One million is a whole lot of people, but what about the other 63 million? Having 1.5% of the population on your side is great, but it is not 'the people'. More importantly, just because it didn't work for them, doesn't mean it doesn't work at all.
And people on his side of the aisle tend not to think very highly of Buckley. While I disagree with Chomsky's politics, I can't deny that he is a brilliant man. Forget politics - his work has had a profound, even revolutionary, impact on the fields of linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, computer science (computational linguistics, AI, intelligent systems), media analysis and more! Google would not have been possible without him.
It's possible he was. The exact contents of his cocktail were known only to his personal physician. That tons of speed was involved is known. Which is fortunate for us all. The amphetamines are a likely source of his increasingly unwise decisions and magical thinking - had he been thinking clearly, the war may have turned out very differently. In a bad-for-everyone-else sort of way.
Chomsky never did either. He wrote an essay on free speech to be used as the forward to a book by an author who did deny the Holocaust. He made it very clear that he did not share the author's views, but insisted that the author be able to present them.
Likewise, I don't usually agree with Chomsky. I do however respect the man, even though I tend more towards Buckley. I refer to them together as they were both linguists who turned to political philosophy and came to occupy very similar positions on opposite ends of the political spectrum. They were such opposites, one wonders if a handshake would have caused mutual annihilation, converting their masses to energy.
First, those methods do work. They have been successful time and time again. A broad capacity for nonviolent change is one of the advantages of a democratic system. They fail when the advocates fail to persuade their fellow citizens. Maybe they weren't persuasive enough, weren't patient enough, or simply had a lousy idea nobody else would get behind.
Second, the Panama papers were released by an inside whistle blower.
The conditions become relevant. It matters greatly what avenues for remediation are available. In a democratic society, an unjust status quo can be addressed through a number of legitimate means, without the proponents of reform inflicting any harm to acheive their goal. In a violently oppressed society, nonviolent reform may not be possible, in which case the use of force becomes legitimate. However, this still does not give a reformer license to sacrifice innocents.
It may also be counterproductive. In the case of Middle Eastern extremism, harming civilians only serves to align the populace against the proximate cause of that harm. If, for example, children are unintentionally killed in an Israeli military strike because militants were firing mortars from their school, the militants don't get the blame, Israel does. It doesn't matter that they were trying to take out an artillery emplacement, or that the militants intentionally put the children in harm's way; Israel winds up with more enemies than it just killed.
Okay, that's lousy behavior on the part of apparently corrupt officials. How exactly is anonymous vandalism any better? If his political views are so sophisticated, why isn't he engaging the political process and using valid means to promote said views? Like organizing nonviolent protests, engaging with the electorate, using the democratic process to bring about systemic change?
Vandalism only discredits his cause. A sophisticated political actor should have the sense to avoid such blunders; these are the acts of an immature fool. Gandhi was no vandal. Martin Luther King Jr. was no vandal. They were brave, sophisticated and wise enough to use the system to correct its injustices. They persuaded others to join them instead of attacking those who disagreed.
But nobody has the right to bring about so much death and destruction, or to sacrifice the lives of innocents for a cause. That we made a better world from the ashes of their evil justifies nothing.
And it is utterly lacking in sophistication. What's so special about his politics that he gets to work outside the normal, agreed upon, process? Are his views so sophisticated that he's above everyone else, deigning to reach down and impose his views on others? It would be one thing if he was fighting corrupt and oppressive regimes, but a Spanish municipal police department?
It is no more valid an approach to the democratic process than is terrorism.
Well, Kids in the Hall did, but that was an unstoppable comedic juggernaut. Trailer Park Boys is now a Netflix "Original", so I guess they can claim to be producing original Canadian content.
Well, Netflix does carry a lot of Canadian shows. Including "Trailer Park Boys", which they picked up and produced another season or two of. I think that had more to do with its cult status than a desire to promote Canadian culture.
Personally, I'd like it if they at least picked up Canadian classics like The Kids in the Hall, Corner Gas, Dan for Mayor, SCTV, etc.
Oops, I typoed myself and put the italics too far over. Should have started at Microsoft so that it would read,"..in the 25 years since,Microsoft has..."
In an essay at i-programmer.info, Gee shares a video of young Bill Gates building an app with Visual Basic in 1991, and complains that in the 25 years since Microsoft has open sourced.NET Core and the.NET Compiler Platform Roslyn, "but it has explicitly refused to open source VB6."
There's a comma missing before the italicized clause. As it stands, the sentence means they open sourced.NET 25 years ago.
a company like Microsoft should not take a language away from its users.
Now that's just silly. It's theirs. Microsoft wrote it, Microsoft owns the code, Microsoft can do whatever the hell it wants with it.
Word is she was already planning a move, so it stands to reason that she already had a job lined up or at least a solid foundation upon which to build a new life.
And wasn't TOR originally a military project? Not only is the code completely public, it came out of a Navy research lab. What would they need her for that they can't get from somebody who already works for the Federal government?
It sounds a little worse than it is. Law enforcement is allowed to lie to suspects, including bluffs like, "We'll pick you up and won't let you talk to your lawyer." They wouldn't actually do it if they had any intent to prosecute. Or intent to not get sued.
Monsanto may be dicks, but they aren't the only player in the GMO field. Holding their behavior against the entire endeavor is the worst sort of reasoning. Nobody outside the Monsanto legal and marketing departments is defending them. My bet is that you can't help but conflate Monsato with GMOs in general, both in your rants and when you read the responses.
Slashdot Mirror
One million is a whole lot of people, but what about the other 63 million? Having 1.5% of the population on your side is great, but it is not 'the people'. More importantly, just because it didn't work for them, doesn't mean it doesn't work at all.
So, I can forgive some silly political notions.
It's possible he was. The exact contents of his cocktail were known only to his personal physician. That tons of speed was involved is known. Which is fortunate for us all. The amphetamines are a likely source of his increasingly unwise decisions and magical thinking - had he been thinking clearly, the war may have turned out very differently. In a bad-for-everyone-else sort of way.
Likewise, I don't usually agree with Chomsky. I do however respect the man, even though I tend more towards Buckley. I refer to them together as they were both linguists who turned to political philosophy and came to occupy very similar positions on opposite ends of the political spectrum. They were such opposites, one wonders if a handshake would have caused mutual annihilation, converting their masses to energy.
Second, the Panama papers were released by an inside whistle blower.
It may also be counterproductive. In the case of Middle Eastern extremism, harming civilians only serves to align the populace against the proximate cause of that harm. If, for example, children are unintentionally killed in an Israeli military strike because militants were firing mortars from their school, the militants don't get the blame, Israel does. It doesn't matter that they were trying to take out an artillery emplacement, or that the militants intentionally put the children in harm's way; Israel winds up with more enemies than it just killed.
Painkillers? Perhaps as part of his daily amphetamine cocktail...
Vandalism only discredits his cause. A sophisticated political actor should have the sense to avoid such blunders; these are the acts of an immature fool. Gandhi was no vandal. Martin Luther King Jr. was no vandal. They were brave, sophisticated and wise enough to use the system to correct its injustices. They persuaded others to join them instead of attacking those who disagreed.
How sophisticated can one's political views be if the acts they promote are as unsophisticated as vandalism?
Well, assuming you mean William F. Buckley, then yes. The same could be said of his counterpart Noam Chomsky.
But nobody has the right to bring about so much death and destruction, or to sacrifice the lives of innocents for a cause. That we made a better world from the ashes of their evil justifies nothing.
It is no more valid an approach to the democratic process than is terrorism.
Ahh.... That explains a lot.
Considering how interconnected the industrialized world is, neither side of the Atlantic would do well without the other.
Well, Kids in the Hall did, but that was an unstoppable comedic juggernaut. Trailer Park Boys is now a Netflix "Original", so I guess they can claim to be producing original Canadian content.
Personally, I'd like it if they at least picked up Canadian classics like The Kids in the Hall, Corner Gas, Dan for Mayor, SCTV, etc.
Oops, I typoed myself and put the italics too far over. Should have started at Microsoft so that it would read," ..in the 25 years since, Microsoft has..."
There's a comma missing before the italicized clause. As it stands, the sentence means they open sourced .NET 25 years ago.
Now that's just silly. It's theirs. Microsoft wrote it, Microsoft owns the code, Microsoft can do whatever the hell it wants with it.
And what does that have to do with the false hyperbole to which I was responding?
Word is she was already planning a move, so it stands to reason that she already had a job lined up or at least a solid foundation upon which to build a new life.
Things are turning to shit so fast in the greatest surveilance nation in the world.
What does the UK have to do with this?
And wasn't TOR originally a military project? Not only is the code completely public, it came out of a Navy research lab. What would they need her for that they can't get from somebody who already works for the Federal government?
It sounds a little worse than it is. Law enforcement is allowed to lie to suspects, including bluffs like, "We'll pick you up and won't let you talk to your lawyer." They wouldn't actually do it if they had any intent to prosecute. Or intent to not get sued.
Monsanto = Bad
GMOs = Good
Monsanto != GMOs
Best Comment.