at least somebody. The dystopia you seem to be so fond about would be a world were nobody would be able to speak without consulting a lawyer first.
That means, if it was a perfect representation of the work market (which probably is not the case), that for each woman we have 4 men, which is pretty much what he said, a primarily male realm. I would bet the real ratio is even worse for women that this convention sample, though.
Maybe because not all situations are potentially violent, like for example. a programmers convention full of security personal, but even if she was very paranoid and thought she would have been physically assaulted by two programmers in front of a crowd, the proper course of action was to complain to the event managers.
Have you ever heard about the relation between prices and demand? When the price is 0 the demand is immensely greater than when the price is not 0. These 90% of people that pirate are just the added demand that wouldn't exist if the price was not 0, as found here:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/new-research-music-piracy-should-not-be-a-concern-for-copyright-holders/
And here:
http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=6084
Just to cite the last published study among many.
At first certainly not. After he and his affiliates destroyed all political opposition and turned Germany into a dictatorship, well, then yes, but it was not a democracy anymore, was it?
Group 3 wouldn't buy even if they couldn't pirate. Group 2 is not the largest. It is by far the smaller, as many studies already pointed, and you would be very shocked to realize that the people you lose from group 1 by adding DRM offsets any gain you may have by "converting" group 2 people.
Sure , but your selling points could be easy access and availability, support, having a user community, etc.
The truth is, most of those who pirate wouldn't buy it anyway, so piracy is not a deterrent to success. If you make quality products people will buy.
Cute. Now we have a Godwin's law's nazi police!
That is what I said from the start, if you are unable to read and comprehend text it is your fault.
And unless you find a democracy where the representative elected has absolute powers, is not restricted by the law and can do pretty much whatever he wishes without the possibility to be deposed within the rules of the system, a democracy cannot be tyrannical.
Nope. DRM is actually an attempt to control the use of the products you sell, and to manage to extract money from your customers in several ways, by transforming products in services. DRM as a measure of preventing copies it is a failed idea from conception and thinking it can be really used for that is naivete.
A King that does not obey his kingdom's laws is a tyrant. A King that makes harsh laws to which he is subjected too is not. Same applies to theocracy or any other type of government. To be a tyrannical a rule body needs either to have usurped power by force from the former rightful ruler or use it absolutely, without any restraint, even those imposed by himself on others.
By the definition the rightful rulers of a democracy are the people, the majority. A tyranny is a regimen where the power has been taken from its rightfully rulers and its ruler is not subjected to any law or constitution. Well, as such the oxymoron that is "the tyranny of the majority in a democracy" cannot simply exist. In a democracy the power is exerted accordingly to the will of the rightful rulers, the people, through elected representatives, and those representatives are bounded by the law and constitution.
Even if these elected representatives decide to pass some very oppressive laws or alter the constitution in a similar way, that is still not a tyranny as they would do that within their legal rights and through the rightful support of the people who elected them.
So no, it is simply impossible to have a democratic tyranny, even though you can do almost anything a tyrant can do with enough popular support in a democracy.
And the constitution is created by the representatives elected by the majority. If, for example, most of these representatives decide to change the constitution to, lets say, make it perfectly fine to have a law making a death penalty crime to be taller than 1,90 m for example, they can. The only thing that prevents this from happening is that the majority does not want this to happen, but in a democracy often things as absurd will become law when the majority supports it.
Democracy is the rule of the majority. The rightful rulers can't be tyrants by the definition of the term. Tyranny of the majority in democracy is a paradox based on the delusion that democracy is anything but this.
Your point is that you think the ISS was not really constructed to be primarily a research laboratory, which is not substantiated by anything you were capable of providing until now.
The fact that there was cooperation between US, Russia (and many other countries) after the cold war was over does not imply in any way that there was a significant technology transfer or that the ISS was made to this end (which would be a very expensive and stupid way of transferring technology, by the way).
And please, the congressional records do not say anything of the sorts, well except for the words the little men only you can see keep speaking to you .
Last but not least, people wanting to cut funds from space projects is something very common and the ISS is no different than many other projects, valuable or not. People and especially governments seldom think in long term and space projects are long term investments without any assurances of success.
You can believe in whatever absurdities you see fit, but I ask you to refrain from bothering us with your ridiculous and nonsensical theories.
The Cold War was very true, but the fantasy resides in associating it with the ISS. That is the conspiracy theorist bullshit.
And I don't need to rebut claims that have nothing to sustain them. It would be a waste of my time. I can just call them bullshit and wait for the person who claimed them (in this case you) to try and fail to prove his absurdities.
Good luck!
I don't need to rebut claims that have nothing to sustain them. I can just call them bullshit and wait for the person who claimed them to try and fail to prove his absurdities.
His comment is a conspiracy theorist bullshit, which absolute no factual evidence to support it. It is just fantasies from a troubled mind.