i believe that if guns are outlawed, rural folk would die at the hands of outlaws as a consequence of that law
however, i can't feel sorry for all 12 of them, seeing as hundreds of urban folk every year die in american cities for the sake of a law that serves only rural yokels
in reality, you are not given a choice between a universal good and a universal evil, you are given a choice between two negative situations, and you must decide which situation is least negative. so its: 1. free access to guns, lots of urban dead at the hands of moronic thugs, or: 2. severely curtailed guns, a few rural dead due to predation by random outlaws
difficulty factor: the majority of the usa is now and is increasingly urban
you can make life miserable for a few unlucky enough to be caught, but you can't change reality. and the reality of the situation is, the rich goons aren't rich enough to alter the fundamental rules of the internet
the rest of your comment reeks of defeatism and capitulation to force. unless you live in tehran, i suggest you think about what your cowardice means in the real world. the rich goons win partly by depending upon people who think like you to do nothing. every authoritarian regime exists partly because of the resignation of the defeated masses, which is the essence of the content of your thoughts: you think like a sheep
via your ridiculous levels of fear and negativity, you are part of the problem, you aid the rich goons. now i'm not asking to man the barricades and throw molotov cocktails, all i'm asking you to do is simply say something positive and supportive, or to shut up
and, much like early earnest well-meaning idealistic communists would probably recoil in horror at what communism really meant: authoritarian terror, those who originally intended copyright law as a way to protect authors would recoil in horror that the legal framework is nothing more than a tool of DISTRIBUTORS to line their pockets by taxing our culture
if you think copyright law is about protecting creators, then thanks for the laugh
it helped destroyed the feudal code and the social stratification that came with that
"The only technology that usually always wins is guns, and that is why we have a 2nd amendment."
i don't know where this fantasy cam from that yahoos in the backwoods are somehow protecting us from fascism. if anything, if our democracy is destroyed by fascism, it will be yahoos in the backwoods with guns who are the shock troops of that fascism
just study what these rabid teabaggers think about the need to "protect" the "real" america from (modern urban existence) and how they intend to do that: with a gun. this is the soil in which fascism grows, not a bulwark against it
the second amendment is about native americans, british and french running around in the backwoods. which isn't a reality anymore. the second amendment is a quaint historical anachronism, that has been reinterpretted and repurposed by vaguely paranoid schizophrenic rural folk to put them in a starring role as heroes and saviors in the valiant struggle against modern urban politics
problem is, demographically, the united states is majority urban nowdays. meaning rural folk will have to give up their guns at some point, since the country will only accelerate towards urbanization. reverence of the second amendment as if it were the word of god is a rural thing, not an urban thing. it is inevitable, but gun control will only tick up in this country, as it should
in urban environments, guns are not tools of the valiant struggle against fascist scoundrels (cue ride of the valkyries and slip dirty harry into the dvd player and dream about boy scout wish-fulfillment fantastic scenarios), but simply the tools of moronic thugs to unleash senseless tragedy
the law versus technological progress is a pretty heavily loaded contest
please study your history on the outcome of these contests
a lot of supposedly smart, but hopelessly old (not necessarily chronologically, just in terms of anyone set in their thinking) people just do NOT understand the full implications of the internet
again, for anyone who's missed it, even though hearing it for the 1,000th time isn't probably going to finally open your eyes:
the internet has effectively replaced pre-internet distribution models. copyright law consists of gentleman's agreements between major publishers from that era. you cannot extend those gentleman's agreements to random anonymous teenagers the world over. rather, random anonymous teenagers the world over will compel you to rewrite fundamental copyright law, simply because its completely unenforceable in a new technological reality
were you listening? do you get it yet? do you understand?
no?
well then onward with the fucking copyright secret police then brave soldier. whatever. fucking retarded. i guess we just need to wait for certain closed minds to just fucking die already like the ossified dinosaurs they are then. stubborn ignorant blind obstacles to progress
ten thousand lawyers, government paper pushers, and enforcement goons
versus
ten million media hungry, technologically savvy, and most importantly, POOR teenagers
"He hired 15 people, including 5 professional chefs, a photographer, an art director and writers and editors, to create it. They included Christopher Young, a biochemistry-graduate-student-turned-chef who headed the research kitchen at the Fat Duck near London, one of the most innovative restaurants in the world."
registered a domain name, snowed some clueless investors with a generic, vague pie in the sky technology idea that would never realize light of day, then timed it perfectly to leave with a pile of cash before the shit hit the fan
for doing that, he is laudable, in some fashion
he's a good businessman at best, a con artist at worst, but why whatever that man thinks should have any respect in this forum is beyond me. "News for Nerds" automatically excludes anything mark cuban thinks
you often wind up using certain functions heavily that reveal themselves to have strange quirks
since these functions are effectively black boxes that your average developer has no legal ability to understand deeper, you have to leave it at that
blaming the coder for being unable to know why something works in such a situation would be fundamentalist in attitude on your part
yes, you should understand everything you write in code, but you also need a job to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head. not everyone can be a greybeard learning the deep zen of a true coder in a completely open source environment
you should therefore show some leniency for the journeyman programmer trying to pay his bills, who has to work with black box functions under deadline out of necessity, not choice
in such a situation, it is perfectly reasonable to hack at the code until it works, then quietly walk away, unable to know why you made it work. in microsoft land, since the functions you are working with are closed source, you can't blame the programmer for this status quo
it is your duty to not ignore current copyright law, but to do your best to actively destroy it. current copyright law impoverishes us culturally with ridiculous restrictions on the flow of culture simply for the sake of creating a business model for a business which isn't even necessary. current copyright law was meant as a gentleman's agreement amongst large media players sipping mojitos in oak paneled rooms, never meant as a bully club against the general public
until such time that copyright provisions return to normalcy: 5-10 years of protection for the creators only, and until such time that publishers are rendered economically untenable, it is your duty as a moral person to not ignore copyright, but to do as much economic damage as possible to the parasitic businesses known as publishers
they were a necessary evil in the pre-internet world. in the internet world, publishers are simply evil, having been rendered redundant by simple technological progress
it is time to wipe publishers from the face of the earth with a prolonged campaign to reduce their financial inflows to zero
but redemption should be considered on an individual basis, not a societal basis
in other words, i'm will to give these guys a chance to be considered redeemed, but i'd like to be the one giving that redemption on my own terms, not on society's terms, if i ever interact with these guys
therefore, i'd like to know their past. having that knowledge does not mean i will automatically condemn them forever. i know it was a long time ago, and i am willing to give them fresh consideration. but i'd like to be the one doing that
so why does the german law assume german citizens are eternally condemning? why doesn't the german law assume that german citizens are open-minded and fair-minded and able to consider redemption on their own basis?
take 500 random humans, put them on a desert island in isolation, and in a couple of dozen generations they will have an advanced religious mythology, definitely involving demigods if not a monotheism (and a couple of nonbelievers for good measure)
repeat this experiment, and you will get a different religious mythology, but you will still have a religious mythology
if you had a magic wand, and you waved it, and christianity, islam, judaism, hinduism, sikhism, etc. were magically stamped out, new religions would spring into being overnight to fill the void. and it is a void: there is a place in every human society that religion inhabits. there's no doing away with it. ever
in other words, i don't believe in god, but i believe that belief in god is inescapable in the part of a large part of society
so you need to make peace with belief in god. not because god is real, but because no matter what you do, a lot of people will believe in it, and you can't ever change that, its inevitable
your criticism is only valid if complete enforcement was ever a goal anyone ever considered practical
law enforcement is just a maintenance function of civilization:
1. it never ends 2. it can never possibly be done to completion
and the realization of either truth isn't discouraging or disenheartening. it's just the way it is
people with a moral compass and people who will screw little old ladies out of their hard earned cash are both reborn in every generation anew, in a sort of statistical stasis. its an eternal state, and we must continually pursue and punish wrongdoers, forever, job permanently incomplete
how much has been spent building religious monuments and buildings? what is gained fom the expenditure?
not everything in life is an actuarial table that decides what to do with your time. some goals promise upfront 0% capital return, yet are perfectly acceptable. because the return on the investment is abstract
why spend your weekend mountain climbing? all that time, money, and risk.. for a renewed sense of self
so why go to the moon?
maybe because there's something in us yearning to get off earth? worth quadrillions of dollars? sure, why not. what else is there to spend all the money on? mansions and nice cars get boring after awhile
so you've had 5 minute conversations with a bunch of people you didn't really want to talk to. and based on that, you think this permits you to give them heavy condemning labels
no one is one dimensional
but if you still want to make the case that someone out there is one dimensional, i nominate you, based on the shallowness of what you've just written
that these stereotypes of behavior are aspects of everyone's personality, including yours
i would have hoped that people would have realized thinking about the world in this cliquish way went out of fashion in high school. simply because you realized in high school (or should have realized) that people aren't cartoonish cardboard cut-outs of one dimensional behavior
show me someone who is supposedly dead center for being, say, the "sociopath", and i'll show you their empathetic qualities. now also show me someone who is supposedly far removed from being the "sociopath" and i'll show you the sociopathic side to their personality
it makes for good television, but real people are a lot more complex than this derivative reductionist thinking that sells people short. its entertaining, but in real life, its brutalizing to your social interaction
thinking about people this way only hurts you, in the end, by hobbling you with a poor model of human thinking and interaction. such that you reduce the richness of your own social experience up front before you even have a chance, because your mentality has overly simplified the people around you. you sell them short, and in turn, you only wind up selling yourself short
in other words, you've become the source of the problem: i would call a person who uses these stereotypes as a way of thinking about people around them the only truly one-dimensional stereotype that has a ring of truth: "the feckless tool"
the role of a democracy is to serve the citizens of a country
i simply don't know how you are relating that to the issue of what happens outside the country
your complaint is simply out of context to the subject matter
i'm sure your government shares your concerns, and i'm sure your government has aired those concerns with their american counterparts. just as representatives of the american government has aired any complaints about your country's behavior on the international stage. what else do you want done?
Slashdot Mirror
i believe that if guns are outlawed, rural folk would die at the hands of outlaws as a consequence of that law
however, i can't feel sorry for all 12 of them, seeing as hundreds of urban folk every year die in american cities for the sake of a law that serves only rural yokels
in reality, you are not given a choice between a universal good and a universal evil, you are given a choice between two negative situations, and you must decide which situation is least negative. so its: 1. free access to guns, lots of urban dead at the hands of moronic thugs, or: 2. severely curtailed guns, a few rural dead due to predation by random outlaws
difficulty factor: the majority of the usa is now and is increasingly urban
extrapolate to the political future
tick tock, tick tock
you can make life miserable for a few unlucky enough to be caught, but you can't change reality. and the reality of the situation is, the rich goons aren't rich enough to alter the fundamental rules of the internet
the rest of your comment reeks of defeatism and capitulation to force. unless you live in tehran, i suggest you think about what your cowardice means in the real world. the rich goons win partly by depending upon people who think like you to do nothing. every authoritarian regime exists partly because of the resignation of the defeated masses, which is the essence of the content of your thoughts: you think like a sheep
via your ridiculous levels of fear and negativity, you are part of the problem, you aid the rich goons. now i'm not asking to man the barricades and throw molotov cocktails, all i'm asking you to do is simply say something positive and supportive, or to shut up
and, much like early earnest well-meaning idealistic communists would probably recoil in horror at what communism really meant: authoritarian terror, those who originally intended copyright law as a way to protect authors would recoil in horror that the legal framework is nothing more than a tool of DISTRIBUTORS to line their pockets by taxing our culture
if you think copyright law is about protecting creators, then thanks for the laugh
it helped destroyed the feudal code and the social stratification that came with that
"The only technology that usually always wins is guns, and that is why we have a 2nd amendment."
i don't know where this fantasy cam from that yahoos in the backwoods are somehow protecting us from fascism. if anything, if our democracy is destroyed by fascism, it will be yahoos in the backwoods with guns who are the shock troops of that fascism
just study what these rabid teabaggers think about the need to "protect" the "real" america from (modern urban existence) and how they intend to do that: with a gun. this is the soil in which fascism grows, not a bulwark against it
the second amendment is about native americans, british and french running around in the backwoods. which isn't a reality anymore. the second amendment is a quaint historical anachronism, that has been reinterpretted and repurposed by vaguely paranoid schizophrenic rural folk to put them in a starring role as heroes and saviors in the valiant struggle against modern urban politics
problem is, demographically, the united states is majority urban nowdays. meaning rural folk will have to give up their guns at some point, since the country will only accelerate towards urbanization. reverence of the second amendment as if it were the word of god is a rural thing, not an urban thing. it is inevitable, but gun control will only tick up in this country, as it should
in urban environments, guns are not tools of the valiant struggle against fascist scoundrels (cue ride of the valkyries and slip dirty harry into the dvd player and dream about boy scout wish-fulfillment fantastic scenarios), but simply the tools of moronic thugs to unleash senseless tragedy
the law versus technological progress is a pretty heavily loaded contest
please study your history on the outcome of these contests
a lot of supposedly smart, but hopelessly old (not necessarily chronologically, just in terms of anyone set in their thinking) people just do NOT understand the full implications of the internet
again, for anyone who's missed it, even though hearing it for the 1,000th time isn't probably going to finally open your eyes:
the internet has effectively replaced pre-internet distribution models. copyright law consists of gentleman's agreements between major publishers from that era. you cannot extend those gentleman's agreements to random anonymous teenagers the world over. rather, random anonymous teenagers the world over will compel you to rewrite fundamental copyright law, simply because its completely unenforceable in a new technological reality
were you listening? do you get it yet? do you understand?
no?
well then onward with the fucking copyright secret police then brave soldier. whatever. fucking retarded. i guess we just need to wait for certain closed minds to just fucking die already like the ossified dinosaurs they are then. stubborn ignorant blind obstacles to progress
ten thousand lawyers, government paper pushers, and enforcement goons
versus
ten million media hungry, technologically savvy, and most importantly, POOR teenagers
figure it out
you lose, you fucking morons
it would be interesting to find out if they are merely patsies for a larger effort, or are genuinely isolated and inspired script kiddies
"He hired 15 people, including 5 professional chefs, a photographer, an art director and writers and editors, to create it. They included Christopher Young, a biochemistry-graduate-student-turned-chef who headed the research kitchen at the Fat Duck near London, one of the most innovative restaurants in the world."
wow, just think of all the sequel opportunities
oh... yeah, never mind
the japanese don't self-flagellate that much
and so they do this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Yasukuni_Shrine#Politicians.27_visits
and they get that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese_sentiment_in_China#Effects_of_World_War_II
a little self-flagellation by the japanese would be less harmful for the japanese than visiting that stupid shrine. however, pride being what it is...
registered a domain name, snowed some clueless investors with a generic, vague pie in the sky technology idea that would never realize light of day, then timed it perfectly to leave with a pile of cash before the shit hit the fan
for doing that, he is laudable, in some fashion
he's a good businessman at best, a con artist at worst, but why whatever that man thinks should have any respect in this forum is beyond me. "News for Nerds" automatically excludes anything mark cuban thinks
you often wind up using certain functions heavily that reveal themselves to have strange quirks
since these functions are effectively black boxes that your average developer has no legal ability to understand deeper, you have to leave it at that
blaming the coder for being unable to know why something works in such a situation would be fundamentalist in attitude on your part
yes, you should understand everything you write in code, but you also need a job to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head. not everyone can be a greybeard learning the deep zen of a true coder in a completely open source environment
you should therefore show some leniency for the journeyman programmer trying to pay his bills, who has to work with black box functions under deadline out of necessity, not choice
in such a situation, it is perfectly reasonable to hack at the code until it works, then quietly walk away, unable to know why you made it work. in microsoft land, since the functions you are working with are closed source, you can't blame the programmer for this status quo
it is your duty to not ignore current copyright law, but to do your best to actively destroy it. current copyright law impoverishes us culturally with ridiculous restrictions on the flow of culture simply for the sake of creating a business model for a business which isn't even necessary. current copyright law was meant as a gentleman's agreement amongst large media players sipping mojitos in oak paneled rooms, never meant as a bully club against the general public
until such time that copyright provisions return to normalcy: 5-10 years of protection for the creators only, and until such time that publishers are rendered economically untenable, it is your duty as a moral person to not ignore copyright, but to do as much economic damage as possible to the parasitic businesses known as publishers
they were a necessary evil in the pre-internet world. in the internet world, publishers are simply evil, having been rendered redundant by simple technological progress
it is time to wipe publishers from the face of the earth with a prolonged campaign to reduce their financial inflows to zero
for scientific screensaverology
but redemption should be considered on an individual basis, not a societal basis
in other words, i'm will to give these guys a chance to be considered redeemed, but i'd like to be the one giving that redemption on my own terms, not on society's terms, if i ever interact with these guys
therefore, i'd like to know their past. having that knowledge does not mean i will automatically condemn them forever. i know it was a long time ago, and i am willing to give them fresh consideration. but i'd like to be the one doing that
so why does the german law assume german citizens are eternally condemning? why doesn't the german law assume that german citizens are open-minded and fair-minded and able to consider redemption on their own basis?
take 500 random humans, put them on a desert island in isolation, and in a couple of dozen generations they will have an advanced religious mythology, definitely involving demigods if not a monotheism (and a couple of nonbelievers for good measure)
repeat this experiment, and you will get a different religious mythology, but you will still have a religious mythology
if you had a magic wand, and you waved it, and christianity, islam, judaism, hinduism, sikhism, etc. were magically stamped out, new religions would spring into being overnight to fill the void. and it is a void: there is a place in every human society that religion inhabits. there's no doing away with it. ever
in other words, i don't believe in god, but i believe that belief in god is inescapable in the part of a large part of society
so you need to make peace with belief in god. not because god is real, but because no matter what you do, a lot of people will believe in it, and you can't ever change that, its inevitable
cheap energy also means we can get off this planet
so we can build, eat and fuck other planets into desolate wastelands
so it all works out, see?
with 18,000 destinations, all of them moving, and each with a different angle, trajectory, spin mass, etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem
so while the idea as a real world solution is obviously impractical, its a great way to exercise computer scientist minds to dizzying distraction
your criticism is only valid if complete enforcement was ever a goal anyone ever considered practical
law enforcement is just a maintenance function of civilization:
1. it never ends
2. it can never possibly be done to completion
and the realization of either truth isn't discouraging or disenheartening. it's just the way it is
people with a moral compass and people who will screw little old ladies out of their hard earned cash are both reborn in every generation anew, in a sort of statistical stasis. its an eternal state, and we must continually pursue and punish wrongdoers, forever, job permanently incomplete
how much has been spent building religious monuments and buildings? what is gained fom the expenditure?
not everything in life is an actuarial table that decides what to do with your time. some goals promise upfront 0% capital return, yet are perfectly acceptable. because the return on the investment is abstract
why spend your weekend mountain climbing? all that time, money, and risk.. for a renewed sense of self
so why go to the moon?
maybe because there's something in us yearning to get off earth? worth quadrillions of dollars? sure, why not. what else is there to spend all the money on? mansions and nice cars get boring after awhile
the world capital of porn production and general weirdness of all varieties
so its not surprising
so you've had 5 minute conversations with a bunch of people you didn't really want to talk to. and based on that, you think this permits you to give them heavy condemning labels
no one is one dimensional
but if you still want to make the case that someone out there is one dimensional, i nominate you, based on the shallowness of what you've just written
that these stereotypes of behavior are aspects of everyone's personality, including yours
i would have hoped that people would have realized thinking about the world in this cliquish way went out of fashion in high school. simply because you realized in high school (or should have realized) that people aren't cartoonish cardboard cut-outs of one dimensional behavior
show me someone who is supposedly dead center for being, say, the "sociopath", and i'll show you their empathetic qualities. now also show me someone who is supposedly far removed from being the "sociopath" and i'll show you the sociopathic side to their personality
it makes for good television, but real people are a lot more complex than this derivative reductionist thinking that sells people short. its entertaining, but in real life, its brutalizing to your social interaction
thinking about people this way only hurts you, in the end, by hobbling you with a poor model of human thinking and interaction. such that you reduce the richness of your own social experience up front before you even have a chance, because your mentality has overly simplified the people around you. you sell them short, and in turn, you only wind up selling yourself short
in other words, you've become the source of the problem: i would call a person who uses these stereotypes as a way of thinking about people around them the only truly one-dimensional stereotype that has a ring of truth: "the feckless tool"
here's a typical shot of a great white in san francisco bay:
http://www.empireonline.com/features/golden-gate-bridge-in-movies/
the role of a democracy is to serve the citizens of a country
i simply don't know how you are relating that to the issue of what happens outside the country
your complaint is simply out of context to the subject matter
i'm sure your government shares your concerns, and i'm sure your government has aired those concerns with their american counterparts. just as representatives of the american government has aired any complaints about your country's behavior on the international stage. what else do you want done?
those are concerns that are served by international relations, not internal democratic processes