Were I a modern-day patriot, I would be notifying the IRS of your mis-interpretation of the Income Tax statutes. Barter transactions are taxable. But I rather admire your skirting of the system.
Ah, but for those "higher up" in the system, they receive referrals, kickbacks, and other fringe benefits that too fit under the radar much more than barter does.
Also, I remember patriots that used to throw goods into harbors and say things like "we are against taxation without representation", but today's patriots just take it. Thats progress because everybody wins with no controversy, right?
What pisses me off is having to pay the full sales tax on the artificially inflated price, not the true (or "rebate") price.
Well, I'm glad you stop getting pissed off there.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why my $15.00 phone bill costs me $30.00 (round numbers accurate to less than +-$1.00).
I'm wanting to go to a completely grey/black/p2p market, and not do "normal" business with abnormal businesses.
Everything I pay for on the "white" market is between 10-100% more than the "price". When I buy things "on the street", the price is the price, and its usually round numbers, not $99.99 + mystery funds so that my $100 bill does not work any more.
Between the inflated prices at "legitimate" businesses, and then the taxes that get taken out of my pay check before I even get paid -- yes, I know I could manipulate this, but I'm tired and lazy of having to fight for every penny of the money that I make. In fact, I'm sick and tired of it, to the point that I've just succumbed to giving all of my money away, and just not caring anymore. What do I need it for? I can't take it with me when I die, and its also practically illegal to own cash that is not even backed by hard currency either, so what is the point?
Yeah, I'm fairly ambiently pissed off at the time because I'm in the process of downsizing myself at the request of the federal government, inflation, and some financial mistakes that I have made. I'll be alright, I mean I'm still above American average and supposedly way above the average in the world or whatever, but I'm not happy about being chronically pickpocketed with no legal recourse. I mean, even civil litigation against a corporation is _very_ timely, and _very_ expensive to the point that the gamble just does not seem worth the effort when its all said and done. I've been involved with civil cases against companies where they are clearly at fault, and if it were up to me to take care of it the old fashioned way, I would just break their kneecaps and call it even. But instead, the lawyers get their subsidies and play good lawyer/bad lawyer against each other, while they are actually for each other because the more they pretend to fight each other, the more money they make for doing nothing.
Yeah, I need a chill pill, but I ran out. I guess I just have to get used to living in a 3rd world country, but I was kinda getting accustomed to the middle class in the 1st world country, but that is disappearing as I type this. I know a number of people that feel the same way, and have settled up or avoided their debts and have simply dropped out of the American dream just to live their own. I openly ask people around the world where is a good place to live, and you know what? There is no definitive answer. So, I guess we just need to all take a dose of the opiate for the masses, and find a free/cheap religion./rant -- I almost feel better:)
Americans are starting to have their time of "justified" arrogance to humble themselves. And, yes, this is coming from an arrogant American.
Historians will tell you that the "American revolution" was not very revolutionary. In fact, who was basically the only member of the "coalition" with the illegal invasion of Iraq that we could find for the Invasion of Iraq? Hint, it was the people we "revolted" against, because they have the same selfish interests as we do.
We Americans are trying to push the saying, "You can sheer a sheep many times, but you can only skin a sheep once".
Humility happens by either just being humble, or by repeatedly being humiliated, and for some reason we are still "better" than the rest of the world because we are in control of more blips on the virtual money machine, even though we cannot pay our bills and are broke. After all, we are happy because we move more green pieces of paper around, even though the green pieces of paper are unhappy, right?
Its time for the Americans to have another revolution and just get back to what we wanted in the beginning. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
"It's quite possibly the most important privacy and free speech issue in the 21st century"
Since the 21st century is only about 6 years old, isn't a statement like that just a little premature
Free speech, maybe, privacy? Well, if it gets worse...
I'm speechless.
Yes, the privacy issues better be the most important of the 21st century. There are _many_ people in the US that have more resources, paranoia, and motivation to do something about the government than I do, and they simply should not want to test them.
I can just imagine this guy's response if the 9/11 hijackers had been captured BEFORE pulling off the attack
Probably I would have reacted like most everybody else.
No reaction.
I don't believe it would have been much of a headline before 9/11/01. The people would have been dismissed as lunatics that could have never of pulled this thing off. However, after that date, something as ridiculous as this makes headlines, and the collective conscious here on slashdot is that this was silly and FUD just like my response.
News does not typically get made when things are OK or a potential threat is avoided. Nobody stands on the side of the Mississippi river and says, "Well, its not flooding, its just going North to South as usual". No headline says, "A 300 car pileup was avoided because John Doe went to the state inspection station today and got new brake pads!"
Action by all animals regarding safety is directly proportional to the degree of perceived danger. Cats have no problem climbing on furniture or a few feat off of the ground. Get them stuck high up in a tree, and the fire department comes out. One time when I was working construction, I walked about 200 feet around a 90 degree corner on 8" wide cinder blocks from 2.5 stories up, and I had to be very objective about it and convince myself that 8" was more than sufficient to walk a straight line. If I had to do the same thing one foot off of the ground, I wouldn't of cared.
Humans have this revenge/fear complex of other humans that is pretty much over 99% completely irrational.
Off the top of your head, tell me how many people died on 9/11/01 in the attacks. Now, off the top of your head, tell me how many people died in hurricane Katrina? Now, how about the number in the 2004 tsunami? What about annually due to the flu? Car accidents?
In general, humans are irrational. I would like to believe that slashdotters and others that have scientific thought are a little more on the rational side of things and can look at the raw data and let that speak vs their perception of the data. What I'm getting at, is that the terrorists on 9/11/01 were irrational, and the thing was like a big car accident, and the thing was not preventable then and another thing like it is not preventable now, and if it were, it would be as evident as the avoided 300 car pileup from a person getting their brakes repaired. Negatives cannot be proven, and they just are not that interesting.
The US government uses FUD all the time to maintain their perception of power. Parents (more uneducated ones) do this with their kids as well.
Being a scientist and trying to understand the world in rational terms, I get annoyed when FUD is used to deceive people. I don't see that as progress, but entirely the opposite.
If I were really concerned about my safety, I would not drive to work or anywhere after that. That is the most likely cause of death for a young, healthy person. But people drive to work every day, without fear, but many of the same people fear terrorists, and there is no basis for this from a rational point of view.
So, you want to convince intelligent people like those on slashdot that the FBI stopped people from around the world possibly funded by a dead guy to flood a bunch of businesses up hill by lurking in a chatroom?
Shit, if only they had WMDs and lived in one place, maybe we would just take over the country or something.
FUD.
More evidence of FUD from the article itself:
"There was nothing imminent, but it was being monitored for a long period of time," he said. "This is ongoing, that's why I've said nothing about it until now. It would have been better if this had not been disclosed."
A government official with knowledge of the investigation said the alleged plot did focus on New York's transport system, but did not target the Holland Tunnel.
New York senator Charles Schumer said: "This is one instance where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase."
The Holland Tunnel is protected not just by bedrock, but also by concrete and cast-iron steel.
Who makes this shit up?
They were NOT going to attack the Holland Tunnel, but BTW, it is protected by bedrock, concrete, and cast-iron steel?
More confidence in their ignorance:
One counter-terrorism source told the Daily News it was doubtful a plot to blow it up would be feasible...
But the guy fessed up over a month ago without even being tortured! Now that is real progress!
Since birthrates are already too low to sustain growth in the countries with the most wealth it seems that if we spread the wealth we kill two birds with one stone.
Its basically the former Soviet Union people that are decreasing in population because they drink too much, and the women are wise enough to not want to fuck them anymore. Aside from that, we are growing!
Supposedly, human population is going to stabilize in 50 or so years with something like 10-14 billion people.
I don't feel like looking for the nationmaster stats now, but the "greying" of the world bothers me more than people not sustaining a population.
What are we going to do when most of the population is over 80 years old?
Fuck the movie theaters. And fuck the ABC network producers, we already pay to watch their garbage and they just have to stick it to us with all these commercials AND now they want to prevent us from skipping the commercials.
Man I am glad I don't have a TV at home.
I too am a 'leet one that has gotten over being marketed to on TV and movie theaters. I'm not on permanent boycott of either nor DVDs, but its just not something that interests me right now, I've got other things to do than be annoyed. TV with a DVR is quite nice, and I will _never_ watch TV straight off the air again or without a fast forward button.
I will say that the last time I rented a DVD from Blockbuster that had an unskippable ad in it, I did not pay for the renal! It was paid for by advertising, and not by me, so thanks!
The Blockbuster guy tried to tell me (years ago) that DVDs could not have that 'feature' of being forced to watch junk, and I told him, "Yes, they do!" He did eventually admit that the customer was always right (yes, we are!) and I have not been forced to watch an ad on rented DVDs since, and if I did I would get them for free again!
Could someone explain to me how a skipped ad, in which the person has absolutely no desire to ever see the ad, buy the product, or otherwise succumb to feminine hygeine products, is any different than walking away during commercials..
Well, they try.
They use the compressor/peak limiter to make sure the volume is a little louder to follow you when you walk away.
If there were a way to force you via legislation against walking away, the law would at least of been before congress already.
If I were watching a pre-recorded program on my DVR and I was FORCED to watch the commercials because they decided to disable a primary function of my DVR, I would be pissed off, and feel very hostile toward the network and the advertisers involved.
I dare you to watch late night Comedy Central without timeshifting and fast forward.
Sure, trying to look between the DVD boxes in the Girls Gone Wild commercials are OK the first 50-100 times you see them, but after that, good old fashioned free hardcore porn is better!
Instead of there being just a fast forward button, there should be a "I'm simply not interested, can you put me on your do not call list" button. I mean:
I got a threshold, Jules. I got a threshold for the abuse I'll take. And right now I'm a race car and you got me in the red. I'm just saying that it's fuckin' dangerous to have a racecar in the fuckin' red. It could blow.
I wish people in the advertising industry would get your point. There are commercials that I rewind to watch, especially if it's something I'm interested in buying...
Advertisers are basically salesmen with less feedback than salesmen get.
The strongest reinforcer for behavior is random reinforcement. This is why sex, gambling, commission sales, etc work so well, and why the people try so hard to "win" at these situations, even though the odds are always against them.
The reason that the most obnoxious ones are so obnoxious is that they don't know this, so they try harder and thus are more obnoxious.
The relevant quote here is the one that goes something like: "I know I only need to spend 1/2 of what I spend on advertising, but I just don't know which half that is!"
Devil worship and witchcraft aren't illegal in the US and are rarely linked to illegal activities; the police has no business getting involved in that "subculture" at all.
Being a member of a gang nor a member of al-Quaida is illegal either.
But hey, both are criminals because they distribute the government's illegal drugs for them, right?
When all those wars are complete, we can expect a War on Wars, which will involve the peaceful use of tactical nuclear weaponry on all those who remain after the subcultures have been eliminated.
Hmm, are we going to recycle that one and call it the Lukewarm War?
Honestly, I think the War on Terror was the best one invented. No real enemies, no borders, no timeframe, but I would guess that w/o any signal in the news (a real terror attack) the noise will overtake it, and we will have to go back to the old real enemy with borders and a specific agenda. Ambient paranoia usually does not last for very long for the majority of the population, and in time they will get frustrated with having their privacy, security, and freedoms hindered without any new perceived threats to them.
Chickens are shitty birds that are fat, and get fat relatively quickly, and a side benefit, they lay eggs too. Perfect for domestication, and selectively bred for thousands of years to make them fatter and get fat quicker (do a search for the nasty super chickens that make McNuggets in 6-8 weeks).
Humans are smart/lazy (and not very good animals either) and we pick easy prey to eat with little muss or fuss to eat them.
Slashdot Mirror
Were I a modern-day patriot, I would be notifying the IRS of your mis-interpretation of the Income Tax statutes. Barter transactions are taxable. But I rather admire your skirting of the system.
Ah, but for those "higher up" in the system, they receive referrals, kickbacks, and other fringe benefits that too fit under the radar much more than barter does.
Also, I remember patriots that used to throw goods into harbors and say things like "we are against taxation without representation", but today's patriots just take it. Thats progress because everybody wins with no controversy, right?
What pisses me off is having to pay the full sales tax on the artificially inflated price, not the true (or "rebate") price.
/rant -- I almost feel better :)
Well, I'm glad you stop getting pissed off there.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why my $15.00 phone bill costs me $30.00 (round numbers accurate to less than +-$1.00).
I'm wanting to go to a completely grey/black/p2p market, and not do "normal" business with abnormal businesses.
Everything I pay for on the "white" market is between 10-100% more than the "price". When I buy things "on the street", the price is the price, and its usually round numbers, not $99.99 + mystery funds so that my $100 bill does not work any more.
Between the inflated prices at "legitimate" businesses, and then the taxes that get taken out of my pay check before I even get paid -- yes, I know I could manipulate this, but I'm tired and lazy of having to fight for every penny of the money that I make. In fact, I'm sick and tired of it, to the point that I've just succumbed to giving all of my money away, and just not caring anymore. What do I need it for? I can't take it with me when I die, and its also practically illegal to own cash that is not even backed by hard currency either, so what is the point?
Yeah, I'm fairly ambiently pissed off at the time because I'm in the process of downsizing myself at the request of the federal government, inflation, and some financial mistakes that I have made. I'll be alright, I mean I'm still above American average and supposedly way above the average in the world or whatever, but I'm not happy about being chronically pickpocketed with no legal recourse. I mean, even civil litigation against a corporation is _very_ timely, and _very_ expensive to the point that the gamble just does not seem worth the effort when its all said and done. I've been involved with civil cases against companies where they are clearly at fault, and if it were up to me to take care of it the old fashioned way, I would just break their kneecaps and call it even. But instead, the lawyers get their subsidies and play good lawyer/bad lawyer against each other, while they are actually for each other because the more they pretend to fight each other, the more money they make for doing nothing.
Yeah, I need a chill pill, but I ran out. I guess I just have to get used to living in a 3rd world country, but I was kinda getting accustomed to the middle class in the 1st world country, but that is disappearing as I type this. I know a number of people that feel the same way, and have settled up or avoided their debts and have simply dropped out of the American dream just to live their own. I openly ask people around the world where is a good place to live, and you know what? There is no definitive answer. So, I guess we just need to all take a dose of the opiate for the masses, and find a free/cheap religion.
What about the American revolution?
You mean, the one that is happening in India?
Americans are starting to have their time of "justified" arrogance to humble themselves. And, yes, this is coming from an arrogant American.
Historians will tell you that the "American revolution" was not very revolutionary. In fact, who was basically the only member of the "coalition" with the illegal invasion of Iraq that we could find for the Invasion of Iraq? Hint, it was the people we "revolted" against, because they have the same selfish interests as we do.
We Americans are trying to push the saying, "You can sheer a sheep many times, but you can only skin a sheep once".
Humility happens by either just being humble, or by repeatedly being humiliated, and for some reason we are still "better" than the rest of the world because we are in control of more blips on the virtual money machine, even though we cannot pay our bills and are broke. After all, we are happy because we move more green pieces of paper around, even though the green pieces of paper are unhappy, right?
Its time for the Americans to have another revolution and just get back to what we wanted in the beginning. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
"It's quite possibly the most important privacy and free speech issue in the 21st century"
Since the 21st century is only about 6 years old, isn't a statement like that just a little premature
Free speech, maybe, privacy? Well, if it gets worse...
I'm speechless.
Yes, the privacy issues better be the most important of the 21st century. There are _many_ people in the US that have more resources, paranoia, and motivation to do something about the government than I do, and they simply should not want to test them.
is AT&T a government thing?
Supposedly, not anymore. It stands for American Telephone and Telegraph. Oh, and they brought the world UNIX, C, and C++.
I can just imagine this guy's response if the 9/11 hijackers had been captured BEFORE pulling off the attack
Probably I would have reacted like most everybody else.
No reaction.
I don't believe it would have been much of a headline before 9/11/01. The people would have been dismissed as lunatics that could have never of pulled this thing off. However, after that date, something as ridiculous as this makes headlines, and the collective conscious here on slashdot is that this was silly and FUD just like my response.
News does not typically get made when things are OK or a potential threat is avoided. Nobody stands on the side of the Mississippi river and says, "Well, its not flooding, its just going North to South as usual". No headline says, "A 300 car pileup was avoided because John Doe went to the state inspection station today and got new brake pads!"
Action by all animals regarding safety is directly proportional to the degree of perceived danger. Cats have no problem climbing on furniture or a few feat off of the ground. Get them stuck high up in a tree, and the fire department comes out. One time when I was working construction, I walked about 200 feet around a 90 degree corner on 8" wide cinder blocks from 2.5 stories up, and I had to be very objective about it and convince myself that 8" was more than sufficient to walk a straight line. If I had to do the same thing one foot off of the ground, I wouldn't of cared.
Humans have this revenge/fear complex of other humans that is pretty much over 99% completely irrational.
Off the top of your head, tell me how many people died on 9/11/01 in the attacks. Now, off the top of your head, tell me how many people died in hurricane Katrina? Now, how about the number in the 2004 tsunami? What about annually due to the flu? Car accidents?
In general, humans are irrational. I would like to believe that slashdotters and others that have scientific thought are a little more on the rational side of things and can look at the raw data and let that speak vs their perception of the data. What I'm getting at, is that the terrorists on 9/11/01 were irrational, and the thing was like a big car accident, and the thing was not preventable then and another thing like it is not preventable now, and if it were, it would be as evident as the avoided 300 car pileup from a person getting their brakes repaired. Negatives cannot be proven, and they just are not that interesting.
The US government uses FUD all the time to maintain their perception of power. Parents (more uneducated ones) do this with their kids as well.
Being a scientist and trying to understand the world in rational terms, I get annoyed when FUD is used to deceive people. I don't see that as progress, but entirely the opposite.
If I were really concerned about my safety, I would not drive to work or anywhere after that. That is the most likely cause of death for a young, healthy person. But people drive to work every day, without fear, but many of the same people fear terrorists, and there is no basis for this from a rational point of view.
BTW - WTF is a name that a terrorist wouldn't use?
George W. Bush.
Definite immediate red flag there.
They were domestic chat rooms?
Its an exercise of the reader to figure out what the 'A' stands for in AOL.
Just one quick question: what sort of extremists are we talking about here?
A herd of nubian princesses that are slightly overweight and like long walks on the beach.
What kind did you think?
You don't have to destroy the tunnels - just make them unusable for a few weeks. The economic effects would be massive.
r ansit_strike
So are hurricanes, but life goes on.
Also, all of the subways and busses closed down for 5 days, no terrorist attack necessary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_New_York_City_t
all the orange terror alerts before the last election
h spublic/display?theme=29
It was funny how those typically came when Bush was low in the polls. Poor Kerry didn't even have a chance to play with the colors.
For the historical orange to yellow to orange oscillations take a look here:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.dhs.gov/d
for the current level be sure to check:
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=29
So, you want to convince intelligent people like those on slashdot that the FBI stopped people from around the world possibly funded by a dead guy to flood a bunch of businesses up hill by lurking in a chatroom?
Shit, if only they had WMDs and lived in one place, maybe we would just take over the country or something.
FUD.
More evidence of FUD from the article itself:
"There was nothing imminent, but it was being monitored for a long period of time," he said. "This is ongoing, that's why I've said nothing about it until now. It would have been better if this had not been disclosed."
A government official with knowledge of the investigation said the alleged plot did focus on New York's transport system, but did not target the Holland Tunnel.
New York senator Charles Schumer said: "This is one instance where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase."
The Holland Tunnel is protected not just by bedrock, but also by concrete and cast-iron steel.
Who makes this shit up?
They were NOT going to attack the Holland Tunnel, but BTW, it is protected by bedrock, concrete, and cast-iron steel?
More confidence in their ignorance:
One counter-terrorism source told the Daily News it was doubtful a plot to blow it up would be feasible...
But the guy fessed up over a month ago without even being tortured! Now that is real progress!
I feel safer, don't you?
"I think it was around high school when I became much more intelligent than my father"
:)
And it will probably be around 40 when you realize just how dumb you were in high school.
I too was more intelligent than my father in high school.
It only took me to be about 35 to realize how stupid I was before 30, and I guess I will continue to revise this as time goes on
I want to live in a Utopia of plentiful abundance
What is that?
Plentiful food, a place to stay, and little to no threat of death?
Take a look around. Plenty of housed, fat, old people, and getting fatter and older!
Since birthrates are already too low to sustain growth in the countries with the most wealth it seems that if we spread the wealth we kill two birds with one stone.
- people-population-growth-rate
Do you have better data than these?
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_pop_gro_rat
Its basically the former Soviet Union people that are decreasing in population because they drink too much, and the women are wise enough to not want to fuck them anymore. Aside from that, we are growing!
Supposedly, human population is going to stabilize in 50 or so years with something like 10-14 billion people.
I don't feel like looking for the nationmaster stats now, but the "greying" of the world bothers me more than people not sustaining a population.
What are we going to do when most of the population is over 80 years old?
Fuck the movie theaters. And fuck the ABC network producers, we already pay to watch their garbage and they just have to stick it to us with all these commercials AND now they want to prevent us from skipping the commercials.
Man I am glad I don't have a TV at home.
I too am a 'leet one that has gotten over being marketed to on TV and movie theaters. I'm not on permanent boycott of either nor DVDs, but its just not something that interests me right now, I've got other things to do than be annoyed. TV with a DVR is quite nice, and I will _never_ watch TV straight off the air again or without a fast forward button.
I will say that the last time I rented a DVD from Blockbuster that had an unskippable ad in it, I did not pay for the renal! It was paid for by advertising, and not by me, so thanks!
The Blockbuster guy tried to tell me (years ago) that DVDs could not have that 'feature' of being forced to watch junk, and I told him, "Yes, they do!" He did eventually admit that the customer was always right (yes, we are!) and I have not been forced to watch an ad on rented DVDs since, and if I did I would get them for free again!
Could someone explain to me how a skipped ad, in which the person has absolutely no desire to ever see the ad, buy the product, or otherwise succumb to feminine hygeine products, is any different than walking away during commercials..
Well, they try.
They use the compressor/peak limiter to make sure the volume is a little louder to follow you when you walk away.
If there were a way to force you via legislation against walking away, the law would at least of been before congress already.
I dare you to watch late night Comedy Central without timeshifting and fast forward.
Sure, trying to look between the DVD boxes in the Girls Gone Wild commercials are OK the first 50-100 times you see them, but after that, good old fashioned free hardcore porn is better!
Instead of there being just a fast forward button, there should be a "I'm simply not interested, can you put me on your do not call list" button. I mean:
I wish people in the advertising industry would get your point. There are commercials that I rewind to watch, especially if it's something I'm interested in buying...
Advertisers are basically salesmen with less feedback than salesmen get.
The strongest reinforcer for behavior is random reinforcement. This is why sex, gambling, commission sales, etc work so well, and why the people try so hard to "win" at these situations, even though the odds are always against them.
The reason that the most obnoxious ones are so obnoxious is that they don't know this, so they try harder and thus are more obnoxious.
The relevant quote here is the one that goes something like: "I know I only need to spend 1/2 of what I spend on advertising, but I just don't know which half that is!"
That's because black people haven't used white people as SLAVES.
n ers.htm
Why would black people use white people as slaves?
What's next? White people giving equal opportunity to whites for football and basketball, and blacks for ice hockey?
http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveow
I suggest you do a bit of background reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Of_Satan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca
Go ahead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca#Morality
http://churchofsatan.com/Pages/Eleven.html
Devil worship and witchcraft aren't illegal in the US and are rarely linked to illegal activities; the police has no business getting involved in that "subculture" at all.
Being a member of a gang nor a member of al-Quaida is illegal either.
But hey, both are criminals because they distribute the government's illegal drugs for them, right?
When all those wars are complete, we can expect a War on Wars, which will involve the peaceful use of tactical nuclear weaponry on all those who remain after the subcultures have been eliminated.
Hmm, are we going to recycle that one and call it the Lukewarm War?
Honestly, I think the War on Terror was the best one invented. No real enemies, no borders, no timeframe, but I would guess that w/o any signal in the news (a real terror attack) the noise will overtake it, and we will have to go back to the old real enemy with borders and a specific agenda. Ambient paranoia usually does not last for very long for the majority of the population, and in time they will get frustrated with having their privacy, security, and freedoms hindered without any new perceived threats to them.
No reason to do it in real life when you can do it virtually, and remain within the limits of the real law.
Where have you been? They want to make virtually doing crime within the current limits of the real law illegal as well.
You can't fill real prisons with virtual criminals, now can you?
Chickens are shitty birds that are fat, and get fat relatively quickly, and a side benefit, they lay eggs too. Perfect for domestication, and selectively bred for thousands of years to make them fatter and get fat quicker (do a search for the nasty super chickens that make McNuggets in 6-8 weeks).
Humans are smart/lazy (and not very good animals either) and we pick easy prey to eat with little muss or fuss to eat them.