"As a top IT executive for a fortune 50, I spend a lot of time on global conference calls"
Then make them from your office.
"and me professionally (and, by extension, my company) if someone were to jam my cellular during an important conference call."
Would you rather they eavesdrop? Ever heard of corporate espionage?
Re:Could Diamond Age come a little bit faster,plea
on
Diamond Age Coming Soon
·
· Score: 2, Funny
If you're going to have an imaginary girlfriend, you need to learn to do it right. My imaginary girlfriend was quite happy with a new copy of Metroid: Zero Mission.
"Why is it ok for the government to say that people under 18 can't use drugs, but NOT people over 18?"
Note the "or parental consent" qualifier I slipped in there. The government shouldn't make blanket "nobody under such-and-such age can do this," but the ultimate arbiter of what is right and wrong for a child should be the parents.
"Do you think the government has NO rights over adults?"
Government by definition has no rights except those granted to it by the people.
"You ever register for the draft (selective service)? Does the government not have the authority to make you fight when the need arises?"
"Yes" to the first and "debatable" to the second. I agree with Heinlein's assertion that any republic that can't call up enough volunteers to defend itself doesn't deserve to continue existing.
"Does it not have the authority to make you pay taxes?"
Yes, but the people have the ultimate power in dictating the particulars of what, when, how and why those taxes are collected.
"Is the constitution completely bogus?"
Whose constitution are we talking about here, anyway? I'm talking about the US Constitution, where government rights are defined and restricted while personal rights are undefined and guaranteed. It tried restricting personal rights once, but it was a bad idea and that amendment got repealed.
"That wasn't my point. My point is, if you TRULY believe in that system, that SHOULD be your attitude."
Why? Consenting adults are very different from children. This is why we have statutory rape laws on the books, as well as minimum ages for driving, smoking, voting, drinking, etc.
"Further, you couldn't say that the government could make things like drug use illegal"
Which I don't. Other than validating the customer's adulthood or parental consent the only drugs I think should be controlled are antibiotics, where misuse of them (allowing bacteria to mutate instead of killing them all off) can do very real harm to other people.
"Like, YES you really DO need to educate your kids."
However the government seems to have very flawed ideas about how those children should be educated, with the lessons being biased towards whichever direction the political winds at the time are blowing. And society has the pesky habit of thinking that the government knows what is good for the child more than the parents.
"Illegal drugs ARE bad for you,"
That doesn't explain why I shouldn't be able to use them anyway. Freedom means having the ability to make poor choices. Having the majority (i. e. government) decide what is right or wrong for a person sets a very dangerous precedent that is all too easy to abuse, far more harmful to the individual than the availability of heroin might be.
"Hence, weak families make for a weak society."
What's wrong with a weak society? I doubt I'm the only person on Slashdot that, given the choice, would rather spend my time alone than with members of my extended family. Ever notice how Christmas and Thanksgiving are often more stressful and even violent than New Year's?
Another aspect of freedom is not having interpersonal ties forced upon you.
"Oh, you know, rampant drug and alchohol abuse,"
Freedom isn't meant to be pretty.
"millions in jails,"
Only if things like drug abuse continue to be crimes.
"I think porn, by its nature views women as object."
How much of it have you watched before making this judgment? And how was your sample chosen? Any sort of statistical precision in your viewing pool?
"Then women begin to think all they ARE are objects."
How many women have you talked to before coming to this judgment and how were they chosen?
"Hence you have 8 year girls dressing like Britney Spears."
This is more a problem that comes from bad parenting than anything else. And these bad parents can often be taced back to poor access to contraception and a personal belief that being married automatically makes one a good parent*. These can be traced back to the family/society you seem to hold in such high esteem.
*(While it is true that happy childhoods can be associated with parents that remain married to each other, it's folly to assume a cause-and-effect relationship. Good parents are married because they love each other, not the other way around.)
"I bet when you see your kid getting ready to jump off the roof of your garage"
Even if porn were as harmful as you propose, I am not a child and you are not my father.
"I think I just read in Time magazine that something like 80% of divorce lawyers these days cite internet porn as a major factor in the divorce cases they handle."
They're divorce lawyers. They'll cite whatever they think will work for them to win their case.
And if internet porn is such a big factor in breaking up the marriage, the couple had problems long before the offending person discovered pornography. Couples with such a weak and fickle relationship shouldn't be married to begin with.
"Society is composed of families."
Then I guess I, being unmarried and not a father, don't count. And since I'm not part of your precious society I can do whatever I damn well please without any detriment to anybody else.
Society is made of individuals. Families are simply where individuals are made.
"Break down in families like this means break down in society."
Define "break down in society." Society happens when people interact with one another, whether there's family or porn involved or none of the above. Society may change in some fashion, but it certainly doesn't go away short of everybody dying off.
"There IS such a thing as the common good,"
But no two people agree totally on what that common good is. That's why government in this country was designed to do only what is absolutely necessary and no more.
"belive it or not, one persons actions have a huge rippling effect on the rest of society's members."
Butterfly beating its wings, blah blah blah. I don't care if my actions have the "rippling effect" you describe, that still does not give you the right to dictate what I do with my own free time unless and until my actions directly infringe on the liberty of another. The individual must come before the majority.
If we don't consider children below a certain age able to give their consent and know what they're consenting to, how would it be possible for animals to give their consent?
"Nobody is going to see ideepthroat.com's greatest hits on the rack at Best Buy and impulse buy a copy."
IRL, porn is shopped for in a very different way from what you might find in Best Buy, but people are more willing to shop for porn "from the privacy of their own home" on the internet. You might be better off trying to compare porn and music shopping experiences on-line.
With that said, I'd say the difference is that, unlike with music shopping, it's hard to find a website that sells porn that doesn't give firewall, anti-virus and spywear detection software a heart attack.
"porn has a slightly (or not-so-slightly to some) addictive quality to it that music and Hollywood type movies just don't have."
I wouldn't go that far. The music and movies that sell don't really do it because they're good on technical merits but because they aim at the lowest common denominator with flashy effects in movies and bass beats in music where even a deaf person could find the rythm.
Besides, once you look into how they're marketed, I'd say that the only real difference between the MPAA/RIAA members and the porn industry is that the MPAA/RIAA claims they're marketing movies and music.
I'm already quite happy with my Samsung A600, especially considering the price I managed to get with all the silly rebates and discounts for signing another contract with Sprint PCS. The Ngage might have been a contender if it... you know... worked with Sprint.
Beyond that, I've already got a GBA:SP and my future plans for the PS2 HDD and the Nintendo DS don't leave much financial wiggle room for a $200 handheld with a library that continues to make me yawn.
I guess the Ngage is another example of technology solving a problem that didn't exist.
Slashdot Mirror
"As a top IT executive for a fortune 50, I spend a lot of time on global conference calls"
Then make them from your office.
"and me professionally (and, by extension, my company) if someone were to jam my cellular during an important conference call."
Would you rather they eavesdrop? Ever heard of corporate espionage?
If you're going to have an imaginary girlfriend, you need to learn to do it right. My imaginary girlfriend was quite happy with a new copy of Metroid: Zero Mission.
I mean, hell, may as well go for broke.
"Why is it ok for the government to say that people under 18 can't use drugs, but NOT people over 18?"
Note the "or parental consent" qualifier I slipped in there. The government shouldn't make blanket "nobody under such-and-such age can do this," but the ultimate arbiter of what is right and wrong for a child should be the parents.
"Do you think the government has NO rights over adults?"
Government by definition has no rights except those granted to it by the people.
"You ever register for the draft (selective service)? Does the government not have the authority to make you fight when the need arises?"
"Yes" to the first and "debatable" to the second. I agree with Heinlein's assertion that any republic that can't call up enough volunteers to defend itself doesn't deserve to continue existing.
"Does it not have the authority to make you pay taxes?"
Yes, but the people have the ultimate power in dictating the particulars of what, when, how and why those taxes are collected.
"Is the constitution completely bogus?"
Whose constitution are we talking about here, anyway? I'm talking about the US Constitution, where government rights are defined and restricted while personal rights are undefined and guaranteed. It tried restricting personal rights once, but it was a bad idea and that amendment got repealed.
I don't think Nintendo could pull off another Space World until Nintendo Power becomes what it used to be.
"That wasn't my point. My point is, if you TRULY believe in that system, that SHOULD be your attitude."
Why? Consenting adults are very different from children. This is why we have statutory rape laws on the books, as well as minimum ages for driving, smoking, voting, drinking, etc.
"Further, you couldn't say that the government could make things like drug use illegal"
Which I don't. Other than validating the customer's adulthood or parental consent the only drugs I think should be controlled are antibiotics, where misuse of them (allowing bacteria to mutate instead of killing them all off) can do very real harm to other people.
"Like, YES you really DO need to educate your kids."
However the government seems to have very flawed ideas about how those children should be educated, with the lessons being biased towards whichever direction the political winds at the time are blowing. And society has the pesky habit of thinking that the government knows what is good for the child more than the parents.
"Illegal drugs ARE bad for you,"
That doesn't explain why I shouldn't be able to use them anyway. Freedom means having the ability to make poor choices. Having the majority (i. e. government) decide what is right or wrong for a person sets a very dangerous precedent that is all too easy to abuse, far more harmful to the individual than the availability of heroin might be.
"Hence, weak families make for a weak society."
What's wrong with a weak society? I doubt I'm the only person on Slashdot that, given the choice, would rather spend my time alone than with members of my extended family. Ever notice how Christmas and Thanksgiving are often more stressful and even violent than New Year's?
Another aspect of freedom is not having interpersonal ties forced upon you.
"Oh, you know, rampant drug and alchohol abuse,"
Freedom isn't meant to be pretty.
"millions in jails,"
Only if things like drug abuse continue to be crimes.
"I think porn, by its nature views women as object."
How much of it have you watched before making this judgment? And how was your sample chosen? Any sort of statistical precision in your viewing pool?
"Then women begin to think all they ARE are objects."
How many women have you talked to before coming to this judgment and how were they chosen?
"Hence you have 8 year girls dressing like Britney Spears."
This is more a problem that comes from bad parenting than anything else. And these bad parents can often be taced back to poor access to contraception and a personal belief that being married automatically makes one a good parent*. These can be traced back to the family/society you seem to hold in such high esteem.
*(While it is true that happy childhoods can be associated with parents that remain married to each other, it's folly to assume a cause-and-effect relationship. Good parents are married because they love each other, not the other way around.)
"I bet when you see your kid getting ready to jump off the roof of your garage"
Even if porn were as harmful as you propose, I am not a child and you are not my father.
"I think I just read in Time magazine that something like 80% of divorce lawyers these days cite internet porn as a major factor in the divorce cases they handle."
They're divorce lawyers. They'll cite whatever they think will work for them to win their case.
And if internet porn is such a big factor in breaking up the marriage, the couple had problems long before the offending person discovered pornography. Couples with such a weak and fickle relationship shouldn't be married to begin with.
"Society is composed of families."
Then I guess I, being unmarried and not a father, don't count. And since I'm not part of your precious society I can do whatever I damn well please without any detriment to anybody else.
Society is made of individuals. Families are simply where individuals are made.
"Break down in families like this means break down in society."
Define "break down in society." Society happens when people interact with one another, whether there's family or porn involved or none of the above. Society may change in some fashion, but it certainly doesn't go away short of everybody dying off.
"There IS such a thing as the common good,"
But no two people agree totally on what that common good is. That's why government in this country was designed to do only what is absolutely necessary and no more.
"belive it or not, one persons actions have a huge rippling effect on the rest of society's members."
Butterfly beating its wings, blah blah blah. I don't care if my actions have the "rippling effect" you describe, that still does not give you the right to dictate what I do with my own free time unless and until my actions directly infringe on the liberty of another. The individual must come before the majority.
If we don't consider children below a certain age able to give their consent and know what they're consenting to, how would it be possible for animals to give their consent?
"Nobody is going to see ideepthroat.com's greatest hits on the rack at Best Buy and impulse buy a copy."
IRL, porn is shopped for in a very different way from what you might find in Best Buy, but people are more willing to shop for porn "from the privacy of their own home" on the internet. You might be better off trying to compare porn and music shopping experiences on-line.
With that said, I'd say the difference is that, unlike with music shopping, it's hard to find a website that sells porn that doesn't give firewall, anti-virus and spywear detection software a heart attack.
"porn has a slightly (or not-so-slightly to some) addictive quality to it that music and Hollywood type movies just don't have."
I wouldn't go that far. The music and movies that sell don't really do it because they're good on technical merits but because they aim at the lowest common denominator with flashy effects in movies and bass beats in music where even a deaf person could find the rythm.
Besides, once you look into how they're marketed, I'd say that the only real difference between the MPAA/RIAA members and the porn industry is that the MPAA/RIAA claims they're marketing movies and music.
On the other hand, if there were no porn sites would we still have pop-up ads?
Get him lots of alchohol to dull the pain, since there is no such thing as a Happy Valentine's Day for the true geek. Duh!
Man, I was doing so well in forgetting what next Saturday was, too...
And we wonder why we're all still single...
Couldn't we just mirror her?
"It is trite and irresponsible of ill-informed commentators to claim that games like Grand Theft Auto are central to terrible crime."
It's nice to know that when it comes to ill-informed BBC commentators making trite and irresponsible claims they at least draw the line somewhere...
"I bet you feel a right tit."
/.ers have had any experience with is Janet Jackson's.
The only right tit most
"I see unfounded and baseless claims about Microsoft on /. all the time, nobody complains or feels aggrieved about those."
Nobody's government requires that all computer users must pay a user fee towards Slashdot whether they visit the site or not.
That, and don't be French.
"Considering every machine at the lab has a hostname with a .gov suffix,"
.cn suffix...
Now now, I'm sure there are still two or three in there with a
"Exactly what kind of "illegal content" is your TiVo going to be playing?"
<DEFLECTOR BEANIE>
After the MPAA pays Congress to "fix" the Betamax decision, anybody who uses TiVo to time-shift will be a criminal.
</DEFLECTOR BEANIE>
"Imagine a beowulf cluster of these...."
Two words: blue sparks.
"Seriously, though, here's the amazing truth: people like buying crap that doesn't break."
Then explain Microsoft's success.
I'm already quite happy with my Samsung A600, especially considering the price I managed to get with all the silly rebates and discounts for signing another contract with Sprint PCS. The Ngage might have been a contender if it... you know... worked with Sprint.
Beyond that, I've already got a GBA:SP and my future plans for the PS2 HDD and the Nintendo DS don't leave much financial wiggle room for a $200 handheld with a library that continues to make me yawn.
I guess the Ngage is another example of technology solving a problem that didn't exist.
I was thinking more along the lines of BeTamaX.
"I wasn't aware that you needed to download special software to run this Google search application."
That may be true now, but will the page still render in upcoming versions of IE?
We can rebuild it. We have the technology.