too often you see people on the internet stubborn beyond the point of helping anything they care about. you sir are an honest person of strong character
if you say your concerns are wholly domestic, then you need to refrain your criticism of the us government to only domestic issues
if you say that is impossible, that our relationship with the outside world matters, then you also need to be intellectually honest and look at and criticize other regimes, since that certainly matters in our relationship with the wider world
but you can't have it both ways, as you are currently claiming, that somehow criticism of only the us government on matters that involve other governments is somehow logically coherent or in any way helpful
now that you have weighed in on a dead argument that has already been resolved, when do you point some of your withering moral denunciations on the illegitimate government of iran?
or is your insightful probing mind permanently pointed only at the usa for some reason?
there were two schools of thought in iran since the 1979 revolution:
1. its a democracy. the whole supreme leader bs is just for window dressing 2. its a theocracy. the whole elections bs is just to appease the crowds
this central crisis in the iranian government seems to have been resolved in june 2009, with iran going the theocratic route, which is the substance of your comment
but its actually going a third route: military dictatorship, with the supreme leadership bs as window dressing AND the elections bs as crowd appeasement
the supreme leader is actually now hostage of the elite revolutionary guard, he has no real power. ahmadinejad is an old hand of the revolutionary guard. watch the next leader of iran to be handpicked from the revolutionary guard and "elected" by the people and "approved" by the ayatollah. now, the whole of the complex iranian government apparatus is under their sway and influence. the central unanswered schism between theocracy and democracy in the previous complex government arrangement has meant someone had to fill the power vacuum, and it has been filled: by the military
either way, the crowd appeasement obviously isn't working. the people of iran are pissed, and as in any country where the will of the people is not addressed, the government's illegitimacy grows over time, as the agenda of the government and the agenda of the common man grow further apart. this will reach a breaking point. could take years or decades, with plenty of suffering during that time. throw in nuclear weapons for fun
but until such time as iran falls yet again into revolution due to not being a democracy, iran is now a military dictatorship. not officially of course. much like north korea is officially the DEMOCRATIC people's republic of korea. yeah, north korea is a democracy (roll's eyes)
all those middle aged chunky guys walking around in corporate casual golf tee shirts and khakis (and its ALWAYS middle aged chunky guys in corporate casual golf tee shirts and khakis), with a blinking blue light permanently affixed to their ear, have to be nuking some sort of brain tissue
a desperate ploy to feel important and in touch, but just winding up looking like a wannabe lando calrissian assistant in cloud city
but i completely support your right to get out there and agitate for your cause, because i respect you as a free man: i see that you are well-meaning and intend well and you honestly and with a forthright nature go out there and represent your concerns, even in the face of withering resistance. this makes you whole and true
as opposed to the grandfather poster, who is a slave behind bars in his mind of his own making, scared into cowering subservience to phantom forces that exist in such overwhelming strength only in his head
the proliferation of men like you, agitating honestly and openly for their concerns, means our children will live in a free society. the proliferation of men like the grandfather poster, who projects their character weaknesses and psychological deficits onto the outside world, means our children will live under the boot of tyranny
godspeed to you sir
(*though your overwhelming particular concern: debt levels, is only a tenth of the economic story and the proper economic agenda, as i see it in my mind... and i could be wrong, and remain open-minded to adjustment of my economic opinions)
of course there are edge conditions that are contentious and open to debate
but there also situations where the use of "free" speech results in an uncontroversial injustice, directly and inevitably, such as shouting fire in a crowded theatre
such that we are talking less about belief and opinion, and more about simple reality
what they do in china or iran has no bearing on the internet in liberal western countries, because there is no assumption of the basic rights you take for granted here. example #1, being this very story you wrote your comment under: people protest in spain, and have the right to do so, and affect feedback on their government via a vote and their free expression. this has an effect on the policy of the spanish government. how can i say this: read the fucking story, spanish people en masse are making a difference. there is no such feedback in china: the technocrats in beijing dictate, and their will is done. someday, this status quo will be overturned, simply because the agenda of the common man and the agenda of the ruling class, if decoupled as in a nondemocracy, will come to revolution and societal breakdown inevitably, as we see beginning in iran this june
but nevermind my optimism, lets get back to your gloomy pantywaist pessimism about the state of the world: why are you even writing this on slashdot? why aren't you hard at work on your typewriter, tinfoil on head, boxes of crackers and ammo in your cave? because of the value of the internet to project your thoughts, 1,000,000x better than that of a typewriter, that's why. a value you cherish, as i do, and, unlike you, who has resigned yourself to liberal western countries controlling you as much as totalitarian ones for some paranoid schizophrenic reason, i, and many others like me, will fight for this value of the internet we cherish. and others like me, unlike you, know that our government listens to us via our vote and our words. yes, dorothy, it actually does, all fashionable cynical cowardly opinion to the contrary be retarded
i know that i matter. that you believe you don't matter is your own intellectual failure, not mine, and your resignation to your self-imposed helplessness is a resignation that only affects your sorry ass, and has no bearing on my rights and abilities as a free man of a liberal western democracy, which i fully comprehend, appreciate, enjoy, and practice. if my society fails into fascism, it will be no fault of mine, but by the unfortunate proliferation of weak spineless pessimistic fools like yourself who have already given up before any battle has even been fought
otherwise, if you want to continue to cite vast conspiratorial forces that control you and a stranglehold by multinational corporations on your government, then what the hell are you even protesting about if you have already given up on your society so thoroughly? your government is not as darkly compromised as you portray it, because if it were, you wouldn't even be here on slashdot complaining about it, because you would be certain it wouldn't make any difference
oh, but you do write words... so therefore you do, in some perhaps subconscious way, believe you can still make a difference. so since there is a shadow of doubt in your mind about the thoroughness of your slavery, that you might actually retain some self-determination in your life and your government, then the next step in your intellectual growth would be to realize you actually matter in your western democracy, that the principles you care about actually matter and have a good chance, and that you should get out there and actually agitate for the change you believe in, like every other truly free man. claim your status as a free man, and stop fucking whining about doomed we all are. because your problem, unlike most of us, is that your lack of freedom is imposed on yourself by your own failed point of view, not by any government. learned helplessness: its a degenerate psychological state, not a valid ideology
instead of hiding in your basement and writing whiny missives on slashdot about how we're all doomed, why don't you stop being so fucking pathetic, claim yourself as a free man, stop being spooked by shadows, grow a fucking backbone, and fight in the framework of your society which values liberal notions of various freedoms, and actually fucking fight for fucking once about what actually fucking matters in this world?
any fool is aware of the fact that you can cause a panic by shouting fire in a crowded theatre, and that a panic might result in a trampling. it doesn't matter what you intend, a riot, a joke, a laugh, anything: you caused injury via a foolish act. you are therefore guilty of a criminality according to any common sense definition of crimininality... in any country. i have to say in any country, because i don't know what the hell being an american or not has to do with anything
we're not talking about actual criminal code of a particular country, we're talking about simple moral concepts that make sense to anyone from any world culture. and your car analogy is completely off-base: diffusion of responsibility in a traffic situation is not at all analogous to one perpetrator creating a panic, where culpability is clear and obvious
and you write "You view it as an means to control other people"
yeah, you got me. excuse me, i have to go suck obama's cock, since he appointed me dark overlord for retarded thread arguments, secret liberal fascist agenda workgroup #7A
pffft
any other paranoid rant you want to project on me and what i am actually saying? or maybe, gee i dunno, do you want to fucking actually read what i am actually fucking writing and actually fucking respond to that?
small cluebat for you: when arguing with people, it helps to respond to what they actually fucking are saying to you, as opposed to atavistically projecting your dimwitted little hysterical fears on your opponent, and reacting to that instead, as if your pantytwisted little fears actually have the slightest thing to do with what the other person is ACTUALLY FUCKING SAYING. its a sign of intellectual bankruptcy: you've run out of coherent things to say, so you throw scary words around
as i said, you're grasping at straws: you don't have anything substantiative to respond to me about what i am saying, so you're accusing me of random completely unrelated bullshit. because some part of you recognizes you've lost the fucking argument, but your stubborn pride prevents you from actually admitting i have a fucking point about your fundamentalist way of thinking about your so called "principles"
a three year old can be taught to say "free speech is important". it doesn't mean anything until he understands what free speech is. a teenager can be taught to say "free speech important above all else". it doesn't mean anything because he doesn't understand how complicated real life is. young, naive idealists understand principles in the most simplistic of ways. its a sign of ignorance of a wider world, a lack of wisdom and life experience. in fact it isn't really principles they have, because such inexperienced simpletons only understand the world in relation to their preconceived notions about how the world should work under ideal conditions that never really exist
real principles are understanding the concepts that are valuable to you in relation to how they actually work in the real world, how to sustain them, and how to keep them safe from some unfortunate and ugly truths about human nature which unfortunately bind us all. only then can you be considered a wise person: when you see how delicate such a concept as "free speech" really is, how hard it is to maintain it, and how it can never really be perfect in this world
instead of fucking marching around with words written in glitter that you worship, pridefully boasting you have "principles" because you say free speech is above all, which any fucking moron can say, and never really mean anything. well: i say pancakes are the most important thing is the world. oh yeah for me! who the fuck cares? what does it fucking mean? it doesn't mean anything. only when you have a coherent vision of how delicate and yet important something like free speech is are you a truly principled person whose mind has an appreciation of THE REAL WORLD
you're a simpleton. grow some iq points, try to understand your much worshipped but little understood constitution and its free speech someday, and then say something actually useful about free speech and how it actually works, and how to actually protect it. hint: its slightly more complicated than worshipping the constitution like a fucking cargo cult, protecting it from the horrible scary liberals
oh yes, evil liberalism: THE VERY FUCKING PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION OF THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION, you moron. and ah yes, freedom of speech: A LIBERAL IDEA. sheesh. get some edumacation some day, knuckle dragger
liberal this, milgram that, peta this. grasping at straws
you're firing your shotgun while stumbling back: a lot of random shot all over the place, none of them even remotely reaching what i am saying or who i am or what i represent to you and your "thinking", such as the absence of thought that you represent can be described
you don't venerate the concepts and ideas in the constitution, which i do highly value, you instead venerate the literal words, aping them back without the slightest attempt to actually digest the concepts behind the words. you're exactly like the maniacs holding up verses of the quran before they commit various atrocities: fundamentalist idiots, the whole lot of you. the document means everything to you morons, the thought and the concepts behind the document, nothing. because you've never actually thought about what the fucking words actually MEAN, you've just encrusted the literal words in gold glitter in your mind and marched around with them. fetishization, not moral thought
i value the constitution more than you ever can, because i am actually thinking about what the constitution actually means. you are merely regurgitating the words, and providing no thought to what the words mean. you're a fundamentalist. you're an enemy of what the founding fathers were trying to do when they wrote the constitution. you're very much what is wrong with this world: you've stopped thinking
someday, assuming a more nuanced social skillset, you might have a child
in which case, the irrational desire to protect that child from the various dangerous scenarios of adult life will be felt in your own mind. and it is an irrational desire. much like the irrational desire to feed. or the irrational desire to fornicate. in other words: not so rational from a point of view of principles and concepts, but very rational from the point of view of the preservation of and continuation of life: take care of your children
biological imperatives trump all high minded concepts. principles and concepts work only when they aren't interfering with biological imperatives. as an example: every right, freedom, and sense of decency you hold dear and valuable in your mind is just one food riot away from being completely violated without any recourse to justice. no police, court system, or government body can remain coherent when those police, judges, and government bureaucrats are more busy with trying to procure some food. so pay attention to those biological imperatives, they matter a hell of a whole lot. ignore them at the peril of losing all progress we've ever made in human society
so if you have kids, you will understand that this impulse isn't so irrational after all, as there is a very real biological rational reason to protect your offspring from the real world until they are able enough physically and mentally to protect themselves: for species that have a small set of children, such as homo sapiens, evolution favors the survival rate of organisms that actively protect their offspring
all i'm saying is that "think of the children!" might be the butt of every slashdot joke, but it is also a "hysteria" that you need to make peace with and accept, because it is simply never, ever going away. because it actually makes a hell of a lot of sense, but from a different point of view, a point of view that trumps all other points of view
without children, all the arguments you could ever have about rights and freedoms won't matter one bit if there's no one here to inherit the society and the government you tried to improve. the health and well being of the generation that comes after you is all you leave in this world, on an individual and a societal level. so it really is of the highest importance that you do your best to protect them until they can fend for themselves
this simple, brutal logic defeats and overrules all other arguments you can possibly make. "think of the children" reigns supreme. deal with it
such as to free speech by shouting fire in a theatre resulting in death WHEN THERE ISN'T A FIRE
now that i've tacked on the braindead fucking obvious qualifier, without which you think you are allowed to smugly weasel out of examining your free speech fundamentalism, i suggest you finally examine how you have failed in creating a logically coherent set of "principles"
yes, you are "principled"
pfft
assholes who consciously defy self-examination of their own failures usually have a whole bunch of complementary adjectives to describe their supposed wholesomeness
morons who don't vaccinate their children are fighting for individual rights (at the expense of public health)
morons who don't allow their children blood transfusions are fighting for religious freedom (at the expense of their child's death)
morons who quote the constitution as if it were the fucking bible without actually THINKING about the concepts behind the document are defiling the very spirit the framers of the constitution committed to paper. if the founding fathers were reading this thread, they would point to your braindead zeal as the very enemy of the concepts they were describing
the constitution describes a trust between the people and its government. this is a living trust, meaning with changes in society and technology, its words should, rightfully, change over time to adhere to the PRINCIPLES it embodies. meanwhile, aping the fucking words and NOT THINKING ABOUT THE MEANING BEHIND THEM is merely making a trust with a dead, static long ago era. you sitting there spouting the words of the constitution in the same way a religious zealot shouts verses from the quran or the bible makes perfect sense in summarizing exactly what you are: a brain dead, zombified, unthinking fucking fundamentalist, an enemy of the PRINCIPLES the founding father held dear
now grow a fucking brain and THINK and QUESTION and therefore validate your sorry rotten mind
if i shout fire in a crowded theatre, and this leads to someone's death, than i am criminally culpable
yet according to you, this is protected free speech
no: there genuinely exists in this world, simply as a result of clear logical consequence, that some speech must be disallowed for the sake of justice in this world. the "fire" in a crowded theatre example is merely one of a million such scenarios where free speech is genuinely and intractably incompatible with the concept of justice
your problem is that you are a free speech fundamentalist. a fundamentalist is someone who adheres to a concept WITHOUT EXCEPTION: free speech, the free market, the infallibility of the bible/ quran/ torah, whatever. there are millions of types of fundamentalists, each being someone who holds a concept to be without exception and utterly unquestionable, like you and free speech
the truth is that in this world, every concept, even the ones you hold most dear, have exceptions, and must be questioned. the concepts i hold most dear have exceptions and must be questioned. that's just the nature of this world: its complicated. fundamentalism therefore creates suffering in this world because it tries to impose a cookie cutter simplification of human nature onto a complicated world, such that all of the inevitable exceptions of real human behavior in the real world are not tolerated, and are punished... when such behavior isn't really wrong, and may in fact be what is right
your words speak of a young mind. you are probably 14 years old. give it time, you'll figure it out... and if you actually aren't 14, god save us all from the fools and the fundamentalists in this world: the simplistic way you think about your world is poisonous
if the issue is just that someone doesn't want information out there they don't like, then wikipedia is being violated by the court system for the sake of an inflamed ego rather than an actual case of criminality. in which case, one would think then that this is an actual criminal case. if its not a criminal case, it soon will be, with the court system as the defendant and wikipedia as the plaintiff
whatever you think of your rights online, criminal activity renders some of your rights null and void
of course you have rights in a free society: as long as you also abide by your responsibilities. this is true of actual, flawed societies that are not entirely free, and also true of any hypothetical societies you can imagine that function perfectly: when you break your responsibilities you have in a free society, you have abdicated your rights. do you honestly think there is any way around that fact? a society of individuals who do not abide by their responsibilities is by direct consequence a society with few rights as well
the government is a side issue: most of your rights are violated in this world by your fellow citizens, not the government. of course the government also violates your rights. in a society trying to improve itself, this is revealed, discussed, and punished. just like individuals who violate your rights deserve to be punished. sorry, they don't deserve to be punished, they MUST be punished to show there is genuine consequences for abdication of responsibility in this world. without such enforcement, there's no reason to respect anyone's rights, whether by government, or a fellow citizen
to most of you, the previous paragraph is eye-glazingly obvious
however, i feel the need to say it, because underneath this story we will see a lot of howling of the government violating people's rights. when the fact is, if you blackmail someone, you HAVE to have your rights violated, for the sake of a functioning free society, actual or theoretical
we see a lot of complaints on these forums and in general about rights. what we don't see much discussion is one about responsibilities. please do your small part and keep that in mind: for every right you claim, you are also taking on an implied responsibility you must keep if you wish to maintain the rights you cherish
whistleblowing is when you go to the press and release info of a criminal nature. blackmailing is when you send letters to the target with a threat to release the info, whether of a criminal nature or just a private, sensitive nature
please report to the nearest droid maintenance facility and have your moral circuitry checked out, thanks
the browser is the os. or rather, the browser will become the os. anything and everything of any value to 99% of us in the modern internet-centered world will be interacted with through the browser
so instead of talking about jailbreaking javascript, the more relevant subject should be jailbreaking the browser. such that when joe user turns on his computer in 2015, he gets a browser, and only a browser, and nothing but a browser. native javascript implementation then continues merrily chugging along in the browser, as it always has, otherwise completely oblivious to the fact that it is now the only game in town
note that i'm talking about the computer using experience for the average user. please don't object to my depiction of this scenario from the point of view of the exotic user blocks that plenty of slashdot readers belong to, but don't describe the reality of computer use for the average user
in the south pacific when cannibalism was still going on, not too long ago (and is perhaps still going on in the hinterlands of papua new guinea)
because we taste like pig
if you want to know what human flesh tastes like, have some bacon: its no historical secret that pig meat is pretty much the same flavor as human meat
perhaps most interesting is that we like the taste of bacon so much... i wonder why that is so, hmm? we're all covertly cannibalistic in our tastes, i think. i would wager that every human being alive today comes from some ancestor who ate human flesh at one time or another, whether for bare survival, or for ritualistic cultural reasons
what would be interesting is to make bacon out of these vat grown human cells. might just be the best bacon taste EVER
lol
you may now barf from painful self-realization of your own vile nature
Slashdot Mirror
too often you see people on the internet stubborn beyond the point of helping anything they care about. you sir are an honest person of strong character
if you say your concerns are wholly domestic, then you need to refrain your criticism of the us government to only domestic issues
if you say that is impossible, that our relationship with the outside world matters, then you also need to be intellectually honest and look at and criticize other regimes, since that certainly matters in our relationship with the wider world
but you can't have it both ways, as you are currently claiming, that somehow criticism of only the us government on matters that involve other governments is somehow logically coherent or in any way helpful
now that you have weighed in on a dead argument that has already been resolved, when do you point some of your withering moral denunciations on the illegitimate government of iran?
or is your insightful probing mind permanently pointed only at the usa for some reason?
pffft
there were two schools of thought in iran since the 1979 revolution:
1. its a democracy. the whole supreme leader bs is just for window dressing
2. its a theocracy. the whole elections bs is just to appease the crowds
this central crisis in the iranian government seems to have been resolved in june 2009, with iran going the theocratic route, which is the substance of your comment
but its actually going a third route: military dictatorship, with the supreme leadership bs as window dressing AND the elections bs as crowd appeasement
the supreme leader is actually now hostage of the elite revolutionary guard, he has no real power. ahmadinejad is an old hand of the revolutionary guard. watch the next leader of iran to be handpicked from the revolutionary guard and "elected" by the people and "approved" by the ayatollah. now, the whole of the complex iranian government apparatus is under their sway and influence. the central unanswered schism between theocracy and democracy in the previous complex government arrangement has meant someone had to fill the power vacuum, and it has been filled: by the military
either way, the crowd appeasement obviously isn't working. the people of iran are pissed, and as in any country where the will of the people is not addressed, the government's illegitimacy grows over time, as the agenda of the government and the agenda of the common man grow further apart. this will reach a breaking point. could take years or decades, with plenty of suffering during that time. throw in nuclear weapons for fun
but until such time as iran falls yet again into revolution due to not being a democracy, iran is now a military dictatorship. not officially of course. much like north korea is officially the DEMOCRATIC people's republic of korea. yeah, north korea is a democracy (roll's eyes)
all those middle aged chunky guys walking around in corporate casual golf tee shirts and khakis (and its ALWAYS middle aged chunky guys in corporate casual golf tee shirts and khakis), with a blinking blue light permanently affixed to their ear, have to be nuking some sort of brain tissue
a desperate ploy to feel important and in touch, but just winding up looking like a wannabe lando calrissian assistant in cloud city
i'm glad you're still selling bottled water. how quaint
if you hadn't noticed, the internet came along, and created a lake right behind your water stand. no one needs to buy your water anymore
but i completely support your right to get out there and agitate for your cause, because i respect you as a free man: i see that you are well-meaning and intend well and you honestly and with a forthright nature go out there and represent your concerns, even in the face of withering resistance. this makes you whole and true
as opposed to the grandfather poster, who is a slave behind bars in his mind of his own making, scared into cowering subservience to phantom forces that exist in such overwhelming strength only in his head
the proliferation of men like you, agitating honestly and openly for their concerns, means our children will live in a free society. the proliferation of men like the grandfather poster, who projects their character weaknesses and psychological deficits onto the outside world, means our children will live under the boot of tyranny
godspeed to you sir
(*though your overwhelming particular concern: debt levels, is only a tenth of the economic story and the proper economic agenda, as i see it in my mind... and i could be wrong, and remain open-minded to adjustment of my economic opinions)
according to simple straightforward logic
of course there are edge conditions that are contentious and open to debate
but there also situations where the use of "free" speech results in an uncontroversial injustice, directly and inevitably, such as shouting fire in a crowded theatre
such that we are talking less about belief and opinion, and more about simple reality
on the internet
(smirk)
what they do in china or iran has no bearing on the internet in liberal western countries, because there is no assumption of the basic rights you take for granted here. example #1, being this very story you wrote your comment under: people protest in spain, and have the right to do so, and affect feedback on their government via a vote and their free expression. this has an effect on the policy of the spanish government. how can i say this: read the fucking story, spanish people en masse are making a difference. there is no such feedback in china: the technocrats in beijing dictate, and their will is done. someday, this status quo will be overturned, simply because the agenda of the common man and the agenda of the ruling class, if decoupled as in a nondemocracy, will come to revolution and societal breakdown inevitably, as we see beginning in iran this june
but nevermind my optimism, lets get back to your gloomy pantywaist pessimism about the state of the world: why are you even writing this on slashdot? why aren't you hard at work on your typewriter, tinfoil on head, boxes of crackers and ammo in your cave? because of the value of the internet to project your thoughts, 1,000,000x better than that of a typewriter, that's why. a value you cherish, as i do, and, unlike you, who has resigned yourself to liberal western countries controlling you as much as totalitarian ones for some paranoid schizophrenic reason, i, and many others like me, will fight for this value of the internet we cherish. and others like me, unlike you, know that our government listens to us via our vote and our words. yes, dorothy, it actually does, all fashionable cynical cowardly opinion to the contrary be retarded
i know that i matter. that you believe you don't matter is your own intellectual failure, not mine, and your resignation to your self-imposed helplessness is a resignation that only affects your sorry ass, and has no bearing on my rights and abilities as a free man of a liberal western democracy, which i fully comprehend, appreciate, enjoy, and practice. if my society fails into fascism, it will be no fault of mine, but by the unfortunate proliferation of weak spineless pessimistic fools like yourself who have already given up before any battle has even been fought
otherwise, if you want to continue to cite vast conspiratorial forces that control you and a stranglehold by multinational corporations on your government, then what the hell are you even protesting about if you have already given up on your society so thoroughly? your government is not as darkly compromised as you portray it, because if it were, you wouldn't even be here on slashdot complaining about it, because you would be certain it wouldn't make any difference
oh, but you do write words... so therefore you do, in some perhaps subconscious way, believe you can still make a difference. so since there is a shadow of doubt in your mind about the thoroughness of your slavery, that you might actually retain some self-determination in your life and your government, then the next step in your intellectual growth would be to realize you actually matter in your western democracy, that the principles you care about actually matter and have a good chance, and that you should get out there and actually agitate for the change you believe in, like every other truly free man. claim your status as a free man, and stop fucking whining about doomed we all are. because your problem, unlike most of us, is that your lack of freedom is imposed on yourself by your own failed point of view, not by any government. learned helplessness: its a degenerate psychological state, not a valid ideology
instead of hiding in your basement and writing whiny missives on slashdot about how we're all doomed, why don't you stop being so fucking pathetic, claim yourself as a free man, stop being spooked by shadows, grow a fucking backbone, and fight in the framework of your society which values liberal notions of various freedoms, and actually fucking fight for fucking once about what actually fucking matters in this world?
wake the fuck up, chicken little
any fool is aware of the fact that you can cause a panic by shouting fire in a crowded theatre, and that a panic might result in a trampling. it doesn't matter what you intend, a riot, a joke, a laugh, anything: you caused injury via a foolish act. you are therefore guilty of a criminality according to any common sense definition of crimininality... in any country. i have to say in any country, because i don't know what the hell being an american or not has to do with anything
we're not talking about actual criminal code of a particular country, we're talking about simple moral concepts that make sense to anyone from any world culture. and your car analogy is completely off-base: diffusion of responsibility in a traffic situation is not at all analogous to one perpetrator creating a panic, where culpability is clear and obvious
and you write "You view it as an means to control other people"
yeah, you got me. excuse me, i have to go suck obama's cock, since he appointed me dark overlord for retarded thread arguments, secret liberal fascist agenda workgroup #7A
pffft
any other paranoid rant you want to project on me and what i am actually saying? or maybe, gee i dunno, do you want to fucking actually read what i am actually fucking writing and actually fucking respond to that?
small cluebat for you: when arguing with people, it helps to respond to what they actually fucking are saying to you, as opposed to atavistically projecting your dimwitted little hysterical fears on your opponent, and reacting to that instead, as if your pantytwisted little fears actually have the slightest thing to do with what the other person is ACTUALLY FUCKING SAYING. its a sign of intellectual bankruptcy: you've run out of coherent things to say, so you throw scary words around
as i said, you're grasping at straws: you don't have anything substantiative to respond to me about what i am saying, so you're accusing me of random completely unrelated bullshit. because some part of you recognizes you've lost the fucking argument, but your stubborn pride prevents you from actually admitting i have a fucking point about your fundamentalist way of thinking about your so called "principles"
a three year old can be taught to say "free speech is important". it doesn't mean anything until he understands what free speech is. a teenager can be taught to say "free speech important above all else". it doesn't mean anything because he doesn't understand how complicated real life is. young, naive idealists understand principles in the most simplistic of ways. its a sign of ignorance of a wider world, a lack of wisdom and life experience. in fact it isn't really principles they have, because such inexperienced simpletons only understand the world in relation to their preconceived notions about how the world should work under ideal conditions that never really exist
real principles are understanding the concepts that are valuable to you in relation to how they actually work in the real world, how to sustain them, and how to keep them safe from some unfortunate and ugly truths about human nature which unfortunately bind us all. only then can you be considered a wise person: when you see how delicate such a concept as "free speech" really is, how hard it is to maintain it, and how it can never really be perfect in this world
instead of fucking marching around with words written in glitter that you worship, pridefully boasting you have "principles" because you say free speech is above all, which any fucking moron can say, and never really mean anything. well: i say pancakes are the most important thing is the world. oh yeah for me! who the fuck cares? what does it fucking mean? it doesn't mean anything. only when you have a coherent vision of how delicate and yet important something like free speech is are you a truly principled person whose mind has an appreciation of THE REAL WORLD
you're a simpleton. grow some iq points, try to understand your much worshipped but little understood constitution and its free speech someday, and then say something actually useful about free speech and how it actually works, and how to actually protect it. hint: its slightly more complicated than worshipping the constitution like a fucking cargo cult, protecting it from the horrible scary liberals
oh yes, evil liberalism: THE VERY FUCKING PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION OF THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION, you moron. and ah yes, freedom of speech: A LIBERAL IDEA. sheesh. get some edumacation some day, knuckle dragger
liberal this, milgram that, peta this. grasping at straws
you're firing your shotgun while stumbling back: a lot of random shot all over the place, none of them even remotely reaching what i am saying or who i am or what i represent to you and your "thinking", such as the absence of thought that you represent can be described
you don't venerate the concepts and ideas in the constitution, which i do highly value, you instead venerate the literal words, aping them back without the slightest attempt to actually digest the concepts behind the words. you're exactly like the maniacs holding up verses of the quran before they commit various atrocities: fundamentalist idiots, the whole lot of you. the document means everything to you morons, the thought and the concepts behind the document, nothing. because you've never actually thought about what the fucking words actually MEAN, you've just encrusted the literal words in gold glitter in your mind and marched around with them. fetishization, not moral thought
i value the constitution more than you ever can, because i am actually thinking about what the constitution actually means. you are merely regurgitating the words, and providing no thought to what the words mean. you're a fundamentalist. you're an enemy of what the founding fathers were trying to do when they wrote the constitution. you're very much what is wrong with this world: you've stopped thinking
someday, assuming a more nuanced social skillset, you might have a child
in which case, the irrational desire to protect that child from the various dangerous scenarios of adult life will be felt in your own mind. and it is an irrational desire. much like the irrational desire to feed. or the irrational desire to fornicate. in other words: not so rational from a point of view of principles and concepts, but very rational from the point of view of the preservation of and continuation of life: take care of your children
biological imperatives trump all high minded concepts. principles and concepts work only when they aren't interfering with biological imperatives. as an example: every right, freedom, and sense of decency you hold dear and valuable in your mind is just one food riot away from being completely violated without any recourse to justice. no police, court system, or government body can remain coherent when those police, judges, and government bureaucrats are more busy with trying to procure some food. so pay attention to those biological imperatives, they matter a hell of a whole lot. ignore them at the peril of losing all progress we've ever made in human society
so if you have kids, you will understand that this impulse isn't so irrational after all, as there is a very real biological rational reason to protect your offspring from the real world until they are able enough physically and mentally to protect themselves: for species that have a small set of children, such as homo sapiens, evolution favors the survival rate of organisms that actively protect their offspring
all i'm saying is that "think of the children!" might be the butt of every slashdot joke, but it is also a "hysteria" that you need to make peace with and accept, because it is simply never, ever going away. because it actually makes a hell of a lot of sense, but from a different point of view, a point of view that trumps all other points of view
without children, all the arguments you could ever have about rights and freedoms won't matter one bit if there's no one here to inherit the society and the government you tried to improve. the health and well being of the generation that comes after you is all you leave in this world, on an individual and a societal level. so it really is of the highest importance that you do your best to protect them until they can fend for themselves
this simple, brutal logic defeats and overrules all other arguments you can possibly make. "think of the children" reigns supreme. deal with it
there are exceptions to every concept
such as to free speech by shouting fire in a theatre resulting in death WHEN THERE ISN'T A FIRE
now that i've tacked on the braindead fucking obvious qualifier, without which you think you are allowed to smugly weasel out of examining your free speech fundamentalism, i suggest you finally examine how you have failed in creating a logically coherent set of "principles"
yes, you are "principled"
pfft
assholes who consciously defy self-examination of their own failures usually have a whole bunch of complementary adjectives to describe their supposed wholesomeness
morons who don't vaccinate their children are fighting for individual rights (at the expense of public health)
morons who don't allow their children blood transfusions are fighting for religious freedom (at the expense of their child's death)
morons who quote the constitution as if it were the fucking bible without actually THINKING about the concepts behind the document are defiling the very spirit the framers of the constitution committed to paper. if the founding fathers were reading this thread, they would point to your braindead zeal as the very enemy of the concepts they were describing
the constitution describes a trust between the people and its government. this is a living trust, meaning with changes in society and technology, its words should, rightfully, change over time to adhere to the PRINCIPLES it embodies. meanwhile, aping the fucking words and NOT THINKING ABOUT THE MEANING BEHIND THEM is merely making a trust with a dead, static long ago era. you sitting there spouting the words of the constitution in the same way a religious zealot shouts verses from the quran or the bible makes perfect sense in summarizing exactly what you are: a brain dead, zombified, unthinking fucking fundamentalist, an enemy of the PRINCIPLES the founding father held dear
now grow a fucking brain and THINK and QUESTION and therefore validate your sorry rotten mind
if i shout fire in a crowded theatre, and this leads to someone's death, than i am criminally culpable
yet according to you, this is protected free speech
no: there genuinely exists in this world, simply as a result of clear logical consequence, that some speech must be disallowed for the sake of justice in this world. the "fire" in a crowded theatre example is merely one of a million such scenarios where free speech is genuinely and intractably incompatible with the concept of justice
your problem is that you are a free speech fundamentalist. a fundamentalist is someone who adheres to a concept WITHOUT EXCEPTION: free speech, the free market, the infallibility of the bible/ quran/ torah, whatever. there are millions of types of fundamentalists, each being someone who holds a concept to be without exception and utterly unquestionable, like you and free speech
the truth is that in this world, every concept, even the ones you hold most dear, have exceptions, and must be questioned. the concepts i hold most dear have exceptions and must be questioned. that's just the nature of this world: its complicated. fundamentalism therefore creates suffering in this world because it tries to impose a cookie cutter simplification of human nature onto a complicated world, such that all of the inevitable exceptions of real human behavior in the real world are not tolerated, and are punished... when such behavior isn't really wrong, and may in fact be what is right
your words speak of a young mind. you are probably 14 years old. give it time, you'll figure it out... and if you actually aren't 14, god save us all from the fools and the fundamentalists in this world: the simplistic way you think about your world is poisonous
if the issue is just that someone doesn't want information out there they don't like, then wikipedia is being violated by the court system for the sake of an inflamed ego rather than an actual case of criminality. in which case, one would think then that this is an actual criminal case. if its not a criminal case, it soon will be, with the court system as the defendant and wikipedia as the plaintiff
also, i have your bank account password. give me $1,000 and fuck off, or i will empty your bank account in its entirety
zzz
blackmail is blackmail is blackmail
whatever you think of your rights online, criminal activity renders some of your rights null and void
of course you have rights in a free society: as long as you also abide by your responsibilities. this is true of actual, flawed societies that are not entirely free, and also true of any hypothetical societies you can imagine that function perfectly: when you break your responsibilities you have in a free society, you have abdicated your rights. do you honestly think there is any way around that fact? a society of individuals who do not abide by their responsibilities is by direct consequence a society with few rights as well
the government is a side issue: most of your rights are violated in this world by your fellow citizens, not the government. of course the government also violates your rights. in a society trying to improve itself, this is revealed, discussed, and punished. just like individuals who violate your rights deserve to be punished. sorry, they don't deserve to be punished, they MUST be punished to show there is genuine consequences for abdication of responsibility in this world. without such enforcement, there's no reason to respect anyone's rights, whether by government, or a fellow citizen
to most of you, the previous paragraph is eye-glazingly obvious
however, i feel the need to say it, because underneath this story we will see a lot of howling of the government violating people's rights. when the fact is, if you blackmail someone, you HAVE to have your rights violated, for the sake of a functioning free society, actual or theoretical
we see a lot of complaints on these forums and in general about rights. what we don't see much discussion is one about responsibilities. please do your small part and keep that in mind: for every right you claim, you are also taking on an implied responsibility you must keep if you wish to maintain the rights you cherish
whistleblowing is when you go to the press and release info of a criminal nature. blackmailing is when you send letters to the target with a threat to release the info, whether of a criminal nature or just a private, sensitive nature
please report to the nearest droid maintenance facility and have your moral circuitry checked out, thanks
i mean, how hard can it be to run a large hadron collider anyways? like changing the oil in your car! sheesh
but saddam gassed his own computers
anyways, guys, i wanted to tell you about this new band i'm listen to. it's called gently liv###
[NO CARRIER]
the browser is the os. or rather, the browser will become the os. anything and everything of any value to 99% of us in the modern internet-centered world will be interacted with through the browser
so instead of talking about jailbreaking javascript, the more relevant subject should be jailbreaking the browser. such that when joe user turns on his computer in 2015, he gets a browser, and only a browser, and nothing but a browser. native javascript implementation then continues merrily chugging along in the browser, as it always has, otherwise completely oblivious to the fact that it is now the only game in town
note that i'm talking about the computer using experience for the average user. please don't object to my depiction of this scenario from the point of view of the exotic user blocks that plenty of slashdot readers belong to, but don't describe the reality of computer use for the average user
in the south pacific when cannibalism was still going on, not too long ago (and is perhaps still going on in the hinterlands of papua new guinea)
because we taste like pig
if you want to know what human flesh tastes like, have some bacon: its no historical secret that pig meat is pretty much the same flavor as human meat
perhaps most interesting is that we like the taste of bacon so much... i wonder why that is so, hmm? we're all covertly cannibalistic in our tastes, i think. i would wager that every human being alive today comes from some ancestor who ate human flesh at one time or another, whether for bare survival, or for ritualistic cultural reasons
what would be interesting is to make bacon out of these vat grown human cells. might just be the best bacon taste EVER
lol
you may now barf from painful self-realization of your own vile nature
you do realize that using racial slurs makes you just as bad as what you are complaining about, right?