Sir, you system is was fucked in the first place, that's why it's being modified.
The thing that makes virsues, as well as spyware and adware, bad is that they are programs installed without the users permission[1]. "White" worms are the same thing. The only difference is the payload.
It's a bit like the dentist giving you a filing because you teeth are fucked, and will get more and more fucked until the hole is patched.
A dentist cannot fill your teeth without your permission, no matter how fucked your teeth are.
[1] I'm defining "permission" pretty tightly here: the user is aware of the programs function and has made a conscious decision to install it. Being tricked into running it doesn't count and neither does any "implied" permission.
"But only a tiny number of Earth's six billion inhabitants are direct participants..."
So really, we are risking alot/spending alot of resources for entertainment? An exotic cottage?
Only a tiny number of explorers on Earth were direct participants, yet their discoveries benefitted all mankind. The fact is that only a tiny number are direct participants now. That number will almost certainly grow in the future.
Yes, we can learn things from space travel. But its HUMAN (frail and needy humans) space travel and compairing it to other alternatives (robotics) that the article is questioning.
Robotic exploration does not address the requirements of the frail and needy humans. If we want to be a space faring civilization, we have to start somewhere.
though, what does this have to do doing manned spaceflight _now_, when more could be learned about space with unmanned flights.
No one is suggesting unmanned space flight be abandoned. There is no doubt that unmanned probes are useful. But advancing the science of unmanned space flight does not advance manned space flight. If not now, when? Keep in mind it will almost certainly always be cheaper and easier to send something into space that you don't care about getting back.
The problem is the legal status of the modern corporation; not democracy.
That's exactly my point.
Sure I do. I can engage in an active campaign to get him elected. For local office, you put signs on lawns, talk to neighbors and pass out swag.
If my buddy pisses me off, however, I pull my support from him, rip my signs down and stop helping him.
If he's being financed, he can hire 10 more people to do those things for him. My point was not that you can't do anything, but that you can't do nearly as much as a business with much more money to spend than you. Your punishment isn't nearly as effective as theirs is.
You have no idea how bad it can be. 18th and 19th Century American politics made today's scandals look tame by comparison.
That's why there are checks and balances: so no one person can gain too much power. But big coporations have bypassed the checks and balances by owning everyone involved.
If my friend is elected to office, I have an advantage over the general public because I have more access to my friend than you do. If I am unethical, I can leverage that friendship while bidding for government contracts or influencing legislation.
But you have very little control over whether your friend gets elected. If your friend refuses to do your bidding, there's little you can do to punish him for it. A candidate whose campaign is financed by a big corporation, on the other hand, can suddenly find his funds drying up if he fails to perform to their satisfaction. So while there is corruption is both cases, treating both as equally dangerous is very simplistic.
We get corrupt leaders because people are corrupt.
There are varying levels of corruption. The system we have now favors the most corrupt: those that are willing to sell the power the office gives them to the highest bidder.
European-style runoff elections and 2nd choice votes do not make sense in a country as large and diverse as the US.
I have to disagree with this. A process where you only get to indicate your first choice can elect a president that the majority of the people think is unqualified for the job. It also leads to "lesser of two evils" mindsets where people who really dislike one candidate are pretty much forced into voting for another they don't like only because he has the best chance of winning.
Being able to rate the candiates in order of preference would get rid of that "wasted vote" of voting for an independent candidate. Think of how the 2000 Presidential election would have turned out if everyone who voted for Nader could have selected Gore as their second choice. People would be more free to select who they thought was the best person for the job without having to worry about the worst person winning.
A single vote for "best qualified" only makes sense if there are only two candidates.
Even idle coffee-table debate is campaigning. The campaign process is inherent to democracy.
Just to pick a nit, I define "campaigning" as a candidate (or his helpers) trying to convince people to vote for him. Coffee-table debate is usually just the exchange of ideas which may or may not lead to a more informed voter.
I have no idea how we can correct for the disparity without creating an easily exploitable welfare system.
Me either, but part of the problem is that the cost of campaigning is so high because the candidates have so much to spend. Campaign ads get sold for what the market will bear. If they didn't have as much, the ads would be cheaper and they wouldn't need so much money to run. If the campaigns were government funded and every candidate receieved the same amount, it would go along way to make it more fair. But there would have to be some barrier to entry to prevent things like the last California gubinatorial election where everybody and his brother decided to run. How to make that fair, I have no idea.
My solution is to minimize the exploitation by campaigning for the complete and utter castration of government.
If the election process was fair and not corrupt, this would be a natural result provided the American People wanted it.
More and more people are finding that there isn't a candidate worth voting for and they are all a bunch of lying puppets. When will the West learn that Democracy is fundamentally flawed?
What's fundamentally flawed is the people the system encourages to run. A candidate cannot get elected without taking money from people who want favors in return for their contributions. We get corrupt leaders because the system favors corrupt leaders. It's not a problem in democracy[1] itself, but the campaign process. Take the money out of the campaigns and there will be much less proclivity towards bought politicians.
[1] Pedantic nitpicks about this not being a true democracy aside.
Bullshit. 14 year old girls were sued by the RIAA and nobody raised a peep.
Because most people believed the FUD that they were "stealing music".
The public is perfectly happy to be spoonfed important news like laci peterson while completely ignoring the threats to their freedom.
I completely agree. Most could care less about freedom of speech or their 4th ammendment rights because they aren't the ones being suppressed or searched. It's happening to "other people", not them. But try taking away their VCR. This is something that affects them personally. They will notice and they will not like it one bit.
The national 55mph speed limit was enacted to save gasoline during the oil crunch of the 70's. Once that was over, the national speed limit was only a technicality since there are no national traffic police: local cops enforced the "unofficial" local speed limit.
Unlike this. The INDUCE Act gives the DOJ jurisdiction over prosecuting these "crimes". All it will take is a couple of otherwise innocent people being prosecuted for owning a VCR and it will be a bloody revolution.
At the very least, the MP/RIAA are going to discover that the harder they make it for people to watch their shows and listen to their music the less people are going to do it and they will bleed themselves dry.
If your argument were that public policy based on likes/dislikes in general is poor policy, then I'd already be in agreement. To make a distinction between types of preferences then decide one kind can affect policy and the other can't seems like an attempt to control what society is allowed to like and dislike. This seems especially true given the claim that one type of preference is no better or worse than the other.
You're making the mistake of assuming that, because I disapprove of one, I approve of the other. Whether making policy decisions on rational dislikes is good policy is a separate argument. Personally, I don't believe anyone has the right to be protected against being offended, whether that offense is rational or not. My argument was limited to the irrational emotional response of these few words because the PBS show was going to air unchanged except for the bleeping of a few words regardless of how they were used.
These arguments make it sound like you're talking about "nature" vs "nurture" or perhaps "emotional" vs "biological" as much as about "rational" vs "irrational". To equate rational as used in "rational government" and rational as used in "rational dislike" would seem an oversimplification.
It's really not. My use of "rational" is entirely based on logic and reason. A "rational policy" is one that is based on logic and reason as is a "rational dislike".
This may be true (which I obviously wasn't thinking with that first comment), but it depends very much on the definition of "rational policy". If such a definition is not carefully drawn, it can lead to as much trouble as it is intended to solve.
Using the definition of "logical and based on reason" for "rational", it shouldn't cause many problems at all. Words only exist to convey meaning. If the meaning of the word is not considered, there is no logic in the banning of the word.
The need for FCC regulation of network TV is "clearly rational",
If the regulation we're talking about is protecting people from hearing words they simply don't like for no logical reason, then I can't agree with you here. I don't believe that being offended is a harm people have an inherent right to be protected from, especially if their offense is not rational. But that's beside the point. I'm not talking about offensive ideas. Only the banning of certain words regardless of how they are used.
Societal preference (or at least preferences of certain segments of society) have a strong influence on these regulations whether or not individual words are targetted.
The existence of the FCC regulations is proof of that. But it does not make it right. My argument is that these regulations, specifically the banning of certain words regardless of how they are used, is not based in reason or logic and therefore bad policy.
Oh no, and how did they possibly get through the whole tape to CD evolution?
LP to tape to CD just changed the package that the product came in, but they were still producing and shipping them. With file sharing the package itself is no longer needed because the product can be delivered without it. For a couple thousand dollars, anyone can produce a good quality album and distribute it over the internet without having to go through the recording industry. That makes the recording industry obsolete and that's what scares them.
There's an economic theory, and I'll be damned if I can remember where I read it, that says (paraphrasing from memory) it's rarely a good business decision for a company to invest in the development of a new business model that makes their existing, successful business model obsolete. They have too much to lose to make it worth the risk.
..Can't the RIAA, MPAA, and everyone else just realize that there is an efficient medium for distributing music, movies, and any other digital/converted to digital media, and WORK WITH IT?
Because they have far too much invested in producing and shipping plastic disks.
I call b*llsh*t. Either the real villains are the kids -- the ones who chose to engage in each individual act of copyright infringement -- or there is no real villain at all.
It's not about copyright infringment no matter how much the RIAA complains about it. It's about illegalizing a technology that makes the recording industry obsolete. "Piracy" is just the excuse to get it done. The real villain is the RIAA.
Oh, I understand that some people may have a different opinion and believe in laissez-fair parenting.
Show me where I said I believed in laissez-fair parenting before you go accusing me of putting words in your mouth.
I also understand that those people are wrong. That is not being narrow-minded, that is being correct-minded.
narrow-minded: "Lacking tolerance, breadth of view, or sympathy; petty. Of narrow mental scope; illiberal; mean"
That anyone disagrees with you means they can't possibly be a parent is narrow-minded. You aren't even willing to discuss it. That makes you narrow-minded. You are intolerant of any view which differs from your own. That makes you narrow-minded.
lacking any solid argument of [your] own,
You might try reading my comment before responding.
you are putting words in my mouth that I never said.
Exactly what did I claim you said that you didn't?
This makes you a liar,
If you can't attack the argument, attack the man.
in addition to someone who is clueless about parenting.
Care to make an argument or are you just going to call me names?
Why don't you answer some of the questions I asked you? Or would you rather resort to name calling and baseless accusations?
Correction, "Any solid argument of your own." Haven't had a day off in three weeks.
Maybe if you spent more time with your kids you might be able to trust them more and wouldn't have to resort to invading their privacy.
Traffic laws, some of them at least, are completely arbitrary and have no basis in logic or reason (right vs left side of the road for example).
Getting everyone to drive on the same side of the road is entirely logical. Which side of the road is an arbitrary decision but the need to make the decision is entirely rational.
The very act of reading or listening conveys ideas (Whether intentional or accidental) to the reader or listener. This much is true for a single word or a whole volume.
That is my point entirely and the only reason for words to exist. Being offended by one word and not another when they mean exactly the same thing is being offended by the series of letters and not the idea it conveys.
I fail to see what taste has to do with logic. In fact, taste seems to defy logic and reason.
We're not talking about mere dislike for a word. We are talking about being insulted or offended by a word regardless of how it was used. However you define taste, being offended by a word without regard for the intended meaning is based entirely on an emotional response to the word. To say, "this word may never be spoken, regardless of its intent," is not a rational policy.
At the very least, it would be impolite of me not to apologize for accidentally offending you.
It is diplomatic to accept responsibility for a misunderstanding, but is it really reasonable to require someone to accept responsibility for someone else perceiving insult when none was intended?
I certainly hope you don't purposely swear in front of people you know are offended by swearing.
Whether I choose to engage in such behavior is an entirely different conversation from whether I should be allowed to.
Agreed, but we're talking about words banned because of what they very often mean, not what they rarely mean.
If we were, then why are other words which mean the same thing not banned?
Good reason to legislate against this FCC malarky that's been going on, but not a good reason to strike things down based on the first amendment.
It is clearly government-sponsored, content-based regulation of speech. It is very much a First Ammendment issue and the onus is on the government to show that there is a greater good being served by banning these words from broadcast television. Irrational emotional response to a word is not good reason.
I guess the bottom line is not that I think these particular likes/dislikes of society make sense, but that I can't think of any likes and dislikes that *do* make sense in anything approaching a purely rational (or even a merely objective/inductive) setting.
Likes/dislikes are rational if there is a logical reason for liking them: eg. the aspect that makes you dislike the thing is a direct characteristic of the thing and not something you merely associate with it. I have an extreme dislike of gin. When I was in college I got very sick from drinking entirely too much gin. My dislike of gin is not because of any particular characteristic of gin, but because I associate it with being sick. Had I drank too much of anything else, I would have the same dislike for that liquor. It is not a rational dislike. My dislike for tequila, on the other hand, is because I don't like the taste. It is a characteristic of tequila that is not appealing to me. That is a rational dislike.
And even if I found such preferences I'm not sure they'd be in any way superior (ie: why *should* preferences be
It looks like the rest of your comment got cut off, but I think I get the gist of it. I am not claiming a rational dislike is in any way superior to an irrational dislike. My argument is, and has always been, that deciding public policy based on irrational dislikes is poor policy.
Agreed, but there's a distinction between what goes on TV (public) and what you aquire in an adult forum and watch in your own home (private). (I did mention alternative distribution in this thread already didn't I?)
The problem is that it is illegal to say these words in certain circumstances with no basis in reason. That there are other circumstances where it is okay to say the words does not make it right.
I may not have been clear. Is there no string of text or audio recording that you would ever consider "rationally offensive"?
No. There is no string of text or spoken word[1] that is rationally offensive without consideration for the idea it conveys. Without the idea, there is only meaningless sound or marks. How can you be offended by something with no meaning? How can something without meaning possible insult or disturb you?
I fail to see how saying you know why someone else is offended makes it so... no matter how many times it is repeated.
This is covered in my proof from my original post and I will revisit it below.
My likes and dislikes are a part of who I am
Nobody is arguing this. The rationality of your likes and dislikes is also a part of who you are. I am not judging anyone's character nor making statements about their intelligence or mental competence based on the rationality of their dislike of these words. What I am doing, however, is questioning the policy of restricting behavior that is based on an irrational dislike of these words.
and I object to someone attempting to categorize my behaviour and by extension myself as rational vs irrational based on their own notions about the subject.
My own notions about the subject have nothing to do with it. By definition, it is rational if there is a logical reason for it. It is irrational if there is no logical reason for it. To revisit broccoli and Nixon, disliking broccoli because it tastes bad is rational because the act of eating broccoli causes you displeasure. There is very clear cause and effect here. Disliking broccoli because Nixon liked it is irrational because how Nixon felt about broccoli can in no way, shape or form affect how broccoli tastes to you.
So if someone dislikes, or is offended by, a word you get to decide why?
It has nothing to do with me. Their likes and dislikes are either caused by logical means or they aren't.
That is: A) Because of a conditioned response.
Conditioned responses are not rational. They confuse causation and correlation.
B) Because of ideas the word conjures up, even when used in an otherwise innocuous context.
I cannot help what you think of when I say a certain word. If I believe you have insulted me, when in fact I misunderstood what you said, are you still at fault for the affront to me? In other words, are you responsible for my reaction to what I thought you meant?
I should point out... I really dislike this use of the term rational. I know it is prevalent, but I still dislike it. This is because attacking a person or group of people as rational vs irrational is an important method of dehumanizing them. Using rational and irrational to describe behaviour is only one small step away from this kind of nasty propoganda. Also, the meaning of "rational" in debates is usually poorly defined, and everyone always wants to claim it for their side, which gets messy.
See, this is a perfect example. My use of the term "rational" is limited to the reactions to these particular words and I use it exclusively to mean "Consistent with or based on reason; logical". I am not describing people as being irrational, only their reactions to these words. In this case my use of the term "rational" is perfectly correct because I am discussing reason and logic. But you have a bad association with the word "rational" because of others' misuse of it and so transfer the dislike of that
In case you haven't met any of the incredibly spoiled brats who definately can't, let me tell you this: Not all parents manage even this "trivial" task.
That speaks more of their parenting than it does of the task, but I was speaking comparatively. Of the two, getting them to behave in your presence is the easier.
Saying "Go out and do what you want, I trust you" is not necessarily good parenting either, at least not always.
I never said it was. That I disapprove of one extreme does not mean I approve of the other. That I am against total mistrust of a child does not mean I endorse total and unconditional trust.
I think I'll just sum it up with a quote from H.L. Mencken: "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
I also never said parenting was simple. If anything it's the technology to track your child's every move that is the simple, neat and wrong solution.
I think there's a problem here with the definiton of rational. You seem to be claiming there are rational and irrational instances of feeling disturbed.
There are absolutely rational and irrational instances of feeling disturbed. Being disturbed by images of children being tortured I think is clearly rational. Being disturbed by a color is irrational because a color cannot, by itself, convey any disturbing ideas. This is not to say that a person cannot associate disturbing imagery with a color, but it is not a rational response.
I'm not sure I even agree this distinction can be properly made let alone on where it lies.
I'm not trying to draw the line, my claim is that, wherever the line is drawn, being offended by a sequence of letters and not the meaning of the word they represent is well outside it.
My personal feeling is that attacking a person's, or group of people's, rationality because of their preferences in this area seems unfair.
If it stopped at their being offended I wouldn't have a problem. But they are trying to tell me what I am and am not allowed to see on television because of their irrational dislike of certain words. It is directly affecting me and that's why I have a problem with it. People can have all the irrational dislikes they want providing they don't prevent me from experiencing the things they don't like.
How long does a group of letters or a phonetic sound have to be that you would consider it rational for someone to be disturbed and/or offended?
My argument is that a group of letters or a phonetic sound by itself cannot be offensive. And being offended by a phonetic sound or group of letters, regardless of their meaning, will always be irrational.
Some people have an "irrational" fear of enclosed spaces, does that make it okay to stuff them in a box and sit on the lid?
No. But it also isn't okay to ban elevators because some people are claustrophobic. I'm not saying they have to watch these shows. They are, in fact, quite easily avoidable. They are telling me, however, that I am not allowed to watch them because they don't like the words.
Funny, you mention that. I had a friend in high-school who hated yellow so much he used to pretend the color didn't exist.[...]This quirk seemed more reasonable to me than disenfranchising someone because of such a quirk.
Would you have felt the same way if he insisted you not ever wear the color yellow in his presence? Or speak the word "yellow" while he was in earshot? How about if he tried to have the prinicpal institute a rule that "yellow" will not be worn or spoken of under penalty of detention?
If enough people have a problem with the word "blue" (or the color itself), because of ideas it conjures up,
If it were the ideas the word conjured up, it would be a different story. But, as I've said many times already, they aren't offended by the ideas, just the word itself.
that society decides it is an un-acceptable word (or color)... perhaps censure is reasonable in channels widely available to minors. Of course, just one person isn't likely to sway society's viewpoint on the matter.
If the unacceptability of the word is not based on reason, it doesn't matter how many people hold that opinion. It's still irrational. A fear of bears is a rational fear because a bear will likely kill you. There's good reason for the fear, regardless of how many people are actually afraid of bears. The fear of the color blue is irrational because the color blue cannot (except, possibly, in very unlikely circumstances) harm you.
So likes and dislikes are now either rational or irrational?
Yes. They always were. Not liking broccoli because you don't like the taste is rational. Not liking broccoli because Nixon liked it is irrational[1]. This is not to say that a person does not have the right to dislike b
The battle cry of the narrow-minded parent who can't possibly understand that someone else that has children might have a different opinion on how they should be raised.
There's being involved in your child's life and there's being so oppressive they have no choice but to rebel and rebel hard. One of the worst things you can do as a parent is to make your child believe you do not trust him at all.
Let me ask you this: If you treat your child as if he's a criminal, what incentive does he have to not be a criminal? If your home is already a prison, how effective is the threat of prison going to be? And furthermore, how is this complete lack of trust preparing him for life without you?
I would suggest that if you need to track your child's every movement when they are old enough to go places by themselves then you haven't done your job as a parent. Getting children to behave properly when you are with them is trivial. Getting them to behave properly when you aren't with them is what parenting is all about.
I'm not sure I follow here, so I'll lean on my slippery slope a second. How exactly is this different than the harm from seeing goatse? Isn't that similarly self/societally induced harm?
Offense at images at least is offense at the ideas the images convey. People can be disturbed by images of sex, violence, torture, etc. and not be considered irrational. Offense at these particular words, however, is not because of the ideas they convey but the words themselves. That's what makes it irrational and unreasonable. If someone was offended by the word "blue", is that reasonable?
Well, we've got human beings involved, rational may not get the billing it deserves.
That is true. It doesn't, however, make it right.
I guess I'm not seeing how self-inflicted pain is any less painful...
I'm not arguing that it's less painful, only that there is no rational reason for the pain to exist in the first place. It's no different than being offended by a color.
This really starts to sound like an assertion of blame issue. You'd hold individuals (or families) responsible for not being able to handle what they watch. I'm holding producers responsible for being sensitive to their audiences. Beyond that its a question of at what point who is responsible.
I'm only questioning the rationality of being offended, to the point of demanding they be banned, by a specific order of letters regardless of their meaning. I may not agree with it, but I understand not wanting to be exposed to certain ideas. I cannot, however, understand banning words simply because some people do not like them, especially when their reason for not liking them has no basis in reason or rationality. And holding others responsible for these people's irrational dislike of certain words, regardless of their meaning, is ridiculous.
Okay, we seem to agree that there is content that shouldn't be on public television and that individual words is a piss poor method of controlling content. However, we also seem to agree that there is "perceived harm", at least for some people, in the words themselves. You argue that this perception is irrational and therefore doesn't matter. I argue that perception is important and that this leaves us with a light shade of "possible harm".
My argument is that this light shade of possible harm is completely their own (and quite probably their parents') doing and therefore their own responsibility. That they perceive harm from the exposure does not obligate me to ensure they are not exposed.
I also don't think it encroaches freedom of speech for certain words to be taboo in broadcast television.
It is government-sponsored, content-based regulation of speech which serves no rational or practical purpose. We're not talking about endangering other people's lives, or harming them in any other way except for the harm they insist upon suffering themselves. People will be punished for this behavior despite the complete lack of any real harm.
Wow, I'm a hypocrite in 4 letters flat.
I never called you a hypocrite. If you can recognize the word "fuck" from "f__k", then both should be equally offensive if it is the idea that offends you, and not just the word itself. If you can't recognize it, then you would most likely not know what the word "fuck" meant, and thus not be offended by it. But that "f__k" is acceptable and "fuck" is not is another sign that it is the sequence of four specific letters which is offensive and not the idea, and that is what is hypocritical.
In this case it appears f__k is *more* obscene than simply fuck...
What is obscene is that the word itself, and not the idea it conveys, is "indecent". In that respect, yes, "f__k" may very well be more obscene than "fuck" in that it perpetuates the idea that people are right to be offended by a word and not its meaning.
Slashdot Mirror
Sir, you system is was fucked in the first place, that's why it's being modified.
The thing that makes virsues, as well as spyware and adware, bad is that they are programs installed without the users permission[1]. "White" worms are the same thing. The only difference is the payload.
It's a bit like the dentist giving you a filing because you teeth are fucked, and will get more and more fucked until the hole is patched.
A dentist cannot fill your teeth without your permission, no matter how fucked your teeth are.
[1] I'm defining "permission" pretty tightly here: the user is aware of the programs function and has made a conscious decision to install it. Being tricked into running it doesn't count and neither does any "implied" permission.
The "Explorers on Earth" analogy is so obviously dumb, it's confounding that nominally smart people keep bringing it up.
Do you have an argument to make or are you just going to spew sweeping claims without backing them up?
The exploration of the new world had a direct return on investment in terms of gold, spices, slaves, and empire.
Ah. So wealth is the only reason to do anything? What a shallow life you must lead.
Until you can make that case for Space, quit with the faulty comparisons.
Exactly how is my comparison faulty?
"But only a tiny number of Earth's six billion inhabitants are direct participants..."
So really, we are risking alot/spending alot of resources for entertainment? An exotic cottage?
Only a tiny number of explorers on Earth were direct participants, yet their discoveries benefitted all mankind. The fact is that only a tiny number are direct participants now. That number will almost certainly grow in the future.
Yes, we can learn things from space travel. But its HUMAN (frail and needy humans) space travel and compairing it to other alternatives (robotics) that the article is questioning.
Robotic exploration does not address the requirements of the frail and needy humans. If we want to be a space faring civilization, we have to start somewhere.
though, what does this have to do doing manned spaceflight _now_, when more could be learned about space with unmanned flights.
No one is suggesting unmanned space flight be abandoned. There is no doubt that unmanned probes are useful. But advancing the science of unmanned space flight does not advance manned space flight. If not now, when? Keep in mind it will almost certainly always be cheaper and easier to send something into space that you don't care about getting back.
The problem is the legal status of the modern corporation; not democracy.
That's exactly my point.
Sure I do. I can engage in an active campaign to get him elected. For local office, you put signs on lawns, talk to neighbors and pass out swag.
If my buddy pisses me off, however, I pull my support from him, rip my signs down and stop helping him.
If he's being financed, he can hire 10 more people to do those things for him. My point was not that you can't do anything, but that you can't do nearly as much as a business with much more money to spend than you. Your punishment isn't nearly as effective as theirs is.
You have no idea how bad it can be. 18th and 19th Century American politics made today's scandals look tame by comparison.
Have any examples?
Corruption exists in any government.
That's why there are checks and balances: so no one person can gain too much power. But big coporations have bypassed the checks and balances by owning everyone involved.
If my friend is elected to office, I have an advantage over the general public because I have more access to my friend than you do. If I am unethical, I can leverage that friendship while bidding for government contracts or influencing legislation.
But you have very little control over whether your friend gets elected. If your friend refuses to do your bidding, there's little you can do to punish him for it. A candidate whose campaign is financed by a big corporation, on the other hand, can suddenly find his funds drying up if he fails to perform to their satisfaction. So while there is corruption is both cases, treating both as equally dangerous is very simplistic.
We get corrupt leaders because people are corrupt.
There are varying levels of corruption. The system we have now favors the most corrupt: those that are willing to sell the power the office gives them to the highest bidder.
European-style runoff elections and 2nd choice votes do not make sense in a country as large and diverse as the US.
I have to disagree with this. A process where you only get to indicate your first choice can elect a president that the majority of the people think is unqualified for the job. It also leads to "lesser of two evils" mindsets where people who really dislike one candidate are pretty much forced into voting for another they don't like only because he has the best chance of winning.
Being able to rate the candiates in order of preference would get rid of that "wasted vote" of voting for an independent candidate. Think of how the 2000 Presidential election would have turned out if everyone who voted for Nader could have selected Gore as their second choice. People would be more free to select who they thought was the best person for the job without having to worry about the worst person winning.
A single vote for "best qualified" only makes sense if there are only two candidates.
Even idle coffee-table debate is campaigning. The campaign process is inherent to democracy.
Just to pick a nit, I define "campaigning" as a candidate (or his helpers) trying to convince people to vote for him. Coffee-table debate is usually just the exchange of ideas which may or may not lead to a more informed voter.
I have no idea how we can correct for the disparity without creating an easily exploitable welfare system.
Me either, but part of the problem is that the cost of campaigning is so high because the candidates have so much to spend. Campaign ads get sold for what the market will bear. If they didn't have as much, the ads would be cheaper and they wouldn't need so much money to run. If the campaigns were government funded and every candidate receieved the same amount, it would go along way to make it more fair. But there would have to be some barrier to entry to prevent things like the last California gubinatorial election where everybody and his brother decided to run. How to make that fair, I have no idea.
My solution is to minimize the exploitation by campaigning for the complete and utter castration of government.
If the election process was fair and not corrupt, this would be a natural result provided the American People wanted it.
More and more people are finding that there isn't a candidate worth voting for and they are all a bunch of lying puppets. When will the West learn that Democracy is fundamentally flawed?
What's fundamentally flawed is the people the system encourages to run. A candidate cannot get elected without taking money from people who want favors in return for their contributions. We get corrupt leaders because the system favors corrupt leaders. It's not a problem in democracy[1] itself, but the campaign process. Take the money out of the campaigns and there will be much less proclivity towards bought politicians.
[1] Pedantic nitpicks about this not being a true democracy aside.
Bullshit. 14 year old girls were sued by the RIAA and nobody raised a peep.
Because most people believed the FUD that they were "stealing music".
The public is perfectly happy to be spoonfed important news like laci peterson while completely ignoring the threats to their freedom.
I completely agree. Most could care less about freedom of speech or their 4th ammendment rights because they aren't the ones being suppressed or searched. It's happening to "other people", not them. But try taking away their VCR. This is something that affects them personally. They will notice and they will not like it one bit.
The national 55mph speed limit was enacted to save gasoline during the oil crunch of the 70's. Once that was over, the national speed limit was only a technicality since there are no national traffic police: local cops enforced the "unofficial" local speed limit.
Unlike this. The INDUCE Act gives the DOJ jurisdiction over prosecuting these "crimes". All it will take is a couple of otherwise innocent people being prosecuted for owning a VCR and it will be a bloody revolution.
At the very least, the MP/RIAA are going to discover that the harder they make it for people to watch their shows and listen to their music the less people are going to do it and they will bleed themselves dry.
If your argument were that public policy based on likes/dislikes in general is poor policy, then I'd already be in agreement. To make a distinction between types of preferences then decide one kind can affect policy and the other can't seems like an attempt to control what society is allowed to like and dislike. This seems especially true given the claim that one type of preference is no better or worse than the other.
You're making the mistake of assuming that, because I disapprove of one, I approve of the other. Whether making policy decisions on rational dislikes is good policy is a separate argument. Personally, I don't believe anyone has the right to be protected against being offended, whether that offense is rational or not. My argument was limited to the irrational emotional response of these few words because the PBS show was going to air unchanged except for the bleeping of a few words regardless of how they were used.
These arguments make it sound like you're talking about "nature" vs "nurture" or perhaps "emotional" vs "biological" as much as about "rational" vs "irrational". To equate rational as used in "rational government" and rational as used in "rational dislike" would seem an oversimplification.
It's really not. My use of "rational" is entirely based on logic and reason. A "rational policy" is one that is based on logic and reason as is a "rational dislike".
This may be true (which I obviously wasn't thinking with that first comment), but it depends very much on the definition of "rational policy". If such a definition is not carefully drawn, it can lead to as much trouble as it is intended to solve.
Using the definition of "logical and based on reason" for "rational", it shouldn't cause many problems at all. Words only exist to convey meaning. If the meaning of the word is not considered, there is no logic in the banning of the word.
The need for FCC regulation of network TV is "clearly rational",
If the regulation we're talking about is protecting people from hearing words they simply don't like for no logical reason, then I can't agree with you here. I don't believe that being offended is a harm people have an inherent right to be protected from, especially if their offense is not rational. But that's beside the point. I'm not talking about offensive ideas. Only the banning of certain words regardless of how they are used.
Societal preference (or at least preferences of certain segments of society) have a strong influence on these regulations whether or not individual words are targetted.
The existence of the FCC regulations is proof of that. But it does not make it right. My argument is that these regulations, specifically the banning of certain words regardless of how they are used, is not based in reason or logic and therefore bad policy.
The rest of the universe may be all "peace-groovy, brother" and we got saddled with the wingnuts.
That may be by design... "Earth: Australia of the universe..."
d&r
MSNBCBS, a division of ABC
Oh no, and how did they possibly get through the whole tape to CD evolution?
LP to tape to CD just changed the package that the product came in, but they were still producing and shipping them. With file sharing the package itself is no longer needed because the product can be delivered without it. For a couple thousand dollars, anyone can produce a good quality album and distribute it over the internet without having to go through the recording industry. That makes the recording industry obsolete and that's what scares them.
There's an economic theory, and I'll be damned if I can remember where I read it, that says (paraphrasing from memory) it's rarely a good business decision for a company to invest in the development of a new business model that makes their existing, successful business model obsolete. They have too much to lose to make it worth the risk.
..Can't the RIAA, MPAA, and everyone else just realize that there is an efficient medium for distributing music, movies, and any other digital/converted to digital media, and WORK WITH IT?
Because they have far too much invested in producing and shipping plastic disks.
I call b*llsh*t. Either the real villains are the kids -- the ones who chose to engage in each individual act of copyright infringement -- or there is no real villain at all.
It's not about copyright infringment no matter how much the RIAA complains about it. It's about illegalizing a technology that makes the recording industry obsolete. "Piracy" is just the excuse to get it done. The real villain is the RIAA.
Oh, I understand that some people may have a different opinion and believe in laissez-fair parenting.
Show me where I said I believed in laissez-fair parenting before you go accusing me of putting words in your mouth.
I also understand that those people are wrong. That is not being narrow-minded, that is being correct-minded.
narrow-minded:
"Lacking tolerance, breadth of view, or sympathy; petty. Of narrow mental scope; illiberal; mean"
That anyone disagrees with you means they can't possibly be a parent is narrow-minded. You aren't even willing to discuss it. That makes you narrow-minded. You are intolerant of any view which differs from your own. That makes you narrow-minded.
lacking any solid argument of [your] own,
You might try reading my comment before responding.
you are putting words in my mouth that I never said.
Exactly what did I claim you said that you didn't?
This makes you a liar,
If you can't attack the argument, attack the man.
in addition to someone who is clueless about parenting.
Care to make an argument or are you just going to call me names?
Why don't you answer some of the questions I asked you? Or would you rather resort to name calling and baseless accusations?
Correction, "Any solid argument of your own." Haven't had a day off in three weeks.
Maybe if you spent more time with your kids you might be able to trust them more and wouldn't have to resort to invading their privacy.
Traffic laws, some of them at least, are completely arbitrary and have no basis in logic or reason (right vs left side of the road for example).
Getting everyone to drive on the same side of the road is entirely logical. Which side of the road is an arbitrary decision but the need to make the decision is entirely rational.
The very act of reading or listening conveys ideas (Whether intentional or accidental) to the reader or listener. This much is true for a single word or a whole volume.
That is my point entirely and the only reason for words to exist. Being offended by one word and not another when they mean exactly the same thing is being offended by the series of letters and not the idea it conveys.
I fail to see what taste has to do with logic. In fact, taste seems to defy logic and reason.
We're not talking about mere dislike for a word. We are talking about being insulted or offended by a word regardless of how it was used. However you define taste, being offended by a word without regard for the intended meaning is based entirely on an emotional response to the word. To say, "this word may never be spoken, regardless of its intent," is not a rational policy.
At the very least, it would be impolite of me not to apologize for accidentally offending you.
It is diplomatic to accept responsibility for a misunderstanding, but is it really reasonable to require someone to accept responsibility for someone else perceiving insult when none was intended?
I certainly hope you don't purposely swear in front of people you know are offended by swearing.
Whether I choose to engage in such behavior is an entirely different conversation from whether I should be allowed to.
Agreed, but we're talking about words banned because of what they very often mean, not what they rarely mean.
If we were, then why are other words which mean the same thing not banned?
Good reason to legislate against this FCC malarky that's been going on, but not a good reason to strike things down based on the first amendment.
It is clearly government-sponsored, content-based regulation of speech. It is very much a First Ammendment issue and the onus is on the government to show that there is a greater good being served by banning these words from broadcast television. Irrational emotional response to a word is not good reason.
I guess the bottom line is not that I think these particular likes/dislikes of society make sense, but that I can't think of any likes and dislikes that *do* make sense in anything approaching a purely rational (or even a merely objective/inductive) setting.
Likes/dislikes are rational if there is a logical reason for liking them: eg. the aspect that makes you dislike the thing is a direct characteristic of the thing and not something you merely associate with it. I have an extreme dislike of gin. When I was in college I got very sick from drinking entirely too much gin. My dislike of gin is not because of any particular characteristic of gin, but because I associate it with being sick. Had I drank too much of anything else, I would have the same dislike for that liquor. It is not a rational dislike. My dislike for tequila, on the other hand, is because I don't like the taste. It is a characteristic of tequila that is not appealing to me. That is a rational dislike.
And even if I found such preferences I'm not sure they'd be in any way superior (ie: why *should* preferences be
It looks like the rest of your comment got cut off, but I think I get the gist of it. I am not claiming a rational dislike is in any way superior to an irrational dislike. My argument is, and has always been, that deciding public policy based on irrational dislikes is poor policy.
Agreed, but there's a distinction between what goes on TV (public) and what you aquire in an adult forum and watch in your own home (private). (I did mention alternative distribution in this thread already didn't I?)
The problem is that it is illegal to say these words in certain circumstances with no basis in reason. That there are other circumstances where it is okay to say the words does not make it right.
I may not have been clear. Is there no string of text or audio recording that you would ever consider "rationally offensive"?
No. There is no string of text or spoken word[1] that is rationally offensive without consideration for the idea it conveys. Without the idea, there is only meaningless sound or marks. How can you be offended by something with no meaning? How can something without meaning possible insult or disturb you?
I fail to see how saying you know why someone else is offended makes it so... no matter how many times it is repeated.
This is covered in my proof from my original post and I will revisit it below.
My likes and dislikes are a part of who I am
Nobody is arguing this. The rationality of your likes and dislikes is also a part of who you are. I am not judging anyone's character nor making statements about their intelligence or mental competence based on the rationality of their dislike of these words. What I am doing, however, is questioning the policy of restricting behavior that is based on an irrational dislike of these words.
and I object to someone attempting to categorize my behaviour and by extension myself as rational vs irrational based on their own notions about the subject.
My own notions about the subject have nothing to do with it. By definition, it is rational if there is a logical reason for it. It is irrational if there is no logical reason for it. To revisit broccoli and Nixon, disliking broccoli because it tastes bad is rational because the act of eating broccoli causes you displeasure. There is very clear cause and effect here. Disliking broccoli because Nixon liked it is irrational because how Nixon felt about broccoli can in no way, shape or form affect how broccoli tastes to you.
So if someone dislikes, or is offended by, a word you get to decide why?
It has nothing to do with me. Their likes and dislikes are either caused by logical means or they aren't.
That is:
A) Because of a conditioned response.
Conditioned responses are not rational. They confuse causation and correlation.
B) Because of ideas the word conjures up, even when used in an otherwise innocuous context.
I cannot help what you think of when I say a certain word. If I believe you have insulted me, when in fact I misunderstood what you said, are you still at fault for the affront to me? In other words, are you responsible for my reaction to what I thought you meant?
I should point out... I really dislike this use of the term rational. I know it is prevalent, but I still dislike it. This is because attacking a person or group of people as rational vs irrational is an important method of dehumanizing them. Using rational and irrational to describe behaviour is only one small step away from this kind of nasty propoganda. Also, the meaning of "rational" in debates is usually poorly defined, and everyone always wants to claim it for their side, which gets messy.
See, this is a perfect example. My use of the term "rational" is limited to the reactions to these particular words and I use it exclusively to mean "Consistent with or based on reason; logical". I am not describing people as being irrational, only their reactions to these words. In this case my use of the term "rational" is perfectly correct because I am discussing reason and logic. But you have a bad association with the word "rational" because of others' misuse of it and so transfer the dislike of that
In case you haven't met any of the incredibly spoiled brats who definately can't, let me tell you this: Not all parents manage even this "trivial" task.
That speaks more of their parenting than it does of the task, but I was speaking comparatively. Of the two, getting them to behave in your presence is the easier.
Saying "Go out and do what you want, I trust you" is not necessarily good parenting either, at least not always.
I never said it was. That I disapprove of one extreme does not mean I approve of the other. That I am against total mistrust of a child does not mean I endorse total and unconditional trust.
I think I'll just sum it up with a quote from H.L. Mencken: "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
I also never said parenting was simple. If anything it's the technology to track your child's every move that is the simple, neat and wrong solution.
I think there's a problem here with the definiton of rational. You seem to be claiming there are rational and irrational instances of feeling disturbed.
... perhaps censure is reasonable in channels widely available to minors. Of course, just one person isn't likely to sway society's viewpoint on the matter.
There are absolutely rational and irrational instances of feeling disturbed. Being disturbed by images of children being tortured I think is clearly rational. Being disturbed by a color is irrational because a color cannot, by itself, convey any disturbing ideas. This is not to say that a person cannot associate disturbing imagery with a color, but it is not a rational response.
I'm not sure I even agree this distinction can be properly made let alone on where it lies.
I'm not trying to draw the line, my claim is that, wherever the line is drawn, being offended by a sequence of letters and not the meaning of the word they represent is well outside it.
My personal feeling is that attacking a person's, or group of people's, rationality because of their preferences in this area seems unfair.
If it stopped at their being offended I wouldn't have a problem. But they are trying to tell me what I am and am not allowed to see on television because of their irrational dislike of certain words. It is directly affecting me and that's why I have a problem with it. People can have all the irrational dislikes they want providing they don't prevent me from experiencing the things they don't like.
How long does a group of letters or a phonetic sound have to be that you would consider it rational for someone to be disturbed and/or offended?
My argument is that a group of letters or a phonetic sound by itself cannot be offensive. And being offended by a phonetic sound or group of letters, regardless of their meaning, will always be irrational.
Some people have an "irrational" fear of enclosed spaces, does that make it okay to stuff them in a box and sit on the lid?
No. But it also isn't okay to ban elevators because some people are claustrophobic. I'm not saying they have to watch these shows. They are, in fact, quite easily avoidable. They are telling me, however, that I am not allowed to watch them because they don't like the words.
Funny, you mention that. I had a friend in high-school who hated yellow so much he used to pretend the color didn't exist.[...]This quirk seemed more reasonable to me than disenfranchising someone because of such a quirk.
Would you have felt the same way if he insisted you not ever wear the color yellow in his presence? Or speak the word "yellow" while he was in earshot? How about if he tried to have the prinicpal institute a rule that "yellow" will not be worn or spoken of under penalty of detention?
If enough people have a problem with the word "blue" (or the color itself), because of ideas it conjures up,
If it were the ideas the word conjured up, it would be a different story. But, as I've said many times already, they aren't offended by the ideas, just the word itself.
that society decides it is an un-acceptable word (or color)
If the unacceptability of the word is not based on reason, it doesn't matter how many people hold that opinion. It's still irrational. A fear of bears is a rational fear because a bear will likely kill you. There's good reason for the fear, regardless of how many people are actually afraid of bears. The fear of the color blue is irrational because the color blue cannot (except, possibly, in very unlikely circumstances) harm you.
So likes and dislikes are now either rational or irrational?
Yes. They always were. Not liking broccoli because you don't like the taste is rational. Not liking broccoli because Nixon liked it is irrational[1]. This is not to say that a person does not have the right to dislike b
You obviously do not have children
The battle cry of the narrow-minded parent who can't possibly understand that someone else that has children might have a different opinion on how they should be raised.
There's being involved in your child's life and there's being so oppressive they have no choice but to rebel and rebel hard. One of the worst things you can do as a parent is to make your child believe you do not trust him at all.
Let me ask you this: If you treat your child as if he's a criminal, what incentive does he have to not be a criminal? If your home is already a prison, how effective is the threat of prison going to be? And furthermore, how is this complete lack of trust preparing him for life without you?
I would suggest that if you need to track your child's every movement when they are old enough to go places by themselves then you haven't done your job as a parent. Getting children to behave properly when you are with them is trivial. Getting them to behave properly when you aren't with them is what parenting is all about.
I'm not sure I follow here, so I'll lean on my slippery slope a second. How exactly is this different than the harm from seeing goatse? Isn't that similarly self/societally induced harm?
Offense at images at least is offense at the ideas the images convey. People can be disturbed by images of sex, violence, torture, etc. and not be considered irrational. Offense at these particular words, however, is not because of the ideas they convey but the words themselves. That's what makes it irrational and unreasonable. If someone was offended by the word "blue", is that reasonable?
Well, we've got human beings involved, rational may not get the billing it deserves.
That is true. It doesn't, however, make it right.
I guess I'm not seeing how self-inflicted pain is any less painful...
I'm not arguing that it's less painful, only that there is no rational reason for the pain to exist in the first place. It's no different than being offended by a color.
This really starts to sound like an assertion of blame issue. You'd hold individuals (or families) responsible for not being able to handle what they watch. I'm holding producers responsible for being sensitive to their audiences. Beyond that its a question of at what point who is responsible.
I'm only questioning the rationality of being offended, to the point of demanding they be banned, by a specific order of letters regardless of their meaning. I may not agree with it, but I understand not wanting to be exposed to certain ideas. I cannot, however, understand banning words simply because some people do not like them, especially when their reason for not liking them has no basis in reason or rationality. And holding others responsible for these people's irrational dislike of certain words, regardless of their meaning, is ridiculous.
Okay, we seem to agree that there is content that shouldn't be on public television and that individual words is a piss poor method of controlling content. However, we also seem to agree that there is "perceived harm", at least for some people, in the words themselves. You argue that this perception is irrational and therefore doesn't matter. I argue that perception is important and that this leaves us with a light shade of "possible harm".
My argument is that this light shade of possible harm is completely their own (and quite probably their parents') doing and therefore their own responsibility. That they perceive harm from the exposure does not obligate me to ensure they are not exposed.
I also don't think it encroaches freedom of speech for certain words to be taboo in broadcast television.
It is government-sponsored, content-based regulation of speech which serves no rational or practical purpose. We're not talking about endangering other people's lives, or harming them in any other way except for the harm they insist upon suffering themselves. People will be punished for this behavior despite the complete lack of any real harm.
Wow, I'm a hypocrite in 4 letters flat.
I never called you a hypocrite. If you can recognize the word "fuck" from "f__k", then both should be equally offensive if it is the idea that offends you, and not just the word itself. If you can't recognize it, then you would most likely not know what the word "fuck" meant, and thus not be offended by it. But that "f__k" is acceptable and "fuck" is not is another sign that it is the sequence of four specific letters which is offensive and not the idea, and that is what is hypocritical.
In this case it appears f__k is *more* obscene than simply fuck...
What is obscene is that the word itself, and not the idea it conveys, is "indecent". In that respect, yes, "f__k" may very well be more obscene than "fuck" in that it perpetuates the idea that people are right to be offended by a word and not its meaning.