If you assume that grades that high really are a good thing. They might take it to indicate that you did not challenge yourself.
And not everything corporations or the government do is necessarily logical. The government could use this data, along with other data, to conclude that you may be a terrorist. With how they're defining "terrorist" nowadays, anything is possible. The worst part is that you have no idea how they're going to use the data or what they will conclude from it. It's better to keep the amount they have at a minimum.
If you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about
The hundreds of millions of people abused by corrupt governments (Including the US government, which endorsed slavery, used Japanese internment camps, restricted the rights of blacks and women, spied on MLK, etc.) throughout history shows that this mentality is false. Same for corporations, which just care about profit.
The only way something like this could ever be true is if the government were made up of perfect beings who always do the 'right' thing and never make mistakes. That is not true, has never been true, and never will be true.
You are also not the one who decides what is "wrong"; the government does. Upset those in power, and you may have a problem on your hands. If the general public is also against something you do, they can take actions to ruin your reputation. There is a nearly limitless number of things they can do when they have data on everyone, and grades just make up some of that data. And it's not just the current government (or corporations) you have to trust to not abuse the data, but all future ones.
With the surveillance of people like MLK, the hostility towards anti-war protestors, and the general harassment of anyone who opposes the current power structure, there is no doubt that they'll attempt to use any and all data against you, or others. If a corporation has data on you, the government will easily be able to get it.
Police state minded? Prolly.
How can you admit that, and continue thinking the same way? Is your goal to have a police state?
Because I don't care that they data mine my grades, I don't give a fuck about privacy.
If you don't care about asshole corporations mining your grades, then you're an idiot. There's also a very good chance that you don't care about privacy in other areas. Maybe, for some reason, you think other data should magically be more private, but I'd say it's unlikely.
People who do such things simply do not want to hand all of their information on a silver platter to the government and corporations. It's not "unjustified"; the government and corporations have shown time and time again that they will do whatever they please.
That's just a level of paranoia completely inconsistent with rational behavior,
It's 100% consistent with rational behavior if you care about privacy. They're essentially spying on absolutely everyone, and making it easy for them it just stupid.
unless you have specific reason to believe that the government is targeting YOU with some elevated level of tracking and also are doing something that you believe the government will try to prosecute you for and for which your location when you receive phone calls will contribute to their case against you.
You better hope that the current government and all future governments do not have any problems with any of the data they collect. Legal or not, you will be destroyed if the opportunity presents itself, and the destruction needn't be physical. The government has also demonstrated this many times over.
I mean, the government also sends swat teams out to break down people's doors when they are believed to be holed up in their house with weapons -- does that mean that we should all be ultra paranoid and build our doors out of 3 foot thick steel and sit in the far corner of the house worried that the swat team is going to descend at any moment?
Given what we've seen in the drug war, perhaps. Sadly, merely building a thicker door wouldn't stop them, and you'd have to come out sometime.
Your example failed to make me believe that the 'paranoia' is unjustified. But tracking is a whole different beast. Once they have the data, they can keep it for years, and if you do anything they don't like, you will become a target that they can harass.
What it implied was that you don't give a fuck about privacy, considering the amount of data they'd be able to collect. What, because you don't care about a certain type of privacy, it doesn't matter? It's not just your grades (assuming they stop at grades, which they won't) that will be mined.
If you're willing to hand over random data to corporations, it is a very good assumption that you probably don't care all that much about privacy to begin with.
Let's see: lots of universities are already using Gmail for university accounts.
Which is a terrible idea.
The sky has not (yet) fallen.
Many things which don't cause the sky to fall are still bad.
Whether is pleases the tinfoil hat brigade or not
Once again, people mock privacy advocates despite the fact that it has been shown many times over that the government and corporations collect a massive amount of data on everyone they can, and abuse it whenever possible. Especially after the Snowden leaks, such people should not be said to be wearing tinfoil hats, but even before that, it was obvious that surveillance was going on.
Both governments and corporations are filled with evil scumbags; there's no way around it.
There's really no way around that.
Except to not use that garbage. For educational institutions, there is no fucking excuse to give in to cloud garbage, or for them to hand over data to asshole corporations.
I don't care how convenient or useful it is to you people; I have principles.
I'm not too worried about corporations knowing everything about me, but then again I'm also not a privacy nut. I'm not too worried about the government and corporations tracking everything I do, but then again I'm also not a privacy nut. I'm not too worried about getting molested by the TSA, but then again I'm also not a privacy nut.
I guess "privacy nut" is a term that describes people with a bit of sense, because with how often I see people defending egregious privacy violations, nothing else makes sense.
What the hell? Someone asks for scientific proof that copyright does what it's supposed to do, and you reply with an emotional appeal?
The sole purpose, and I do mean the sole purpose of copyrights (and patents) according to the highest law of the land in the US, is to encourage innovation. Giving authors little monopolies is merely a means to an end. If copyright does not do that, then it is not working, and these restrictions shouldn't exist.
So, rather than changing the topic, why not provide the proof he asked for?
Common people are not the only people in the world who deserve freedoms you know.
Authors (Anything but "creators.") have freedoms as it is. They can try to sell whatever it is they want to sell, but they should not be given little monopolies over ideas or procedures. Let the free market decide how successful they are.
An elite few. Most people simply memorize equations and procedures; understanding never comes into it.
But still, I'd be impressed if this guy actually did something, like solve an unsolved problem. Sadly, these popular math 'geniuses' and child 'geniuses' never seem to do a damn thing that's truly notable.
There is no false dichotomy. The government is demonstrably collecting cellphone data and tracking people; this has been happening for some time, and has been reported numerous times. This is not being "paranoid"; it's simply paying attention to reality, and realizing that if governments can abuse something, and it's useful for them to do so, they will. History has proven this many times over.
To say that someone should get over themselves because they are concerned about cellphone tracking is to suggest that they should ignore reality, or that they should stop caring about privacy or freedom.
worried about the government eavesdropping on your cell phone calls and tracking you? Wishing for a pager so that you could perfectly control how much tracking information you give when you answer your phone? Jesus christ, get over yourself!
Apparently, caring about things such as privacy and freedom means you need to get over yourself. Are you one of those cretins who subscribes to the historically-incorrect "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!" philosophy?
I drive on PUBLIC roads but I don't want people to know where I drive.
It's not that I don't want random people to be able to see me; it's that I don't want my own fucking government to install surveillance equipment everywhere (or hire others to do so) in an effort to automatically track my location. Stop equating the two, you dumb shits.
Some people really need to live in another country for a while to understand what REAL civil rights violations are like.
The mere fact that the situation could be worse does not mean that what's happening is not bad. What terrible logic.
What, you got punched in the face? That's not a bad thing, because starving people in Africa are much worse off!
And you likely are American, as you don't even respect your own country enough to learn proper spelling and grammar of your own language.
Why would I respect my country? I respect ideals. Ideals that we are not even trying to live up to.
Pointing out spelling and grammar mistakes is just trivial nonsense, though irrational people like to pretend they're perfect, and that these mistakes indicate that some deeper problem exists.
It does no such thing, and that's unnecessary for non-cretins. What it should do, and what it (at least public schools) fails to do, is promote understanding of the material, rather than rote memorization. I certainly never needed to be taught "how to learn," which just sounds like indoctrination.
It's always comical to see you idiots saying that Snowden should've went to the higher-ups with his concerns. He actually did, and I don't think he should've. When the government is violating the highest law of the land--when it is violating people's fundamental freedoms--the people should be made aware of it as soon as possible, through any means necessary. Going to higher-ups (who likely condone the violations) jeopardizes your chances of informing the people, and wastes time.
Taking random guesses is fine and all... when someone isn't in court. But can they provide hard proof of their claims? Why are copyright thugs not held to the same standard other people are? It seems like they just whine, "Real justice is hard! Make it easier for me to just accuse people of infringing upon my copyrights and win based solely on my own claims!" and then they get what they want.
I guess that's what happens when our worthless 'representatives' are so easily bribed.
Since we are talking about the actual law, not some ideal, you're stuck with the reasonable man.
There's no other choice. But people need to realize it's not objective. And things like the miller test are 100% unacceptable, much like obscenity laws. And the FCC's censorship. Free speech is being attacked in a number of ways.
Eventually the holding was reversed.
But apparently not the rest of the nonsense, sadly.
You may not be aware, but a reasonable man is a legal standard.
You may not be aware, but that doesn't make it any less subjective.
As for the rest, are you claiming if someone yells fire, you will just sit there until you notice that it's getting a bit stuffy and you smell rump roast?
What I would or would not do is 100% irrelevant. People who break things or trample over others are at fault, no matter how scared they were, or whether or not it was an accident. Gotta pay for what you break.
Sophistry and corruption of the courts is what lead to war protesters being arrested.
Strange how this 'fire in a crowded theater' thing came from that same exact case, then. Your logic isn't different from the logic they used to prosecute war protestors. They were just arresting people for the 'effects' of their speech, after all.
That's because a reasonable man wouldn't expect "Hello!" to cause a panic.
1) "reasonable" is 100% subjective. 2) Irrelevant. The point is, they *are* punishing you for your speech. If you hadn't said anything, or said something completely innocuous, nothing would have happened. There's literally nothing else to punish you for. Punishing you for the 'effects' (the vibrations in the air?) of your speech doesn't even remotely make sense.
NO. It will be on whoever yelled fire because a reasonable person may believe the theater is on fire if someone is shouting fire.
Oh, so the words magically took possession of people's bodies and caused them to panic and trample over others? Amazing; I didn't know that was possible.
If you choose to get up, that's on you, and it's 100% irrelevant what you think a "reasonable" person would do; if you break something, even by accident, you have to pay for it. The people who are hurting others or breaking things are the ones who trample over others.
Again, if the theater owner wants to kick them out, he/she can do so.
Pretending that this has nothing to do with the speech is just absurd. This is the *exact same* sort of logic the Supreme Court used in the 'fire in a crowded theater' case, which led to war protestors being arrested. You literally cannot separate the 'effects' (really, other people's actions, which isn't an effect of the speech) of speech from the speech itself, and attempts to do so have historically led to oppression.
Nonsense. It is due to the speech. If you said something completely innocuous ("Hello!") and it caused everyone to panic as if you falsely claimed that there is a fire in the theater for some strange reason, nothing would happen to you.
Words are just words; they can't make anyone do anything. If someone decides to panic and trample over others, *that's on them*. They should be force to pay for any damage they cause, regardless of what nonsense they decided to believe.
Theater owners, however, are well within their rights to kick out anyone screaming random things in the theater.
As for the guy you replied to, I am one of the people of the people who think that the first amendment is being ignored.
The reason it was a false dichotomy was because you changed the topic to the NSA's adversaries, as if because its adversaries are more evil, that means the NSA isn't evil. In reality, both can be evil.
Your overuse of the term "evil" implies that you have no perspective on the matter.
If you think the NSA is not evil for violating the fundamental rights of nearly every citizens in the US, and violating the highest law of the land, then you not only have no perspective on the matter, but you're so ignorant that you're basically nothing more than a joke.
There are certainly a lot of RINOs and DINOs. The problem with terms like these is that they make it seem as if the parties aren't filled with these scumbags, but they are; the parties themselves are evil. This isn't just a few people; it's the entire parties.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm overqualified?
If you assume that grades that high really are a good thing. They might take it to indicate that you did not challenge yourself.
And not everything corporations or the government do is necessarily logical. The government could use this data, along with other data, to conclude that you may be a terrorist. With how they're defining "terrorist" nowadays, anything is possible. The worst part is that you have no idea how they're going to use the data or what they will conclude from it. It's better to keep the amount they have at a minimum.
If you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about
The hundreds of millions of people abused by corrupt governments (Including the US government, which endorsed slavery, used Japanese internment camps, restricted the rights of blacks and women, spied on MLK, etc.) throughout history shows that this mentality is false. Same for corporations, which just care about profit.
The only way something like this could ever be true is if the government were made up of perfect beings who always do the 'right' thing and never make mistakes. That is not true, has never been true, and never will be true.
You are also not the one who decides what is "wrong"; the government does. Upset those in power, and you may have a problem on your hands. If the general public is also against something you do, they can take actions to ruin your reputation. There is a nearly limitless number of things they can do when they have data on everyone, and grades just make up some of that data. And it's not just the current government (or corporations) you have to trust to not abuse the data, but all future ones.
With the surveillance of people like MLK, the hostility towards anti-war protestors, and the general harassment of anyone who opposes the current power structure, there is no doubt that they'll attempt to use any and all data against you, or others. If a corporation has data on you, the government will easily be able to get it.
Police state minded? Prolly.
How can you admit that, and continue thinking the same way? Is your goal to have a police state?
Why shouldn't you? It's none of their fucking business. This whole thing can be used against you by companies who only see statistics in everything.
But it's not just about you. Educational institutions that use this garbage are essentially forcing many people to use them. That is unacceptable.
Because I don't care that they data mine my grades, I don't give a fuck about privacy.
If you don't care about asshole corporations mining your grades, then you're an idiot. There's also a very good chance that you don't care about privacy in other areas. Maybe, for some reason, you think other data should magically be more private, but I'd say it's unlikely.
People who do such things simply do not want to hand all of their information on a silver platter to the government and corporations. It's not "unjustified"; the government and corporations have shown time and time again that they will do whatever they please.
That's just a level of paranoia completely inconsistent with rational behavior,
It's 100% consistent with rational behavior if you care about privacy. They're essentially spying on absolutely everyone, and making it easy for them it just stupid.
unless you have specific reason to believe that the government is targeting YOU with some elevated level of tracking and also are doing something that you believe the government will try to prosecute you for and for which your location when you receive phone calls will contribute to their case against you.
You better hope that the current government and all future governments do not have any problems with any of the data they collect. Legal or not, you will be destroyed if the opportunity presents itself, and the destruction needn't be physical. The government has also demonstrated this many times over.
I mean, the government also sends swat teams out to break down people's doors when they are believed to be holed up in their house with weapons -- does that mean that we should all be ultra paranoid and build our doors out of 3 foot thick steel and sit in the far corner of the house worried that the swat team is going to descend at any moment?
Given what we've seen in the drug war, perhaps. Sadly, merely building a thicker door wouldn't stop them, and you'd have to come out sometime.
Your example failed to make me believe that the 'paranoia' is unjustified. But tracking is a whole different beast. Once they have the data, they can keep it for years, and if you do anything they don't like, you will become a target that they can harass.
Yes, they do (though it's not as if there was nothing before all this cloud garbage).
What it implied was that you don't give a fuck about privacy, considering the amount of data they'd be able to collect. What, because you don't care about a certain type of privacy, it doesn't matter? It's not just your grades (assuming they stop at grades, which they won't) that will be mined.
If you're willing to hand over random data to corporations, it is a very good assumption that you probably don't care all that much about privacy to begin with.
Let's see: lots of universities are already using Gmail for university accounts.
Which is a terrible idea.
The sky has not (yet) fallen.
Many things which don't cause the sky to fall are still bad.
Whether is pleases the tinfoil hat brigade or not
Once again, people mock privacy advocates despite the fact that it has been shown many times over that the government and corporations collect a massive amount of data on everyone they can, and abuse it whenever possible. Especially after the Snowden leaks, such people should not be said to be wearing tinfoil hats, but even before that, it was obvious that surveillance was going on.
Both governments and corporations are filled with evil scumbags; there's no way around it.
There's really no way around that.
Except to not use that garbage. For educational institutions, there is no fucking excuse to give in to cloud garbage, or for them to hand over data to asshole corporations.
I don't care how convenient or useful it is to you people; I have principles.
You strongly implied that you don't give a fuck if some corporation has all this data about you. Unless you misspoke, that would make you ignorant.
The other things were merely things I've heard your comrades (other ignoramuses who mock privacy advocates) say.
So unless you meant "privacy nut" to be a good thing, which seems unlikely, I have to presume you were insulting privacy advocates.
I'm not too worried about corporations knowing everything about me, but then again I'm also not a privacy nut.
I'm not too worried about the government and corporations tracking everything I do, but then again I'm also not a privacy nut.
I'm not too worried about getting molested by the TSA, but then again I'm also not a privacy nut.
I guess "privacy nut" is a term that describes people with a bit of sense, because with how often I see people defending egregious privacy violations, nothing else makes sense.
What the hell? Someone asks for scientific proof that copyright does what it's supposed to do, and you reply with an emotional appeal?
The sole purpose, and I do mean the sole purpose of copyrights (and patents) according to the highest law of the land in the US, is to encourage innovation. Giving authors little monopolies is merely a means to an end. If copyright does not do that, then it is not working, and these restrictions shouldn't exist.
So, rather than changing the topic, why not provide the proof he asked for?
Common people are not the only people in the world who deserve freedoms you know.
Authors (Anything but "creators.") have freedoms as it is. They can try to sell whatever it is they want to sell, but they should not be given little monopolies over ideas or procedures. Let the free market decide how successful they are.
If they aren't successful, then too bad.
How many kids in high school understand pi?
An elite few. Most people simply memorize equations and procedures; understanding never comes into it.
But still, I'd be impressed if this guy actually did something, like solve an unsolved problem. Sadly, these popular math 'geniuses' and child 'geniuses' never seem to do a damn thing that's truly notable.
There is no false dichotomy. The government is demonstrably collecting cellphone data and tracking people; this has been happening for some time, and has been reported numerous times. This is not being "paranoid"; it's simply paying attention to reality, and realizing that if governments can abuse something, and it's useful for them to do so, they will. History has proven this many times over.
To say that someone should get over themselves because they are concerned about cellphone tracking is to suggest that they should ignore reality, or that they should stop caring about privacy or freedom.
worried about the government eavesdropping on your cell phone calls and tracking you? Wishing for a pager so that you could perfectly control how much tracking information you give when you answer your phone? Jesus christ, get over yourself!
Apparently, caring about things such as privacy and freedom means you need to get over yourself. Are you one of those cretins who subscribes to the historically-incorrect "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!" philosophy?
I drive on PUBLIC roads but I don't want people to know where I drive.
It's not that I don't want random people to be able to see me; it's that I don't want my own fucking government to install surveillance equipment everywhere (or hire others to do so) in an effort to automatically track my location. Stop equating the two, you dumb shits.
Some people really need to live in another country for a while to understand what REAL civil rights violations are like.
The mere fact that the situation could be worse does not mean that what's happening is not bad. What terrible logic.
What, you got punched in the face? That's not a bad thing, because starving people in Africa are much worse off!
And you likely are American, as you don't even respect your own country enough to learn proper spelling and grammar of your own language.
Why would I respect my country? I respect ideals. Ideals that we are not even trying to live up to.
Pointing out spelling and grammar mistakes is just trivial nonsense, though irrational people like to pretend they're perfect, and that these mistakes indicate that some deeper problem exists.
School teaches us basic tools, how to learn.
It does no such thing, and that's unnecessary for non-cretins. What it should do, and what it (at least public schools) fails to do, is promote understanding of the material, rather than rote memorization. I certainly never needed to be taught "how to learn," which just sounds like indoctrination.
It's always comical to see you idiots saying that Snowden should've went to the higher-ups with his concerns. He actually did, and I don't think he should've. When the government is violating the highest law of the land--when it is violating people's fundamental freedoms--the people should be made aware of it as soon as possible, through any means necessary. Going to higher-ups (who likely condone the violations) jeopardizes your chances of informing the people, and wastes time.
Don't use software at all, then.
Taking random guesses is fine and all... when someone isn't in court. But can they provide hard proof of their claims? Why are copyright thugs not held to the same standard other people are? It seems like they just whine, "Real justice is hard! Make it easier for me to just accuse people of infringing upon my copyrights and win based solely on my own claims!" and then they get what they want.
I guess that's what happens when our worthless 'representatives' are so easily bribed.
Since we are talking about the actual law, not some ideal, you're stuck with the reasonable man.
There's no other choice. But people need to realize it's not objective. And things like the miller test are 100% unacceptable, much like obscenity laws. And the FCC's censorship. Free speech is being attacked in a number of ways.
Eventually the holding was reversed.
But apparently not the rest of the nonsense, sadly.
You may not be aware, but a reasonable man is a legal standard.
You may not be aware, but that doesn't make it any less subjective.
As for the rest, are you claiming if someone yells fire, you will just sit there until you notice that it's getting a bit stuffy and you smell rump roast?
What I would or would not do is 100% irrelevant. People who break things or trample over others are at fault, no matter how scared they were, or whether or not it was an accident. Gotta pay for what you break.
Sophistry and corruption of the courts is what lead to war protesters being arrested.
Strange how this 'fire in a crowded theater' thing came from that same exact case, then. Your logic isn't different from the logic they used to prosecute war protestors. They were just arresting people for the 'effects' of their speech, after all.
That's because a reasonable man wouldn't expect "Hello!" to cause a panic.
1) "reasonable" is 100% subjective.
2) Irrelevant. The point is, they *are* punishing you for your speech. If you hadn't said anything, or said something completely innocuous, nothing would have happened. There's literally nothing else to punish you for. Punishing you for the 'effects' (the vibrations in the air?) of your speech doesn't even remotely make sense.
NO. It will be on whoever yelled fire because a reasonable person may believe the theater is on fire if someone is shouting fire.
Oh, so the words magically took possession of people's bodies and caused them to panic and trample over others? Amazing; I didn't know that was possible.
If you choose to get up, that's on you, and it's 100% irrelevant what you think a "reasonable" person would do; if you break something, even by accident, you have to pay for it. The people who are hurting others or breaking things are the ones who trample over others.
Again, if the theater owner wants to kick them out, he/she can do so.
Pretending that this has nothing to do with the speech is just absurd. This is the *exact same* sort of logic the Supreme Court used in the 'fire in a crowded theater' case, which led to war protestors being arrested. You literally cannot separate the 'effects' (really, other people's actions, which isn't an effect of the speech) of speech from the speech itself, and attempts to do so have historically led to oppression.
Nonsense. It is due to the speech. If you said something completely innocuous ("Hello!") and it caused everyone to panic as if you falsely claimed that there is a fire in the theater for some strange reason, nothing would happen to you.
Words are just words; they can't make anyone do anything. If someone decides to panic and trample over others, *that's on them*. They should be force to pay for any damage they cause, regardless of what nonsense they decided to believe.
Theater owners, however, are well within their rights to kick out anyone screaming random things in the theater.
As for the guy you replied to, I am one of the people of the people who think that the first amendment is being ignored.
Equivocation (sort of).
The reason it was a false dichotomy was because you changed the topic to the NSA's adversaries, as if because its adversaries are more evil, that means the NSA isn't evil. In reality, both can be evil.
Your overuse of the term "evil" implies that you have no perspective on the matter.
If you think the NSA is not evil for violating the fundamental rights of nearly every citizens in the US, and violating the highest law of the land, then you not only have no perspective on the matter, but you're so ignorant that you're basically nothing more than a joke.
There are certainly a lot of RINOs and DINOs. The problem with terms like these is that they make it seem as if the parties aren't filled with these scumbags, but they are; the parties themselves are evil. This isn't just a few people; it's the entire parties.