he betrayed his military duties. a functioning military has to expect certain things of its members, or it doesn't work. if you betray those agreements, people can die. he betrayed his military duties, therefore he is being punished. yes, you can say he was following a higher conscience, a higher duty. that's fine. but he has to pay a price for that from the military's point of view
this is real life: if you have a higher conscience, if you have a higher calling you are going to make sacrifices, you are going to suffer for them by crossing vested interests. doing the right thing in this world is not easy, and you are a fool if you believe doing the right thing is easy and without personal cost
in fact, it is a simple inescapable fact of life that if you care and work for something that goes against vested interests, you will be nailed to a cross
so be prepared to suffer for what you believe in, or stop believing in that thing, and lead a nice cozy life
that's the choice we all face in this world: sell our conscience, and live comfortably, or have a conscience, and suffer for it. there are no other choices. the effort to make this world a better place is a road of suffering, no two ways about it
you don't get comfort in this world without some unease about what your comfort costs you in terms of self-regard and the rest of the world in terms of what it takes to support that comfort. think of that next time you put gasoline on your SUV
additionally, you don't get to have a clear conscience, made clear by facing and fighting vested interests, without suffering for it, often dearly
welcome to the real world, no one said it was all rainbows and unicorns
when the trolls, from the christian world, or the muslim world, or the liberal world or the conservative world, are the ones driving the conversation
the vast majority of christians, muslims, liberals and conservatives are simply good people. but the ones who make the headlines and drive every subject of conversation are the same sort of people you see with a -1 rating on slashdot: the fucking useless trolls
i swear, international relations and domestic political commentary needs something like a slashdot rating system
let the trolls loose on slashdot, with no ratings to tell the difference between something you should read and something you should ignore, and what do you get?: a flooding out of a sane rational commons that anyone with good intent wants to be a part of. you drive good people away, you reward the most useless sort of asshole: the destruction of slashdot
likewise, when the lunatic asshole muslims and the lunatic asshole christians are the ones who set the news headlines aflame and drive the topic of discussion, you get the destruction of the whole fucking world: no civility, no understanding, empty useless seething emotions, until somebody sets off the powder keg. i weep for our children
you are intolerant yourself, by extension. there is nothing inside the concept of tolerance that means you have to be tolerant of intolerance. in fact, when you are intolerant of intolerance, by simple logic, you are extending tolerance in this world. this is not a formula for picking and choosing what you want to tolerate or not, as most any act or ideology can be shown to be, through simple logic and reason, either essentially intolerant or tolerant, example:
"i hate black people": essentially intolerant. so if you tolerate someone who says this, you yourself are being intolerant, complicitly, if not implicitly. by condoning and accepting intolerance, you are intolerant by extention
"i punish people who hate black people": essentially tolerant. if your words and actions work against essentially intolerant forces, you are not intolerant, because your words and actions, by nullifying and reducing intolerant forces, extends tolerance in this world
of course, those who are intolerant, when faced with your intolerance of them, will call you a hypocrite on the issue of tolerance. but this accusation is not true, because of simple logic
please note that yes, what i am saying means you do not tolerate a guy burning the koran, but you also do not tolerate some of the edicts of wahhabism and salafism. it is a perversion of enlightenment principles that some people wish to provide safe harbor to ideologies that are genuinely at war with enlightenment principles
there needs to be more backbone in how people interpret enlightenment principles. namely, that there is a limit to what can be tolerated, and you have to actually enforce punishment on those who abridge enlightenment principles. the alternative: tolerance of intolerance, has the real world effect of degradation of enlightenment principles, which will lead the emboldening of intolerant forces. you have to face intolerance head on, you have to nip it in the bud up front. or it will merely grow like a cancer, where your silence is viewed as condoning or acceptance, thereby meaning when you finally do confront intolerance it will be larger and more powerful
you have to face down intolerance, it will not go away on its own, you cannot avoid this conflict. an attempt at avoiding the ugliness of enforcement of enlightenment principles is a self-defeating delaying tactic, to a later day when intolerant forces will only grow larger, growing sustenance and strength and confidence from your weakness and lack of will power to confront them
you seem to value duty over happiness, and you seem to be wary of someone else having at will fickle power that might effect you
in other words, you sound like a soldier, you don't sound like a husband
not everyone was meant to marry, and it seems to me your only mistake was ever thinking marriage was something that fits your character. you simply aren't cut out for marriage. not that that's a bad thing. the bad thing is trashing the idea of marriage, just because marriage doesn't work for you. that's a kind of self-centeredness that you seem hellbent on criticizing in your post, but you don't even see that you have just as much of inside of you
i'm going to say that capitalism is the same as wahhabism
the equivalency makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but for some reason a bunch of morons will believe the two things are related, if i chant it enough or package it in simpleminded slogans
do you even know what socialism means? no: i mean its logical coherent definition, what the word means conceptually, not its completely bullshit random connection with "scary words about bad people"
but there is a technological and economic justification
meanwhile: is there any moral justification to standing in front of a lake, pointing guns at people and forcing them to buy bottled water instead?
well that's our current ip system, in the internet age: the internet is the lake, the endless free resource that threatens to put the bottled water guy out of business
ip law is for the benefit of distributors that the internet has replaced, not creators. creators don't need distributors anymore, society doesn't need distributors anymore. simple disruptive technology and basic economics at work
my use of the word "pirate" is with full knowledge of the discrepancy you refer to
we are after all talking about the PIRATE bay. we both know the guys who run that site know full well that the traditional meaning of piracy is a poor descriptor of what copyright infringement is, but they wear the epithet "pirate" with pride on the name of their site. when someone smears and insults you, a good tactic is to take that insult or epithet, and use it yourself with pride as a descriptor. therefore nullifying the supposed power of the negative word. a negative becomes a positive. so i proudly call myself a pirate, when i know the sharing media is nothing like swashbucklers and theft. in this way, words are always constantly shifting in meaning and implication in popular culture, and this eventually filters down to dictionary terminology years later
the same can be found in the gay rights movement: "queer" is now a word of pride. or even right here on slashdot: "nerd" and "geek" are words which were meant as insults but are now marks of honor. there are many sociological and political arenas where insults menat to smear, scapegoat, and prejudice are turned around and used as marks of pride
for example, lately i am trying to proudly refer to myself as a socialist, here in the usa. socialism in europe is just obvious common sense. but in the usa it takes on mythic ridiculous proportions of evil, by people who barely understand the concept (ever hear of library? a highway system? social security? hellooooo?). such that using the word, as a mark of pride and a self-descriptor, is almost revolutionary and controversial, here in the usa at least, when of course, according to a strict interpretation of the meaning of the word, its completely humdrum
regardless of your stand on media piracy or prostitution, simply from a law enforcement point of view that assumes these "vices" are simply something illegal to be fought: i don't understand why you want to shut the hubs down
its not like shutting down craigslist or pirate bay is going to make piracy or prostitution go away. instead, you allow craigslist and pirate bay to continue, and you do your law enforcement job, and monitor the hubs. like shooting fish in a barrel: just respond to what's there. but without craigslist or the pirate bay, these "problems" are harder to catch and monitor
its almost as if law enforcement wants to drive these problems back underground again so they don't have to deal with them. out of sight, out of mind
which shows you the ambivalency with which modern society views stuff like piracy or prostitution: they are on the cusp of acceptability. its not like murder or rape, where the illegality of the actions are obvious and therefore the mandate and willpower to punish perps is 100%. instead, with stuff like prostitution and piracy, the willpower wanes, the commitment lapses, because the immorality of the actions is not clearcut
such that the law enforcement campaigns consist less of going after perpetrators, but just making them go underground and disappear from prominent view
this has served him wonderfully in his work life: respect the sensitivity of a country's secret info? nah
but it has ruined his personal life: respect a woman's wishes in the bedroom? nah
and for those of you who wish to flame me because i am dissing their personal hero: if you can't separate the sainthood of the man from the sainthood of the work, then you have problems. because it is entirely possible to do good things in this world but be a rotten person, and visa versa
you should respect assange's work. i do. i respect assange for what he has done in terms of exposing nasty secrets in this world. good for him
but that does not mean i automatically give the man a free pass on rape
let's get this straight right off: there never existed, does not exist, and never will exist a government that does not spy on its citizens
do you understand that? it's called law enforcement. it is not possible to have a functional society without law enforcement. and its not possible to effectively enforce laws without some actual ability to pry. do you honestly have any problem with any of those assertions? if you do, you are a fruitcake, because you don't understand the nature of the world you live in, and you are out of touch with reality
once you have understood and accepted the basics, you judge a government on WHAT is being spied on and WHY
kiddie porn? is it ok to crack down on people trading that in your mind? no? ok, you're a moron. because 100% of governments do and a vast majority of citizens do, and explaining to you why it is a problem is beyond the scope of the amount of intellectual charity i want to spoon feed you in this post
now how about political speech? is it a problem if a country snoops on simple political speech? no? congratulations! you win teh prize!
its the most telling thing to me that those who criticize the US and UK are probably americans and british, who, if they were living in iran or china, would be keeping their fat know-it-all-mouths sealed shut. because, if you lived in those countries, you would actually know the substantiative difference between what the us and uk snoop on and consider problematic, and what iran and china snoop on and consider problematic: namely, criticism of your own fucking government
you criticize a government you live under that openly and freely tolerates criticism of itself? oooh, you are such a revolutionary. truly you are living dangerously and are the intellectual vanguard of your generation
now you try the same fucking thing in iran or china, and get back to me on your feelings about why the usa and iran, the uk and china, are alllllll the same when it comes on spying on their citizens, you fucking genius
so television obviously means the death of creativity. plus, i want to hold all of technological change hostage because my favorite media is not working the way it worked before new media came along
you are forcing my favorite form of artistic expression to die, just because you want to watch tv. that is so unfair of you, why should i be out of luck just because your new media came along and killed by beloved radio dramas? why does television mean that radio drama actors can't make a living anymore?
this is akin to someone being accused of rape, but because someone else is a rapist, then its ok for the accued to rape
here's a lightning bolt for you numbskulls: how about privacy invasion is wrong if done by google, EVEN IF microsoft does it also and is a hypocrite in their attacks?
how does that concept strike you?
guess what: no matter how strong, numerous, or correct your exposes on the sleaziness of microsoft are, if google is doing something wrong, its still doing something wrong
chastise microsoft AND google. picking between them and attacking one or the other for the same crime is, using my most diplomatic terminology: fucking stupid of you
i hope that was freudian slip, see, because, well i'm really interested in you as well, and i hope you can look over the tiny fact that i'm not really a woman, i just play one on the internet. maybe we can get together, i really hope you are open minded and not like all the other guys who would get really angry when we met up. i know, the adam's apple gives it away up close, but from a distance, i'm quite stunning. to watch their smile go to shock and horror as i get closer, its such a downer. but for once, from you, i'm sensing a really unique vibe that you are the one, i would follow you to the ends of the earth. i'm buying my airline ticket now, i'll be at your front door until you show me the true love i know we share together already and is in your heart for me and true, don't lie to yourself anymore, don't resist. is there anyone else? its not a problem, i have a kit, it just takes a little modification of their food and then they are out of the picture permanently and then its just you and me forever and true as it was always meant to be since the day we were born
yes, canadian national character seems pleasant and agreeable enough, almost lobotomized
but those canucks are the ones secretly driving and manipulating this whole global warming thing to fruition. to turn their icebox into a socialist tropical paradise, be damned how many good american patriots they force onto government mandated healthcare in the process! devils!
Slashdot Mirror
he betrayed his military duties. a functioning military has to expect certain things of its members, or it doesn't work. if you betray those agreements, people can die. he betrayed his military duties, therefore he is being punished. yes, you can say he was following a higher conscience, a higher duty. that's fine. but he has to pay a price for that from the military's point of view
this is real life: if you have a higher conscience, if you have a higher calling you are going to make sacrifices, you are going to suffer for them by crossing vested interests. doing the right thing in this world is not easy, and you are a fool if you believe doing the right thing is easy and without personal cost
in fact, it is a simple inescapable fact of life that if you care and work for something that goes against vested interests, you will be nailed to a cross
so be prepared to suffer for what you believe in, or stop believing in that thing, and lead a nice cozy life
that's the choice we all face in this world: sell our conscience, and live comfortably, or have a conscience, and suffer for it. there are no other choices. the effort to make this world a better place is a road of suffering, no two ways about it
you don't get comfort in this world without some unease about what your comfort costs you in terms of self-regard and the rest of the world in terms of what it takes to support that comfort. think of that next time you put gasoline on your SUV
additionally, you don't get to have a clear conscience, made clear by facing and fighting vested interests, without suffering for it, often dearly
welcome to the real world, no one said it was all rainbows and unicorns
now, with the internet, we get to see all of the opinions forming: the opinions that won out, the opinions that lost out, and of course, the trolls
internet: what is history without trolls?
when the trolls, from the christian world, or the muslim world, or the liberal world or the conservative world, are the ones driving the conversation
the vast majority of christians, muslims, liberals and conservatives are simply good people. but the ones who make the headlines and drive every subject of conversation are the same sort of people you see with a -1 rating on slashdot: the fucking useless trolls
i swear, international relations and domestic political commentary needs something like a slashdot rating system
let the trolls loose on slashdot, with no ratings to tell the difference between something you should read and something you should ignore, and what do you get?: a flooding out of a sane rational commons that anyone with good intent wants to be a part of. you drive good people away, you reward the most useless sort of asshole: the destruction of slashdot
likewise, when the lunatic asshole muslims and the lunatic asshole christians are the ones who set the news headlines aflame and drive the topic of discussion, you get the destruction of the whole fucking world: no civility, no understanding, empty useless seething emotions, until somebody sets off the powder keg. i weep for our children
you are intolerant yourself, by extension. there is nothing inside the concept of tolerance that means you have to be tolerant of intolerance. in fact, when you are intolerant of intolerance, by simple logic, you are extending tolerance in this world. this is not a formula for picking and choosing what you want to tolerate or not, as most any act or ideology can be shown to be, through simple logic and reason, either essentially intolerant or tolerant, example:
"i hate black people": essentially intolerant. so if you tolerate someone who says this, you yourself are being intolerant, complicitly, if not implicitly. by condoning and accepting intolerance, you are intolerant by extention
"i punish people who hate black people": essentially tolerant. if your words and actions work against essentially intolerant forces, you are not intolerant, because your words and actions, by nullifying and reducing intolerant forces, extends tolerance in this world
of course, those who are intolerant, when faced with your intolerance of them, will call you a hypocrite on the issue of tolerance. but this accusation is not true, because of simple logic
please note that yes, what i am saying means you do not tolerate a guy burning the koran, but you also do not tolerate some of the edicts of wahhabism and salafism. it is a perversion of enlightenment principles that some people wish to provide safe harbor to ideologies that are genuinely at war with enlightenment principles
there needs to be more backbone in how people interpret enlightenment principles. namely, that there is a limit to what can be tolerated, and you have to actually enforce punishment on those who abridge enlightenment principles. the alternative: tolerance of intolerance, has the real world effect of degradation of enlightenment principles, which will lead the emboldening of intolerant forces. you have to face intolerance head on, you have to nip it in the bud up front. or it will merely grow like a cancer, where your silence is viewed as condoning or acceptance, thereby meaning when you finally do confront intolerance it will be larger and more powerful
you have to face down intolerance, it will not go away on its own, you cannot avoid this conflict. an attempt at avoiding the ugliness of enforcement of enlightenment principles is a self-defeating delaying tactic, to a later day when intolerant forces will only grow larger, growing sustenance and strength and confidence from your weakness and lack of will power to confront them
it always made sense to me that you bank cock in thigh land
but the real geek will figure out how to fit an ekg into 140 bytes
the standard marriage contract only requires the male to be dutiful to the terms?
LOL
you're delusional
but disliking the us govt for what all govts do just makes you look silly
you seem to value duty over happiness, and you seem to be wary of someone else having at will fickle power that might effect you
in other words, you sound like a soldier, you don't sound like a husband
not everyone was meant to marry, and it seems to me your only mistake was ever thinking marriage was something that fits your character. you simply aren't cut out for marriage. not that that's a bad thing. the bad thing is trashing the idea of marriage, just because marriage doesn't work for you. that's a kind of self-centeredness that you seem hellbent on criticizing in your post, but you don't even see that you have just as much of inside of you
i'm going to say that capitalism is the same as wahhabism
the equivalency makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but for some reason a bunch of morons will believe the two things are related, if i chant it enough or package it in simpleminded slogans
do you even know what socialism means? no: i mean its logical coherent definition, what the word means conceptually, not its completely bullshit random connection with "scary words about bad people"
that's what the right wing assholes in the usa call socialism
in the usa that qualifies as communism worse than north korea, or so the rightwing propaganda goes
but there is a technological and economic justification
meanwhile: is there any moral justification to standing in front of a lake, pointing guns at people and forcing them to buy bottled water instead?
well that's our current ip system, in the internet age: the internet is the lake, the endless free resource that threatens to put the bottled water guy out of business
ip law is for the benefit of distributors that the internet has replaced, not creators. creators don't need distributors anymore, society doesn't need distributors anymore. simple disruptive technology and basic economics at work
maybe the part with affordable healthcare
my use of the word "pirate" is with full knowledge of the discrepancy you refer to
we are after all talking about the PIRATE bay. we both know the guys who run that site know full well that the traditional meaning of piracy is a poor descriptor of what copyright infringement is, but they wear the epithet "pirate" with pride on the name of their site. when someone smears and insults you, a good tactic is to take that insult or epithet, and use it yourself with pride as a descriptor. therefore nullifying the supposed power of the negative word. a negative becomes a positive. so i proudly call myself a pirate, when i know the sharing media is nothing like swashbucklers and theft. in this way, words are always constantly shifting in meaning and implication in popular culture, and this eventually filters down to dictionary terminology years later
the same can be found in the gay rights movement: "queer" is now a word of pride. or even right here on slashdot: "nerd" and "geek" are words which were meant as insults but are now marks of honor. there are many sociological and political arenas where insults menat to smear, scapegoat, and prejudice are turned around and used as marks of pride
for example, lately i am trying to proudly refer to myself as a socialist, here in the usa. socialism in europe is just obvious common sense. but in the usa it takes on mythic ridiculous proportions of evil, by people who barely understand the concept (ever hear of library? a highway system? social security? hellooooo?). such that using the word, as a mark of pride and a self-descriptor, is almost revolutionary and controversial, here in the usa at least, when of course, according to a strict interpretation of the meaning of the word, its completely humdrum
poof!: prostitution will disappear
close down pirate bay... poof!: piracy disappears
right, right?
regardless of your stand on media piracy or prostitution, simply from a law enforcement point of view that assumes these "vices" are simply something illegal to be fought: i don't understand why you want to shut the hubs down
its not like shutting down craigslist or pirate bay is going to make piracy or prostitution go away. instead, you allow craigslist and pirate bay to continue, and you do your law enforcement job, and monitor the hubs. like shooting fish in a barrel: just respond to what's there. but without craigslist or the pirate bay, these "problems" are harder to catch and monitor
its almost as if law enforcement wants to drive these problems back underground again so they don't have to deal with them. out of sight, out of mind
which shows you the ambivalency with which modern society views stuff like piracy or prostitution: they are on the cusp of acceptability. its not like murder or rape, where the illegality of the actions are obvious and therefore the mandate and willpower to punish perps is 100%. instead, with stuff like prostitution and piracy, the willpower wanes, the commitment lapses, because the immorality of the actions is not clearcut
such that the law enforcement campaigns consist less of going after perpetrators, but just making them go underground and disappear from prominent view
this has served him wonderfully in his work life: respect the sensitivity of a country's secret info? nah
but it has ruined his personal life: respect a woman's wishes in the bedroom? nah
and for those of you who wish to flame me because i am dissing their personal hero: if you can't separate the sainthood of the man from the sainthood of the work, then you have problems. because it is entirely possible to do good things in this world but be a rotten person, and visa versa
you should respect assange's work. i do. i respect assange for what he has done in terms of exposing nasty secrets in this world. good for him
but that does not mean i automatically give the man a free pass on rape
let's get this straight right off: there never existed, does not exist, and never will exist a government that does not spy on its citizens
do you understand that? it's called law enforcement. it is not possible to have a functional society without law enforcement. and its not possible to effectively enforce laws without some actual ability to pry. do you honestly have any problem with any of those assertions? if you do, you are a fruitcake, because you don't understand the nature of the world you live in, and you are out of touch with reality
once you have understood and accepted the basics, you judge a government on WHAT is being spied on and WHY
kiddie porn? is it ok to crack down on people trading that in your mind? no? ok, you're a moron. because 100% of governments do and a vast majority of citizens do, and explaining to you why it is a problem is beyond the scope of the amount of intellectual charity i want to spoon feed you in this post
now how about political speech? is it a problem if a country snoops on simple political speech? no? congratulations! you win teh prize!
its the most telling thing to me that those who criticize the US and UK are probably americans and british, who, if they were living in iran or china, would be keeping their fat know-it-all-mouths sealed shut. because, if you lived in those countries, you would actually know the substantiative difference between what the us and uk snoop on and consider problematic, and what iran and china snoop on and consider problematic: namely, criticism of your own fucking government
you criticize a government you live under that openly and freely tolerates criticism of itself? oooh, you are such a revolutionary. truly you are living dangerously and are the intellectual vanguard of your generation
now you try the same fucking thing in iran or china, and get back to me on your feelings about why the usa and iran, the uk and china, are alllllll the same when it comes on spying on their citizens, you fucking genius
you have no bike
if i copy a file, we both have a file
where's the theft?
saying copying files is like theft is like saying looking at a picture of your wife is the same as having sex with your wife
you don't even understand the basics of what you are talking about, in a manner a kindergartener could understand the difference
in countries that pay a premium on authoritarianism?
the only thing i wonder is why is this story happening in 2010 and not earlier?
because as soon as tv came along, all of my favorite radio dramas went off the air
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_drama
so television obviously means the death of creativity. plus, i want to hold all of technological change hostage because my favorite media is not working the way it worked before new media came along
you are forcing my favorite form of artistic expression to die, just because you want to watch tv. that is so unfair of you, why should i be out of luck just because your new media came along and killed by beloved radio dramas? why does television mean that radio drama actors can't make a living anymore?
this is akin to someone being accused of rape, but because someone else is a rapist, then its ok for the accued to rape
here's a lightning bolt for you numbskulls: how about privacy invasion is wrong if done by google, EVEN IF microsoft does it also and is a hypocrite in their attacks?
how does that concept strike you?
guess what: no matter how strong, numerous, or correct your exposes on the sleaziness of microsoft are, if google is doing something wrong, its still doing something wrong
chastise microsoft AND google. picking between them and attacking one or the other for the same crime is, using my most diplomatic terminology: fucking stupid of you
"Is he socially conscious?"
i hope that was freudian slip, see, because, well i'm really interested in you as well, and i hope you can look over the tiny fact that i'm not really a woman, i just play one on the internet. maybe we can get together, i really hope you are open minded and not like all the other guys who would get really angry when we met up. i know, the adam's apple gives it away up close, but from a distance, i'm quite stunning. to watch their smile go to shock and horror as i get closer, its such a downer. but for once, from you, i'm sensing a really unique vibe that you are the one, i would follow you to the ends of the earth. i'm buying my airline ticket now, i'll be at your front door until you show me the true love i know we share together already and is in your heart for me and true, don't lie to yourself anymore, don't resist. is there anyone else? its not a problem, i have a kit, it just takes a little modification of their food and then they are out of the picture permanently and then its just you and me forever and true as it was always meant to be since the day we were born
You canadians
With your levelheaded banking sector, your fairminded healthcare, your lack of warmongering
You will not make a mockery of my country by being intelligent and rational!
yes, canadian national character seems pleasant and agreeable enough, almost lobotomized
but those canucks are the ones secretly driving and manipulating this whole global warming thing to fruition. to turn their icebox into a socialist tropical paradise, be damned how many good american patriots they force onto government mandated healthcare in the process! devils!