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  1. Re:i still disagree on US Won't Drop Charges Against Sklyarov - More Protests Planned · · Score: 1

    Disproportionately? What if I kill someone and the next day an unexpected mob of angry police is knocking on my door? Then I don't get away with it by saying "oh, I've changed my mind now, I don't want her to be dead anymore". Why should Adobe?

  2. Re:Sounds familiar.... on Chinese Government Perplexed By Internet Cafes · · Score: 1

    I don't know about USA, but in Sweden all major commercial internet providers refuse to sell bandwidth to a news and freedom of speech organisation (www.flashback.se) they don't like. They also refuse to sell to anyone who buys from them and then sells on to flashback.

    A bunch of links about it, a few in english.

  3. Re:Sure there is rights for them. (not quite)Moron on Civil Rights For Aliens? · · Score: 1

    You are confusing "race" with "species". And thats beside the point anyway. I was trying to say that what biological grops (like race, species or sex) someone belongs to have nothing to do with how much moral consideration they should get. Are you saying I should only care abount people I can have children with or what?

    I don't watch "star trek". But I do read some litterature on ethics, I can really recommend Animal Liberation by Peter Singer.

  4. Re:What _will_ happen, and what _should_ happen. on Civil Rights For Aliens? · · Score: 1

    may I suggest that when we say 'human' rights, we mean 'rights of all conscious beings'.

    No, unfortunately "we" mean "someone belonging to the human species", analogous to the older "someone belonging to the aryan race". I agree we should care about everyones conscious experiences instead though.

    in this day and age of one-species consciousness (or the pretense thereof at the expense of certain primates and dolphins)

    Shit, do you really believe that a dog or pig does not even feel pain if you, say, pour petrol over them and lights it or cut out their testicles (routinely done without anaesthesia with males in pig farming)?

    Basically, anything capable of abstract thought (our only real judgement at this point of what is and isn't consciousness) should be accorded these rights

    Uh? What the hell does abstract thought have to do with experiences, like the one of pain or the colour green?

    The logistics of fighting an interstellar war (barring some mysterious FTL device) are horrendous to the point of being pointless.

    Ever played Warcraft? Start with a single worker, drop it on an asteroid or something, have it build another one and exploooode!

  5. Equal consideration of interests on Civil Rights For Aliens? · · Score: 1
    The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The french have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a fullgrown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, that an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

    Jeremy Bentham, 1789

    This should be what decides the treatment of someone, alien or not.

  6. Re:Sure there is rights for them. (not quite) on Civil Rights For Aliens? · · Score: 1

    No there aren't.

    They aren't aryan.

    Does a plant have rights ? Not quite. Did negros have rights? Not quite.

    And they shouldn't have.

    There's no such thing as an universal bill of rights. And the concept is pretty stupid too. Not to say useless.

  7. Re:How about human-animal hybrids? on Civil Rights For Aliens? · · Score: 1

    Why? Do you want to ban racial interbreeding too? And if we have a continuum of individuals ranging from "most definitely gorilla" to "most definitely human" what about your "absolutely"?

    I recommend giving everyone the rights they need no matter what race, species or whatever they are.

  8. Re:Comercials on Mozilla Junkbuster-like Feature Removed · · Score: 1

    Of course the content providers on TV lose money. They get paid less if you don't watch the ads. It just happens in bigger steps. (X individuals not watching - Y less money, 2X people not watching - 2Y less money compared to 1 individual not watching Y/X less money, 2 individuals not watching 2Y/X less money for banners)

  9. What's a dorm room? on Bills to Restrict Campus Internet Access · · Score: 1

    Is a "dorm room" something like what I live in, a couple of cheap rooms with common kitchen or so where you stuff in lot's of poor students?

    And is this univerity level students we are talking about, grown up (>18) people, with, uh, legal rights?

    So what's this about 'no opposite sex' and 'inspections'? People have more rights than what this sounds like in swedish prisons and then complain (rightly so) about always being watched and forced by Big Brother. I'm a little shocked here...

  10. Re:Simulate Life - NOT FLAMEBAIT on What Computers Really Can't Do · · Score: 1

    Uh, yes, absolutely. And not just animals in experiments, the food industry is quite horrible too. How about spending your whole life in a wire cage so small you can't stretch out your limbs? (most hens) Or having your testicles cut out without any kind of anaesthesia? (most male pigs)

    Some are saying some racist-like crap about it not being very important because the victims don't belong to the human master-species. (like they do, funny how those advocating special privileges for the master-group-of-the-century always happen to belong to it themselves, isn't it?) But from an individual perspective it most of the time is clearly worse, yes.

  11. Re:Simulate Life - NOT FLAMEBAIT on What Computers Really Can't Do · · Score: 1

    In most societies in history there was no chance of enforcing non-slavery. But there was always the chance of abolishing slavery as soon as possible. And it happened. So of course we should fight against the even more cruel things going on now.

    And even if you can't get it ALL to stop RIGHT NOW it of course helps not to pay for production using slaves, human or not.

  12. Yes. on Mars Polar Lander Remains Silent · · Score: 1

    To the sentient beings of Earth life clearly has been (and still is) bad.

    As I said, think about evolution (without which there would be no life). It depends on most (or at least a large portion) of the beings dying before they can reproduce. And everything is 'designed' to do that at all costs. So for conscious beings everything that could cause death is generating extreme suffering. Therefore (almost) everyone suffers, a lot. And that's bad.

    I hate most movies. I possibly think to much about ethics...

  13. Hope they do not find life on Mars Polar Lander Remains Silent · · Score: 0

    If life has evolved on mars too that means the probability for life could be huge. And think about the enormous amounts of suffering evolution has led to when life got complex enough.

    If there is life around most or many of the stars in the universe that would/could be really, really bad.

  14. Re:Joseph Campbell... on Can Computers Pray? · · Score: 1

    I am of the non-spiritual kind but I know from experience how easy it is to be completely wrong and be stuck in amazingly stupid old prejudices. So I always try to listen when someone tries to enlighten me of something.

    This "completely wrong" and "amazingly stupid" definitely goes for todays speciesism so ok, I'll read something by Joseph Campbell if you read "Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer. Thanks :-)

  15. Re:Forking works only if GPL is *enforced* on GPL and Project Forking · · Score: 2

    From the GPL:

    "You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License."

  16. Re:fame == importance on 'Kyle's Mom' is Dead at Age 38 · · Score: 1

    Depends on what you mean by important. To say that "I am more important to Earth than you are because I'm holding my finger on the button that blows it up." is completely ok, it's just a fact.

    But to say "My interests are more important than yours because [whatever]." makes, if it is believed, the world a worse place.

  17. Re:Oh please on A Post-Columbine Halloween Horror Story · · Score: 1

    True, true, except for the fact that dracula didn't kill people "because they pissed him off" or smoke dope and inhale freon.

    Are you talking about Vlad "the Impaler" Dracul? The one who once impaled 20000 people at the same time because it enjoyed him?

  18. Re:Converting to Debian from Red Hat? on Debian Freezing · · Score: 2

    http://www.geocit ies.com/ResearchTriangle/3328/rh5todeb-howto.txt

    Google is good! "convert debian redhat", "I'm feeling lucky", Bam.

  19. What's wrong with child porn spam? on Two Spammers Murdered in New Jersey · · Score: 2

    "child porn spammers deserve an espcially painful death"

    "if it were child pornography spam then nothing short of what happened to them would be required"

    Why is so many attacking this all the time? Ok, spam in general is bad but why would child porn spam be extra bad? If you produce it using real children that's bad. Just as producing regular porn by raping people. But I can't see anything wrong with child porn in itself.

  20. Re:It's sad...agree... on Two Spammers Murdered in New Jersey · · Score: 0

    Poor guys...scummy as they were, nothing it looks like they did would make them deserve to be gunned down like an animal.

    Yeah, all non-human animals that get gunned down just get their rightful punishment!

  21. LGPL on QT/GPL licensing trouble · · Score: 1

    They could use LGPL, compatible with GPL and everything else. Or they could just LGPL the Unix version and have some other license on the Windows version (not ideal at all but at least better).

  22. Re:What am I missing? on Red Hat Sells RMS Linux · · Score: 2

    FSF says "free as in freedom, not price" and clearly states that they wish to be paid. See:

    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.ht ml
    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.ht ml
    http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html#helpgnu

  23. Re:A little clearer. on Red Hat Sells RMS Linux · · Score: 1

    Understand that this is charity...

    So it's completely unthinkable to pay for something unless you are threatened with fines and imprisonment?

  24. Without reboot... on VA, O'Reilly, and SGI Sponsor Debian in a Box · · Score: 1

    Here is a "mini-HOWTO" on how to convert RedHat 5 to Debian 2 without a reboot!

    Maybe not the easiest way and a little old but very cool. Could still be helpful.

  25. Not until the Replicator on Sir Arthur Clarke Writes About the 21st Century · · Score: 1

    Because nothing but members of the 'human race' count. If it had, people would have to chang their eating habits and their view on the world around them ("Natural Is Good", "Killing [humans] Is Bad", ...)

    So until meat is made by machines todays attitude of "Ingnore the issue, shut up about it and pretend it doesn't exist. Whit^H^H^H^H Humans above all!" will dominate.