always seem to be the ones that only do one small thing really well that everyone suddenly needs and wants. then it bloats and adds new features as it matures. but the app probably won't get mindshare without the initial hyperfocusing of functionality on one really cool must-have
but a collage of preexisting functionality that promises to do "everything"? that actually isn't really sexy or attention grabbing. if i were a google executive, i would leave all the expansive functionality out of the picture, still functional, but just not talked about. then i would insist the marketing of the app present only one really cool, truly innovative tiny piece of the picture as what the app is all about. if this little piece is truly amazing and new and must-have, the app will go viral like twitter. otherwise, this focus here on a hundred bits of functionality sewn together that other apps do successfully already will just put people to sleep
yes, i know putting it all in one place is a big deal, but i'm not talking about what makes sense, i'm talking about what is sexy and makes people take initial interest
if these assholes have no bringing the god damn IRS to heal, what the hell do you think they are going to do about wikipedia? we all should worry, these CoS trolls are committed, and the splash damage could seriously bring wikipedia's integrity into question if the CoS wins any sort of battle with wikipedia
Even after Hubbard's death in 1986, the IRS continued to deny the organization tax-exempt status, and Scientology fought back by siccing personal investigators on individual IRS employees and filing more than 2,000 separate lawsuits against the agency.
Despite the harassment, however, the IRS continued to win victories against Scientology in court. In 1992, A United States Claims Court upheld the IRS denial, citing "the commercial character of much of Scientology" and its "scripturally based hostility to taxation." Tax exempt organizations, the claims court wrote, "simply do not exhibit the financial complexity or the phenomenal preoccupation with money displayed by Scientology's management churches and organizers."
By then, however, the IRS had already, secretly, caved. In 1991, under the first George Bush presidency, the IRS had reversed itself and began a process that wasn't made public until 1993, under the Clinton administration, when the IRS revealed that it was giving nearly every Scientology entity the tax exempt status it coveted.
It was a stunning turnaround and one that, [more than] a decade later, still has tax experts shaking their heads.
Former IRS exempt organizations specialist and tax journalist Paul Streckfus says that the IRS simply cracked from the pressure Scientology had been applying for so many years.
"The IRS found that Scientology was more than they could handle," Streckfus says. "We think of the IRS as so powerful, but by 1991, the commissioner of the time, Fred Goldberg, decided that the case was tying up the IRS. Scientology seemed to have limitless money, so I think Goldberg decided he wanted to get rid of the case and to hell with it. He directed his people to get the best deal that they could."
Miscavige, announcing the victory to his flock at a gathering in Los Angeles, bragged that in 1991 he had simply dropped by the IRS headquarters and, without an appointment, asked to speak to Goldberg. (After this was first reported, Scientology took out a full-page ad in the New York Times denying that Miscavige had said it.) Soon after the impromptu meeting, Goldberg established a special committee to examine the Scientology cases--a move that tax experts say all but assured that the exemptions would eventually be awarded. In court testimony, IRS officials have admitted that during the process of granting the exemptions, they were instructed not to look into Scientology's business-like ventures. The final agreement called for Scientology to pay $12.5 million.
"To them, it was a pittance," Streckfus says.
Goldberg has refused to discuss the matter since he left the IRS. A New York Times analysis of the affair estimated that Scientology saved tens of millions of dollars in taxes.
"The war is OVER!" Miscavige said in his Los Angeles speech, and at one point referred to a "billion dollar tax bill" that Scientology would not have to pay.
"It's a sad commentary," says Streckfus about the IRS cave-in. "You or I would have been sent up the river. But if you have enough resources, you can beat off the IRS."
The IRS no longer describes Scientology as a money-making dictatorship headed by one man, but a religion which contains many separate, legally distinct entities, each with its own board of directors and corporate officers.
you will get your head out of your ass and find out that those who rule us aren't alien beings, but human beings just like you. it will probably coincide roughly around the time you realize that you yourself are not some vanguard of moral precision, nor whatever other heroes you have right now that you somehow view as morally perfect
in fact, if there is such a thing as a truly "evil" politician who achieves success, it is by manipulating the thinking of people just like you, who have this ridiculously sophomoric view of politics, as if it were some sort of gateway to the devil. no, its mostly just well-meaning people trying to do good, with varying degrees of understanding what "good" is
bush is not evil, he's just stupid. he genuinely means well. he just doesn't have a good grasp on it all
and even cheney is not evil. the man genuinely believes in a set of principles he identifies with virtue. of course, those principles he believes in are outrageously fucked up, but he's not some sort of lord voldemort or emperor palpatine, which is what your apparent idiotic and simplisitic view of politics suggests. if you were stuck in mineshaft with dick cheney for a month, you would probable emerge thinking that this is no man you would vote for, or even respect, but you would begrudgingly acknowledge that the man has a set of solid beliefs he fights for and thoroughly believes are good for you
but don't take my word for it, take obama's: the era of moronic partisanship should end. as a paragon of integrity, one of the most integral aspects of obama's integrity is that he knows this painting your political opponents as "evil" is plain wrong. so if you really admire obama, learn from him and change your incredibly moronic way of thinking about politics and politicians
that their support might evolve and decrease over time
the power of democracy is that it creates legitimacy: "i speak for the people's will, because the people actually got together and said that i did." this is extremely powerful
nondemocracies have the problem that, inevitably, over time, the distance between the government's agenda and the people's agenda shifts and grows. without democracy, there is no way to naturally reconcile the two agendas, such that the longer time goes on, the less legitimacy nondemocracies have in the eyes of their people. its an inevitable decay. eventually, revolution occurs in the nondemocracy, or some sort of other governmental implosion, and a new system emerges, once again having addressed the will of the people (in an unfortunate and tragic way, rather than an honest and straightforward way)
without voting by the average man, the nondemocractic government begins to speak only for the agenda of a ruling elite class. while in democratic countries, there are no unheard voices that grow in malcontent and revolution underground, because they can always plug in and express their grievances via democracy, become a voting bloc people have to pay attention to
of course there are people in democracies who don't believe in the legitimacy of their government. but there are always faithless, hopeless people, they don't represent any valid political opinion, just a psychological problem. likewise, in nondemocracies there are people who support their government. there always spineless types who apparently enjoy being slaves. but no majority of people, anywhere, in any time in human history, enjoys being a voiceless slave who has no voice in their own government
no matter what propaganda tricks the chinese government uses, you either have a voice in your own government, or you don't, and no set of tricks can paint over this gap forever. there will be another tiananmen square in china someday if the grumpy old technocrats in beijing don't prove to be as wise as they are supposed to be and begin to chart a course to democracy
if that doesn't satisfy them, then fuck them. they have to wait. a little patience for a valid election is obviously better than immediate shoddy results
besides, all those "obama wins!" 9 pm announcements on voting day are projections, not hard returns. so nothing changes
look at any budget for any electronic voting system in the world
now compare it to the voting process budget for swaziland
the more secure paper ballot voting process for swaziland
too many people are embracing a less secure more expensive way to vote out of nothing more than technophilia, rather than a coherent understanding of the requirements for the voting system, and how paper satisfies those requirements better, more cheaply, more securely
OCR the shit if you want your results fast. but you better have that paper backup, and no, sorry, printout doesn't cut it security wise: paper first, THEN tallying
paper voting: 10x attack vectors to corrupt it electronic voting: 1,000x attack vectors to corrupt it
the richest, most advanced, technophilic nation and the poorest most backwards nation should all vote the same way: paper ballot
anything else is simply paying more $ just for more ways to corrupt the vote. a democracy is based on legitimacy of the vote. if you cast doubt on that legitimacy, if there is any taint in the process of voting, and electronic voting allows for myriad more ways to do just that, then you destroy people's faith in their own government
this is not a joke, please stop with the electronic voting. its downright dangerous as it threatens the legitimacy of elected officials in the eyes of the people due to its black box nature: votes go in, leader comes out, who the fuck knows what kind of sausage is in the middle
yes, you can still fuck around with stacks of paper with checkmarks on them and mess with the vote thataways. but in a lot less ways, and a lot less opaquely, and you need a lot of cooperation and hard work. one well-placed hacker can change millions of votes in untraceable ways in milliseconds with electronic voting
in the case of close elections, you have ballots to fall back on that many human eyes can see and hold in their hands and tally for themselves. what do you have with electronic voting? a bunch of bits of doubtful provenance on a hard disk and some easily corruptible bureaucrat saying "trust me". fuck that. i'd rather a close vote take 3 months to tally on paper than a 3 second tally of votes of a black box nature
the whole point of the experiment is the rationalization of immoral activity due to a layer of abstraction as to inherent value
your comment is nothing more than that very rationalization the behavioral economist is talking about. you articulated what anyone who took the coke, but not the dollars, was thinking at the time when they did what they did
if you are a journalist, start your own blog if you have enough star power, or join a collective of investigative reporters and if the site is useful enough that it generates huge traffic, enjoy your adsense income
the traditional newspaper is fractionating into its various columns, sections, and star power reporters, each developing their own pioneering site on the web. the internet IS the newspaper
money will still be made, power will still exist, influence will still be felt, trust will still be earned. but the traditional forms of the mass media news- not just newspapers but also television, will be blended into a puree and new mutant forms will grow into being
its just waves. if they can create antiwaves in noise canceling headphones on the fly, surely they can create antiwaves in water near the "tailpipe", especially since the noise source is probably relatively unchanging and well characterized
i forget the guy's name, but he was a behavioral economist, and he was attempting to explain the recent economic meltdown in the terms of his profession, and why the whole notion of rational actors in a rational marketplace is a crock
one of his precepts was that all of these derivatives, while having an economic value, were not actually money itself, and so this abstraction allowed a layer of rationalization of immoral behavior by otherwise normal people
he crystallized this down to a simple experiment:
he put 6 cans of coke in a refrigerator in an office kitchen, unlabeled and unguarded. of course, the cans of coke slowly disappeared. then he put 6 dollar bills on a plate in a refrigerator in an office kitchen, unlabeled and unguarded. guess what? no one took the money
the whole point being: when value is made an abstraction, people can rationalize "theft" a lot easier than when the value of what you are taking is starkly presented. it explains a lot of the sticking points in the argument over "pirated" media
but scientology, as well as many other governments and religions, are openly hostile to free expression. this means the chomsky quote no longer applies
for example: i have no problem with a homophobic racist expressing their views, as long as they don't also attempt to silence nonhomophobic nonracists. as soon as they do, all bets are off
to express it logically: tolerance is not the same as tolerance of intolerance. in fact, if you tolerate intolerance, by proxy you are extending intolerance. logically, if you believe in tolerance, you must be intolerant of intolerance
for example: "i am muslim"
you must tolerate that
"i hate christians"
you must not tolerate that, in the name of tolerance
the concept of tolerance does not extend to intolerant beliefs. out of pure logic
many conservatives talk about the hypocrisy of leftists who are intolerant of conservative viewpoints while leftists demand more tolerance in this world. but this logically incoherent, since many viewpoints of conservatives, such as homophobia and ethnocentrism, are by logical definition intolerant beliefs, and, according to the principle of tolerance, must not be tolerated
its all about logical coherence. and plenty of times, you must, out of simple logical consistency, not tolerate intolerant belief systems
it is common knowledge now, this "exile to the echo chamber", and anyone worth their salt knows to login from another ip/ identity and check to see their comment has actually posted
the battle on the web is one of image and a communication capability and integrity. if the enemy can thoroughly trounce the image and capability of the military on the web, then that is a battlefield which is a valid battlefield and which has been won by the enemy. you thoroughly reject the validity of this battlefield. you are thoroughly wrong and woefully behind the times
your allegory of spraypainting graffiti on fences is inaccurate. it would be more accurate to say every flag in every corridor were turned into the nazi flag and every manual in every shelf were turned into mao's little red book, and every directive and nonsecure communication were replaced with the speeches of tokyo rose
the scale and the morale effect is a lot larger than you suppose, and the effect on nonessential, and sometimes even essential communication channels is game-changing
get with the times. it matters a hell of a lot more than you think and it will only continue to matter more. it is often said that the wars in the middle east are about winning hearts and minds. image control in that regard matters crucially. it does no good to project an image of incompetence, to give the enemy something to celebrate in terms of david beating goliath
and this isn't even a new concept. it is valid in a million examples pre-internet. for one, consider the doolittle raid on tokyo after pearl harbor: completely tactically pointless. but in terms of morale boost for the usa, and morale killer for the enemy, it was huge. this is the exact same dynamic going on with the ability of teenagers to deface the military's presence on the internet, nevermind their ability to infiltrate actual essential communication, which you don't even consider to be a possibility
well you can bet russia and china are considering that possibility, and may even have contingencies and capabilities in place to do exactly that while you snooze and act dismissive about what is going on here in terms of infiltration. you snooze you lose. right now, you are comatose
the goals in iraq and vietnam are different than that on the web. in irag and vietnam you have to go out there and police the countryside. on the web, you just have to hunker down and prevent intrusions. its the difference between riding out into the countryside and battening down the hatches on the castle. its a lot easier to secure a castle than police the entire countryside
if you want success, try to empathize with what the masses want. if you look down on and ridicule and sneer at the masses, you will never experience broad success, because you will never understand what is most popular
not that this is something you may want, you may choose to only be relevant to a small obscure arrogant elite
but don't think for a moment that the judgments you make matter to anyone else, or even have any validity other than creating a false sense of superiority. and your feeling of superiority is truly false, and you are truly no better than the masses, and are in fact are somewhat inferior to them, for your haughty sense of superiority based on nothing more than your insecurities and need to feed your ego
"If changing the presentation of the content takes away all commonality, then there never was any content."
third voice changes what is actually communicated. it fractures the substance of the message. presentation also to some extent changes the message, but not nearly to the same degree. if i change the font size to 18 pt from 9 pt on the headline, i am changing the message, but not nearly enough as adding a little sidebar that says "this article is a lie"... that only some subchannel of users can see
"I think that while people do seem happy with their horses and buggies, they only need to see an automobile in action once, before some start to wonder, "Hey, can I have one of those?""
the automobile was a definite improvement over the horse and buggy. who is to say this is allegorical to third voice? lots of technological "improvements" have come and gone. for every automobile there is also rocket cars, hovercraft, steam engine cars, etc. in other words: lots of promising ideas don't pan out in the end
Slashdot Mirror
always seem to be the ones that only do one small thing really well that everyone suddenly needs and wants. then it bloats and adds new features as it matures. but the app probably won't get mindshare without the initial hyperfocusing of functionality on one really cool must-have
but a collage of preexisting functionality that promises to do "everything"? that actually isn't really sexy or attention grabbing. if i were a google executive, i would leave all the expansive functionality out of the picture, still functional, but just not talked about. then i would insist the marketing of the app present only one really cool, truly innovative tiny piece of the picture as what the app is all about. if this little piece is truly amazing and new and must-have, the app will go viral like twitter. otherwise, this focus here on a hundred bits of functionality sewn together that other apps do successfully already will just put people to sleep
yes, i know putting it all in one place is a big deal, but i'm not talking about what makes sense, i'm talking about what is sexy and makes people take initial interest
cross the CoS, you get reamed. amongst their successful takedown targets: the IRS. yes, the IRS. read all about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_snow_white
see the part where they break into IRS offices? i wonder how many times this section has been deleted by CoS griefers
this is a good article:
http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/487758
if these assholes have no bringing the god damn IRS to heal, what the hell do you think they are going to do about wikipedia? we all should worry, these CoS trolls are committed, and the splash damage could seriously bring wikipedia's integrity into question if the CoS wins any sort of battle with wikipedia
you will get your head out of your ass and find out that those who rule us aren't alien beings, but human beings just like you. it will probably coincide roughly around the time you realize that you yourself are not some vanguard of moral precision, nor whatever other heroes you have right now that you somehow view as morally perfect
in fact, if there is such a thing as a truly "evil" politician who achieves success, it is by manipulating the thinking of people just like you, who have this ridiculously sophomoric view of politics, as if it were some sort of gateway to the devil. no, its mostly just well-meaning people trying to do good, with varying degrees of understanding what "good" is
bush is not evil, he's just stupid. he genuinely means well. he just doesn't have a good grasp on it all
and even cheney is not evil. the man genuinely believes in a set of principles he identifies with virtue. of course, those principles he believes in are outrageously fucked up, but he's not some sort of lord voldemort or emperor palpatine, which is what your apparent idiotic and simplisitic view of politics suggests. if you were stuck in mineshaft with dick cheney for a month, you would probable emerge thinking that this is no man you would vote for, or even respect, but you would begrudgingly acknowledge that the man has a set of solid beliefs he fights for and thoroughly believes are good for you
but don't take my word for it, take obama's: the era of moronic partisanship should end. as a paragon of integrity, one of the most integral aspects of obama's integrity is that he knows this painting your political opponents as "evil" is plain wrong. so if you really admire obama, learn from him and change your incredibly moronic way of thinking about politics and politicians
that their support might evolve and decrease over time
the power of democracy is that it creates legitimacy: "i speak for the people's will, because the people actually got together and said that i did." this is extremely powerful
nondemocracies have the problem that, inevitably, over time, the distance between the government's agenda and the people's agenda shifts and grows. without democracy, there is no way to naturally reconcile the two agendas, such that the longer time goes on, the less legitimacy nondemocracies have in the eyes of their people. its an inevitable decay. eventually, revolution occurs in the nondemocracy, or some sort of other governmental implosion, and a new system emerges, once again having addressed the will of the people (in an unfortunate and tragic way, rather than an honest and straightforward way)
without voting by the average man, the nondemocractic government begins to speak only for the agenda of a ruling elite class. while in democratic countries, there are no unheard voices that grow in malcontent and revolution underground, because they can always plug in and express their grievances via democracy, become a voting bloc people have to pay attention to
of course there are people in democracies who don't believe in the legitimacy of their government. but there are always faithless, hopeless people, they don't represent any valid political opinion, just a psychological problem. likewise, in nondemocracies there are people who support their government. there always spineless types who apparently enjoy being slaves. but no majority of people, anywhere, in any time in human history, enjoys being a voiceless slave who has no voice in their own government
no matter what propaganda tricks the chinese government uses, you either have a voice in your own government, or you don't, and no set of tricks can paint over this gap forever. there will be another tiananmen square in china someday if the grumpy old technocrats in beijing don't prove to be as wise as they are supposed to be and begin to chart a course to democracy
there has always been censorship
and there will always be censorship
the question is: how vicious? (warnings versus imprisonment)
and of what? (child porn versus simple political opinion)
if that doesn't satisfy them, then fuck them. they have to wait. a little patience for a valid election is obviously better than immediate shoddy results
besides, all those "obama wins!" 9 pm announcements on voting day are projections, not hard returns. so nothing changes
that's him
look at any budget for any electronic voting system in the world
now compare it to the voting process budget for swaziland
the more secure paper ballot voting process for swaziland
too many people are embracing a less secure more expensive way to vote out of nothing more than technophilia, rather than a coherent understanding of the requirements for the voting system, and how paper satisfies those requirements better, more cheaply, more securely
OCR the shit if you want your results fast. but you better have that paper backup, and no, sorry, printout doesn't cut it security wise: paper first, THEN tallying
paper voting: cheap
electronic voting: expensive
paper voting: 10x attack vectors to corrupt it
electronic voting: 1,000x attack vectors to corrupt it
the richest, most advanced, technophilic nation and the poorest most backwards nation should all vote the same way: paper ballot
anything else is simply paying more $ just for more ways to corrupt the vote. a democracy is based on legitimacy of the vote. if you cast doubt on that legitimacy, if there is any taint in the process of voting, and electronic voting allows for myriad more ways to do just that, then you destroy people's faith in their own government
this is not a joke, please stop with the electronic voting. its downright dangerous as it threatens the legitimacy of elected officials in the eyes of the people due to its black box nature: votes go in, leader comes out, who the fuck knows what kind of sausage is in the middle
yes, you can still fuck around with stacks of paper with checkmarks on them and mess with the vote thataways. but in a lot less ways, and a lot less opaquely, and you need a lot of cooperation and hard work. one well-placed hacker can change millions of votes in untraceable ways in milliseconds with electronic voting
in the case of close elections, you have ballots to fall back on that many human eyes can see and hold in their hands and tally for themselves. what do you have with electronic voting? a bunch of bits of doubtful provenance on a hard disk and some easily corruptible bureaucrat saying "trust me". fuck that. i'd rather a close vote take 3 months to tally on paper than a 3 second tally of votes of a black box nature
the whole point of the experiment is the rationalization of immoral activity due to a layer of abstraction as to inherent value
your comment is nothing more than that very rationalization the behavioral economist is talking about. you articulated what anyone who took the coke, but not the dollars, was thinking at the time when they did what they did
so thank you for supporting the argument
there's your investigative journalism replacement
http://consumerist.com/
if you are a journalist, start your own blog if you have enough star power, or join a collective of investigative reporters and if the site is useful enough that it generates huge traffic, enjoy your adsense income
the traditional newspaper is fractionating into its various columns, sections, and star power reporters, each developing their own pioneering site on the web. the internet IS the newspaper
money will still be made, power will still exist, influence will still be felt, trust will still be earned. but the traditional forms of the mass media news- not just newspapers but also television, will be blended into a puree and new mutant forms will grow into being
like gasoline or rice
something like WoW is a luxury, like jewelry or yachts
the economics of why people buy luxuries versus commodities and whats motivates them to buy these things is completely different
comparing purchasing the news to purchasing WoW is completely bogus
its just waves. if they can create antiwaves in noise canceling headphones on the fly, surely they can create antiwaves in water near the "tailpipe", especially since the noise source is probably relatively unchanging and well characterized
i forget the guy's name, but he was a behavioral economist, and he was attempting to explain the recent economic meltdown in the terms of his profession, and why the whole notion of rational actors in a rational marketplace is a crock
one of his precepts was that all of these derivatives, while having an economic value, were not actually money itself, and so this abstraction allowed a layer of rationalization of immoral behavior by otherwise normal people
he crystallized this down to a simple experiment:
he put 6 cans of coke in a refrigerator in an office kitchen, unlabeled and unguarded. of course, the cans of coke slowly disappeared. then he put 6 dollar bills on a plate in a refrigerator in an office kitchen, unlabeled and unguarded. guess what? no one took the money
the whole point being: when value is made an abstraction, people can rationalize "theft" a lot easier than when the value of what you are taking is starkly presented. it explains a lot of the sticking points in the argument over "pirated" media
also allow freedom of expression
but scientology, as well as many other governments and religions, are openly hostile to free expression. this means the chomsky quote no longer applies
for example: i have no problem with a homophobic racist expressing their views, as long as they don't also attempt to silence nonhomophobic nonracists. as soon as they do, all bets are off
to express it logically: tolerance is not the same as tolerance of intolerance. in fact, if you tolerate intolerance, by proxy you are extending intolerance. logically, if you believe in tolerance, you must be intolerant of intolerance
for example: "i am muslim"
you must tolerate that
"i hate christians"
you must not tolerate that, in the name of tolerance
the concept of tolerance does not extend to intolerant beliefs. out of pure logic
many conservatives talk about the hypocrisy of leftists who are intolerant of conservative viewpoints while leftists demand more tolerance in this world. but this logically incoherent, since many viewpoints of conservatives, such as homophobia and ethnocentrism, are by logical definition intolerant beliefs, and, according to the principle of tolerance, must not be tolerated
its all about logical coherence. and plenty of times, you must, out of simple logical consistency, not tolerate intolerant belief systems
fark does that, a lot of newspaper sites do that
it is common knowledge now, this "exile to the echo chamber", and anyone worth their salt knows to login from another ip/ identity and check to see their comment has actually posted
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/us/politics/29cyber.html
you consider the battlefield invalid and low-priority
strange how people are so hard at work on this unimportant nonbattlefield, eh?
the battle on the web is one of image and a communication capability and integrity. if the enemy can thoroughly trounce the image and capability of the military on the web, then that is a battlefield which is a valid battlefield and which has been won by the enemy. you thoroughly reject the validity of this battlefield. you are thoroughly wrong and woefully behind the times
your allegory of spraypainting graffiti on fences is inaccurate. it would be more accurate to say every flag in every corridor were turned into the nazi flag and every manual in every shelf were turned into mao's little red book, and every directive and nonsecure communication were replaced with the speeches of tokyo rose
the scale and the morale effect is a lot larger than you suppose, and the effect on nonessential, and sometimes even essential communication channels is game-changing
get with the times. it matters a hell of a lot more than you think and it will only continue to matter more. it is often said that the wars in the middle east are about winning hearts and minds. image control in that regard matters crucially. it does no good to project an image of incompetence, to give the enemy something to celebrate in terms of david beating goliath
and this isn't even a new concept. it is valid in a million examples pre-internet. for one, consider the doolittle raid on tokyo after pearl harbor: completely tactically pointless. but in terms of morale boost for the usa, and morale killer for the enemy, it was huge. this is the exact same dynamic going on with the ability of teenagers to deface the military's presence on the internet, nevermind their ability to infiltrate actual essential communication, which you don't even consider to be a possibility
well you can bet russia and china are considering that possibility, and may even have contingencies and capabilities in place to do exactly that while you snooze and act dismissive about what is going on here in terms of infiltration. you snooze you lose. right now, you are comatose
the goals in iraq and vietnam are different than that on the web. in irag and vietnam you have to go out there and police the countryside. on the web, you just have to hunker down and prevent intrusions. its the difference between riding out into the countryside and battening down the hatches on the castle. its a lot easier to secure a castle than police the entire countryside
1. good tactics
2. the ability to adapt new tactics as previously good tactics become irrelevant
one way a tactic becomes irrelevant is changing battlefield conditions. you don't fight in a swamp the way you fight in a desert, for instance
well, the internet is valid battlefield. and you fight on it with new tactics. it remains to be seen now if the us military understands that
1. it needs to take this battlefield seriously
2. it can develop good tactics to fight on this battlefield
but as it stands now, a bunch of teenagers are thoroughly and repeatedly trouncing the us military
if you want success, try to empathize with what the masses want. if you look down on and ridicule and sneer at the masses, you will never experience broad success, because you will never understand what is most popular
not that this is something you may want, you may choose to only be relevant to a small obscure arrogant elite
but don't think for a moment that the judgments you make matter to anyone else, or even have any validity other than creating a false sense of superiority. and your feeling of superiority is truly false, and you are truly no better than the masses, and are in fact are somewhat inferior to them, for your haughty sense of superiority based on nothing more than your insecurities and need to feed your ego
populists always beat elitists
conversely, maybe heroin/ meth/ coke addicts could kick their habit by buying the drug and giving it to other addicts?
i was thinking more along the lines of comments about... slashdot comments
ok, you sold me ;-)
it could take off
but yeah third voice is a losing idea too
"If changing the presentation of the content takes away all commonality, then there never was any content."
third voice changes what is actually communicated. it fractures the substance of the message. presentation also to some extent changes the message, but not nearly to the same degree. if i change the font size to 18 pt from 9 pt on the headline, i am changing the message, but not nearly enough as adding a little sidebar that says "this article is a lie"... that only some subchannel of users can see
"I think that while people do seem happy with their horses and buggies, they only need to see an automobile in action once, before some start to wonder, "Hey, can I have one of those?""
the automobile was a definite improvement over the horse and buggy. who is to say this is allegorical to third voice? lots of technological "improvements" have come and gone. for every automobile there is also rocket cars, hovercraft, steam engine cars, etc. in other words: lots of promising ideas don't pan out in the end