Of course, there would be. That's like claiming, it would be impossible to develop Geometry without slavery, just because slavery was inevitable step in human history that preceded geometry and created conditions for its development. "Free market" and all related ideas belong in the same place where slavery is now.
In public? At whatever time when "cavemen" (that's a pretty broad definition of a period in human history) had the concept of public speech to begin with?
"Free speech" as it is proclaimed, applies to, and only to public speech. It was either extremely difficult or heavily regulated for various reasons everywhere, over the whole history of mankind, with exceptions I have described.
Please note that even Wikileaks people claim that they engage in protected free speech because they speak to the public. If they distributed the same information privately, their actions would be clearly espionage.
actually i think that a lot of those scenarios you mention would be in violation of other statutes, so while you may be free to say things, the consequences of what you say may result in criminal charges (such as "unmarked advertisement for known-dangerous products" most likely being in violation of OH&S laws).
No, it only would cover people who produced the product and ordered the advertisement. As far as I know, those who marketed and advertised it, no matter how complicit, are safe. It's also possible that allowing distribution of a dangerous product serves the interests of society (ex: alcohol, tobacco), but advertisement and promotion of its use causes nothing but harm and there is no excuse for allowing it other than "right to profit" or similar nonsense. In US all (ineffective) restrictions on alcohol advertisement come from alcohol producers themselves, tobacco restrictions only happened after massive embarrassment, and no one was ever punished for advertising those products before such advertisement was explicitly banned. The last part is very important -- one would expect that in a sane legal system, knowingly causing death and diseases by conspiring to deceive hundreds of millions of people would cause some penalty all by itself.
some people are stupid enough to think that "free speech" is the be all and end all, but they don't realize that its still possible for your mouth to write cheques that your body can't cash.
In some situations -- when particular person suffered immediate damage, and it happens to fall under very narrowly defined libel/fraud/..., and the person was willing to gamble on a civil lawsuit against people and organizations hundreds of thousands to tens of millions times richer than he is -- existing law "works". However interests of the public, ones that are supposed to be protected by criminal law, still can not trump the sanctity of "free speech".
And here is the problem, wealthy people and organizations are already in the constant state of being sued, and it does not hurt them a single bit. Even if it was possible to sue a newspaper for deception of the public, and win such a lawsuit, it would not cause sufficiently public-visible correction, and can not discourage future deception.
Without "freedom of speech" proclaimed in such absolute manner, it would be possible to have a recourse for extreme and willful acts of betrayal of the public -- such as forced cease of operations and dissolution of the publishing company, criminal charges for individuals involved, etc. There are many situations -- war propaganda on false premises, misrepresentation of laws being placed on a public referendum, false announcement of voting times and locations, inciting violence and discrimination toward groups of people, unmarked advertisement for known-dangerous products, etc. when consequences are so extreme, they warrant response of this extent. But noooooo, Americans believe that just because it may provide yet another way of targeting innocent people (to join thousands of already existing ways to do it more effectively), the right to lie to the public must be preserved.
I am pretty sure, the concepts of a "pamphlet" or "journalism" were not invented yet, and wouldn't for literally millennia after that.
Greece, and later Rome, relied on speeches, debates and art performances made in person. Only few people, usually ones constantly in contact with power structure, were sufficiently skilled in then-accepted forms of public speech and debates, and fewer could afford any sustained effort of in-person organization of opposition to the prevailing power structures and position. Most debates were in a form of blatant psychological manipulation/demagoguery that was far beyond the skills of a common person, and usually achieved anything but promotion of the good of the public.
The idea of "free speech" was meaningless in such environment because there was no effective way of preventing orators from speaking to begin with -- demagogues virtually owned the government and in their turn were owned by wealthy elite. If anything, there was not enough of those people to fulfill the demand for them.
Needless to say, all such systems, without an exception, eventually were replaced with monarchies -- either foreign conquerors exploiting their weaknesses, or through locally developed coups. Monarchies set in their place, relied on strict and unchangeable hierarchy of aristocracy, and did not tolerate any challenge, by words or action. Please note that it was still long before the invention of mass distribution of written word, printing press and journalism -- the only way to create an effective opposition was to assemble a group of aristocrats and kill the current ruler. Public speech had very little to do with it,
Moderm idea of "free speech" owes its existence to the situation created much, much later around 18th century in Europe. Power structures, still in the framework of monarchy, were ready to be influenced by a small number of educated people. "Masses" consisted of a huge, huge numbers of illiterate peasants scattered over vast stretches of land. The only way to speak to those masses beyond a small group, is to be a church official in control of priests, the only kind of people capable of delivering propaganda in any effective manner. For everyone else, talking to masses would be a ridiculous waste of time, and likely a danger of being proclaimed a blasphemer by the above mentioned priests. Masses were not the target.
On the other hand, aristocracy was literate, at some extent educated, and directly a part of the political system. Any better-educated person who somehow gained access to those people's ears, can influence their decision. Book publishing exists, and since 15th century it is possible for a reasonably wealthy person who really, really wants to say something, to write a book once, and get it picked up by each and every aristocrat in the area that shares the writer's language. Of those, most convincing authors will shape the thought of aristocrats at least at comparable extent as the church (that has separate and privileged access to all of them).
Here is the problem -- there are too few authors, and opinion expresses by one may disproportionally affect decisions made absolutely everywhere, just because every aristocrat has the same books and usually is receptive to the same kinds of expression as everyone else on his level of hierarchy. Authors don't compete for attention as much with each other as with readers' boredom and church or upper layers of government who by then developed a habit of banning books that pissed someone off. Lucky writers won't create fads that last for a year -- there are no fads, commonly accepted ideas and tastes shift at the scale of decades, not months. Influences are lasting. And the key word is luck -- there is no quality control, just ideas expressed in a way that is more attractive or less attractive to the aristocrats who in their turn have very little diversity among their peers and will be receptive to the same things.
In this environment, there is one great solution to increase the quality of decision-m
The trend is to train MS Office jockeys as wannabe print media artists, and let them make web pages as a combination of Photoshop and copypasta from tutorial sites. This is worse, not better.
The problem is not that it's unpleasant, you moron!
The problem is, it makes everyone misinformed and stupid. If someone intends to recognize a right to free speech, he must place it below the right of the public to not be lied to by "protected" shills and crooks. Currently the law only allows to challenge speech that specifically causes someone to lose money or something of monetary value, however the rights of the public are completely ignored. Until this is fixed, "free speech" is nothing but protection for crooks.
Freedom of speech is a human concept, not a western concept.
Then how come, people never heard of it until 18th century? The current version of it is basically a right to lie to the public with impunity. Most people object to this, however Americans' nearly-religious faith in a random list of "rights" appended to their Constitution, elevates it above everything.
Part of the price of freedom is putting up with inanity.
No, that's actually something VERY specific to so-called Western culture. The rest of the world embraces the concept of government acting on behalf of the population even when it goes against so-called freedom of speech -- another uniquely Western concept.
Slashdot Mirror
You are special, hairyfeet. Short bus kind of special.
Her death contributed more to hastening the demise of Microsoft than all your efforts combined contributed to delaying it. You are that worthless.
You mean, the majority of "programmers" at Microsoft are not total frauds themselves?
You're saying you had a decade of "free time" and never bothered to learn application programming, despite that's what the industry wants?
Actually embedded systems developers are more in demand than "application" (Windows desktop and HTTP-connected server-side software) developers.
Compare standard of living between your average capitalist system and your average communist (so-called) system, and tell me which is superior.
In 70's to early 80's? Life in USSR was vastly more comfortable than in US for most of the population.
"Communism" is also pure version of socialism, where "no thing belongs to private entity", but everyone get what he/she wants.
Communists oppose private ownership of the means of production. No one cares about your collection of bling.
Of course, there would be. That's like claiming, it would be impossible to develop Geometry without slavery, just because slavery was inevitable step in human history that preceded geometry and created conditions for its development. "Free market" and all related ideas belong in the same place where slavery is now.
Fuel efficiency of any aerial drone capable of delivering pizza slices to a door is far worse than one of a truck.
Don't go through recruiters. Ever. Craigslist is not just for apartments anymore.
Whenever possible, try to bypass HR, too.
But you will never know unless you try.
You won't know even after you will try. However people who will be stuck maintaining your "code" definitely will.
cavemen said pretty much whatever they wanted.
In public? At whatever time when "cavemen" (that's a pretty broad definition of a period in human history) had the concept of public speech to begin with?
"Free speech" as it is proclaimed, applies to, and only to public speech. It was either extremely difficult or heavily regulated for various reasons everywhere, over the whole history of mankind, with exceptions I have described.
Please note that even Wikileaks people claim that they engage in protected free speech because they speak to the public. If they distributed the same information privately, their actions would be clearly espionage.
actually i think that a lot of those scenarios you mention would be in violation of other statutes, so while you may be free to say things, the consequences of what you say may result in criminal charges (such as "unmarked advertisement for known-dangerous products" most likely being in violation of OH&S laws).
No, it only would cover people who produced the product and ordered the advertisement. As far as I know, those who marketed and advertised it, no matter how complicit, are safe. It's also possible that allowing distribution of a dangerous product serves the interests of society (ex: alcohol, tobacco), but advertisement and promotion of its use causes nothing but harm and there is no excuse for allowing it other than "right to profit" or similar nonsense. In US all (ineffective) restrictions on alcohol advertisement come from alcohol producers themselves, tobacco restrictions only happened after massive embarrassment, and no one was ever punished for advertising those products before such advertisement was explicitly banned. The last part is very important -- one would expect that in a sane legal system, knowingly causing death and diseases by conspiring to deceive hundreds of millions of people would cause some penalty all by itself.
some people are stupid enough to think that "free speech" is the be all and end all, but they don't realize that its still possible for your mouth to write cheques that your body can't cash.
In some situations -- when particular person suffered immediate damage, and it happens to fall under very narrowly defined libel/fraud/..., and the person was willing to gamble on a civil lawsuit against people and organizations hundreds of thousands to tens of millions times richer than he is -- existing law "works". However interests of the public, ones that are supposed to be protected by criminal law, still can not trump the sanctity of "free speech".
It's a desperate move to replentish their supply of dead babies.
And here is the problem, wealthy people and organizations are already in the constant state of being sued, and it does not hurt them a single bit. Even if it was possible to sue a newspaper for deception of the public, and win such a lawsuit, it would not cause sufficiently public-visible correction, and can not discourage future deception.
Without "freedom of speech" proclaimed in such absolute manner, it would be possible to have a recourse for extreme and willful acts of betrayal of the public -- such as forced cease of operations and dissolution of the publishing company, criminal charges for individuals involved, etc. There are many situations -- war propaganda on false premises, misrepresentation of laws being placed on a public referendum, false announcement of voting times and locations, inciting violence and discrimination toward groups of people, unmarked advertisement for known-dangerous products, etc. when consequences are so extreme, they warrant response of this extent. But noooooo, Americans believe that just because it may provide yet another way of targeting innocent people (to join thousands of already existing ways to do it more effectively), the right to lie to the public must be preserved.
I am pretty sure, the concepts of a "pamphlet" or "journalism" were not invented yet, and wouldn't for literally millennia after that.
Greece, and later Rome, relied on speeches, debates and art performances made in person. Only few people, usually ones constantly in contact with power structure, were sufficiently skilled in then-accepted forms of public speech and debates, and fewer could afford any sustained effort of in-person organization of opposition to the prevailing power structures and position. Most debates were in a form of blatant psychological manipulation/demagoguery that was far beyond the skills of a common person, and usually achieved anything but promotion of the good of the public.
The idea of "free speech" was meaningless in such environment because there was no effective way of preventing orators from speaking to begin with -- demagogues virtually owned the government and in their turn were owned by wealthy elite. If anything, there was not enough of those people to fulfill the demand for them.
Needless to say, all such systems, without an exception, eventually were replaced with monarchies -- either foreign conquerors exploiting their weaknesses, or through locally developed coups. Monarchies set in their place, relied on strict and unchangeable hierarchy of aristocracy, and did not tolerate any challenge, by words or action. Please note that it was still long before the invention of mass distribution of written word, printing press and journalism -- the only way to create an effective opposition was to assemble a group of aristocrats and kill the current ruler. Public speech had very little to do with it,
Moderm idea of "free speech" owes its existence to the situation created much, much later around 18th century in Europe. Power structures, still in the framework of monarchy, were ready to be influenced by a small number of educated people. "Masses" consisted of a huge, huge numbers of illiterate peasants scattered over vast stretches of land. The only way to speak to those masses beyond a small group, is to be a church official in control of priests, the only kind of people capable of delivering propaganda in any effective manner. For everyone else, talking to masses would be a ridiculous waste of time, and likely a danger of being proclaimed a blasphemer by the above mentioned priests. Masses were not the target.
On the other hand, aristocracy was literate, at some extent educated, and directly a part of the political system. Any better-educated person who somehow gained access to those people's ears, can influence their decision. Book publishing exists, and since 15th century it is possible for a reasonably wealthy person who really, really wants to say something, to write a book once, and get it picked up by each and every aristocrat in the area that shares the writer's language. Of those, most convincing authors will shape the thought of aristocrats at least at comparable extent as the church (that has separate and privileged access to all of them).
Here is the problem -- there are too few authors, and opinion expresses by one may disproportionally affect decisions made absolutely everywhere, just because every aristocrat has the same books and usually is receptive to the same kinds of expression as everyone else on his level of hierarchy. Authors don't compete for attention as much with each other as with readers' boredom and church or upper layers of government who by then developed a habit of banning books that pissed someone off. Lucky writers won't create fads that last for a year -- there are no fads, commonly accepted ideas and tastes shift at the scale of decades, not months. Influences are lasting. And the key word is luck -- there is no quality control, just ideas expressed in a way that is more attractive or less attractive to the aristocrats who in their turn have very little diversity among their peers and will be receptive to the same things.
In this environment, there is one great solution to increase the quality of decision-m
That's not freedom of speech, there is no dissemination or publishing.
Nope. France, 18th century.
You are confusing it with democracy, a completely different concept.
The trend is to train MS Office jockeys as wannabe print media artists, and let them make web pages as a combination of Photoshop and copypasta from tutorial sites. This is worse, not better.
The same thing happened with websites for years, before people realized how important good design really is.
lol wut
The problem is not that it's unpleasant, you moron!
The problem is, it makes everyone misinformed and stupid. If someone intends to recognize a right to free speech, he must place it below the right of the public to not be lied to by "protected" shills and crooks. Currently the law only allows to challenge speech that specifically causes someone to lose money or something of monetary value, however the rights of the public are completely ignored. Until this is fixed, "free speech" is nothing but protection for crooks.
Freedom of speech is a human concept, not a western concept.
Then how come, people never heard of it until 18th century? The current version of it is basically a right to lie to the public with impunity. Most people object to this, however Americans' nearly-religious faith in a random list of "rights" appended to their Constitution, elevates it above everything.
Actually, those things exist because of slavery.
No, not in US. In ancient Greece and Rome.
Part of the price of freedom is putting up with inanity.
No, that's actually something VERY specific to so-called Western culture. The rest of the world embraces the concept of government acting on behalf of the population even when it goes against so-called freedom of speech -- another uniquely Western concept.
I wonder what those family values actually are they go on about.
Praise Jesus, beat wife and kids, and own slaves.
The way how they fought for it, they could have just as well fought for the opposite, and result would stay the same. With friends like that...
And yet Europe has great, well-developed cities while US cities look like 100 mile wide 2D tumors.