Truth is a defense in England it's just not a complete defense.
I don't know why Slashdot seems to think that truth is not a defense for defamation in English common law. It's been quite a few years, but if I remember correctly, when I studied English law (I come from a jurisdiction that inherits it), truth was a "complete" defense -- and particularly there really is no "intended audience business" crap.
Your transvestite example may hit some privacy or antidiscrimination laws or hate crimes or that kind of thing (I have no idea), but as far as English common law of defamation goes, you're clean if you can prove it's true.
Just an hour or two drive south from Foxconn's Shenzhen factories is this place where a $800K (converted from local currency) condo is considered "cheap", as is $1400 rent for one bedroom apartment. In case you're wondering, the medium household income there is around $30K/year.
I know it's twisted, but having been raised and living in Hong Kong for so many years, I actually find tiny apartments "better" in the sense that you can walk less in your apartment, like when you want to get a quick bite from the kitchen, or need to go to the toilet.... this is probably an awkward way of adopting to the environment when you're used to having less than 200 ft of personal space in your home, but when I moved to California a few weeks ago, I "sort of" missed that.
Compared to the insanity of Hong Kong, California isn't _that_ bad. And for those who haven't lived in SF -- I find it a pretty decent place to live in. Sure your house might be much smaller in terms of space, but if you look beyond your walls, you'll find some value in living in an interesting city -- whether that's worth the additional cost is subjective... apparently the people actually living in SF find it's a worthwhile trade off.
They don't prove anything actually happened aside of what the world already knows (and things that the Chinese government readily admits to) -- GFW, agents monitoring the internet, etc.
Agents physically breaking into your hotel room and installing keyloggers? I don't think they're rich enough to pay all the people to do that for the average travelling businessman.
I guess the 100% designed and made in China brands are supposed to be honest and not manipulative, since they plainly state on its packaging (and price tag, don't forget the price tag) that they are a cheapo non-brand made by slave labor.
That's something he would use. After all, no pretense of being a premium brand and product.
I mean, seriously, he really means it. What he's basically saying: everything is shit anyway, why pretend to be better? And perhaps also, why the price tag?
I do not need reasons to dislike these people. Their views on politics, religion, science, and current events are not relevant to me. The last thing I need is for the neighbor that I'll spend much or most of my life dealing with to leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, because I see his constant stream of "libtards durp durp durp" and "republithugs durp durp" and "fuckin' pinko communist atheist scientists need to accept that the world is created by gawwwwd" every day.
You may be right, in practice. However, in theory, if all you care is that your neighbor is nice to you, why would you allow yourself to get upset with their political/religious views? Could you not make yourself believe and accept that there are nice people in the world who believes different things than you do? Would you not allow yourself to know (the fact) that there is so much diversity in the world, and not everyone necessarily subscribes with your worldview?
(2) I'm outraged that the entire world seems so stupid as to think it's a good idea to tie real identities to everything they say online SO THAT people who want to use that speech against them are able to. (Never mind that the stupid shit you might have said at 17 will still be there nice and searchable when you are 52 and trying to become mayor).
They call you Anonymous Coward for a reason. You're outraged that some people in the world seems to have more guts than you do.
Where in the Bible do you ever see rape justified, accepted, or encouraged?
And you got your answer. And now you're just saying the "regulation of rape" is "giving a lot of rights and protections to women that didn't exist in most societies at that time"?
Right, I'll give you that. But then what's your point?
I quote from the AC's original post:
Guess what, the Christian Bible is just as bigoted. It justifies rape, murder, and slavery. It treats women less than dogs.
But most Christians are reasonable people. They don't follow their hate filled book. Nor do most Muslims.
Perhaps you actually agree.
none of these things is to govern life today. Every example you found is specifically pertaining to the way the people of Israel in the ancient world were to be governed and ruled.
Or somehow you won't believe that some Muslims would think the same way about the "inapplicable" parts of the Koran?
Judges in UK don't get "sacked". Even if they make a bad bad judgment.
Though, if his judgments don't at least make a pretense of fairness and impartiality, he wouldn't ever have the chance of becoming a judge in the first place.
If that's true, I guess that's where the problem is:)
I suppose you've heard about the financial woes that are bestowed upon poor grad students and post-docs...... Besides, everyone knows that a lot of the research done in a PhD program doesn't really have that much of practical application in a job in industry... short of some very unlikely coincidence
> I'm earning more than 300K annually now.
Where? I'd like to apply!
Perhaps it has something to do with:
I turned down and opportunity to make 2.5 times my current salary because it would've meant moving to NYC and never seeing my family. This is not how I want to spend my life.
Especially now that you're complaining that somebody else "stole" your jobs because they were willing to make that sacrifice (across seas and oceans, not just across states within the same country) in the first place. Can't take your cake and eat it.
Besides, if you're as unpleasant in person as on slashdot, I can sort of see why those 300k jobs aren't coming your way.
A bit off-topic, but while what you say is "true" in theory, what happened in practice is a tad bit more complicated.
Obviously there will still be natural disasters even in the more prosperous times in Chinese history, and when disaster happens in the better times, the government has the resources to mitigate the disaster by providing food and other kinds of aid. And probably sufficient military presence to avoid things from going out of control.
The large scale uprisings always happen when the government is inefficient, lacking resources, or just too consumed in court politics that the people in areas affected by disasters just don't get by. (Angry farmers gathered in mobs can wreck a lot of havoc.)
Though, given the current economic situation in Italy, perhaps it's true over there too.
I don't know anything about immigration laws and censorship laws in China, but about this:
If you still want to continue then don't break immigration and other laws in the country you are visiting. It's not only illegal but greatly distasteful towards the host country. They are welcoming you as a visitor and yet you are just going to be breaking laws.
The proper analogy is somebody going to the USA and breaking some copyright laws because he watched some youtube videos and perhaps seeded a few movies on bittorrent... It's "illegal", but hey, everybody does it, and it's part of life.
I live within driving distance from the Great Firewall (i.e. Hong Kong), and I know many people in China who get on private VPNs or proxies to visit Facebook etc.. The number of locals in China who do this on a daily basis must be in tens of millions. I'm not sure there's even a precise "law" that says you can't do this, the kind of attitude towards "law" in China is "whatever the government says", or even "whatever the higher ups seem to be saying through their vague directives".
I wouldn't lose sleep over this, especially if you're a foreigner. As for "distasteful", well, unless you're talking about government officials, then *maybe*. In fact, if you ask the locals how to do it (especially the ones who speak English and have seen the world abroad), they'll probably happily teach you some ways to circumvent the GFW. They even have a name for it, "Fan Qiang" (literally, "Climb-Over Wall"). It's understood to be "against the rules", but many people do it, more as an inconvenience than something "immoral", and it's not like you're going to insult their mother if you happen to need to access foreign sites.
Of course, take all this anecdotal experience with a grain of salt.
I actually learnt all the standard algorithms, data structures, and asymptotic analysis and stuff (to at least the level that you'd expect a decent CS degree holder to know) before I entered university.
So I decided to major in something totally different. I doubt getting that piece of paper is going to make me a better programmer or "designer"... but then arguably the only thing I don't have from what you'd expect from a decent CS degree is that piece of damn paper...
You should jump out of a 40 story building "because you are not so smug as to assume I have a complete and unequivocally accurate understanding of the entire universe".
Who says you'll die from the impact? I can't say. For the rest of us, excuse us for not attempting to do things which have a 99.999999999+% chance of failure.
However, since "more" and "less" are opposites, if "a few more excuses" is valid English, why shouldn't "a few less excuses" be valid too?
Of course, nobody says "a few less excuses" (Googling "a few less excuses" with quotes gives this slashdot article....), but it's not so easily explained through "logical" application of grammar rules....
You wrongly (and may I add "arrogantly") assume that any human eye would be interested in seeing the one-out-of-a-billion strings they would receive......
You'll have to forgive me for not being aware that they...
You'll forgive me for not bothering to look up something that's been posted uncontested in this thread multiple times
i.e. I am an Apple hater, an idiot, and proudly belong to the Association of Apple Haters on Slashdot. I tout the party line without knowing what I'm actually talking about.
I never thought that ignorance would become a fashionable trait on Slashdot.
While what you say is probably (and unfortunately) true, there are various meanings of "law".
The narrow meaning is of course, "what the law is", but there is often a more normative meaning, i.e. "what the law ought to be". For example, can we call a country with laws allowing murder and rape a "lawful" country, if the government somehow managed to pass laws that permitted it?
You may say it is still "lawful" in the narrow sense of the word, but I know many people would disagree. Most of us have expectations of what a "nation of laws" looks like at the minimum, and at least in some instances the US is not living up to that standard.
You want to see a universal government over the whole world with that kind of unchecked power?
No, but the USA is acting as such. It is trying to say: We don't play by rules, and we will make life miserable for anyone (even if supposedly outside USA jurisdiction) if they dare provoke us or violate our interests.
That pretty much sounds like a "universal government" (owned by Americans) with hugely unchecked power.
We will fix our problems in our own way.... Living in America as an ordinary citizen isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be either.
The problem is not that American life sucks. The problem is that the way America behaves makes the lives of ordinary *non*-Americans suck. If your "fixing our problems" means shameless bullying international parties into submission to your selfish agenda, at least we can bitch about it on the Internet.
Though I'm not sure your "first Amendment" rights apply to me, heh.
Slashdot Mirror
Truth is a defense in England it's just not a complete defense.
I don't know why Slashdot seems to think that truth is not a defense for defamation in English common law. It's been quite a few years, but if I remember correctly, when I studied English law (I come from a jurisdiction that inherits it), truth was a "complete" defense -- and particularly there really is no "intended audience business" crap.
Your transvestite example may hit some privacy or antidiscrimination laws or hate crimes or that kind of thing (I have no idea), but as far as English common law of defamation goes, you're clean if you can prove it's true.
Reference: my crappy memory and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law#Justification
Just an hour or two drive south from Foxconn's Shenzhen factories is this place where a $800K (converted from local currency) condo is considered "cheap", as is $1400 rent for one bedroom apartment. In case you're wondering, the medium household income there is around $30K/year.
I know it's twisted, but having been raised and living in Hong Kong for so many years, I actually find tiny apartments "better" in the sense that you can walk less in your apartment, like when you want to get a quick bite from the kitchen, or need to go to the toilet.... this is probably an awkward way of adopting to the environment when you're used to having less than 200 ft of personal space in your home, but when I moved to California a few weeks ago, I "sort of" missed that.
Compared to the insanity of Hong Kong, California isn't _that_ bad. And for those who haven't lived in SF -- I find it a pretty decent place to live in. Sure your house might be much smaller in terms of space, but if you look beyond your walls, you'll find some value in living in an interesting city -- whether that's worth the additional cost is subjective... apparently the people actually living in SF find it's a worthwhile trade off.
Just my 2 cents.
And thus the Soviet Union collapsed....
These links only prove some people are paranoid.
They don't prove anything actually happened aside of what the world already knows (and things that the Chinese government readily admits to) -- GFW, agents monitoring the internet, etc.
Agents physically breaking into your hotel room and installing keyloggers? I don't think they're rich enough to pay all the people to do that for the average travelling businessman.
Paranoia is a good thing.
I don't know, but I don't think so...
For the more normal people (as in, people considered normal outside of Slashdot), there's usually an implicit calculation of effort vs risk.
Paranoia is what they call people who spend excessive effort trying to minimize far fetched risks.
I guess the 100% designed and made in China brands are supposed to be honest and not manipulative, since they plainly state on its packaging (and price tag, don't forget the price tag) that they are a cheapo non-brand made by slave labor.
That's something he would use. After all, no pretense of being a premium brand and product.
I mean, seriously, he really means it. What he's basically saying: everything is shit anyway, why pretend to be better? And perhaps also, why the price tag?
I do not need reasons to dislike these people. Their views on politics, religion, science, and current events are not relevant to me. The last thing I need is for the neighbor that I'll spend much or most of my life dealing with to leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, because I see his constant stream of "libtards durp durp durp" and "republithugs durp durp" and "fuckin' pinko communist atheist scientists need to accept that the world is created by gawwwwd" every day.
You may be right, in practice. However, in theory, if all you care is that your neighbor is nice to you, why would you allow yourself to get upset with their political/religious views? Could you not make yourself believe and accept that there are nice people in the world who believes different things than you do? Would you not allow yourself to know (the fact) that there is so much diversity in the world, and not everyone necessarily subscribes with your worldview?
(2) I'm outraged that the entire world seems so stupid as to think it's a good idea to tie real identities to everything they say online SO THAT people who want to use that speech against them are able to. (Never mind that the stupid shit you might have said at 17 will still be there nice and searchable when you are 52 and trying to become mayor).
They call you Anonymous Coward for a reason. You're outraged that some people in the world seems to have more guts than you do.
Damn whitewashing.
You asked
Where in the Bible do you ever see rape justified, accepted, or encouraged?
And you got your answer. And now you're just saying the "regulation of rape" is "giving a lot of rights and protections to women that didn't exist in most societies at that time"?
Right, I'll give you that. But then what's your point?
I quote from the AC's original post:
Guess what, the Christian Bible is just as bigoted. It justifies rape, murder, and slavery. It treats women less than dogs.
But most Christians are reasonable people. They don't follow their hate filled book. Nor do most Muslims.
Perhaps you actually agree.
none of these things is to govern life today. Every example you found is specifically pertaining to the way the people of Israel in the ancient world were to be governed and ruled.
Or somehow you won't believe that some Muslims would think the same way about the "inapplicable" parts of the Koran?
That's why they say emacs is an OS.
The rest of us use a terminal/shell to do the things you describe, and do it just as well.
Judges in UK don't get "sacked". Even if they make a bad bad judgment.
Though, if his judgments don't at least make a pretense of fairness and impartiality, he wouldn't ever have the chance of becoming a judge in the first place.
But actually I am a CS PhD myself...
If that's true, I guess that's where the problem is :)
I suppose you've heard about the financial woes that are bestowed upon poor grad students and post-docs...... Besides, everyone knows that a lot of the research done in a PhD program doesn't really have that much of practical application in a job in industry... short of some very unlikely coincidence
> I'm earning more than 300K annually now.
Where? I'd like to apply!
Perhaps it has something to do with:
I turned down and opportunity to make 2.5 times my current salary because it would've meant moving to NYC and never seeing my family. This is not how I want to spend my life.
(http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3212023&cid=41782805)
Especially now that you're complaining that somebody else "stole" your jobs because they were willing to make that sacrifice (across seas and oceans, not just across states within the same country) in the first place. Can't take your cake and eat it.
Besides, if you're as unpleasant in person as on slashdot, I can sort of see why those 300k jobs aren't coming your way.
A bit off-topic, but while what you say is "true" in theory, what happened in practice is a tad bit more complicated.
Obviously there will still be natural disasters even in the more prosperous times in Chinese history, and when disaster happens in the better times, the government has the resources to mitigate the disaster by providing food and other kinds of aid. And probably sufficient military presence to avoid things from going out of control.
The large scale uprisings always happen when the government is inefficient, lacking resources, or just too consumed in court politics that the people in areas affected by disasters just don't get by. (Angry farmers gathered in mobs can wreck a lot of havoc.)
Though, given the current economic situation in Italy, perhaps it's true over there too.
I don't know anything about immigration laws and censorship laws in China, but about this:
If you still want to continue then don't break immigration and other laws in the country you are visiting. It's not only illegal but greatly distasteful towards the host country. They are welcoming you as a visitor and yet you are just going to be breaking laws.
The proper analogy is somebody going to the USA and breaking some copyright laws because he watched some youtube videos and perhaps seeded a few movies on bittorrent... It's "illegal", but hey, everybody does it, and it's part of life.
I live within driving distance from the Great Firewall (i.e. Hong Kong), and I know many people in China who get on private VPNs or proxies to visit Facebook etc.. The number of locals in China who do this on a daily basis must be in tens of millions. I'm not sure there's even a precise "law" that says you can't do this, the kind of attitude towards "law" in China is "whatever the government says", or even "whatever the higher ups seem to be saying through their vague directives".
I wouldn't lose sleep over this, especially if you're a foreigner. As for "distasteful", well, unless you're talking about government officials, then *maybe*. In fact, if you ask the locals how to do it (especially the ones who speak English and have seen the world abroad), they'll probably happily teach you some ways to circumvent the GFW. They even have a name for it, "Fan Qiang" (literally, "Climb-Over Wall"). It's understood to be "against the rules", but many people do it, more as an inconvenience than something "immoral", and it's not like you're going to insult their mother if you happen to need to access foreign sites.
Of course, take all this anecdotal experience with a grain of salt.
Perhaps I'm really out of the norm.
I actually learnt all the standard algorithms, data structures, and asymptotic analysis and stuff (to at least the level that you'd expect a decent CS degree holder to know) before I entered university.
So I decided to major in something totally different. I doubt getting that piece of paper is going to make me a better programmer or "designer"... but then arguably the only thing I don't have from what you'd expect from a decent CS degree is that piece of damn paper...
Just because we call gravity a "law of physics" doesn't mean the physical universe is always going to obey them
Right?
I'm bored, so I'll reply.
You should jump out of a 40 story building "because you are not so smug as to assume I have a complete and unequivocally accurate understanding of the entire universe".
Who says you'll die from the impact? I can't say. For the rest of us, excuse us for not attempting to do things which have a 99.999999999+% chance of failure.
However, since "more" and "less" are opposites, if "a few more excuses" is valid English, why shouldn't "a few less excuses" be valid too?
Of course, nobody says "a few less excuses" (Googling "a few less excuses" with quotes gives this slashdot article....), but it's not so easily explained through "logical" application of grammar rules....
You wrongly (and may I add "arrogantly") assume that any human eye would be interested in seeing the one-out-of-a-billion strings they would receive......
You'll have to forgive me for not being aware that they...
You'll forgive me for not bothering to look up something that's been posted uncontested in this thread multiple times
i.e. I am an Apple hater, an idiot, and proudly belong to the Association of Apple Haters on Slashdot. I tout the party line without knowing what I'm actually talking about.
I never thought that ignorance would become a fashionable trait on Slashdot.
While what you say is probably (and unfortunately) true, there are various meanings of "law".
The narrow meaning is of course, "what the law is", but there is often a more normative meaning, i.e. "what the law ought to be". For example, can we call a country with laws allowing murder and rape a "lawful" country, if the government somehow managed to pass laws that permitted it?
You may say it is still "lawful" in the narrow sense of the word, but I know many people would disagree. Most of us have expectations of what a "nation of laws" looks like at the minimum, and at least in some instances the US is not living up to that standard.
Thank you. And let's hope you and your fellow countrymen could convince your government to extend the same to Assange and co.
You want to see a universal government over the whole world with that kind of unchecked power?
No, but the USA is acting as such. It is trying to say: We don't play by rules, and we will make life miserable for anyone (even if supposedly outside USA jurisdiction) if they dare provoke us or violate our interests.
That pretty much sounds like a "universal government" (owned by Americans) with hugely unchecked power.
We will fix our problems in our own way.... Living in America as an ordinary citizen isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be either.
The problem is not that American life sucks. The problem is that the way America behaves makes the lives of ordinary *non*-Americans suck. If your "fixing our problems" means shameless bullying international parties into submission to your selfish agenda, at least we can bitch about it on the Internet.
Though I'm not sure your "first Amendment" rights apply to me, heh.
Hmm, my bad.
Congratulations on inventing C++