That's what I didn't get in the story. [...] So how have these scientists established that it wouldn't hurt a fictional alien? Maybe the reporters assumed that, but reporters always make wild, unfounded assumptions about science. The scientists themselves, however, carefully point out that "So far the effects of Jadarite on superheroes have not been noted by researchers."
Now what if I post a comment there, will it "undo" the mod? Yes, this undoes your mod. Unfortunately it looks like somebody else modded it "Offtopic" too.
53-button-multiple-roller-mouse Ah, a true slashdotter!
and a banner saying "Iraq now, France's next!". Chilling! Brrr!
Firstly, there'd be allies cropping up from strange places. [.........] Ach, history proves man-kind is infinitely flexible and fast to adapt. Your analysis is fascinating, and I think you're right. My analysis was indeed short-sighted. The US may have a ridiculously large military might, but this is only useful to them in the extremely short term. The US doesn't have the first clue about what to do after its initial humongous military move.
Considering the flexibility that you mention, Europe is also far more flexible and adaptable than the US, because of our constant debating and negotiating and compromising in the EU, to painstakingly step by step search out common grounds where our many different nations and cultures can reach agreements. The US by contrast is shockingly authoritarian and rigid, geared toward black-or-white views like "Either you're with us or against us."
Indeed, Iraq shows how astonishingly rigid and short-sighted the US can be, with their total inability to understand what Europe saw from the outset, that the Iraq war was very likely to lead to explosively increasing terrorism.
Having seen your analysis I'm far less pessimistic about what would happen, should the US get crazed enough to invade Europe.
Even so, it could become quite a disaster, where precious resources would be squandered. Humanity needs to find solutions to urgent problems before it's too late.
What really needs to happen is that the US needs to come to their senses and understand that Europe and the US need to be allies, and need to respect each others as allies. No childish outbursts of "Either you're with us or against us." Negotiations are needed, giving and taking, searching for common grounds. Our similarities are greater than our differences and we have common goals. We should work together.
Unfortunately I don't share your faith in humanity. Too many people stop being reasonable when there's profit to be made. Consider how they'll gladly ruin a kid's life just for sharing a few lousy music tracks.
Of course you do. I'd be shocked if you didn't. In my comment about convincing the judge that you're mentally retarded I wasn't suggesting that you're literally retarded!
When I suggested that the police might have to collect your traces from hundreds of computers, I was thinking of services like Tor. If you had connected directly, all they'd have to do would be to check Seobidding's logs and then ask your ISP. Nothing to it.
Unfortunately, Tor can't eliminate your traces entirely, it can only spread them. Tor nodes have ISPs, and ISPs have logs. With a debt higher than ten thousand dollars, you will be traced. With a hundred million times the limit, well, I'm sorry.
Their job would be much easier if all the Google hits on your nick were about you. Since tracing Tor is cumbersome, they'll try to find some instance where you slipped, some instance where you used your nick without going through Tor. I hope you've been 100% careful forever.
But since your nick gives so many widely different Google hits, tracing you that way will be cumbersome too. Good for you. This may buy you some time. Maybe in the meantime you can find some solution.
I'm a little surprised that you can post to Slashdot through Tor. I thought Slashdot blocked all the well-known anonymizers with that weird port checking that they do when you post.
Depending on where you live, it might help if you can convince the judge that you're a young child. I don't know about the US, but in most modern countries young children are not competent to stand trial, and are not legally responsible for their actions.
In many cases, instead the parents are responsible for their children's actions.
I seem to remember that in some US states children and the mentally retarded can be tried, and even executed. Very strange.
Unless I'm mistaken the UK is not really modern in this respect, although most of Europe is. I think the UK jailed two small children for murder.
Or maybe Europe isn't so modern, now that I think of it, or at least not my country, Sweden. Here children can't be jailed, but I seem to remember that Sweden does allow children to have enormous debts. I think this was debated some time ago as a mistake in the law.
So, I would guess that this may vary quite a lot. IOW, YMMV. It may be worth exploring, if you're young enough.
Another solution might be if you can convince the judge that you're mentally retarded. In most jurisdictions the mentally retarded are not responsible for their actions.
Unfortunately, acting retarded won't help. You'll need documentation.
I don't know if recent documentation will be enough, or if you'll need documentation collected since childhood.
Maybe you're thinking that you could convince the judge that bidding a trillion dollar is retarded. This might make the judge agree that it is indeed retarded, but unfortunately that will not in itself be enough to make you legally retarded, that is, retarded enough to be legally free you from responsibility.
Nobody is truly anonymous on the internet. You leave traces all over the place. Those traces may be spread over hundreds of log files, which are in turn spread among hundreds of computers, but if the police have suitable search warrants and are suitably motivated, they will gather all your traces until they find you.
One example of suitable motivation would be a debt larger than ten thousand. Your debt is a hundred million times that sum.
I hope you do have a trillion dollars stashed away somewhere.
If you don't, I hope you can convince them that you're 95 years old and live penniless on the street, so that seeking you out isn't profitable.
True, true. I was living in Sweden at the time. However, I am Dutch, Leuk! Ik heb enkele jaaren in Rotterdam gewoont! Nederland is werkelijk mooi!
The US administration basically turned around and slapped the Dutch government on the fingers with a "Dragons be here, you're either for us or against us" type of statement. I was never aware that they behaved in this bullyish fashion so early in the game. But you can certainly recognize the Bush administration in that behavior. I can't recall the US ever behaving that way toward its allies before Bush (at least its European allies) (but I could be wrong, I may have missed it).
Recently I saw a rather scary documentary on Neo-Conservatives in the US where it was stated Germany and France are dubbed "strategic Enemies" of the US. What does "Strategic Enemy" mean in this context?
It sounds like a very extremist view. You're not talking about mainstream US Conservatives, are you? For all its faults, I find it hard to believe that the Bush administration would be so delusional.
I almost (almost) hope that at some point in time the US will invade the EU. It's about time certain induhviduals learned the true meaning of the words "strategic Enemies". That could be a huge disaster for humanity. The next really big challenge for humanity in the coming decades is finding substitutes for petroleum, both as energy source and for the production of fertilizers for agriculture that feeds billions. For the research into substitutes we need some degree of peace and prosperity. We need that while there is still lots of oil left.
I almost (almost) hope that at some point in time the US will invade the EU. [...] but if it happens I'll definitely pick up a rifle to enter the debate. I find it extremely unlikely that the EU would stand a chance in a war against the US. Consider this (scroll down a little). The US is explicitly geared toward having more military might than any other power. The US also has an absurdly strong military industry and lobby, always striving for more profit and more power. Europe is geared toward having just barely enough to make sure neighbors like Russia don't start getting ideas. Europe is definitely not geared toward military conflict with the US.
We're assuming that he can't pay for it. This is a very reasonable assumption, in my view. This means he won't own it. Thus they don't need to confiscate it. They get to confiscate everything he owns and all his future, and still they get to keep the domain and sell it again.
Even if they did have to confiscate the domain before they sell it, in the executory auction the domain would only bring in a very small fraction of his debt. I'm sure you'll agree that it would bring in only a very, very small fraction.
They'll do what they always do when someone can't pay the entire sum that he owes. They'll get as large a portion as they can, by arranging personal bankrupcy, confiscation of assets with executory auction, confiscation of future income, and so on.
The UK is dropping the term, because it's misleading. Looks like the UK is far more sober than the US in this regard. I find it very unlikely that the US would drop the term for being misleading any time soon. On the contrary, I'm pretty sure the Bush administration and the US media chose this term precisely because of its high emotional charge, its ability to make people upset and evoke a kind of hysteria. In short, for its ability to mislead.
If the US was a woman, I would think you are describing a relationship with a heroine addict. When she is sober, you love her but when she is junked up, you hate the way she ruins her life and constantly disappoints you. And sometimes you cannot tell the difference. What a fascinating analogy! And chilling!
Usually, it is Americans reading the messages about how everything is evil and such are the Americans then having to sit back on wonder who the hell they are actually referring to. In fact, very often we have the same experience this side of the ocean. Some Americans will tell us how Europe is unfree or Socialist or anti-American, or how the French or the Germans are nasty bastards or whatever, and we'll shake our heads wondering who they are talking about among the many, many different countries and groups and peoples here.
I think on both sides of the ocean we need to learn to see that on the other side of the ocean there are vast numbers of different people with different backgrounds, different opinions, different political leanings, living in different countries/states, also experiencing differences between North and South, differences between city and countryside, differences between young and old, and so on and on and on.
Hopefully given time we'll understand this better and better.
and the image we have of your country influences the image we have of you From this I get the impression that you think that I am from the US. And immediately I feel a very strong urge to correct this impression. No, I'm not from the US, I'm Swedish!
I get this strong urge to ask you not to consider me one of those anti-democratic bullies... So after all I do have some very strong negative feelings against Americans. And yet I also have strong positive feelings about Americans and the US. My attitude is full of contradictory feelings.
Really, on the one hand, in several important ways the US has defended democracy. Among those huge countries that are so unhealthily large and powerful that their power will unavoidably corrupt the people who wield that power, certainly the US is preferable to all the others. But at the same time...
One bad choice is excusable, but the US has earned its reputation over many, many years, Indeed, indeed. The persistent disastrous missteps of the US are inexcusable.
It's amazing that a country can be so self-contradictory.
You're talking about the formal differences. I'm talking about the practical differences, the differences that the average Joe perceived.
Living in the USSR you had the KGB, living in GDR you had Stasi. Indeed there were some differences, Stasi was generally considered slightly worse than the KGB, the dictatorship in the GDR slightly harsher than that in the USSR. (Or at least West Germans felt this way, I don't know if everybody agreed.)
Now contrast this with the huge differences between living in a Warsaw-pact country versus living in a NATO country. Freedom of expression, freedom to create and join organizations, high productivity, wealth. A completely different experience.
Lots of people in the West didn't know much or care much about the differences between living in the GDR and living in Estonia.
Note also how Czechoslovakia was invaded in 1968 when it deviated from approved policies. In this regard the Warsaw-pact countries were not really independent.(*)
Being careless about the differences is certainly sloppy, but not moronic. Or do you have difficulties struggling to understand the meaning of the word moronic?
(*) -- Of course arguably the same could be said about the countries where the US stopped socialist governments that were democratically elected by the people.
It doesn't necessarily imply that Bush is trying to become a dictator; Indeed. In fact what I meant to point out here was that defining an enemy is the first step in manipulating the population. In Russia the goal of this manipulation is dictatorship, in the US the goal is necessarily quite different.
The first step in establishing a dictatorship is to define an enemy, preferably one that you know either cannot or will not defend itself. Like terrorism?
The practical differences between being part of the Warsaw pact and being part of the USSR were small, if you contrast them with the differences between being part of the Warsaw pact vs being part of NATO.
Confusing the two is sloppy, but it's certainly not moronic, as the practical differences were comparatively small.
I can guarantee you that the Iraq War, which began in March of 2003, took quite a bit longer than "a few months". Yes, but the squandering occurred before the Iraq war. The squandering occurred when Bush answered our worries about an Iraq war becoming fuel for exploding terrorism with "Either you're with us or you're against us," and other statements that pushed aside rather than answered our very legitimate worries about accelerating terrorism. This downhill process occurred mostly during a few months shortly before the Iraq war.
It's sad so many people lump in the justified war in Afghanistan with the unjustified war in Iraq. Really? I'm surprised. Here in Sweden the distinction is always very clear. The general mainstream opinion is that the Afghanistan war was justified and legal, whereas the justifications for the Iraq war were highly controversial (mainstream opinions range from unjustified to dubious), and regarding legality it is considered clearly against internationally agreed rules and procedures.
It is also generally agreed that the Afghanistan war and its aftermath could have had very positive consequences, both in the struggle against terrorism and in the democratization of the region, whereas the Iraq war from the very outset promised only exploding terrorism, and would sabotage what could otherwise have been gained in Afghanistan regarding democracy in the region.
Here in Sweden the two wars are seen as very different, and in many ways diametrical opposites.
To be fair you can't really blame the US or the American people This is certainly true, but it goes without saying. When I criticize the actions of the Administration I'm criticizing the Administration, not everybody in the nation. When I criticize the actions of the US propaganda machine I'm criticizing that propaganda machine, not everybody else.
Of course some part of the blame does fall on others. Very close to half the US voters did choose Bush. And what's probably worse, a huge part of the US population buys and sponsors media that publish patriotic propaganda—stuff that isn't really patriotic because it sabotages the true interests of the US.
But can you really blame the American public for being swayed by the propaganda? After all the propagandists are extremely skillful.
Arguably you can't even blame the propagandists. I'm sure many of them do what they sincerely believe is best.
It's a terrible mess!
In any case, the real responsibility lies with the Administration and the propagandists. When people criticize the actions of the US, I don't think you should ever assume that they're criticizing the American people. The distinction is very clear. People can take a very dim view of the actions of your Administration, and still love and respect and admire the US in many ways. I'm one example of a person who feels this way.
In fact one reason why I'm so critical is that I would expect better, and therefore I'm sorely disappointed.
Slashdot Mirror
It's krypton that is one of the most unreactive elements. Kryptonite would be a krypton oxide.
Considering the flexibility that you mention, Europe is also far more flexible and adaptable than the US, because of our constant debating and negotiating and compromising in the EU, to painstakingly step by step search out common grounds where our many different nations and cultures can reach agreements. The US by contrast is shockingly authoritarian and rigid, geared toward black-or-white views like "Either you're with us or against us."
Indeed, Iraq shows how astonishingly rigid and short-sighted the US can be, with their total inability to understand what Europe saw from the outset, that the Iraq war was very likely to lead to explosively increasing terrorism.
Having seen your analysis I'm far less pessimistic about what would happen, should the US get crazed enough to invade Europe.
Even so, it could become quite a disaster, where precious resources would be squandered. Humanity needs to find solutions to urgent problems before it's too late.
What really needs to happen is that the US needs to come to their senses and understand that Europe and the US need to be allies, and need to respect each others as allies. No childish outbursts of "Either you're with us or against us." Negotiations are needed, giving and taking, searching for common grounds. Our similarities are greater than our differences and we have common goals. We should work together.
How do you do what?
Unfortunately I don't share your faith in humanity. Too many people stop being reasonable when there's profit to be made. Consider how they'll gladly ruin a kid's life just for sharing a few lousy music tracks.
Of course you do. I'd be shocked if you didn't. In my comment about convincing the judge that you're mentally retarded I wasn't suggesting that you're literally retarded!
When I suggested that the police might have to collect your traces from hundreds of computers, I was thinking of services like Tor. If you had connected directly, all they'd have to do would be to check Seobidding's logs and then ask your ISP. Nothing to it.
Unfortunately, Tor can't eliminate your traces entirely, it can only spread them. Tor nodes have ISPs, and ISPs have logs. With a debt higher than ten thousand dollars, you will be traced. With a hundred million times the limit, well, I'm sorry.
Their job would be much easier if all the Google hits on your nick were about you. Since tracing Tor is cumbersome, they'll try to find some instance where you slipped, some instance where you used your nick without going through Tor. I hope you've been 100% careful forever.
But since your nick gives so many widely different Google hits, tracing you that way will be cumbersome too. Good for you. This may buy you some time. Maybe in the meantime you can find some solution.
I'm a little surprised that you can post to Slashdot through Tor. I thought Slashdot blocked all the well-known anonymizers with that weird port checking that they do when you post.
Depending on where you live, it might help if you can convince the judge that you're a young child. I don't know about the US, but in most modern countries young children are not competent to stand trial, and are not legally responsible for their actions.
In many cases, instead the parents are responsible for their children's actions.
I seem to remember that in some US states children and the mentally retarded can be tried, and even executed. Very strange.
Unless I'm mistaken the UK is not really modern in this respect, although most of Europe is. I think the UK jailed two small children for murder.
Or maybe Europe isn't so modern, now that I think of it, or at least not my country, Sweden. Here children can't be jailed, but I seem to remember that Sweden does allow children to have enormous debts. I think this was debated some time ago as a mistake in the law.
So, I would guess that this may vary quite a lot. IOW, YMMV. It may be worth exploring, if you're young enough.
Another solution might be if you can convince the judge that you're mentally retarded. In most jurisdictions the mentally retarded are not responsible for their actions.
Unfortunately, acting retarded won't help. You'll need documentation.
I don't know if recent documentation will be enough, or if you'll need documentation collected since childhood.
Maybe you're thinking that you could convince the judge that bidding a trillion dollar is retarded. This might make the judge agree that it is indeed retarded, but unfortunately that will not in itself be enough to make you legally retarded, that is, retarded enough to be legally free you from responsibility.
Nobody is truly anonymous on the internet. You leave traces all over the place. Those traces may be spread over hundreds of log files, which are in turn spread among hundreds of computers, but if the police have suitable search warrants and are suitably motivated, they will gather all your traces until they find you.
One example of suitable motivation would be a debt larger than ten thousand. Your debt is a hundred million times that sum.
I hope you do have a trillion dollars stashed away somewhere.
If you don't, I hope you can convince them that you're 95 years old and live penniless on the street, so that seeking you out isn't profitable.
It sounds like a very extremist view. You're not talking about mainstream US Conservatives, are you? For all its faults, I find it hard to believe that the Bush administration would be so delusional. I almost (almost) hope that at some point in time the US will invade the EU. It's about time certain induhviduals learned the true meaning of the words "strategic Enemies". That could be a huge disaster for humanity. The next really big challenge for humanity in the coming decades is finding substitutes for petroleum, both as energy source and for the production of fertilizers for agriculture that feeds billions. For the research into substitutes we need some degree of peace and prosperity. We need that while there is still lots of oil left. I almost (almost) hope that at some point in time the US will invade the EU. [...] but if it happens I'll definitely pick up a rifle to enter the debate. I find it extremely unlikely that the EU would stand a chance in a war against the US. Consider this (scroll down a little). The US is explicitly geared toward having more military might than any other power. The US also has an absurdly strong military industry and lobby, always striving for more profit and more power. Europe is geared toward having just barely enough to make sure neighbors like Russia don't start getting ideas. Europe is definitely not geared toward military conflict with the US.
I love the positive and hopeful picture that you paint. What I like most about it is that it sounds quite plausible.
It does depend on several things developing in ways that will make it possible. But there is hope that this will happen. Let's hope.
We're assuming that he can't pay for it. This is a very reasonable assumption, in my view. This means he won't own it. Thus they don't need to confiscate it. They get to confiscate everything he owns and all his future, and still they get to keep the domain and sell it again.
Even if they did have to confiscate the domain before they sell it, in the executory auction the domain would only bring in a very small fraction of his debt. I'm sure you'll agree that it would bring in only a very, very small fraction.
They'll do what they always do when someone can't pay the entire sum that he owes. They'll get as large a portion as they can, by arranging personal bankrupcy, confiscation of assets with executory auction, confiscation of future income, and so on.
Debt is a serious matter.
I think on both sides of the ocean we need to learn to see that on the other side of the ocean there are vast numbers of different people with different backgrounds, different opinions, different political leanings, living in different countries/states, also experiencing differences between North and South, differences between city and countryside, differences between young and old, and so on and on and on.
Hopefully given time we'll understand this better and better.
Yes you do. They are very serious about that. They will track you down. If you don't have the money you can expect serious trouble.
Good luck.
At the moment it's at $402402000050. 402 billion dollars. Something tells me the bidding isn't working quite the way it's intended to work.
Either that, or Bill Gates is fulfilling a lifelong dream.
I get this strong urge to ask you not to consider me one of those anti-democratic bullies... So after all I do have some very strong negative feelings against Americans. And yet I also have strong positive feelings about Americans and the US. My attitude is full of contradictory feelings.
Really, on the one hand, in several important ways the US has defended democracy. Among those huge countries that are so unhealthily large and powerful that their power will unavoidably corrupt the people who wield that power, certainly the US is preferable to all the others. But at the same time... One bad choice is excusable, but the US has earned its reputation over many, many years, Indeed, indeed. The persistent disastrous missteps of the US are inexcusable.
It's amazing that a country can be so self-contradictory.
You're talking about the formal differences. I'm talking about the practical differences, the differences that the average Joe perceived.
Living in the USSR you had the KGB, living in GDR you had Stasi. Indeed there were some differences, Stasi was generally considered slightly worse than the KGB, the dictatorship in the GDR slightly harsher than that in the USSR. (Or at least West Germans felt this way, I don't know if everybody agreed.)
Now contrast this with the huge differences between living in a Warsaw-pact country versus living in a NATO country. Freedom of expression, freedom to create and join organizations, high productivity, wealth. A completely different experience.
Lots of people in the West didn't know much or care much about the differences between living in the GDR and living in Estonia.
Note also how Czechoslovakia was invaded in 1968 when it deviated from approved policies. In this regard the Warsaw-pact countries were not really independent.(*)
Being careless about the differences is certainly sloppy, but not moronic. Or do you have difficulties struggling to understand the meaning of the word moronic?
(*) -- Of course arguably the same could be said about the countries where the US stopped socialist governments that were democratically elected by the people.
The practical differences between being part of the Warsaw pact and being part of the USSR were small, if you contrast them with the differences between being part of the Warsaw pact vs being part of NATO.
Confusing the two is sloppy, but it's certainly not moronic, as the practical differences were comparatively small.
Your over-the-top reaction, on the other hand...
It is also generally agreed that the Afghanistan war and its aftermath could have had very positive consequences, both in the struggle against terrorism and in the democratization of the region, whereas the Iraq war from the very outset promised only exploding terrorism, and would sabotage what could otherwise have been gained in Afghanistan regarding democracy in the region.
Here in Sweden the two wars are seen as very different, and in many ways diametrical opposites.
Of course some part of the blame does fall on others. Very close to half the US voters did choose Bush. And what's probably worse, a huge part of the US population buys and sponsors media that publish patriotic propaganda—stuff that isn't really patriotic because it sabotages the true interests of the US.
But can you really blame the American public for being swayed by the propaganda? After all the propagandists are extremely skillful.
Arguably you can't even blame the propagandists. I'm sure many of them do what they sincerely believe is best.
It's a terrible mess!
In any case, the real responsibility lies with the Administration and the propagandists. When people criticize the actions of the US, I don't think you should ever assume that they're criticizing the American people. The distinction is very clear. People can take a very dim view of the actions of your Administration, and still love and respect and admire the US in many ways. I'm one example of a person who feels this way.
In fact one reason why I'm so critical is that I would expect better, and therefore I'm sorely disappointed.