I agree the idea of segregating by port is dumb, but even if it was implemented, if you wanted to you would still be able to look at all the porn you wanted.
I disagree.
Look at this from a broadband-provider point of view. Let's say that this measure passes, and somehow can be enforced. (That's a whole different impracticality.) The (insanely well funded) powers that be behind the lobbying for this measure will start to demand that their ISPs make use of this restriction to protect their children from the evil boobies. They'll demand that the port be blocked by default for all of the ISP's customers. The ISP, not wanting to look like they're pushing porn on children (whether they actually are or not is irrelevant), will more than likely cave in the face of the political pressure, and start to block the port.
People who create and like to look at porn are far less politically organized than the self-appointed moral arbiters involved here. (Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler etc notwithstanding.) These protestors are also easily ignored by the big ISPs, since if they do start to make a stink, they're easily discredited as "perverts". In the (extremely unlikely) event that these customers are able to voice their objections in an effective way, the next hurdle is how to restrict the ports by default and handle requests for the restriction to be removed on a case-by-case basis. Do you provide an online form that can easily be accessed by the very children the measure is intended to protect? Do you require verification of age from the requester (and accept all the logistical problems involved with same?) The most practical thing to do is to still block the port by default and ignore the customers that complain. After all, most people don't have a choice in broadband providers, so the loss of revenue would be minimal, and money is really all that matters here, not the morality. The morality dictates the financials, and in this case it's cheaper to block the ports and ignore the "perverts".
I don't really care if someone calls me a "pervert". If I want to look at two consenting adults covering themselves in maple syrup and inserting things in themselves and each other, I have a right to do so. (That's not just an assertion, it's been debated in the highest court in the land.) This measure would have the indirect effect of restricting that right.
Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. If we're going to define a law as something that protects someone's rights, we could consider this act illegal. (That might be a less common interpretation of the situation, but the ambiguity is exactly the problem here.)
I think we can all agree that the only reaction this requires is a hearty "STFU".
Leaving alone the obvious impracticality of implementation and enforcement (ask Australia about that), this moron thinks that he can legislate morality.
My morality doesn't agree with his. I resent having moral decisions made for me, and I bet the majority of Americans feel the same way. If I want to look at porn, I should be able to look at porn. If someone else doesn't want to look at porn, they don't have to. What exactly is the problem here that requires legislative intervention?
I can't understand why my room mate has to close everything out just to sync his ipod up and get music on it it is kinda a pain if you ask me.
Nor can I. My 3 year old machine (2GHz Athlon) runs iTunes fine.. I don't have to close anything to sync with my iPod. I might have a little more RAM than the average system (1.5GB) but there's really nothing special about it.
I'd have your roommate try a spyware scan and an AV scan. There's really no reason to have to run iTunes by itself.
I agree that certifications are largely useful in getting into the "consider" pile of resumes instead of the "discard" pile.
Remember that the initial screening is likely to be done by some HR idiot who wouldn't know PHP from PCP, and they're just operating off of keyword searches.
I recently myself escaped the hell that is tech support (It's the ditch digging of the IT industry.) I gathered Linux, PHP, Perl, Apache and MySQL experience along the way through independent efforts, and have a job now where one of my primary job responsibilities is to maintain some internally used web tools that are based on PHP/MySQL, and independently I'm developing a Drupal-based site.
LAMP development (Linux, Apache, MySQL and (PHP|Perl|Python) is pretty hot right now if you're any good at all with programming and sensibly laying out a web app. It sounds like you've got at least some programming experience, which is an advantage.
The only other advice I'd offer is keep your expectations a little lower than you might ordinarily, because if you can get that first job, even if it isn't exactly what you want or the salary is low, you can always trade up later.
I'm not unmindful of that. A lot can be done at the provider level to turn down the noise, and is currently being done. What needs to happen is people need to get their service cut off if they don't disinfect their machine in a reasonable amount of time. I bet if you did the math you'd find that the amount of business they'd lose would be less costly than the amount they would save on support and infrastructure.
The user has access to all the information they need.
Even the simplest user can type "www.google.com". The information is out there, they just need to go and find it.
Sure, that's blaming the victim, but in this case the user is victimizing themselves.
If they can't be bothered to do the most basic research, screw 'em. Once they educate themselves, subsequent situations become easier to handle. If they choose to remain ignorant, then it's their own damn fault and I have no sympathy.
That being said, Vista's "annoyware" approach to security is inexcusable. All it does is essentially force the user to shut down the added security in order to get any work done. MS is the largest software company in the world with a de facto monopoly on the desktop. If they wanted to say "OK we're going to break all your software because our security is a joke and we need to fix it for the good of the community", they could bloody well do it.
Apple breaks nearly everything every ten years or so, and they've been "going out of business" for about twenty years now. And they don't have a twentieth of the market share that MS has.
IF SOMEONE IS WILLING TO DIE TO CARRY OUT A TERRORIST ATTACK, YOU CANNOT STOP THEM.
If someone wants to take out the White House and doesn't care if they die or not, they're going to find a way to do it (or at least make the attempt, and possibly kill lots of people in the process.) These people have no fear of death.
What people don't realize is that this sort of overreaction is EXACTLY what terrorism is about. The goal of terrorism is, by definition, to create terror. By overreacting and shutting down the city over some blinking lights, those in charge have aided the cause of terrorism.
The way to defeat terrorism isn't to kill people, or burn the Constitution, or treat everything that has a battery in it as an IED. The way to defeat terrorism is to NOT BE AFRAID.
People who leave their computers unsecured deserve to get hacked.
No, nobody deserves to get hacked. But that doesn't mean people don't have a responsibility to secure their systems.
People who get taken in by con men deserve to get scammed.
See above. Last I had heard, common sense hadn't been abolished yet.
I have a question : do girls who wear skimpy clothes deserve to be raped? Does a black guy who whistles at a white woman deserve to get killed?
No, and no.
Here's one for you : you're an idiot, and for that travesty, you deserve nothing bad to happen to you! You deserve the same love and respect as any other human being!
Did anyone warn Grandma about anything before she started using the Internet?
If not, well, there's your problem. The stupid is not located within Grandma, it's located within anyone that allowed Grandma within 15 feet of a computer with Internet connectivity before educating her (or at least attempting to.)
Again, conventional wisdom applies.. "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is." I would hope that someone with grandchildren would at least be familiar with the concept.
there are people who will seek to take advantage of others for financial gain. It's generally referred to as "capitalism." Those same people who are deceived by con artists in Second Life are the people who watch the infomercials on late-night TV that have the guy with seventeen mansions and a 25 foot speedboat and hot and cold running girls, etc. and believe what they're saying.
The same adage works in both worlds: "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is."
I've spent considerable time in SL, and have spent a grand total of $20 in my time there. I've made small amounts of in-world cash through various jobs. I tune out the scammers in SL just like i do in RL.
Anyone that gets scammed like this (in either world) deserves to be parted from their money. Anything we can do to make stupidity painful (or at least expensive) is OK in my book.
I don't know about that. Most forward-thinking providers and HMOs have a reasonably enlightened view towards alternative medicine (I'm thinking primarily of Eastern medicine here.) My HMO provides discounts for things like acupuncture, etc.
Because some of us still care about our privacy; we also think "If you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to worry about" is just about the most offensive thing we could think of.
I just don't think it's anyone's business what books I'm buying, or what threads I'm posting to, or if I look up some rash on WebMD, or talk to my wife on IRC, etc etc. I'm not about to give up my privacy for some corporate bullet point about "leveraging marketing assets." They want that info, they can bloody well ask me.
I just have a hard time seeing how the cameras actual aid or abet this type of punitive measure. It's far easier for the unethical to fake a serious crime, than to catch someone performing a minor crime and then punish them for it.
Because it's far easier to prove an actual crime (that you have videotape evidence of) and deliver the maximum punishment than faking something else. No risk of the frame-up being exposed, because there never was one; and people can shout "OH NOES CONSPIRACYORZ!!11" all they want, but can't argue with the video showing someone actually speeding, or drinking a beer on a public street, or littering, or whatever. That person is off the street for the time it takes to investigate and prosecute the "crime".
Overall video cameras in public places are decidedly neutral as long as they're implemented properly and the public has the right to access the recordings in addition to the government.
And that's the problem. I don't trust the government (or their private contractors) to conduct themselves ethically beyond telling me the sky is blue. Recordings can be faked, edited, "lost", and so forth. Requests to view the "evidence" in question can be lost, obfuscated, stalled, or any number of bureaucratic excuses. The process will never be as transparent as it needs, because transparency is the enemy of law enforcement in our current environment.
Seems to me the country didn't implode into a sea of anarchy before there were ubiquitous surveillance cameras. Something tells me we'll continue to get along just fine without them, and law enforcement will continue to have to do things the old fashioned way.
Besides, I don't think the government has a right to videotape me because I walked down a street minding my own business.
I think the point here is not that irrelevantly minor infractions can suddenly be enforced globally, but that this technology can be used to harass someone specific. Let's say that you're a civil rights lawyer that's been a pain in the backside of local law enforcement for some time now (however justifiably so.) The technology could be used to find an excuse to throw you in jail, where you're less likely to be a problem.
That might sound paranoid, but I'd much rather live in a world where technology that makes this sort of thing possible isn't in common use. Selective enforcement has long been a cudgel in the hands of law enforcement, used to selectively punish those who are a problem to the system (no matter how righteous they might be.)
I suspect that distributing 'rejected' food to employees with a note attached reading 'Best wishes from SomeBigCompany' could put the company in a tricky legal position if someone got sick. If the note read 'Best wishes from SomeTightBitch' then it might be a little different.
Not really. "SomeTightBitch used our name on her gifts without authorization. Our intent was for the funds to be distributed directly to the employees; SomeTightBitch gave these gifts independently."
While you or I may think it's ridiculous, most people think their un-encrypted email is private. The whole discussion at hand is whether data being stored on some ISPs machine renders it non-private. Since most everyone has no idea how the technical details of email work, I don't see how those technical details can impact their expectations.
And they're wrong.
You're basing your "reasonable expectation" argument on the average user's ignorance of technical details of the Internet. Ignorance of the law (or aspects thereof) is not a defense; I'd argue against the system as it stands today having any privacy whatsoever.
If there's precedent here, it's the cases in which an employee's email is used against him/her by their employer, as the email was sent with, and stored on, company equipment. Last I checked, those cases had held up; the employee might have had what he thought was a resonable expectation of privacy, but he/she was wrong. It's a logical extension to include Comcast's cablemodems and mail servers in that category. The only wrinkle might be that the relationship is vendor/customer instead of employer/employee, but given the current nature of privacy legislation (eg all your data are belong to the government) I doubt that would stand up.
Fact of the matter is, their equipment, their rules. There is no wiretap legislation that applies to Internet traffic as of yet on the books, therefore there should be no reasonable expectation of privacy. The fact that someone might think there is, isn't a defense. If that defense was allowed, people would start to argue that they didn't know speeding was illegal, or that they didn't know drugs were illegal, and you wouldn't be able to prove otherwise.
The problem is the ignorance, not the (perceived) invasion of privacy. If an ignorant person makes a mistake based on their ignorance, they pay for it. (At least that's how IMHO it should work.)
The whole reason the phrase "expectation of privacy" gets bandied about in these conversations is that the standard is a reasonable persons expectations.
Which renders the definition meaningless. "Your Honor, a reasonable person would expect the government to attempt to intercept communications over the Internet that could be terrorist communications, or discussions of other illegal activity, like child pornography or drug trafficking. The defendant's attempt to go outside the normal phone system clearly indicates that they do not wish to be surveiled, therefore it is reasonable to suspect they are engaged in illegal activity."
Not to mention the lack of common carrier status, the fact that your packets are being sent through any number of corporations' equipment (therefore giving them the right to keep records as they see fit, for "quality assurance"), and common sense (you have no expectation of privacy on the Internet, period.)
If you have to do VoIP, use a vendor that encrypts the content (e.g. Skype, and NOT Vonage.)
A doctor has had to be certified through a well known and accepted educational process in order to legally be called an MD, and there are ways to verify said doctor has gone through said process. There is no analogous process to become a Christian, except in the case of clergy.
As much as you (and I) may not like it, there are no formalized societal rules about who can and cannot call themselves a Christian. You don't have to go and get a Christian license. You can be thrown out of a particular church (or defrocked, excommunicated, etc) but that doesn't keep you from calling yourself Christian. I choose not to define myself as Christian because of my own beliefs; another individual with my background and belief systems might choose to do so.
This is why politicians can get away with calling themselves Christians. Who's to say they aren't? You? Me? The Pope? Jimmy Swaggart? The President? One man's Christian is another man's hypocrite. Not to mention that anyone that criticizes them publicly for not acting in a Christian way is risking his/her own judgement.
There's really no solution to this other than making decisions based on an individual's actions rather than on their professed beliefs. Sadly, most Americans believe whatever they're told and ignore the facts, because finding out the facts might require effort.
I think where we're not seeing eye to eye is that you want to make a formal definition of what makes a "Christian". In my view, it's nowhere near that simple. "Judge not, lest ye be judged."
IMO only you can decide whether or not you are a Christian. If I see some politician professing to be a Christian, yet routinely speaking the language of hate and intolerance, I know in my heart that he's not a Christian. Others may look at him and decide something different. It's not my place to call their decisions right or wrong, because in questions of religon there is no right or wrong, only your beliefs.
IMO the "Christian" thing to do when faced with this sort of two-faced hypocrisy is to turn the other cheek, make a decision based on your own beliefs, ethics and morals, and act accordingly. This sort of passivism may not "fix" the "problem" (and it'll make things worse in the short-term) but if you truly believe, then your faith is its own reward.
(Disclaimer: I don't profess to be a Christian; my own views are much more pantheistic, eg what we call Allah/Jehovah/Eris/Thor/Mother Nature/the Goddess/the Flying Spaghetti Monster/etc are all part of the same thing.)
I'm no theologian (nor have I been to church in years.. technically Protestant) but I seem to recall that that judgement was between you, your conscience, and God. (Some might consider the last two to be the same thing, but I prefer to split them due to our being given "free will".)
I'd also like to point out that the reason so many people hate Christians is because of the few bad apples (KKK, Phelps, Chick, etc)... Hmm, that's just like Islam (Al Quaida, etc)... Radicals on both sides of this divide profess to be in favor of forcible conversion on pain of death with everlasting damnation in the afterlife. Most Christians/Muslims are peaceful people who do good works in their communities based on their belief systems and wish no harm to anyone.
Specifically, how should one refer to someone who professes to believe in Christ, but whose words and actions are the opposite of Christ's teachings?
Politely and with respect. Agreeing to disagree is generally how I try to approach the situation on a personal level; in public forums like/. I'll work up some venom but generally won't try to encourage violence. (Except for that Phelps asshole. Someone needs to drag him from his car.. and berate him for his hypocrisy.)
Exploitation of workers? A worker can't be "exploited" if he's allowed to seek a job elsewhere.
Unless there isn't anywhere else to seek a job. The most recent example is the numerous examples of Wal-Mart forcing its workers to work off the clock; by your reasoning they could have avoided this by getting other jobs... Oh, wait, Wal-Mart forced the other employers out of business. I guess those workers should be glad they have jobs at all, and working without getting paid is just being "competitive". Other examples exist, but in general, if XYZ company treats its employees the same as ABC and DEF, they can ALL exploit the workers and there isn't a damn thing the workers can do about it. Big companies are well aware of how the competition treats its employees, and work to treat their employees as poorly as they can get away with and still compete.
The early industrial revolution saw the rise of the union and the improvement in many peoples' standards of living. Tradesmen definitely suffered, but how many people who lacked specialized trade skills could afford to pay a cobbler for shoes, or a tailor for clothing? Although many people suffered as resources were drastically reallocated to take advantage of new technology, our country as a whole became wealthier and unions and government eliminated labor abuses. I'm sure that you personally would rather have computers, modern appliances, the internet, cars, and everything else that came from the factory system rather than the alternative: eke out a subsistence living farming just so that a cobbler can make shoes at a cost of several hundred times more than they need to be.
You're comparing apples to oranges. Comparing current economic conditions with those from more than a century ago is meaningless. As technology has progressed and evolved, so has the ability of those with money to exploit those that don't. (Let me save you some typing: "Liberal! Socialist! Communist!". There, now you don't have to do it.)
Although labor tends to be exploited in pre-industrial economies, this lasts only as long as there is just one sweatshop. If any others try to take advantage of the cheap labor, they begin competing for the same workers. This gives them the most important freedom a laborer has: choice of occupation.
Are you serious? Do you know what happens to workers in these developing countries when they try to improve their situation by switching jobs? The best-case scenario for that is they move to the sweatshop across the street and get treated just as badly, because the people who run the sweatshops want it that way. The sweatshops aren't interested in production quality, which would make it in their interest to retain good workers. They're interested in producing as much as they can as cheaply and as quickly as they can, because that's how they make money. They know that their customers (largely the USA) don't give a rat's ass about quality, they care about how cheap something is.
As long there is only one sweatshop, the worker has the choice of starvation or menial employment. If you get rid of the sweatshop, the worker is left with starvation. If more sweatshops move in, he has a choice of where to work. If enough "sweatshops" move in, the shops have to compete with each other through wages and health benefits to attract workers. You make the shops compete with each other for the workers, not the workers compete with each other for the shops' jobs.
Wages? Health benefits? Employers in the USA don't have to offer health benefits or living wages, what the hell gives you the idea that sweatshop owners in China or Vietnam or the Phillipines would ever have to? Sweatshops don't have to attract workers; "Work Here Or Die" is all they need. "Work faster and we might not beat the crap out of you" is their idea of "health benefits".
Workers in these sweatshops are routinely beaten and murdered for disturbing the status quo. They don't enjoy any of the protections that the "regulation" you speak so poorly of give to domestic workers. Either you're deliberately trolling or your perspective is seriously askew from reality.
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Look at this from a broadband-provider point of view. Let's say that this measure passes, and somehow can be enforced. (That's a whole different impracticality.) The (insanely well funded) powers that be behind the lobbying for this measure will start to demand that their ISPs make use of this restriction to protect their children from the evil boobies. They'll demand that the port be blocked by default for all of the ISP's customers. The ISP, not wanting to look like they're pushing porn on children (whether they actually are or not is irrelevant), will more than likely cave in the face of the political pressure, and start to block the port.
People who create and like to look at porn are far less politically organized than the self-appointed moral arbiters involved here. (Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler etc notwithstanding.) These protestors are also easily ignored by the big ISPs, since if they do start to make a stink, they're easily discredited as "perverts". In the (extremely unlikely) event that these customers are able to voice their objections in an effective way, the next hurdle is how to restrict the ports by default and handle requests for the restriction to be removed on a case-by-case basis. Do you provide an online form that can easily be accessed by the very children the measure is intended to protect? Do you require verification of age from the requester (and accept all the logistical problems involved with same?) The most practical thing to do is to still block the port by default and ignore the customers that complain. After all, most people don't have a choice in broadband providers, so the loss of revenue would be minimal, and money is really all that matters here, not the morality. The morality dictates the financials, and in this case it's cheaper to block the ports and ignore the "perverts".
I don't really care if someone calls me a "pervert". If I want to look at two consenting adults covering themselves in maple syrup and inserting things in themselves and each other, I have a right to do so. (That's not just an assertion, it's been debated in the highest court in the land.) This measure would have the indirect effect of restricting that right.
Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. If we're going to define a law as something that protects someone's rights, we could consider this act illegal. (That might be a less common interpretation of the situation, but the ambiguity is exactly the problem here.)
Well played, sir. I'm kind of pissed I didn't see that one :)
I think we can all agree that the only reaction this requires is a hearty "STFU".
Leaving alone the obvious impracticality of implementation and enforcement (ask Australia about that), this moron thinks that he can legislate morality.
My morality doesn't agree with his. I resent having moral decisions made for me, and I bet the majority of Americans feel the same way. If I want to look at porn, I should be able to look at porn. If someone else doesn't want to look at porn, they don't have to. What exactly is the problem here that requires legislative intervention?
I'd have your roommate try a spyware scan and an AV scan. There's really no reason to have to run iTunes by itself.
I agree that certifications are largely useful in getting into the "consider" pile of resumes instead of the "discard" pile.
Remember that the initial screening is likely to be done by some HR idiot who wouldn't know PHP from PCP, and they're just operating off of keyword searches.
I recently myself escaped the hell that is tech support (It's the ditch digging of the IT industry.) I gathered Linux, PHP, Perl, Apache and MySQL experience along the way through independent efforts, and have a job now where one of my primary job responsibilities is to maintain some internally used web tools that are based on PHP/MySQL, and independently I'm developing a Drupal-based site.
LAMP development (Linux, Apache, MySQL and (PHP|Perl|Python) is pretty hot right now if you're any good at all with programming and sensibly laying out a web app. It sounds like you've got at least some programming experience, which is an advantage.
The only other advice I'd offer is keep your expectations a little lower than you might ordinarily, because if you can get that first job, even if it isn't exactly what you want or the salary is low, you can always trade up later.
I'm not unmindful of that. A lot can be done at the provider level to turn down the noise, and is currently being done. What needs to happen is people need to get their service cut off if they don't disinfect their machine in a reasonable amount of time. I bet if you did the math you'd find that the amount of business they'd lose would be less costly than the amount they would save on support and infrastructure.
The user has access to all the information they need.
Even the simplest user can type "www.google.com". The information is out there, they just need to go and find it.
Sure, that's blaming the victim, but in this case the user is victimizing themselves.
If they can't be bothered to do the most basic research, screw 'em. Once they educate themselves, subsequent situations become easier to handle. If they choose to remain ignorant, then it's their own damn fault and I have no sympathy.
That being said, Vista's "annoyware" approach to security is inexcusable. All it does is essentially force the user to shut down the added security in order to get any work done. MS is the largest software company in the world with a de facto monopoly on the desktop. If they wanted to say "OK we're going to break all your software because our security is a joke and we need to fix it for the good of the community", they could bloody well do it.
Apple breaks nearly everything every ten years or so, and they've been "going out of business" for about twenty years now. And they don't have a twentieth of the market share that MS has.
Deserves emphasis:
IF SOMEONE IS WILLING TO DIE TO CARRY OUT A TERRORIST ATTACK, YOU CANNOT STOP THEM.
If someone wants to take out the White House and doesn't care if they die or not, they're going to find a way to do it (or at least make the attempt, and possibly kill lots of people in the process.) These people have no fear of death.
What people don't realize is that this sort of overreaction is EXACTLY what terrorism is about. The goal of terrorism is, by definition, to create terror. By overreacting and shutting down the city over some blinking lights, those in charge have aided the cause of terrorism.
The way to defeat terrorism isn't to kill people, or burn the Constitution, or treat everything that has a battery in it as an IED. The way to defeat terrorism is to NOT BE AFRAID.
See above. Last I had heard, common sense hadn't been abolished yet.
No, and no.
Well, one of us is an idiot, anyway.
This isn't blaming the victim. It's asking people to be responsible for themselves and their loved ones.
The world isn't fair. Once you accept that and take steps to be responsible for your own safety and your own actions, you'll do a lot better.
Point. I'll qualify that to say "people who take advantage of others or of circumstances for financial gain."
So long as greed and materialism exist, socialism can't work. And I don't see those going away any time soon.
Wait, why am I reasoning with an AC? Seems like anytime anyone suggests replacing greed with altruism someone screams "socialist."
Did anyone warn Grandma about anything before she started using the Internet?
If not, well, there's your problem. The stupid is not located within Grandma, it's located within anyone that allowed Grandma within 15 feet of a computer with Internet connectivity before educating her (or at least attempting to.)
Again, conventional wisdom applies.. "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is." I would hope that someone with grandchildren would at least be familiar with the concept.
there are people who will seek to take advantage of others for financial gain. It's generally referred to as "capitalism." Those same people who are deceived by con artists in Second Life are the people who watch the infomercials on late-night TV that have the guy with seventeen mansions and a 25 foot speedboat and hot and cold running girls, etc. and believe what they're saying.
The same adage works in both worlds: "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is."
I've spent considerable time in SL, and have spent a grand total of $20 in my time there. I've made small amounts of in-world cash through various jobs. I tune out the scammers in SL just like i do in RL.
Anyone that gets scammed like this (in either world) deserves to be parted from their money. Anything we can do to make stupidity painful (or at least expensive) is OK in my book.
I don't know about that. Most forward-thinking providers and HMOs have a reasonably enlightened view towards alternative medicine (I'm thinking primarily of Eastern medicine here.) My HMO provides discounts for things like acupuncture, etc.
Because some of us still care about our privacy; we also think "If you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to worry about" is just about the most offensive thing we could think of.
I just don't think it's anyone's business what books I'm buying, or what threads I'm posting to, or if I look up some rash on WebMD, or talk to my wife on IRC, etc etc. I'm not about to give up my privacy for some corporate bullet point about "leveraging marketing assets." They want that info, they can bloody well ask me.
And that's the problem. I don't trust the government (or their private contractors) to conduct themselves ethically beyond telling me the sky is blue. Recordings can be faked, edited, "lost", and so forth. Requests to view the "evidence" in question can be lost, obfuscated, stalled, or any number of bureaucratic excuses. The process will never be as transparent as it needs, because transparency is the enemy of law enforcement in our current environment.
Seems to me the country didn't implode into a sea of anarchy before there were ubiquitous surveillance cameras. Something tells me we'll continue to get along just fine without them, and law enforcement will continue to have to do things the old fashioned way.
Besides, I don't think the government has a right to videotape me because I walked down a street minding my own business.
I think the point here is not that irrelevantly minor infractions can suddenly be enforced globally, but that this technology can be used to harass someone specific. Let's say that you're a civil rights lawyer that's been a pain in the backside of local law enforcement for some time now (however justifiably so.) The technology could be used to find an excuse to throw you in jail, where you're less likely to be a problem.
That might sound paranoid, but I'd much rather live in a world where technology that makes this sort of thing possible isn't in common use. Selective enforcement has long been a cudgel in the hands of law enforcement, used to selectively punish those who are a problem to the system (no matter how righteous they might be.)
Hangs her out in the breeze nicely.
Why would they do anything? They gave her the money with the instruction to distribute it at her discretion. She did nothing wrong (technically.)
I'm not defending her (she's a selfish bitch, to be sure), but she didn't do anything that the company didn't allow.
You're basing your "reasonable expectation" argument on the average user's ignorance of technical details of the Internet. Ignorance of the law (or aspects thereof) is not a defense; I'd argue against the system as it stands today having any privacy whatsoever.
If there's precedent here, it's the cases in which an employee's email is used against him/her by their employer, as the email was sent with, and stored on, company equipment. Last I checked, those cases had held up; the employee might have had what he thought was a resonable expectation of privacy, but he/she was wrong. It's a logical extension to include Comcast's cablemodems and mail servers in that category. The only wrinkle might be that the relationship is vendor/customer instead of employer/employee, but given the current nature of privacy legislation (eg all your data are belong to the government) I doubt that would stand up.
Fact of the matter is, their equipment, their rules. There is no wiretap legislation that applies to Internet traffic as of yet on the books, therefore there should be no reasonable expectation of privacy. The fact that someone might think there is, isn't a defense. If that defense was allowed, people would start to argue that they didn't know speeding was illegal, or that they didn't know drugs were illegal, and you wouldn't be able to prove otherwise.
The problem is the ignorance, not the (perceived) invasion of privacy. If an ignorant person makes a mistake based on their ignorance, they pay for it. (At least that's how IMHO it should work.)
Not to mention the lack of common carrier status, the fact that your packets are being sent through any number of corporations' equipment (therefore giving them the right to keep records as they see fit, for "quality assurance"), and common sense (you have no expectation of privacy on the Internet, period.)
If you have to do VoIP, use a vendor that encrypts the content (e.g. Skype, and NOT Vonage.)
A doctor has had to be certified through a well known and accepted educational process in order to legally be called an MD, and there are ways to verify said doctor has gone through said process. There is no analogous process to become a Christian, except in the case of clergy.
As much as you (and I) may not like it, there are no formalized societal rules about who can and cannot call themselves a Christian. You don't have to go and get a Christian license. You can be thrown out of a particular church (or defrocked, excommunicated, etc) but that doesn't keep you from calling yourself Christian. I choose not to define myself as Christian because of my own beliefs; another individual with my background and belief systems might choose to do so.
This is why politicians can get away with calling themselves Christians. Who's to say they aren't? You? Me? The Pope? Jimmy Swaggart? The President? One man's Christian is another man's hypocrite. Not to mention that anyone that criticizes them publicly for not acting in a Christian way is risking his/her own judgement.
There's really no solution to this other than making decisions based on an individual's actions rather than on their professed beliefs. Sadly, most Americans believe whatever they're told and ignore the facts, because finding out the facts might require effort.
I think where we're not seeing eye to eye is that you want to make a formal definition of what makes a "Christian". In my view, it's nowhere near that simple. "Judge not, lest ye be judged."
IMO only you can decide whether or not you are a Christian. If I see some politician professing to be a Christian, yet routinely speaking the language of hate and intolerance, I know in my heart that he's not a Christian. Others may look at him and decide something different. It's not my place to call their decisions right or wrong, because in questions of religon there is no right or wrong, only your beliefs.
IMO the "Christian" thing to do when faced with this sort of two-faced hypocrisy is to turn the other cheek, make a decision based on your own beliefs, ethics and morals, and act accordingly. This sort of passivism may not "fix" the "problem" (and it'll make things worse in the short-term) but if you truly believe, then your faith is its own reward.
(Disclaimer: I don't profess to be a Christian; my own views are much more pantheistic, eg what we call Allah/Jehovah/Eris/Thor/Mother Nature/the Goddess/the Flying Spaghetti Monster/etc are all part of the same thing.)
I'd also like to point out that the reason so many people hate Christians is because of the few bad apples (KKK, Phelps, Chick, etc)
Politely and with respect. Agreeing to disagree is generally how I try to approach the situation on a personal level; in public forums like
You're comparing apples to oranges. Comparing current economic conditions with those from more than a century ago is meaningless. As technology has progressed and evolved, so has the ability of those with money to exploit those that don't. (Let me save you some typing: "Liberal! Socialist! Communist!". There, now you don't have to do it.)
Are you serious? Do you know what happens to workers in these developing countries when they try to improve their situation by switching jobs? The best-case scenario for that is they move to the sweatshop across the street and get treated just as badly, because the people who run the sweatshops want it that way. The sweatshops aren't interested in production quality, which would make it in their interest to retain good workers. They're interested in producing as much as they can as cheaply and as quickly as they can, because that's how they make money. They know that their customers (largely the USA) don't give a rat's ass about quality, they care about how cheap something is.
Wages? Health benefits? Employers in the USA don't have to offer health benefits or living wages, what the hell gives you the idea that sweatshop owners in China or Vietnam or the Phillipines would ever have to? Sweatshops don't have to attract workers; "Work Here Or Die" is all they need. "Work faster and we might not beat the crap out of you" is their idea of "health benefits".
Workers in these sweatshops are routinely beaten and murdered for disturbing the status quo. They don't enjoy any of the protections that the "regulation" you speak so poorly of give to domestic workers. Either you're deliberately trolling or your perspective is seriously askew from reality.