our leaders are held to certain standards. Our presidents get in trouble for misspeaking or forgetting to bow or not dispensing enough foreign aid
Yes, "certain" standards. Forgetting to say "God bless the separation of Church and State", sure, 10 points from Gryffindor. Invading the fuck out of a sovereign nation that posed no threat at all, direct or indirect, to the USA, not so much trouble.
Tell a big enough lie, or start a big enough war, and no one dares call you on it. You're a Statesman.
How kind of you to point that out. I'm sure nobody would have guessed that without your generous condescension. Also, could you find it in your heart to please explain for us the concept of "understated sarcasm", since it's far beyond our humble comprehension.
At this point I'm going to give in to my bias and hereinafter refer to that as the "right answer"
I think your bias was obvious right from the point where you decided to pay money to people to tell you what you wanted to hear, then decided to focus on the one subset of people who actually did so.
The trick is to criminalize not the "speech" per se, just the distribution of it. As long as you "say" it where nobody can hear you, that pesky ol' Constitution doesn't get in the way. See also "First Amendment Zones".
I think we're safe for a while. The State - which is at heart still an Abrahamic church wearing secular clothes - thinks slaughter is just fine and dandy. View their procurement and promotion of the "murder simulator" America's Army: Operation Darkie Cull.
No, it's enjoying sex that's the dirty, unforgivable sin. I mean, crime.
But I strongly suspect that the kids who have gone off the deep end have been more effective killers because they have trained extensively on killing simulators (ie., violent video games).
OK, imagine that it's 2050 BC. Your friend, Thogg, finds a shiny sharp rock, and spends a month imagining bashing your head in with it so that he can have your cave.
Not knowing this, you decide to invite him over to your cave to eat some leaves. Halfway through the first handful, the fire goes out.
How sure are you that Thogg won't bash your skull in? He's been doing it in a photo-real environment for the last month.
I think it's clear that we should all agree not to use our imaginations, for fear of the consequences.
And if the number of enemies is reduced, the fun factor will definitely go down.
It did, in "Serious Sam 2". Nicer looking, still a fun game, and still relatively (compared to Quake-a-like titles) frenetic in parts, but not to the same degree as the Serious... sorry, series 1 games.
How about "I want to connect to the Internet". Seriously, you must be so owned right now.
Why's that then? What (inherent, not service or application) remote vulnerabilities does 2K Pro suffer from that XP has fixed?
Assume just for a second that I'm not a retard, that I've disabled all remote services, nmapped the box to verify that, and am running it behind a NAT box with a sane iptables setup.
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Yes, "certain" standards. Forgetting to say "God bless the separation of Church and State", sure, 10 points from Gryffindor. Invading the fuck out of a sovereign nation that posed no threat at all, direct or indirect, to the USA, not so much trouble.
Tell a big enough lie, or start a big enough war, and no one dares call you on it. You're a Statesman.
So what you're saying is that it's a really well disguised trap?
Note that what Microsoft is stopped from doing has no bearing on what they can fund other companies to do on their behalf.
There's no legal basis for any third party to sue .NET implementers, you say? Well, gosh darn, I guess there's no way that Microsoft could fund them to file a bullshit case that drags on for year after year after year, tying up court time, costing the defendants millions in fees, and eating away at the hearts of souls of good men like a cancer. Is there?
Facts? Pfft, you could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true.
How kind of you to point that out. I'm sure nobody would have guessed that without your generous condescension. Also, could you find it in your heart to please explain for us the concept of "understated sarcasm", since it's far beyond our humble comprehension.
How absolutely fascinating and utterly on topic. (Someone fetch an axe). Do please continue.
Oh, go sit at the back of the court with the rest of your kind.
I think your bias was obvious right from the point where you decided to pay money to people to tell you what you wanted to hear, then decided to focus on the one subset of people who actually did so.
Would you like to know where North Korea keep their nukes?
No bullshit prevarication: yes, or no.
Now, why do you think that anybody outside the US gives a Goddamn whether the US wants to keep its nuke locations secret?
Oh, you thought Wikileaks was a US entity only interested in spilling US beans? Jog on.
Humanity </Zarkov>
The trick is to criminalize not the "speech" per se, just the distribution of it. As long as you "say" it where nobody can hear you, that pesky ol' Constitution doesn't get in the way. See also "First Amendment Zones".
I think we're safe for a while. The State - which is at heart still an Abrahamic church wearing secular clothes - thinks slaughter is just fine and dandy. View their procurement and promotion of the "murder simulator" America's Army: Operation Darkie Cull.
No, it's enjoying sex that's the dirty, unforgivable sin. I mean, crime.
It's all right, I'm a "business psychologist".
Hi Jack - it's great that you're keeping busy.
OK, imagine that it's 2050 BC. Your friend, Thogg, finds a shiny sharp rock, and spends a month imagining bashing your head in with it so that he can have your cave.
Not knowing this, you decide to invite him over to your cave to eat some leaves. Halfway through the first handful, the fire goes out.
How sure are you that Thogg won't bash your skull in? He's been doing it in a photo-real environment for the last month.
I think it's clear that we should all agree not to use our imaginations, for fear of the consequences.
It wasn't Required Reading At The Academy.
Oh, purleaze. And lo, did cometh the $MYSTIC_UR_GEM_OF_SOULRENDING. Either that, or the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter. I choose... Hordlepuff!
I call "consultant" on you. :P
It did, in "Serious Sam 2". Nicer looking, still a fun game, and still relatively (compared to Quake-a-like titles) frenetic in parts, but not to the same degree as the Serious... sorry, series 1 games.
No, it doesn't, which is why it's tiresome when people conflate the OS and applications running on it.
Yes, I run Firefox 3.0.11, and don't frequent warez or pr0n sites. Will you be getting to a point any time soon?
Why's that then? What (inherent, not service or application) remote vulnerabilities does 2K Pro suffer from that XP has fixed?
Assume just for a second that I'm not a retard, that I've disabled all remote services, nmapped the box to verify that, and am running it behind a NAT box with a sane iptables setup.
What's going to own me?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, XP? Y'all from the future?
Give me a compelling reason to move from (DRM free) 2K Pro, and we can talk.
The issue in this thread is "It's about stopping the pirates from getting the game much earlier than it's retail release date."
In the context of that problem, we're only talking about cracked systems, or PCs.
Yup, as I said, all arguments about the 2nd Amendment boil down to "What the founders meant to say was..."
Apparently you don't like the words "well regulated". Well, let's just pretend they were never written. There, that's fixed it. Job done.