Shame on me:) Tho I don't believe there was any 9/11 conspiracy among our Glorious Leaders. As to what unscrupulous security-theatre startups are willing to do when they see people becoming annoyed rather than more-fearful... that's another matter, and 9/11 simply gave opportunity to snake-oil salesmen who otherwise would be on some other, uh, stage.
I meant so that the "staged" aspect of any such incident didn't come out. This would be a FAKED "terrorist" as advertising. If you don't catch 'em, you can't ask 'em who hired 'em.
The more we do shit like this, the easier it will be for the aliens to take over. They'll just need to introduce themselves as being from the TSA, and we'll do whatever they tell us to.
Before you sit down, flop your coat over the back of the seat, as if you don't know of any reason why you shouldn't. If everyone does this, you're all covered.
"...some people are sufficiently scared of flying to accept surveilance there"
That's an awfully good point. When you already have nervousness it's easy to turn it into outright fear, and from there to the demand for protection. And once the fear/protection cycle is the norm in one venue, it's real easy for it to leak into other aspects of our lives.
Would people accept the same sort of security theatre before they're allowed to drive on the public byways? No?? then why should an airplane be any different??
Would you put it past some of the security contractors to stage a "terrorist" (who conveniently escapes, so there's no messy trial for facts to come out at) to demonstrate the "need" for even more security theatre??
Remember a few weeks ago when the topic here was some new law (I forget where) that made WRITTEN kiddie porn illegal! (No pictures were harmed, let alone real children!)
So... CP cartoons and CP as the written word are already illegal in some venues; what's next, even *discussing* it??
(Is ASCII art legally an "image" or "writing"??)
What about pictures of sex with a pregnant woman -- is the fetus a participant, therefore making that kiddie porn??
I think there's something more fundamentally awry here, that happens whenever a law moves from "You may not DO this" to "You may not POSSESS this", and thence to (as best they can enforce it) "You may not THINK this", which in the minds of law enforcement, progressively makes DEED and POSSESSION and THOUGHT equivalently evil.
Hmm. So a CGI still or film would be a "pseudo-photograph".
This is a problem if the defining point where it's "kiddie porn" is "when we can't readily tell if it's real or not". Which is why the only valid definition HAS to be "REAL kids were involved, with REAL abuse". (Meaning that photoshopping innocent kid pics to look like porn should not be a crime either.)
If fictional depictions of kiddie porn are illegal, then fictional depictions of murder should also be illegal. There is no philosophical or practical difference.
A wise AC says, "Expression of vile ideas, is both forewarning and proof of freedom. The inability to recognize the difference is ignorance, and the first step towards tragedy."
And it seems we've become a society that, through overprotection preventing us from growing up, is so pervasively immature that it cannot distinguish between vile ideas, and vile acts.
It occurs to me that with synthetic images, it would be very easy to take adult actors and make them LOOK like children -- just crunch the aspect ratio vertically and you'd get an apparent height/weight ratio that approximates an immature human form.
In that case, where is the crime? The actors are all adults. Which children were harmed by this?
The extensibility of such a law is troubling as well -- even tho in all cases, no harm came to any actual persons. Witness:
Drawings of kiddie porn == child pornographer Drawings of explosions == terrorist Drawings of dead bodies == mass murderer Drawings of people smoking pot == drug dealer Drawings of race cars == street-racing speeder
etc, etc, etc. You can see how it could readily devolve to the ridiculous.
"By rights, there should be no harm, no foul when it comes to images if (a)no children were actually physically assaulted or harmed (as in the underwear images above), or (b)no actual sexual activity is depicted, or (c)the individuals involved are actually 18+, or (d)the individuals depicted do not actually exist (as in computer or manually generated art). In all of these cases, no actual child was in any way harmed or sexually assaulted."
These are good criteria for any law about any behaviour. Good law: does it address a REAL harm *directly* affecting REAL people? Bad Law: does it presuppose that harm necessarily follows from imagining or depicting said harm??
Since Friday morning I've been unable to post as myself. Login for article/comment pages simply doesn't work, and the automatic login (thru a bookmark/cookie) only works with the front page. I try to log in, and it just spits me back to the AC page with a login box. Login only works on a PER COMMENT basis. Who the hell wants to have to log in and screw with the captcha for each and every comment?
This has happened before, but those incidents never persisted more than a few hours. We're now on Day 5 of this problem.
I know... but one cannot force opening up of even the bogus cults without, in fairness, forcing the same on the "real" religions. (With "real" defined as at least founded on ideals, rather than on scams.)
ISTM the best deterrant would probably be financial -- a high tax rate imposed on all church income that is not then spent on some form of charity work, in keeping with the ideals espoused by said religion. No building up huge war chests!
"My opinion is that you should be able to have a religion, or copyright, but never both."
That's an interesting insight. And at first it sounds good, but when I think about it... maybe not. Should religion be required to be "open source"?? some religions (not just cults) rely on the concept of "mysteries" and would be, uh, fundamentally damaged by their mysteries being opened to all.
As a related issue, should the concept of "Freedom of religion" have an inverse, in that religions cannot be free to reject anyone? (I don't think so; that would be much like the Boy Scouts not being able to reject someone from membership.)
Back to what you said... I'm wondering where you draw the line, tho -- copyrights on material BY a religious organisation? BY individuals about or from within that religion?
So... while I like the idea, it opens cans of worms hitherto not dreamed of, and could be worse than the existing situation. OTOH, that any organisation claiming tax-exempt status *as* a "religion" may hold copyrights but is NOT be allowed to use copyright as a weapon (ie. may not prosecute anyone for infringement) -- I'd go along with that, since it would allow FULL and open examination of their beliefs in the full light of public day, without fear of reprisal. (And yes, there'd be acrimonious and negative statements made; so what? Why should religion be exempt from receiving "bad reviews", well-founded or not?)
Disclaimer: I'm somewhere between agnostic and atheist, and I don't *care* about others' religious beliefs so long as they don't impinge on ME.
Because (ignoring the perils of censorship for the moment) it's better to see what the bad guys are about than to not have that info at all. If they make themselves look ridiculous, so much the better. Even if they make themselves look good, it gives the opposition that much more ammunition, since now they can compare and contrast bad-guy's promotional video against known reality.
Also, a site used by professionals simply won't have the huge volume of unfounded and tinfoil-hat opinion that you see in open-discussion forums, *regardless* of the subject and *regardless* of whether either is pro-whatever or con-whatever. It's that way everywhere. And if a professional forum is opened to every wild-assed opinion that flames by, it soon becomes useless to those professionals for whom time is money.
So... while I am against censorship in principle (and absolutely against it when it is *government mandated*), this doesn't mean that a privately-owned site should be forced to allow every post that comes down the pipe. It merely needs to be consistent.
Damn, I never thought of that one... I was still toting around that stupid meatbased arm!!
Seriously, that's another limb that could conceivably use a spring-loaded or motor-driven replacement. Imagine a baseball coming at you at 300mph. Doesn't matter if it's a ball or a strike, you ain't gonna be anywhere NEAR that plate when it goes past, at least not if you have a shred of self-preservation instinct.
California has a generally lower-education level than the midwest; there are some good by-state numbers (broken down by city/town) on most of the individual entries on city-data.com, and I think they peel 'em out of the Census Bureau's data.
I first noticed CA's dearth of usedbook stores long before the real estate boom, back as far as 1981 (when I spent a month around Sacramento; a year later I spent a month in L.A. and San Diego, and noticed the same thing there -- when I travel, I actively hunt for usedbook stores). At that point, R.E. here was not significantly higher than elsewhere. Moved here in 1984 and it hasn't changed much -- there are a small fraction as many usedbook stores per capita as anywhere in the midwest (including podunk farm towns). Seems to be roughly 1 per 300K people here; about 1 per 20K people in the midwest (and bigger, vastly busier stores at that).
And yeah, for many people, the L.A. County system is fine, but in Montana I was used to a MUCH wider selection via a MUCH better interlibrary loan system. There, only once was I EVER unable to get in a book I wanted. Here, I can only get in about 10% of the books I want. I was truly shocked by this -- the LACO system spends gobs more money and offers far less?!! Unfortunately, it hasn't improved any in the years I've been here.:(
I agree... level playing field is necessary here. Otherwise, you might as well declare everyone winners and get it over with.
Prosthetics cover a lot of different ground, and will continue to improve as science marches onward. Eventually they will *routinely* outperform many natural body functions. Should today's precedent apply then? if not, where do you draw the line? (as I said above, when a natural part is replaced seems a good point.)
And how is this different from weight classes in boxing? Or should we let heavyweights and bantamweights compete with each other?? No, of course not -- we start by segregating into classes of approximately equal potential, here by the simple method of body mass.
I see no difference between this, and segregating the naturally-able-bodied from the formerly-disabled-now-cyber-bodied, and likewise segregating both from the still-disabled.
(I can't call someone who can outrun me "disabled" with a straight face, or a good conscience for that matter.)
And what qualifies as an "artificial replacement"? I can see this being extended far beyond the obvious implications of cybernetics. Frex, what about a glucose pump, to ensure that your muscles never get tired? What about an oxygen fitting, to ensure than you never run short of breath? In this case, we have artificial feet, which never get tired -- what's the difference??
Some years ago I saw a TV special on another guy with these spring-loaded artificial limbs. He could outrun an able-bodied person, with these huge boingy strides. I immediately wished for the same tech in footgear for the intact limb, which frankly shouldn't be too hard to develop -- rather, it surprises me that it hasn't been done yet; it would be VERY marketable to kids! Doesn't every kid wish for a pair of Seven-League Boots?:)
At any rate, if this goes ahead, it will prove to me that the Olympics, which have already long since devolved into a commercial circus, have now descended to the basest depths of Political Correctness.
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Shame on me :) Tho I don't believe there was any 9/11 conspiracy among our Glorious Leaders. As to what unscrupulous security-theatre startups are willing to do when they see people becoming annoyed rather than more-fearful... that's another matter, and 9/11 simply gave opportunity to snake-oil salesmen who otherwise would be on some other, uh, stage.
I meant so that the "staged" aspect of any such incident didn't come out. This would be a FAKED "terrorist" as advertising. If you don't catch 'em, you can't ask 'em who hired 'em.
The more we do shit like this, the easier it will be for the aliens to take over. They'll just need to introduce themselves as being from the TSA, and we'll do whatever they tell us to.
Before you sit down, flop your coat over the back of the seat, as if you don't know of any reason why you shouldn't. If everyone does this, you're all covered.
Sure -- if the attendants are armed, no problem.
Good idea. But what about the OTHER camera in the seatback, the one designed to catch ass-scratchers??
;)
Hmm. I have an idea for how to deal with that one too.
"...some people are sufficiently scared of flying to accept surveilance there"
That's an awfully good point. When you already have nervousness it's easy to turn it into outright fear, and from there to the demand for protection. And once the fear/protection cycle is the norm in one venue, it's real easy for it to leak into other aspects of our lives.
Would people accept the same sort of security theatre before they're allowed to drive on the public byways? No?? then why should an airplane be any different??
Would you put it past some of the security contractors to stage a "terrorist" (who conveniently escapes, so there's no messy trial for facts to come out at) to demonstrate the "need" for even more security theatre??
If I can think of it, surely they can as well...
Remember a few weeks ago when the topic here was some new law (I forget where) that made WRITTEN kiddie porn illegal! (No pictures were harmed, let alone real children!)
So... CP cartoons and CP as the written word are already illegal in some venues; what's next, even *discussing* it??
(Is ASCII art legally an "image" or "writing"??)
What about pictures of sex with a pregnant woman -- is the fetus a participant, therefore making that kiddie porn??
I think there's something more fundamentally awry here, that happens whenever a law moves from "You may not DO this" to "You may not POSSESS this", and thence to (as best they can enforce it) "You may not THINK this", which in the minds of law enforcement, progressively makes DEED and POSSESSION and THOUGHT equivalently evil.
Hmm. So a CGI still or film would be a "pseudo-photograph".
This is a problem if the defining point where it's "kiddie porn" is "when we can't readily tell if it's real or not". Which is why the only valid definition HAS to be "REAL kids were involved, with REAL abuse". (Meaning that photoshopping innocent kid pics to look like porn should not be a crime either.)
If fictional depictions of kiddie porn are illegal, then fictional depictions of murder should also be illegal. There is no philosophical or practical difference.
A wise AC says, "Expression of vile ideas, is both forewarning and proof of freedom. The inability to recognize the difference is ignorance, and the first step towards tragedy."
And it seems we've become a society that, through overprotection preventing us from growing up, is so pervasively immature that it cannot distinguish between vile ideas, and vile acts.
It occurs to me that with synthetic images, it would be very easy to take adult actors and make them LOOK like children -- just crunch the aspect ratio vertically and you'd get an apparent height/weight ratio that approximates an immature human form.
In that case, where is the crime? The actors are all adults. Which children were harmed by this?
What the heck IS a "psuedo-photograph"???
The extensibility of such a law is troubling as well -- even tho in all cases, no harm came to any actual persons. Witness:
Drawings of kiddie porn == child pornographer
Drawings of explosions == terrorist
Drawings of dead bodies == mass murderer
Drawings of people smoking pot == drug dealer
Drawings of race cars == street-racing speeder
etc, etc, etc. You can see how it could readily devolve to the ridiculous.
"By rights, there should be no harm, no foul when it comes to images if (a)no children were actually physically assaulted or harmed (as in the underwear images above), or (b)no actual sexual activity is depicted, or (c)the individuals involved are actually 18+, or (d)the individuals depicted do not actually exist (as in computer or manually generated art). In all of these cases, no actual child was in any way harmed or sexually assaulted."
These are good criteria for any law about any behaviour. Good law: does it address a REAL harm *directly* affecting REAL people? Bad Law: does it presuppose that harm necessarily follows from imagining or depicting said harm??
...does that make me a terrorist?
Do any real people get killed because I draw pictures of explosions??
It's the exact same thing as making *fictional* kiddie porn illegal: a *representation* of something is being equated with *the real thing*.
As I've said numerous times -- how is this not Thought Crime??
Does this change explain my problems here?
Since Friday morning I've been unable to post as myself. Login for article/comment pages simply doesn't work, and the automatic login (thru a bookmark/cookie) only works with the front page. I try to log in, and it just spits me back to the AC page with a login box. Login only works on a PER COMMENT basis. Who the hell wants to have to log in and screw with the captcha for each and every comment?
This has happened before, but those incidents never persisted more than a few hours. We're now on Day 5 of this problem.
I know... but one cannot force opening up of even the bogus cults without, in fairness, forcing the same on the "real" religions. (With "real" defined as at least founded on ideals, rather than on scams.)
ISTM the best deterrant would probably be financial -- a high tax rate imposed on all church income that is not then spent on some form of charity work, in keeping with the ideals espoused by said religion. No building up huge war chests!
"My opinion is that you should be able to have a religion, or copyright, but never both."
That's an interesting insight. And at first it sounds good, but when I think about it... maybe not. Should religion be required to be "open source"?? some religions (not just cults) rely on the concept of "mysteries" and would be, uh, fundamentally damaged by their mysteries being opened to all.
As a related issue, should the concept of "Freedom of religion" have an inverse, in that religions cannot be free to reject anyone? (I don't think so; that would be much like the Boy Scouts not being able to reject someone from membership.)
Back to what you said... I'm wondering where you draw the line, tho -- copyrights on material BY a religious organisation? BY individuals about or from within that religion?
So... while I like the idea, it opens cans of worms hitherto not dreamed of, and could be worse than the existing situation. OTOH, that any organisation claiming tax-exempt status *as* a "religion" may hold copyrights but is NOT be allowed to use copyright as a weapon (ie. may not prosecute anyone for infringement) -- I'd go along with that, since it would allow FULL and open examination of their beliefs in the full light of public day, without fear of reprisal. (And yes, there'd be acrimonious and negative statements made; so what? Why should religion be exempt from receiving "bad reviews", well-founded or not?)
Disclaimer: I'm somewhere between agnostic and atheist, and I don't *care* about others' religious beliefs so long as they don't impinge on ME.
Because (ignoring the perils of censorship for the moment) it's better to see what the bad guys are about than to not have that info at all. If they make themselves look ridiculous, so much the better. Even if they make themselves look good, it gives the opposition that much more ammunition, since now they can compare and contrast bad-guy's promotional video against known reality.
Also, a site used by professionals simply won't have the huge volume of unfounded and tinfoil-hat opinion that you see in open-discussion forums, *regardless* of the subject and *regardless* of whether either is pro-whatever or con-whatever. It's that way everywhere. And if a professional forum is opened to every wild-assed opinion that flames by, it soon becomes useless to those professionals for whom time is money.
So... while I am against censorship in principle (and absolutely against it when it is *government mandated*), this doesn't mean that a privately-owned site should be forced to allow every post that comes down the pipe. It merely needs to be consistent.
Damn, I never thought of that one... I was still toting around that stupid meatbased arm!!
Seriously, that's another limb that could conceivably use a spring-loaded or motor-driven replacement. Imagine a baseball coming at you at 300mph. Doesn't matter if it's a ball or a strike, you ain't gonna be anywhere NEAR that plate when it goes past, at least not if you have a shred of self-preservation instinct.
California has a generally lower-education level than the midwest; there are some good by-state numbers (broken down by city/town) on most of the individual entries on city-data.com, and I think they peel 'em out of the Census Bureau's data.
:(
I first noticed CA's dearth of usedbook stores long before the real estate boom, back as far as 1981 (when I spent a month around Sacramento; a year later I spent a month in L.A. and San Diego, and noticed the same thing there -- when I travel, I actively hunt for usedbook stores). At that point, R.E. here was not significantly higher than elsewhere. Moved here in 1984 and it hasn't changed much -- there are a small fraction as many usedbook stores per capita as anywhere in the midwest (including podunk farm towns). Seems to be roughly 1 per 300K people here; about 1 per 20K people in the midwest (and bigger, vastly busier stores at that).
And yeah, for many people, the L.A. County system is fine, but in Montana I was used to a MUCH wider selection via a MUCH better interlibrary loan system. There, only once was I EVER unable to get in a book I wanted. Here, I can only get in about 10% of the books I want. I was truly shocked by this -- the LACO system spends gobs more money and offers far less?!! Unfortunately, it hasn't improved any in the years I've been here.
I agree... level playing field is necessary here. Otherwise, you might as well declare everyone winners and get it over with.
Prosthetics cover a lot of different ground, and will continue to improve as science marches onward. Eventually they will *routinely* outperform many natural body functions. Should today's precedent apply then? if not, where do you draw the line? (as I said above, when a natural part is replaced seems a good point.)
And how is this different from weight classes in boxing? Or should we let heavyweights and bantamweights compete with each other?? No, of course not -- we start by segregating into classes of approximately equal potential, here by the simple method of body mass.
I see no difference between this, and segregating the naturally-able-bodied from the formerly-disabled-now-cyber-bodied, and likewise segregating both from the still-disabled.
(I can't call someone who can outrun me "disabled" with a straight face, or a good conscience for that matter.)
And what qualifies as an "artificial replacement"?
:)
I can see this being extended far beyond the obvious implications of cybernetics. Frex, what about a glucose pump, to ensure that your muscles never get tired? What about an oxygen fitting, to ensure than you never run short of breath? In this case, we have artificial feet, which never get tired -- what's the difference??
Some years ago I saw a TV special on another guy with these spring-loaded artificial limbs. He could outrun an able-bodied person, with these huge boingy strides. I immediately wished for the same tech in footgear for the intact limb, which frankly shouldn't be too hard to develop -- rather, it surprises me that it hasn't been done yet; it would be VERY marketable to kids! Doesn't every kid wish for a pair of Seven-League Boots?
At any rate, if this goes ahead, it will prove to me that the Olympics, which have already long since devolved into a commercial circus, have now descended to the basest depths of Political Correctness.