yes, there are 13 year olds who are more mature than some 33 year olds on some issues. but your average 13 year is not psychologically mature enough for informed consent with an older person. they simply don't understand the long term psychological effects on their self-esteem, their happiness, their sense of identity, etc. maintaining these aspects of self are often not even concepts most of them recognize yet
15 year olds? 17 year olds? where do we draw the line?
well, we have to draw it somewhere
look, there are guys who can speed 110 mph down the highway all year long and not get in an accident. most of us can't do that. is it fair to the guy with amazing advanced driving skills that the speed limit is 70? no. but that's not the point of laws: the point is a standard of justice for society, not the gifted drivers. nor preternaturally mature youngsters
because what you have to understand about human beings is that even though most of us can't drive 110 mph, a lot of us would say that yes, we can do that. its called hubris, we all suffer from it. at 110 mph speed limits, we'd have a lot of accidents because its a simple human failing that we overestimate our abilities, underestimate our simple human fragility. plenty of 13 year olds would even say "yes, i'm ready for sex with an elder" according to the same human failing of overestimating their abilities. and then later, when they are building their sense of self-esteem and thinking about who they are and what they are here on this planet for, they've done themselves permanent damage: "i'm just a monkey hole. i'm not a future scientist, i'm not a future leader. i'm a port of call for the horny." this is damage to the psyche, they aren't ready yet to incorporate something as potent as sex properly into their self-image. a 13 year simply has no INFORMED CONSENT about what sex means yet to them
so you err on the side of caution, and you make the age of consent the late teens
sure, there are historical societies where age of consent like 10 years old. these same societies also had things like human sacrifice, slavery, cannibalism, absolute monarchy... in other words, pointing to what they did in brutal times is no justification for brutality
and sex with with minors IS brutality. we live in a modern advanced society. we respect concepts like psychological maturity, human dignity, informed consent. this helps us remain an advanced society
so respect the rules, or be punished for transgression. but fear of being punished shouldn't motivate you to respect the laws against having sex with minors. you yourself, if you have a human conscience, should simply understand that sex with minors is a transgression against your own human conscience, your own abilit yto empathize with the fact that 99% of 13 year olds are not psychologically ready to handle sex with an adult. you need to understand that, and understand why it is simply wrong
you also have to be considered psychologically mature enough to know what exactly you are consenting to, what it implies, what its effect on you will be in terms of self-esteem, etc
physical maturity is not the same as psychological maturity
even if the 13 year old girl, perfectly sober, had agreed to have sex with polanski, its still rape, because by any coherent standard, a 13 year old is not ready to fully understand the implications of the arrangement. 15 year old? 17 year old? look: there's some 11 year olds who are more mature than some 51 year olds in certain aspects of life. but by any coherent standard, 13 year olds by and large simply don't understand what the hell is going on PSYCHOLOGICALLY (they understand what id going physically) when it comes to sex. this is valid observation for a binding legal standard by any rational effort
yes, some archaic societies and historical ones pretty much agree 11 year old girls were fair game for marriage/ sex/ etc
and these same societies also had things like slavery, absolute monarchy, cannibalism, etc. so there's no validity in pointing to brutal societies to justify burtality
in other words, we live in a modern advanced society. as such we recognize concepts like psychological maturity and informed consent and human dignity. and we respect them, and we incorporate them in our legal codes and we punish people who violate the concepts. why? so that we can stay being a modern advanced society. so should you respect the concept of "informed consent", not if you wish to remain a part of this society, but if you want to consider yourself a modern rational human being who understands and respects human dignity and who has a human conscience
or don't. and we'll rightfully punish you for your willful transgressions
sharia is an abomination and it is unfortunately spreading (see malaysia, indonesia)
but its not universally recognized
all societies go through fits of reactionary lunacy. the muslim world must weather their fools, and the rest of the world must remind them that sharia is an obvious trangression of basic human rights and will not be tolerated in the least, and with any luck, the storm clouds will pass quickly
if not, we have a lot misery and suffering we need to deal with, the obvious byproduct of the stupidity of sharia law
On the streets of Cairo, there was a sense that the award was for Mr. Obama's intentions, and, perhaps, a bit of wishful thinking regarding the implementation of those intentions.
"Love the dude, but all he's done on the peace side of things is make a few nice speeches and not go to war with anyone else," Ibrahim Assem, 32, who works as a portfolio manager at a London-based equity firm in Cairo. "They are handing him the Nobel Peace Prize because he isn't George Bush."
anyone who came after gw bush in the white house would look deserving of the peace prize in comparison, by simply not being gw bush. that's the sum total of the truth about this prize right there
not the parent teacher association of peoria illinois
now you can wax and wane philosophical all you want about the decline of a true meritocracy in the usa, that's perfectly valid. and you can register a complaint about the empty vapid faddishness of the wine and cheese set in stockholm, again, totally valid
you can make a movie for $100 million, and make a nice profit in THEATRES. where you sell TICKETS
television was supposed to destroy theatres, then the vcr, then the dvd, then the internet... and there's always more money in it, even with all the cell phones and crying kids. people love the cinema
because as well all know, the concept of exchanging cash for digital content is solid unquestionable morality. meanwhile, if i were to assert that perhaps digital content reaches maximum economic value for its creators when it is valued at $0, that true economic influence is felt in the ancillary benefits surrounding the distribution of digital content, i'm just some sort of a kook
you could say i might even have something valid to say there, but microsoft plainly states it wishes to have cash in exchange for its digital content, and i have no right to abrogate that agreement. right, just like i have no right to question that the great grandchildren of the writer of "happy birthday" still deserve cash for someone playing that song somewhere. just like i have no right to question why a picture of a stupid mouse is still private property. etc.
you know what? i have every right to abrogate an "agreement" i was never consenting party to and see no logical, philosophical, moral, or economic coherence in
i got this awesome bug fix such that Outlook now says "This copy of Office is not genuine. Click here to learn more online." in an unremoveable toolbar
i specifically alluded to the flourishing of the sciences in the islamic world in the middle ages already in my comment you responded to. why are you pointing out to me what i already wrote?
"Islam is not necessarily intolerant, nor is Christianity (or atheism) necessarily tolerant"
absolutely correct, and i never said or implied anything remotely like that
"I submit that barbarity is trying to swallow up not merely the Islamic world, but the entire world"
the islamic world (the geographic region, not the religion), right now (not 1000 years ago) is obviously and genuinely far more intolerant in its laws and social norms than western countries. the islamic world obviously has a problem, and it does no good for the islamic world or yourself to deny the plainly obvious. it doesn't have to turn into a criticism of islam, nor does it have to ignore historical realities when the islamic world was the light of the world, but right now, the islamic world specifically is in trouble, and it will begin getting out of trouble just as soon as everyone agrees it deserves some harsh criticism, instead of blindly prideful deflections from within and willfully know nothing deflections from well intentioned but clueless westerners
hubris has been an aspect of society since the dawn of man, and will continue for as long as we are psychologically human
people are constantly overestimating their power over their environment and getting stung in the ass for that overestimation
the streisand effect is but the natural human psychological response to censorship: as soon as someone tells you you can't read/ look at something, you automatically want to read/ look at it
that will never ever stop someone from telling you you can't read/ look at something (though it should stop them, just as you say) because people in hubristic chest thumping situations are in a blind state of mind that doesn't consider that there can be any negative fallout from their naked power grabs
its a form of drunkenness, drunk on power, and it always has its sobering up period afterwards, after the fall from power
When courts are presented with a satire case, they don't say "this is a satire, so we will give it extra latitude." Rather, they painstakingly set out the manner in which the new work comments on some social condition and use that as a significant factor in their analysis. Satires are an unspoken subset of fair use, which often causes confusion among parodies, satires, and jokes. Courts haven't said much about the intersection of satire and fair use, although several cases provide insight into how it might be treated if the court were to consider the issue: The most recent case involved the artist Jeff Koons. He was paid $1.6 million to create a series of paintings entitled the "Easyfun-Ethereal" for Germany's Deutsch Bank. He culled advertising images and his own photographs, scanning them into a computer and digitally superimposing the scanned images against backgrounds of pastoral landscapes to comment on the ways in which our most basic desires are depicted in popular images. In one particular instance, Koons scanned a photo by Andrea Blanch, titled "Silk Sandals by Gucci," which was, as the title suggests, a photo of a pair of woman's feet wearing Gucci sandals. Blanch had shot the photo for a Gucci ad. Koons incorporated part of the photo into his own artwork, which depicted four pairs of women's feet and lower legs dangling over images of various dessert dishes. Blanch, recognized her photo. She was not happy. She sued. She lost. The court explained the satire in detail by describing the social comment being made, rather than sticking the satire label on the painting. In fact, the court doesn't mention the word. The court focused on the first fair use factor (the purpose and character of use), and said it weighed in favor of Koons' appropriation because the use of the photo was transformative and because its purpose was to demonstrate how advertising whetted our various appetites, not to sell shoes for Gucci. Koons used Blanch's work to comment on its social meaning rather than to exploit its creative virtues.
the original idea of intellectual property is to reward creators for creating
how quaint
you tell me what the legal concept is used for mostly nowadays. what i see is corporate entities using their larger legal stable to bully and intimidate smaller cultural entities. i see weapons of control, in the hands of distributors, and not creators. i see end-run agreements by large entities handing over control of creative output, away from true creators: professors, musicians, researchers and the like. to ensure that pesky notion that the creator deserves credit is preemptively routed around and destroyed and falls into corporate hands instead
such that innovation is stifled, not encouraged. or at least not encouraged in the way intellectual property intended. corporate slaves with all of their intellectual property rights signed away up front are true innovators? if you say so
and those who oppose intellectual property are called communists, maoists (and socialists, i guess, since that's the new definition-less dirty epithet you use to hurl at anyone you are told by your propaganda to oppose blindly)
hey, last i understood, monopolies are a destructive force in capitalism, right?
and not that any of this is even new: just read up on farnsworth and rca. the little guy gets screwed, the big corporation profits, and the whole legal edifice of intellectual property is completely warped and absurdified to serve entrenched power, rather than genuine creative progress
there is no moral and philosphical intelligence meant to safeguard progress and novelty in the legal codes surrounding intellectual property today. and the legal perpetrators of this travesty, this sham are too entrenched to do anything about it, to move back towards common sense on the issue of what intellectual property is supposed to be about. such that the whole ridiculous edicifice of intellectual property needs to be fought in the name of prosperous and just modern societies that are prosperous and just because they are based on concepts of liberal tolerant values
tell me the guy with the lawnchair and the balloons was not the inspiration for the movie "up"
but i loved that guy's plans for descent: just shoot the balloons with a bbgun one by one. i think i'd have some trepidation with that plan sitting in a lawnchair at 2,000 feet. lol
i'm certain the air force is paying attention to security, but i'll bet the chinese and the russians and the indians and the pakistanis are paying very close attention too. examining communication protocols used and logging command and control signals sent and received to reverse engineer standard operating procedure, and perhaps engaging in espionage in the usa, spying on and stealing the crafts' code from its makers
the idea of course being so that they can shut these things down or turn them against their makers in the event of war with the usa. and then to simply sit on these secrets, and perhaps never use them. but as the case of abdul qadeer demonstrates, these military espionage secrets sometimes wind up for sale to the highest bidder
al qaeda and the taliban will never have their own predator or reaper, but its not inconceivable for them to perhaps buy the hack necessary to simply send signals up there to turn around and fire on us servicemen instead
the irony of course is that the technologies that violent jihadists already use are the fruits of the sciences of open and tolerant societies. these sciences would never flourish in the types of societies religious fundamentalists wish to create. allah did not give them the means to wage war in the infidels, the infidels did
and most of iranian "advancement", such as their satellite or their nuclear program, is just tech stolen from the west and rebranded as blessings of the revolution. its good propaganda, but its not the truth, and its hard to hide the fact the west is always leading in science because the west's principles of more open and tolerant societies results in better scientific minds. to be a good scientist, you need to question everything, and in the islamic world, questioning some things is simply a path to your arrest and censure. you can't call yourself an advanced modern society when you have to steal your tech from other more tolerant parts of the world. sadly, the islamic world was in fact the basis for much of scientific advancement while the middle ages swallowed europe in barbarity. but its been a long time since then, and now barbarity is trying to swallow the islamic world
yes, you are correct that it is not conceivable a hacker would reprogram a robot with entirely new PhD thesis level code that took months to write just for a prank. but a wartime enemy or a well-paid industrial saboteur might for the purposes of seriously destructive intentions
furthermore, an effectively dangerous hack might be nothing more than instructing a robot to do nothing when it is supposed to be doing something, to simply erase or freeze the robot. hitting the off switch remotely is orders of magnitude easier conceptually than writing novel code. so even the benign prank-intentioned hacker might create a life-threatening situation if that robot is depended upon to do something vital. which is usually the case, for someone to invest a function to the care of an expensive robot, its probably important
one of them is to politically shield them from the braindead philosophies of free market fundamentalists and libertarians who wish the usa were like somalia, because they are afraid simple social safety nets somehow makes us equivalent to the ussr
so in the future, pranksters could repeat the "caution! zombies ahead!" traffic sign hack, and expand the prank by actually delivering on what the traffic sign is warning about. awesome
sigourney weaver's voice repeatedly warning "caution, rogue robots" after the robots escape from the psych ward in the movie wall-e doesn't seem so far off in the future anymore
as for the self-initiative destroying, self-esteem destroying aspect of welfare: this is 100% real
so let's kick them off welfare so they can starve instead. because that's so much better for people than low self-esteem. pffffft
and it will decrease crime too, because after they are done being shot by irate homeowners protecting their food or dying in the streets without food, crime will go down! see this is all bourne out by societies without welfare: no one is starving in the slums of india, crime is nonexistent in the slums of nigeria
battling healthcare companies who maximize their returns by... drum roll please... denying services. the free market philosophy is completely incompatible with quality healthcare. left to their own designs, healthcare companies would continue maximizing more and more profits by denying people more and more benefits. well, that is actually a win-win capitalist situation: kill everyone, no more healthcare costs. lol
meanwhile you assert bureaucrats have "monopoly power" (cue dread music), conveniently forgetting to note that these bureaucrats work for you, and me, the people. if they do something we don't like, we replace them, duh. it's a democracy, isn't it?
furthermore, when you allude to "monopoly power" you are referring to what? a market system. as if this is the appropriate paradigm to talk about when talking about healthcare. hint: the concept of "quality healthcare" and the concept of "market forces" are logically incompatible. guess what: the marketplace does not answer every question in the universe. there are some situations in society where you need a system besides the free marketplace to solve a problem coherently. applying the same mindless philosophy again and again, without looking at the problem's requirements is a kind megalomania, not intelligence
there's another word for your mindless overdependence on the idea of the free market: fundamentalism. you are a free market fundamentalist, you think its the answer to everything. it isn't. the debacle of the stock market crash last year should have taught you something of the folly of completely free markets: they bubble and crash dummy, ednlessly. to be truly "free", a market need strong government regulation and intervention. the other kind of "free" market, the one you fetishize, bubbles and crashes itself out of existence
the idea of the free market is a mirage, a joke, a simpleton's idea. it never existed, and it never will. a healthy marketplace is a strongly regulated one. if you don't believe this, you never heard of a bubble
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yes, there are 13 year olds who are more mature than some 33 year olds on some issues. but your average 13 year is not psychologically mature enough for informed consent with an older person. they simply don't understand the long term psychological effects on their self-esteem, their happiness, their sense of identity, etc. maintaining these aspects of self are often not even concepts most of them recognize yet
15 year olds? 17 year olds? where do we draw the line?
well, we have to draw it somewhere
look, there are guys who can speed 110 mph down the highway all year long and not get in an accident. most of us can't do that. is it fair to the guy with amazing advanced driving skills that the speed limit is 70? no. but that's not the point of laws: the point is a standard of justice for society, not the gifted drivers. nor preternaturally mature youngsters
because what you have to understand about human beings is that even though most of us can't drive 110 mph, a lot of us would say that yes, we can do that. its called hubris, we all suffer from it. at 110 mph speed limits, we'd have a lot of accidents because its a simple human failing that we overestimate our abilities, underestimate our simple human fragility. plenty of 13 year olds would even say "yes, i'm ready for sex with an elder" according to the same human failing of overestimating their abilities. and then later, when they are building their sense of self-esteem and thinking about who they are and what they are here on this planet for, they've done themselves permanent damage: "i'm just a monkey hole. i'm not a future scientist, i'm not a future leader. i'm a port of call for the horny." this is damage to the psyche, they aren't ready yet to incorporate something as potent as sex properly into their self-image. a 13 year simply has no INFORMED CONSENT about what sex means yet to them
so you err on the side of caution, and you make the age of consent the late teens
sure, there are historical societies where age of consent like 10 years old. these same societies also had things like human sacrifice, slavery, cannibalism, absolute monarchy... in other words, pointing to what they did in brutal times is no justification for brutality
and sex with with minors IS brutality. we live in a modern advanced society. we respect concepts like psychological maturity, human dignity, informed consent. this helps us remain an advanced society
so respect the rules, or be punished for transgression. but fear of being punished shouldn't motivate you to respect the laws against having sex with minors. you yourself, if you have a human conscience, should simply understand that sex with minors is a transgression against your own human conscience, your own abilit yto empathize with the fact that 99% of 13 year olds are not psychologically ready to handle sex with an adult. you need to understand that, and understand why it is simply wrong
its not good enough to consent
you also have to be considered psychologically mature enough to know what exactly you are consenting to, what it implies, what its effect on you will be in terms of self-esteem, etc
physical maturity is not the same as psychological maturity
even if the 13 year old girl, perfectly sober, had agreed to have sex with polanski, its still rape, because by any coherent standard, a 13 year old is not ready to fully understand the implications of the arrangement. 15 year old? 17 year old? look: there's some 11 year olds who are more mature than some 51 year olds in certain aspects of life. but by any coherent standard, 13 year olds by and large simply don't understand what the hell is going on PSYCHOLOGICALLY (they understand what id going physically) when it comes to sex. this is valid observation for a binding legal standard by any rational effort
yes, some archaic societies and historical ones pretty much agree 11 year old girls were fair game for marriage/ sex/ etc
and these same societies also had things like slavery, absolute monarchy, cannibalism, etc. so there's no validity in pointing to brutal societies to justify burtality
in other words, we live in a modern advanced society. as such we recognize concepts like psychological maturity and informed consent and human dignity. and we respect them, and we incorporate them in our legal codes and we punish people who violate the concepts. why? so that we can stay being a modern advanced society. so should you respect the concept of "informed consent", not if you wish to remain a part of this society, but if you want to consider yourself a modern rational human being who understands and respects human dignity and who has a human conscience
or don't. and we'll rightfully punish you for your willful transgressions
sharia is an abomination and it is unfortunately spreading (see malaysia, indonesia)
but its not universally recognized
all societies go through fits of reactionary lunacy. the muslim world must weather their fools, and the rest of the world must remind them that sharia is an obvious trangression of basic human rights and will not be tolerated in the least, and with any luck, the storm clouds will pass quickly
if not, we have a lot misery and suffering we need to deal with, the obvious byproduct of the stupidity of sharia law
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/world-reaction-to-a-nobel-surprise/
anyone who came after gw bush in the white house would look deserving of the peace prize in comparison, by simply not being gw bush. that's the sum total of the truth about this prize right there
matter this much?
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_committee/members/
can i round up some tipsy old farts at the golf course and announce their vapid opinion on the world media stage too?
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_committee/members/
see those grumpy old swedes?
they picked the award
not the parent teacher association of peoria illinois
now you can wax and wane philosophical all you want about the decline of a true meritocracy in the usa, that's perfectly valid. and you can register a complaint about the empty vapid faddishness of the wine and cheese set in stockholm, again, totally valid
but confusing the two is just a desperate troll
and your point?
you can make a movie for $100 million, and make a nice profit in THEATRES. where you sell TICKETS
television was supposed to destroy theatres, then the vcr, then the dvd, then the internet... and there's always more money in it, even with all the cell phones and crying kids. people love the cinema
you think strong ip laws makes the begging less necessary? man, i wish
because as well all know, the concept of exchanging cash for digital content is solid unquestionable morality. meanwhile, if i were to assert that perhaps digital content reaches maximum economic value for its creators when it is valued at $0, that true economic influence is felt in the ancillary benefits surrounding the distribution of digital content, i'm just some sort of a kook
you could say i might even have something valid to say there, but microsoft plainly states it wishes to have cash in exchange for its digital content, and i have no right to abrogate that agreement. right, just like i have no right to question that the great grandchildren of the writer of "happy birthday" still deserve cash for someone playing that song somewhere. just like i have no right to question why a picture of a stupid mouse is still private property. etc.
you know what? i have every right to abrogate an "agreement" i was never consenting party to and see no logical, philosophical, moral, or economic coherence in
i got this awesome bug fix such that Outlook now says "This copy of Office is not genuine. Click here to learn more online." in an unremoveable toolbar
can't wait to see what gets patched next!
i specifically alluded to the flourishing of the sciences in the islamic world in the middle ages already in my comment you responded to. why are you pointing out to me what i already wrote?
"Islam is not necessarily intolerant, nor is Christianity (or atheism) necessarily tolerant"
absolutely correct, and i never said or implied anything remotely like that
"I submit that barbarity is trying to swallow up not merely the Islamic world, but the entire world"
the islamic world (the geographic region, not the religion), right now (not 1000 years ago) is obviously and genuinely far more intolerant in its laws and social norms than western countries. the islamic world obviously has a problem, and it does no good for the islamic world or yourself to deny the plainly obvious. it doesn't have to turn into a criticism of islam, nor does it have to ignore historical realities when the islamic world was the light of the world, but right now, the islamic world specifically is in trouble, and it will begin getting out of trouble just as soon as everyone agrees it deserves some harsh criticism, instead of blindly prideful deflections from within and willfully know nothing deflections from well intentioned but clueless westerners
hubris has been an aspect of society since the dawn of man, and will continue for as long as we are psychologically human
people are constantly overestimating their power over their environment and getting stung in the ass for that overestimation
the streisand effect is but the natural human psychological response to censorship: as soon as someone tells you you can't read/ look at something, you automatically want to read/ look at it
that will never ever stop someone from telling you you can't read/ look at something (though it should stop them, just as you say) because people in hubristic chest thumping situations are in a blind state of mind that doesn't consider that there can be any negative fallout from their naked power grabs
its a form of drunkenness, drunk on power, and it always has its sobering up period afterwards, after the fall from power
http://www.metnews.com/articles/2009/legalcommunity012909.htm
the original idea of intellectual property is to reward creators for creating
how quaint
you tell me what the legal concept is used for mostly nowadays. what i see is corporate entities using their larger legal stable to bully and intimidate smaller cultural entities. i see weapons of control, in the hands of distributors, and not creators. i see end-run agreements by large entities handing over control of creative output, away from true creators: professors, musicians, researchers and the like. to ensure that pesky notion that the creator deserves credit is preemptively routed around and destroyed and falls into corporate hands instead
such that innovation is stifled, not encouraged. or at least not encouraged in the way intellectual property intended. corporate slaves with all of their intellectual property rights signed away up front are true innovators? if you say so
and those who oppose intellectual property are called communists, maoists (and socialists, i guess, since that's the new definition-less dirty epithet you use to hurl at anyone you are told by your propaganda to oppose blindly)
hey, last i understood, monopolies are a destructive force in capitalism, right?
and not that any of this is even new: just read up on farnsworth and rca. the little guy gets screwed, the big corporation profits, and the whole legal edifice of intellectual property is completely warped and absurdified to serve entrenched power, rather than genuine creative progress
there is no moral and philosphical intelligence meant to safeguard progress and novelty in the legal codes surrounding intellectual property today. and the legal perpetrators of this travesty, this sham are too entrenched to do anything about it, to move back towards common sense on the issue of what intellectual property is supposed to be about. such that the whole ridiculous edicifice of intellectual property needs to be fought in the name of prosperous and just modern societies that are prosperous and just because they are based on concepts of liberal tolerant values
you've come a long way baby (that's an attempt at a pun in relation to this story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Slims#Marketing)
then take all that cash, and invest it in third world communication infrastructure. that should shut the critics up
tell me the guy with the lawnchair and the balloons was not the inspiration for the movie "up"
but i loved that guy's plans for descent: just shoot the balloons with a bbgun one by one. i think i'd have some trepidation with that plan sitting in a lawnchair at 2,000 feet. lol
i'm certain the air force is paying attention to security, but i'll bet the chinese and the russians and the indians and the pakistanis are paying very close attention too. examining communication protocols used and logging command and control signals sent and received to reverse engineer standard operating procedure, and perhaps engaging in espionage in the usa, spying on and stealing the crafts' code from its makers
the idea of course being so that they can shut these things down or turn them against their makers in the event of war with the usa. and then to simply sit on these secrets, and perhaps never use them. but as the case of abdul qadeer demonstrates, these military espionage secrets sometimes wind up for sale to the highest bidder
al qaeda and the taliban will never have their own predator or reaper, but its not inconceivable for them to perhaps buy the hack necessary to simply send signals up there to turn around and fire on us servicemen instead
the irony of course is that the technologies that violent jihadists already use are the fruits of the sciences of open and tolerant societies. these sciences would never flourish in the types of societies religious fundamentalists wish to create. allah did not give them the means to wage war in the infidels, the infidels did
and most of iranian "advancement", such as their satellite or their nuclear program, is just tech stolen from the west and rebranded as blessings of the revolution. its good propaganda, but its not the truth, and its hard to hide the fact the west is always leading in science because the west's principles of more open and tolerant societies results in better scientific minds. to be a good scientist, you need to question everything, and in the islamic world, questioning some things is simply a path to your arrest and censure. you can't call yourself an advanced modern society when you have to steal your tech from other more tolerant parts of the world. sadly, the islamic world was in fact the basis for much of scientific advancement while the middle ages swallowed europe in barbarity. but its been a long time since then, and now barbarity is trying to swallow the islamic world
then duct tape a lawn chair on top of it
interstellar travel here we come!
yes, you are correct that it is not conceivable a hacker would reprogram a robot with entirely new PhD thesis level code that took months to write just for a prank. but a wartime enemy or a well-paid industrial saboteur might for the purposes of seriously destructive intentions
furthermore, an effectively dangerous hack might be nothing more than instructing a robot to do nothing when it is supposed to be doing something, to simply erase or freeze the robot. hitting the off switch remotely is orders of magnitude easier conceptually than writing novel code. so even the benign prank-intentioned hacker might create a life-threatening situation if that robot is depended upon to do something vital. which is usually the case, for someone to invest a function to the care of an expensive robot, its probably important
one of them is to politically shield them from the braindead philosophies of free market fundamentalists and libertarians who wish the usa were like somalia, because they are afraid simple social safety nets somehow makes us equivalent to the ussr
so in the future, pranksters could repeat the "caution! zombies ahead!" traffic sign hack, and expand the prank by actually delivering on what the traffic sign is warning about. awesome
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/austin/entries/2009/01/28/sign_hacker_broadcasts_zombie.html
sigourney weaver's voice repeatedly warning "caution, rogue robots" after the robots escape from the psych ward in the movie wall-e doesn't seem so far off in the future anymore
you just gave dan brown the major plot point for his next robert langdon symbologist novel
yes, people in the usa are not starving
BECAUSE OF WELFARE YOU MORON
hello???
as for the self-initiative destroying, self-esteem destroying aspect of welfare: this is 100% real
so let's kick them off welfare so they can starve instead. because that's so much better for people than low self-esteem. pffffft
and it will decrease crime too, because after they are done being shot by irate homeowners protecting their food or dying in the streets without food, crime will go down! see this is all bourne out by societies without welfare: no one is starving in the slums of india, crime is nonexistent in the slums of nigeria
you're ignorant beyond belief
battling healthcare companies who maximize their returns by... drum roll please... denying services. the free market philosophy is completely incompatible with quality healthcare. left to their own designs, healthcare companies would continue maximizing more and more profits by denying people more and more benefits. well, that is actually a win-win capitalist situation: kill everyone, no more healthcare costs. lol
meanwhile you assert bureaucrats have "monopoly power" (cue dread music), conveniently forgetting to note that these bureaucrats work for you, and me, the people. if they do something we don't like, we replace them, duh. it's a democracy, isn't it?
furthermore, when you allude to "monopoly power" you are referring to what? a market system. as if this is the appropriate paradigm to talk about when talking about healthcare. hint: the concept of "quality healthcare" and the concept of "market forces" are logically incompatible. guess what: the marketplace does not answer every question in the universe. there are some situations in society where you need a system besides the free marketplace to solve a problem coherently. applying the same mindless philosophy again and again, without looking at the problem's requirements is a kind megalomania, not intelligence
there's another word for your mindless overdependence on the idea of the free market: fundamentalism. you are a free market fundamentalist, you think its the answer to everything. it isn't. the debacle of the stock market crash last year should have taught you something of the folly of completely free markets: they bubble and crash dummy, ednlessly. to be truly "free", a market need strong government regulation and intervention. the other kind of "free" market, the one you fetishize, bubbles and crashes itself out of existence
the idea of the free market is a mirage, a joke, a simpleton's idea. it never existed, and it never will. a healthy marketplace is a strongly regulated one. if you don't believe this, you never heard of a bubble