i don't know - slashdot has been doing almost nothing but talking about our privacy rights in the middle of a deadly serious war, and obviously you're still coming here.
the terrorists, whoever they are, know that they cannot win against a force such as the us. they know that they will be killed and paraded for the world to see.
they also know that this action will necessitate the fact that innocent people will be turned into martyrs, and that the terrorists themselves might be martyred, to some groups which oppose the us.
thus, any action which the us takes which creates more terrorists is a win for the terrorists. any action which gives in to the terrorists would be a win for them. inaction is more of a draw than anything.
therefore, there are two courses of action which i can see.
either we can not kill innocents while extracting the terrorists, who we must have a warrant for, then give them a fair trial
or
we can pull out of the middle east and issue a full apology to all palestinian peoples.
the second, you might think, would be a win for the terrorists, but at this point, it doesn't matter. we've already lost. we can't win this "war on terrorism," just like we can't win the war on drugs. so why not surrender before more lives are lost senselessly?
also, i believe that if we do this, while shoring up our security as best we can, then terrorism won't happen to us. probably way too optimistic for some folk, but i think it'd work.
this is just a bad, bad situation.
at any rate, to refute your claim that to remove civil liberties is not letting the terrorists win, i present the fact that there are people out there like mcveigh who rebel against the fact that government interferes in their lives. less civil liberties will make more of these people. thus the terrorists have won, even if we try bin laden in an international court and give him a fair trial.
doubt they'd kill you. probably just put you in jail.
in fact, as a way to answer your question, i have up on my wall, written (by me) on an american flag:
"under a government which imprisons injustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
-henry david thoreau, "civil disobedience"
i think that the two symbols of freedom together do me worlds of good, when i start thinking that i might let the government get away with taking away any civil liberties.
not that your message isn't received with the most heartfelt thanks, but i think you are overlooking a lot in your beatification of the us.
for example, the cold war and the atrocities perpetuated then. that is, in fact, what most of the problems in the middle east spring from. it is the fact that america blatantly used those people that has made this act possible.
america helps out canada and a lot of other first world countries, but very few third world countries like america, because america doesn't see a need to be civil to them, necessarily.
the us is really horrible sometimes. just don't forget that, please.
the only problem is that when you start thinking for yourself, the corporation's police come for you in the middle of the night in their black helicopters.
there is no conspiracy. it's a toy, for god's sakes.
the idea that hawking is an authority when it comes to human/computer integration simply because he has to use rudimentary aspects of it is like saying that cancer patients are authorities on how cancer develops and replicates.
don't get me wrong - hawking has probably picked up a lot of knowledge when it comes to this topic, but actors who eat pudding pick up a lot on that topic. and i still don't like those actors to tell me which pudding to eat.
Re:Deja Vu all over again
on
$1200 Cheap!
·
· Score: 1
don't say that capitalism failed because people are humane. just say that capitalism failed because people are sheep who can't live up to capitalism.
insightful?
i'm sure that the cygwin people want people to stop using windows. that would really help their user base.
maybe - just maybe - the open source people should make things *for* windows, instead of making them for some os which has very little user base to it. this is what cygwin has done, after all.
but, of course, the open source products would not have the competitive ability of other software (beyond word processing and spreadsheets, which can be handled much, much better than what ms has done) and so they would not be able to get a good market share. better to just program for an os where there is no competition.
there is also the other reason for not making products for windows, which is a desire to see windows crash and burn. that, though, does not leave zealotry aside.
Re:economies of scale and externalities
on
Windows in 2020
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
amusing... the first two replies he gets to the message, you totally agree and suggest as a solution, autonomy, and i totally disagree, but suggest as a solution less government, anyways.
Re:The Great Microsoft Problem
on
Windows in 2020
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
firstly, microsoft does not have a stranglehold on the market. linux exists, mac exists, that is enough to dispell the idea that microsoft will win in the end. there are alternatives - not big ones - and that is all that capitalism can "guarantee".
secondly, microsoft, coke, wotc, rambus, intel - they're all at the top of their respective markets because they give people what they want. they answer demand. in some cases, they create demand through hammering their product over any media outlet 24/7. the point is, however, they give people what they want. i firmly believe that if microsoft was a worse company, it could not retain its hold, nor could it have gotten there in the first place. linux fails in this regard, totally. this is why, until there is a major revision, linux will be by geeks and for geeks. linux does not answer the demand of a large enough audience for it to rival microsoft, but it has been a success in that, i'd guess, at least 80 % people who it is geared for use it.
that point is one i cannot hammer home enough. microsoft provides software that is easy to navigate, an os which is unparallel in simplicity, and the best web browser that i can think of offhand. amd and intel make beautiful chips at low prices. coke and pepsi have good pop. wotc knows how to make games. that is why the list goes on and on, because those companies are unrivaled in the quality that consumers want.
thirdly, the us is not a pure capitalist state, nor is it enough of one to accuse capitalism for bogging us down. the problem we have is government interference - the ability to destroy competitors who improve on your product, for example, is a particularly ugly piece of legislation designed to protect businesses by stifling innovation.
so, all in all, i don't see a problem from here, unless it's the government. the kind of doomsday scenario given in the article will only happen when linux is wiped off the face of the earth, and it won't be. until then, keep using it, keep improving it. ms does not need a patch - it will die, eventually, if it's not what the people want. and if it is what the people want, then who are you to deny them that?
after all, i personally favor letting idiots not wear their seatbelts so that when they crash into something going 60 mph, their stupidity will be removed from this earth.
yes, the wonderful free-market economy. also called laissez-faire, meaning "hands off".
as in, there is no government intervention in a free market economy. this means that nader's actions of trying to punish those search engines is a non-capitalistic action.
besides the fact that there is not necessarily lying taking place here. simply because a link is placed higher in a list does not mean that someone is lying; it simply means that someone is getting a preference by the searching company.
as in: we're going to force these search engines to change, whether it is good for their business or not, whether or not what they're doing is illegal, whether or not it is actually hurting their non-paying customers.
at what point did these businesses come under government control? oh wait, that's right, under the socialist system which everyone believes the united states should be, all businesses are controlled by the government.
you can't argue, or at least i couldn't, that these businesses have some sort of principles to uphold in which they forsake those people who sponsor them and raise up those people who are simply riding on their coattails.
furthermore, it is not as if those offending search engines are excluding any sites - they are merely giving some sites precedence over others. "barrier to entry" indeed.
finally, speaking of that good which you call the fcc - they have taken a public resource in the form of radio waves and, ludicrously, decided to put it under their control. this is socialism - government control of the propaganda machine. this is not your touted democracy. democracy produces businesses that look out for their own interests, as the search engines are doing, and not businesses which seek to appease the fcc.
so many slashdot posters, denouncing someone for defending themself against criticism. and god forbid he return the insults which were delivered to him when his book was reviewed, and in such harsh words. i mean, using all that well-thought out argument was just a little bit harsh, i think.
of course, he shouldn't have been defending himself in the first place anyways. that's just silly. once one has presented one's views, it is ethical to simply allow people to pull them apart without responding to them at all. why should anyone be able to defend anything they do, after all? that's childish. once you've done it, it's done, and you have no right to state your opinion of the critiques of your actions by others.
this just really sickens me, that a forum dedicated to free speech, or at least a forum that pays heavy lip service to it, won't let a person defend what are fairly large insults to his book. you'd think that you all would be a little more accepting.
the bombing of pearl harbor was, even though katz rails the movie for it, one of the defining moments of us history. if not for pearl harbor, the war would've gone very differently for all parties involved, as the united states would not have joined until later.
now, i do not agree with the film's message of lovey doviness, in lieu of actual history, but it's still important to show it. we can't forget our history.
after all, how touching would that scene of peace had been, had pearl harbor never had happened? and how much more touching will it be, to a new generation of idiotic kids who will never understand pearl harbor, because they were able to see ben affleck portray it?
you want movies of peace, but for that, you have to have movies of war. i would like movies that treat important movies as important, instead of fodder for affleck. you have to deal with that, because there's no point in actually having wars, unless people remember them.
representative democracy doesn't work. i think that we all know that (forgive me if this is an incorrect assumption). candidates lie, cheat, and steal, and on the national level, you don't even know 90% of the time.
so, i don't how you can suggest that one should find a candidate to stand behind. state legislators, most of the time, are unwilling and/or unable to enact breathtaking legislation, and the only person with consistent media exposure, the president, doesn't have enough time to listen to everyone's concerns. but, like i said, both lie anyways.
it wouldn't be possible to pull the law out of government, but it seems like the best alternative, to me. then again, as you say, you have to deal with the corruption which underlies business owners and the practices to which they will revert to "force" consumers to buy their products.
in other words, it seems like corruption and getting screwed by the polical or economic system is a given. though, i hate to say that. it seems like there should be some system under which people wouldn't try to cut corners and screw other, decent people.
at any rate, the law, as far as i can tell, isn't changing any time soon. the deck is stacked, and they're holding all the cards anyways. i guess the solution is to go buy a plot of land in montana, grow your own vegetables, and destroy any record the government has of you.
this is one of the cornerstones of the capitalist market. trying to play by non-capitalist rules in a capitalist market is like trying to play baseball when everyone else is playing football. what would you suggest people do? use microsoft, with all its bugs and sheer crap, for ease of use? wouldn't that mean that you were "part of a maching, however . . . useful it is"?
you understand, somehow, that the problem with the capitalist market of today is that consumers can be controlled, that they will buy whatever is put in front of them when they have money in their hands. however, it was not always thus. people used to shop for the best product they could afford. people did not buy a $2000 (or comparable before inflation) item just because it was a fad - they bought it because it would serve them, and serve them well.
however, the reason why this is, which goes beyond people who aren't smart enough not to be controlled, is that the law is on the side of the glutton. people who cannot truly run a business, but can make laws work for them, will be able to make their business survive.
the true fight, as you say, will come through the law, through the destruction of any economic hold the government has. until then, consumers will be controlled. however, refrain from giving anyone any advice beyond that statement, because you're not trying to be capitalist, in our capitalist market.
they're not necessarily bitching about the price of cd's just to justify their actions.
i know that i have bitched, a lot, about how much cd's cost. in fact, if one examines it, it's ludicrous and price-inflated.
my argument, however, which i still stand by, is when i see a cd by a major artist that retails around $5 or $6, i will happily not download any songs from that cd off of napster, and go out and buy it, if i like the artist.
before napster, there was no alternative to getting digital music. now that there is, people can complain, and with a purpose. perhaps if the riaa would listen to those complaints, then napster would not be such a concern.
however, they are choosing to blatantly ignore their consumer base, which is a bad idea. the reason that they're doing it, though, is the fact that, before napster, they grew used to telling people what they liked, instead of having terms dictated to them, which is the correct model for consumer interaction.
but it doesn't matter anyways, because the government is stepping in to protect the rights of the businesses from the big, bad consumers. admittedly, they're resolving the problem because it's a copyright issue, but it is more than that. the riaa could've done this themselves, if they truly had their survival as the bottom line.
Slashdot Mirror
i don't know - slashdot has been doing almost nothing but talking about our privacy rights in the middle of a deadly serious war, and obviously you're still coming here.
go with the idea that quatrain 33 of nostradamus' century 6 speaks of the antichrist - it's much more disturbing that way.
the terrorists, whoever they are, know that they cannot win against a force such as the us. they know that they will be killed and paraded for the world to see.
they also know that this action will necessitate the fact that innocent people will be turned into martyrs, and that the terrorists themselves might be martyred, to some groups which oppose the us.
thus, any action which the us takes which creates more terrorists is a win for the terrorists. any action which gives in to the terrorists would be a win for them. inaction is more of a draw than anything.
therefore, there are two courses of action which i can see.
either we can not kill innocents while extracting the terrorists, who we must have a warrant for, then give them a fair trial
or
we can pull out of the middle east and issue a full apology to all palestinian peoples.
the second, you might think, would be a win for the terrorists, but at this point, it doesn't matter. we've already lost. we can't win this "war on terrorism," just like we can't win the war on drugs. so why not surrender before more lives are lost senselessly?
also, i believe that if we do this, while shoring up our security as best we can, then terrorism won't happen to us. probably way too optimistic for some folk, but i think it'd work.
this is just a bad, bad situation.
at any rate, to refute your claim that to remove civil liberties is not letting the terrorists win, i present the fact that there are people out there like mcveigh who rebel against the fact that government interferes in their lives. less civil liberties will make more of these people. thus the terrorists have won, even if we try bin laden in an international court and give him a fair trial.
doubt they'd kill you. probably just put you in jail.
in fact, as a way to answer your question, i have up on my wall, written (by me) on an american flag:
"under a government which imprisons injustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
-henry david thoreau, "civil disobedience"
i think that the two symbols of freedom together do me worlds of good, when i start thinking that i might let the government get away with taking away any civil liberties.
informative? i suppose it gives a good picture of what the normal person's viewpoints are and the obvious fallacies contained therein.
tool?!? intolerance? it's about not trusting someone who has betrayed you lots. maybe they're just reacting to the name.
they should be banning prison sex, though (a song by tool, not the act). but no, anal rape is good, and intolerance is horrid.
it's a fine line we walk, when we determine what we should and shouldn't sing about.
not that your message isn't received with the most heartfelt thanks, but i think you are overlooking a lot in your beatification of the us.
for example, the cold war and the atrocities perpetuated then. that is, in fact, what most of the problems in the middle east spring from. it is the fact that america blatantly used those people that has made this act possible.
america helps out canada and a lot of other first world countries, but very few third world countries like america, because america doesn't see a need to be civil to them, necessarily.
the us is really horrible sometimes. just don't forget that, please.
the only problem is that when you start thinking for yourself, the corporation's police come for you in the middle of the night in their black helicopters.
there is no conspiracy. it's a toy, for god's sakes.
yeah, and we all know how bad the storylines in those MUSHes are..
the idea that hawking is an authority when it comes to human/computer integration simply because he has to use rudimentary aspects of it is like saying that cancer patients are authorities on how cancer develops and replicates.
don't get me wrong - hawking has probably picked up a lot of knowledge when it comes to this topic, but actors who eat pudding pick up a lot on that topic. and i still don't like those actors to tell me which pudding to eat.
don't say that capitalism failed because people are humane. just say that capitalism failed because people are sheep who can't live up to capitalism.
insightful? i'm sure that the cygwin people want people to stop using windows. that would really help their user base. maybe - just maybe - the open source people should make things *for* windows, instead of making them for some os which has very little user base to it. this is what cygwin has done, after all. but, of course, the open source products would not have the competitive ability of other software (beyond word processing and spreadsheets, which can be handled much, much better than what ms has done) and so they would not be able to get a good market share. better to just program for an os where there is no competition. there is also the other reason for not making products for windows, which is a desire to see windows crash and burn. that, though, does not leave zealotry aside.
amusing... the first two replies he gets to the message, you totally agree and suggest as a solution, autonomy, and i totally disagree, but suggest as a solution less government, anyways.
firstly, microsoft does not have a stranglehold on the market. linux exists, mac exists, that is enough to dispell the idea that microsoft will win in the end. there are alternatives - not big ones - and that is all that capitalism can "guarantee".
secondly, microsoft, coke, wotc, rambus, intel - they're all at the top of their respective markets because they give people what they want. they answer demand. in some cases, they create demand through hammering their product over any media outlet 24/7. the point is, however, they give people what they want. i firmly believe that if microsoft was a worse company, it could not retain its hold, nor could it have gotten there in the first place. linux fails in this regard, totally. this is why, until there is a major revision, linux will be by geeks and for geeks. linux does not answer the demand of a large enough audience for it to rival microsoft, but it has been a success in that, i'd guess, at least 80 % people who it is geared for use it.
that point is one i cannot hammer home enough. microsoft provides software that is easy to navigate, an os which is unparallel in simplicity, and the best web browser that i can think of offhand. amd and intel make beautiful chips at low prices. coke and pepsi have good pop. wotc knows how to make games. that is why the list goes on and on, because those companies are unrivaled in the quality that consumers want.
thirdly, the us is not a pure capitalist state, nor is it enough of one to accuse capitalism for bogging us down. the problem we have is government interference - the ability to destroy competitors who improve on your product, for example, is a particularly ugly piece of legislation designed to protect businesses by stifling innovation.
so, all in all, i don't see a problem from here, unless it's the government. the kind of doomsday scenario given in the article will only happen when linux is wiped off the face of the earth, and it won't be. until then, keep using it, keep improving it. ms does not need a patch - it will die, eventually, if it's not what the people want. and if it is what the people want, then who are you to deny them that?
after all, i personally favor letting idiots not wear their seatbelts so that when they crash into something going 60 mph, their stupidity will be removed from this earth.
no, no, no... attack of the 15 year-old clones.
they're not really competing if the government is cutting the legs out from microsoft, now are they?
yes, the wonderful free-market economy. also called laissez-faire, meaning "hands off".
as in, there is no government intervention in a free market economy. this means that nader's actions of trying to punish those search engines is a non-capitalistic action.
besides the fact that there is not necessarily lying taking place here. simply because a link is placed higher in a list does not mean that someone is lying; it simply means that someone is getting a preference by the searching company.
as in: we're going to force these search engines to change, whether it is good for their business or not, whether or not what they're doing is illegal, whether or not it is actually hurting their non-paying customers.
at what point did these businesses come under government control? oh wait, that's right, under the socialist system which everyone believes the united states should be, all businesses are controlled by the government.
you can't argue, or at least i couldn't, that these businesses have some sort of principles to uphold in which they forsake those people who sponsor them and raise up those people who are simply riding on their coattails.
furthermore, it is not as if those offending search engines are excluding any sites - they are merely giving some sites precedence over others. "barrier to entry" indeed.
finally, speaking of that good which you call the fcc - they have taken a public resource in the form of radio waves and, ludicrously, decided to put it under their control. this is socialism - government control of the propaganda machine. this is not your touted democracy. democracy produces businesses that look out for their own interests, as the search engines are doing, and not businesses which seek to appease the fcc.
so many slashdot posters, denouncing someone for defending themself against criticism. and god forbid he return the insults which were delivered to him when his book was reviewed, and in such harsh words. i mean, using all that well-thought out argument was just a little bit harsh, i think.
of course, he shouldn't have been defending himself in the first place anyways. that's just silly. once one has presented one's views, it is ethical to simply allow people to pull them apart without responding to them at all. why should anyone be able to defend anything they do, after all? that's childish. once you've done it, it's done, and you have no right to state your opinion of the critiques of your actions by others.
this just really sickens me, that a forum dedicated to free speech, or at least a forum that pays heavy lip service to it, won't let a person defend what are fairly large insults to his book. you'd think that you all would be a little more accepting.
the bombing of pearl harbor was, even though katz rails the movie for it, one of the defining moments of us history. if not for pearl harbor, the war would've gone very differently for all parties involved, as the united states would not have joined until later.
now, i do not agree with the film's message of lovey doviness, in lieu of actual history, but it's still important to show it. we can't forget our history.
after all, how touching would that scene of peace had been, had pearl harbor never had happened? and how much more touching will it be, to a new generation of idiotic kids who will never understand pearl harbor, because they were able to see ben affleck portray it?
you want movies of peace, but for that, you have to have movies of war. i would like movies that treat important movies as important, instead of fodder for affleck. you have to deal with that, because there's no point in actually having wars, unless people remember them.
representative democracy doesn't work. i think that we all know that (forgive me if this is an incorrect assumption). candidates lie, cheat, and steal, and on the national level, you don't even know 90% of the time.
so, i don't how you can suggest that one should find a candidate to stand behind. state legislators, most of the time, are unwilling and/or unable to enact breathtaking legislation, and the only person with consistent media exposure, the president, doesn't have enough time to listen to everyone's concerns. but, like i said, both lie anyways.
it wouldn't be possible to pull the law out of government, but it seems like the best alternative, to me. then again, as you say, you have to deal with the corruption which underlies business owners and the practices to which they will revert to "force" consumers to buy their products.
in other words, it seems like corruption and getting screwed by the polical or economic system is a given. though, i hate to say that. it seems like there should be some system under which people wouldn't try to cut corners and screw other, decent people.
at any rate, the law, as far as i can tell, isn't changing any time soon. the deck is stacked, and they're holding all the cards anyways. i guess the solution is to go buy a plot of land in montana, grow your own vegetables, and destroy any record the government has of you.
"Don't take your business elsewhere."?
this is one of the cornerstones of the capitalist market. trying to play by non-capitalist rules in a capitalist market is like trying to play baseball when everyone else is playing football. what would you suggest people do? use microsoft, with all its bugs and sheer crap, for ease of use? wouldn't that mean that you were "part of a maching, however . . . useful it is"?
you understand, somehow, that the problem with the capitalist market of today is that consumers can be controlled, that they will buy whatever is put in front of them when they have money in their hands. however, it was not always thus. people used to shop for the best product they could afford. people did not buy a $2000 (or comparable before inflation) item just because it was a fad - they bought it because it would serve them, and serve them well.
however, the reason why this is, which goes beyond people who aren't smart enough not to be controlled, is that the law is on the side of the glutton. people who cannot truly run a business, but can make laws work for them, will be able to make their business survive.
the true fight, as you say, will come through the law, through the destruction of any economic hold the government has. until then, consumers will be controlled. however, refrain from giving anyone any advice beyond that statement, because you're not trying to be capitalist, in our capitalist market.
your answer is... the us is nowhere near free market and getting worse because of all the new laws which regulate the economy.
ah, but there is another facet of the capitalist system which you are missing - the ability to create your own toy, with your own rules.
they're not necessarily bitching about the price of cd's just to justify their actions.
i know that i have bitched, a lot, about how much cd's cost. in fact, if one examines it, it's ludicrous and price-inflated.
my argument, however, which i still stand by, is when i see a cd by a major artist that retails around $5 or $6, i will happily not download any songs from that cd off of napster, and go out and buy it, if i like the artist.
before napster, there was no alternative to getting digital music. now that there is, people can complain, and with a purpose. perhaps if the riaa would listen to those complaints, then napster would not be such a concern.
however, they are choosing to blatantly ignore their consumer base, which is a bad idea. the reason that they're doing it, though, is the fact that, before napster, they grew used to telling people what they liked, instead of having terms dictated to them, which is the correct model for consumer interaction.
but it doesn't matter anyways, because the government is stepping in to protect the rights of the businesses from the big, bad consumers. admittedly, they're resolving the problem because it's a copyright issue, but it is more than that. the riaa could've done this themselves, if they truly had their survival as the bottom line.