I don't. You can't claim to be a free country if you sacrifice your fundamental liberties to stop a few bad guys. The people who believe otherwise would be better off moving to already existing police states and seeing what their nonsense will ultimately bring about.
Most colleges have a similar problem: A lot of the classes are based on rote memorization. Sure, top colleges and universities are generally fine, but other than that, you're lucky if you find a good one. Part of the problem, I believe, is that people have gotten this ridiculous idea in their heads that education should be sought mostly for job opportunities, rather than for its own sake. So you have colleges dumbing down their standards so that idiots only looking for job training can fork over tons of cash, creating environments (half-assed trade schools, essentially) that are hostile towards education.
If you're angry about losing your civil rights, maybe you should be angry at the people taking advantage of situations like these and trying to take them?
I'd rather turn someone loose on the Internet or in an actual library (with direction) than send them somewhere where it's like being turned loose in a library to do busywork. It just seems completely inefficient. The bonus of this approach is that you only need to do exactly as much as you need to to learn the material.
If someone is truly intelligent/gifted, I think they'd be able to succeed outside of schools.
1. Your constant use of Scumbag. Why? What harm has facebook done?
They're a disgusting company that shares information with other companies to make a buck and, of course, the government. They have also conducted little 'experiments' on their users that I would deem unethical and somehow managed to make their privacy policy worse over time. Remember: What is legal is not always right. They deserve every ounce of criticism they get.
Why? I get value out of Facebook.
You're a sheeple, then.
I wonder if you are using TOR to post to slashdot since the time of post could be used to connect your posts to an ip address and then use that to find your identity.
There is a difference between handing your information over on a silver platter and taking reasonable (though not 100% secure) steps to protect yourself. One is, in fact, better than the other, even though neither are perfect. Funny how that works.
Not in school, I hope. If you didn't know how to do that before, then I don't even know what to say. This is a natural function of your brain, and techniques to help you memorize material can be learned in about five minutes.
which is a skill that's still useful today.
Of course, you need to be able to memorize some information, because if you couldn't remember anything, you'd have nothing to work with. My job mostly revolves around critical thinking skills, not mindlessly memorizing nonsense. Many jobs are open book.
What exactly you learn at school isn't as important as learning to actually learn.
But you don't need school to learn how to do that. I've seen this said far too often, and it's about as meaningless as that "X builds character!" nonsense. Lazy people with no motivation or interest in being efficient might find it useful to sit in a classroom all day, but I don't. Public schools are simply inefficient.
Perhaps the best thing about "gifted programs" is it gets the smart kids together to hopefully push and reinforce each other.
Actually, it just unites the kids who are arbitrarily deemed to be intelligent by the schools; usually, they're just rote memorization drones, since that's pretty much the only skill the schools recognize anyway.
Yes, in spite of school. But you're an exception, and even you wasted a ton of time memorizing garbage and doing useless busywork; time that could've been used doing something more productive.
I know, people suggesting that you probably shouldn't hand over your information to a scumbag company on a silver platter to use an awful service in an age where companies readily cooperate with the government are so unreasonable. The sheer audacity of someone to suggest that privacy is more important than being able to use a cesspool like Facebook.
1. I have been on Slashdot much longer than you. I am far from a fool.
For one, the second doesn't follow from the first. Second, the age of this account does not reflect how long I've actually been on Slashdot.
2. Facebook does not have my address it has the town of 200,000+ people I live in.
Better still would be to give them nothing by not using Facebook.
3. I only post to Facebook what I want to post.
As does everyone. What is your point? You're still giving them more information than you should.
People have a right to their private life. However, Facebook users have entered into a (what I consider) sub-optimal agreement wrt users' private info. By nature, any "anti-social media network" (my term for them) will let people know who your friends are. So, even if we had a completely open and distributed social network not controlled by a single source, it's the nature of the beast.
Personally, I wouldn't use any social network like this to begin with.
Also, unless you're living off the grid and not filing taxes, driving a car, or anything else, the government has LOTS of information on you. So what?
Giving the government too much information about you merely enables it to selectively oppress you if you happen to anger it; you don't need to commit a single crime.
but you know the old saying, don't do the crime unless you can do the time.
It's a stupid saying, as it ignores a number of things:
1) Whether or not the crime should, in fact, be a crime. There are all sorts of unjust laws, and with limitless information, the government can more effectively enforce them. This is obviously bad. 2) Whether or not the punishment is just. 3) Society would be a living hell if the government could perfectly enforce every law, not only for the reasons above, but because there are simply too many laws to keep track of and everyone makes innocent mistakes now and again.
So what are facebooks' partners going to do? Try to sell you something?
It's creepy to me. I think privacy is good in and of itself.
As to what they'll do, that depends on who they are. Insurance companies, for instance, would appreciate as much information about you as possible. As soon as they find reliable ways of using all this data, expect them to do nothing good with it.
and neither you nor I have the right to forbid them from entering into such exchanges.
I'm not trying to. I'm just saying it's idiotic. The bigger problem is that the government is allowed to get pretty much any information it wants, and I'm not even talking about information out in the open.
Just a hard-nosed realist.
I usually talk about how I think things should be, rather than how they are. Your posts gave me the impression you were defending the status quo.
So what if they have your name and phone number and address.
As well as any other information that you give them about your daily life, enabling you to be targeted by other scumbag companies that they work with and sell information to, as well as the government.
Also, I don't want to give any more scumbag companies my information; I'm not going to hand it to them on a silver platter. Your argument is essentially, "Your information is probably out there, so just give it to even more companies!" Smart move.
We used to have this thing called a "telephone book" that had all that.
Used to.
We have equivalents on the net. Your "private" info is already out there
Mine isn't; I actually checked at one point. Speak for yourself.
But hey, even if it was, I personally believe we need stronger privacy laws to begin with.
Amazing that anti-privacy fools actually visit Slashdot. Then again, we already have cold fjord.
If you're giving any information whatsoever to scumbags like Facebook (such as name, phone numbers, address, etc.), then you're just an idiot. I don't care how much "control" you think you have. If you're not giving any information to them, then you're still stupid for using a cesspit like Facebook, giving them more attention than they deserve.
Anyone that paranoid about tracking should basically avoid the larger parts of society. Live out in a cabin in the woods near some small town, or in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere. Hell, that's what most people trying to avoid being tracked already do.
Because that's acceptable in a supposedly free society? Maybe we should instead change our government (no mass surveillance, no TSA, etc.) and enact sensible privacy laws.
This is as stupid as it ever was. "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." utterly ignores the fact that people are discussing whether the punishment actually fits the crime. It's a useless response that adds absolutely nothing.
Prison should be about rehabilitation and justice, not barbaric revenge.
There is no place for automated government surveillance, which just makes it easier to selectively oppress your targets. Privacy and due process are far more important than safety, even assuming these things make people safer.
Oh fuck off. You're essentially arguing that Germans who denounced their Jewish neighbours to the Gestapo are not responsible for those neighbourse being gassed, because all they did was speak, it was the SS that did the gassing.
This is precisely what I referred to. If they were irrelevant, there'd be nothing for you to criticize.
They are irrelevant in the sense that I'm not going to be persuaded by people telling me that the laws and customs relevant to the conversation do not currently conform to my views.
If you want to draw legal or political conclusions based on your personal utopic ideal
Even if we legalized all drugs, that still wouldn't be a utopia, since there would still be plenty of problems.
There is _no_ human society where those in power do not set boundaries on the use of recreational chemicals.
There is no human society where the government doesn't unjustly infringe upon people's liberties in at least one way. Therefore... something. Where are you going with this? "It hasn't happened yet, so it can't/shouldn't happen."? Are you attempting to appeal to popularity? What is it that you're doing? In case you haven't noticed, change is possible, and society can change for the better.
You don't seem to have an actual point of any value to me.
As usual, cold fjord has arrived to set us all straight. There is no need for us to think any longer; just read his words and accept them immediately! He'll save us all from freedom itself!
Slashdot Mirror
I do understand that some people do.
I don't. You can't claim to be a free country if you sacrifice your fundamental liberties to stop a few bad guys. The people who believe otherwise would be better off moving to already existing police states and seeing what their nonsense will ultimately bring about.
College has a completely different problem
Most colleges have a similar problem: A lot of the classes are based on rote memorization. Sure, top colleges and universities are generally fine, but other than that, you're lucky if you find a good one. Part of the problem, I believe, is that people have gotten this ridiculous idea in their heads that education should be sought mostly for job opportunities, rather than for its own sake. So you have colleges dumbing down their standards so that idiots only looking for job training can fork over tons of cash, creating environments (half-assed trade schools, essentially) that are hostile towards education.
If you're angry about losing your civil rights, maybe you should be angry at the people taking advantage of situations like these and trying to take them?
I'd rather turn someone loose on the Internet or in an actual library (with direction) than send them somewhere where it's like being turned loose in a library to do busywork. It just seems completely inefficient. The bonus of this approach is that you only need to do exactly as much as you need to to learn the material.
If someone is truly intelligent/gifted, I think they'd be able to succeed outside of schools.
1. Your constant use of Scumbag. Why? What harm has facebook done?
They're a disgusting company that shares information with other companies to make a buck and, of course, the government. They have also conducted little 'experiments' on their users that I would deem unethical and somehow managed to make their privacy policy worse over time. Remember: What is legal is not always right. They deserve every ounce of criticism they get.
Why? I get value out of Facebook.
You're a sheeple, then.
I wonder if you are using TOR to post to slashdot since the time of post could be used to connect your posts to an ip address and then use that to find your identity.
There is a difference between handing your information over on a silver platter and taking reasonable (though not 100% secure) steps to protect yourself. One is, in fact, better than the other, even though neither are perfect. Funny how that works.
However, I learned to memorize things
Not in school, I hope. If you didn't know how to do that before, then I don't even know what to say. This is a natural function of your brain, and techniques to help you memorize material can be learned in about five minutes.
which is a skill that's still useful today.
Of course, you need to be able to memorize some information, because if you couldn't remember anything, you'd have nothing to work with. My job mostly revolves around critical thinking skills, not mindlessly memorizing nonsense. Many jobs are open book.
What exactly you learn at school isn't as important as learning to actually learn.
But you don't need school to learn how to do that. I've seen this said far too often, and it's about as meaningless as that "X builds character!" nonsense. Lazy people with no motivation or interest in being efficient might find it useful to sit in a classroom all day, but I don't. Public schools are simply inefficient.
Perhaps the best thing about "gifted programs" is it gets the smart kids together to hopefully push and reinforce each other.
Actually, it just unites the kids who are arbitrarily deemed to be intelligent by the schools; usually, they're just rote memorization drones, since that's pretty much the only skill the schools recognize anyway.
People who can think don't vote libertarian
But neither do they vote for republicans or democrats (i.e. The One Party), unless they despise the very concept of freedom.
Yes, in spite of school. But you're an exception, and even you wasted a ton of time memorizing garbage and doing useless busywork; time that could've been used doing something more productive.
Dude you are so off the deep end it is scary.
I know, people suggesting that you probably shouldn't hand over your information to a scumbag company on a silver platter to use an awful service in an age where companies readily cooperate with the government are so unreasonable. The sheer audacity of someone to suggest that privacy is more important than being able to use a cesspool like Facebook.
1. I have been on Slashdot much longer than you. I am far from a fool.
For one, the second doesn't follow from the first. Second, the age of this account does not reflect how long I've actually been on Slashdot.
2. Facebook does not have my address it has the town of 200,000+ people I live in.
Better still would be to give them nothing by not using Facebook.
3. I only post to Facebook what I want to post.
As does everyone. What is your point? You're still giving them more information than you should.
People have a right to their private life. However, Facebook users have entered into a (what I consider) sub-optimal agreement wrt users' private info. By nature, any "anti-social media network" (my term for them) will let people know who your friends are. So, even if we had a completely open and distributed social network not controlled by a single source, it's the nature of the beast.
Personally, I wouldn't use any social network like this to begin with.
Also, unless you're living off the grid and not filing taxes, driving a car, or anything else, the government has LOTS of information on you. So what?
Giving the government too much information about you merely enables it to selectively oppress you if you happen to anger it; you don't need to commit a single crime.
but you know the old saying, don't do the crime unless you can do the time.
It's a stupid saying, as it ignores a number of things:
1) Whether or not the crime should, in fact, be a crime. There are all sorts of unjust laws, and with limitless information, the government can more effectively enforce them. This is obviously bad.
2) Whether or not the punishment is just.
3) Society would be a living hell if the government could perfectly enforce every law, not only for the reasons above, but because there are simply too many laws to keep track of and everyone makes innocent mistakes now and again.
So what are facebooks' partners going to do? Try to sell you something?
It's creepy to me. I think privacy is good in and of itself.
As to what they'll do, that depends on who they are. Insurance companies, for instance, would appreciate as much information about you as possible. As soon as they find reliable ways of using all this data, expect them to do nothing good with it.
and neither you nor I have the right to forbid them from entering into such exchanges.
I'm not trying to. I'm just saying it's idiotic. The bigger problem is that the government is allowed to get pretty much any information it wants, and I'm not even talking about information out in the open.
Just a hard-nosed realist.
I usually talk about how I think things should be, rather than how they are. Your posts gave me the impression you were defending the status quo.
So what if they have your name and phone number and address.
As well as any other information that you give them about your daily life, enabling you to be targeted by other scumbag companies that they work with and sell information to, as well as the government.
Also, I don't want to give any more scumbag companies my information; I'm not going to hand it to them on a silver platter. Your argument is essentially, "Your information is probably out there, so just give it to even more companies!" Smart move.
We used to have this thing called a "telephone book" that had all that.
Used to.
We have equivalents on the net. Your "private" info is already out there
Mine isn't; I actually checked at one point. Speak for yourself.
But hey, even if it was, I personally believe we need stronger privacy laws to begin with.
Amazing that anti-privacy fools actually visit Slashdot. Then again, we already have cold fjord.
If you're giving any information whatsoever to scumbags like Facebook (such as name, phone numbers, address, etc.), then you're just an idiot. I don't care how much "control" you think you have. If you're not giving any information to them, then you're still stupid for using a cesspit like Facebook, giving them more attention than they deserve.
And that 99% of the population is the only reason people like me are on Facebook
Because you're too easily influenced and don't care about privacy.
Anyone that paranoid about tracking should basically avoid the larger parts of society. Live out in a cabin in the woods near some small town, or in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere. Hell, that's what most people trying to avoid being tracked already do.
Because that's acceptable in a supposedly free society? Maybe we should instead change our government (no mass surveillance, no TSA, etc.) and enact sensible privacy laws.
This is as stupid as it ever was. "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." utterly ignores the fact that people are discussing whether the punishment actually fits the crime. It's a useless response that adds absolutely nothing.
Prison should be about rehabilitation and justice, not barbaric revenge.
With normal, socially-well-adjusted folks
You realize that's 100% subjective? It's still a problem.
I definitely want random people to subjectively decide that something is subjectively offensive. Unrelated, but obscenity laws are excellent too.
In a written forum it is even more ridiculous, since you're making an active choice by reading about stuff.
And he also made the active choice to criticize what he read. How would he know that that gamergate garbage is all about if he hadn't read about it?
Whose fault is it that FTDI is intentionally destroying other people's property? FTDI's. The ends don't justify the means.
private eye drops a gps tracking device on their car
Is that even legal?
Rule 1 - if you are running from someone be weary of whoever just comes along and wants to be your friend.
Rule 1 - Stop being a fucking moron and don't use social media garbage.
There are places for them.
There is no place for automated government surveillance, which just makes it easier to selectively oppress your targets. Privacy and due process are far more important than safety, even assuming these things make people safer.
Oh fuck off. You're essentially arguing that Germans who denounced their Jewish neighbours to the Gestapo are not responsible for those neighbourse being gassed, because all they did was speak, it was the SS that did the gassing.
That's right.
that adult people should not take seriously.
No True Adult would take it seriously.
This is precisely what I referred to. If they were irrelevant, there'd be nothing for you to criticize.
They are irrelevant in the sense that I'm not going to be persuaded by people telling me that the laws and customs relevant to the conversation do not currently conform to my views.
If you want to draw legal or political conclusions based on your personal utopic ideal
Even if we legalized all drugs, that still wouldn't be a utopia, since there would still be plenty of problems.
There is _no_ human society where those in power do not set boundaries on the use of recreational chemicals.
There is no human society where the government doesn't unjustly infringe upon people's liberties in at least one way. Therefore... something. Where are you going with this? "It hasn't happened yet, so it can't/shouldn't happen."? Are you attempting to appeal to popularity? What is it that you're doing? In case you haven't noticed, change is possible, and society can change for the better.
You don't seem to have an actual point of any value to me.
As usual, cold fjord has arrived to set us all straight. There is no need for us to think any longer; just read his words and accept them immediately! He'll save us all from freedom itself!