propaganda poses all the negatives of a scenario in a vacuum, and assumes deductions that can be made from those negatives looked at by themselves have any real world value
true intelligence, not just on nuclear power, but any contentious issue, is gotten at by looking at the negatives of many competing solutions, and trying to pick that which is the least negative
this is very difficult. you are asking people to pick from between varying shades of gray, whose shade of gray is gotten at via a complicated value assessment of various goals and potential pitfalls. choosing thew right energy source to invest in is hard, even without all of the ignorant and propagandized yelling their very loud and shrill opinions, arrived at by looking at the negatives of only one solution, and expecting their opinion to mean anything
a REALISTIC environmentalist champions nuclear, as from an environmental point of view, it is the least hazardous to the environment. there is however, a very loud and shrill arm of the environmental movement which poses "solutions" which equate to nothing more than an agrarian utopianism, who want us all to become amish somehow
but the real tipping point towards nuclear in the west nowadays is anyone worried about energy security. anyone worried about energy security chooses nuclear as it is the power source least held hostage by autocrats in russia and venezuela, and religious fundamentalists in the middle east. the use of oil in the west does nothing more than hand money to its enemies. chavez's grip on power, and putin's grip on power owe themselves to petrodollars. wahabbi fundamentalism, funded by the saudis and influential in the creation of islamic fascists, is in turn funded by petrodollars
meanwhile, going nuclear starves our enemies. in the current world climate, the west is basically funding those who are out to destroy the west. it is a no-brainer that we have to go as 100% nuclear as possible, and drive nothing but electric cars. extremely difficult task. as if sending our children, husbands/ wives, or parents to iraq every 10 years is supposed to be easier. if japan and france can embrace nuclear for as long as they have, without horrible pitfalls, then the west can begin a new foray into nuclear, with all of the modern technological improvements that have taken place since the 1960s, making things a lot safer than the cold war era technology that a lot of anti-nuclear western opinions concerned with safety are based on
really, it is energy security which is causing the recent turn towards nuclear in today's world. the environmental benefits of nuclear are just pure gravy on top of that
i don't remember many changes. dancer chicks in hockey masks, more unicorns running around
and?
doesn't f***ing matter what they changed in minutaie
if i love the film for the same reason so many slashdotters do, it's one of the best f***ing movies ever made, and the minutaie doesn't matter, the whole of its incredible existence does
and it really is best in the theatres. 17 inch crt monitors don't do it much justice. if you missed it in the theatre 2 months ago, all i have to say to you is
if only you had seen what i had seen with your eyes
#1. make death threats on the public web with your unique id #2. turn dvorak into a great troll martyr to remembered for the ages and whose words will be recited by children. which, of course, would be the ultimate troll
the point moron, is to never respond, not up the negative response to outright murder. the strength of the troll is directly proportional to the fury of the response. you've just made him win more, by bein gmore furious. DON'T RESPOND. get it?
(please don't lecture me on the actual provenance of the dvorak keyboard, dear humor deprived)
seriously: dvorak is one of the highest level trolls you will ever encounter. if the point is to provoke an emotional reaction, then dvorak reigns supreme. he just completed 50 uninterrupted kills on networked halo, beat the level boss on WoW on his own, and performed a fatality on the collective peace and comfort of the slashdot aficionado's mind. in a way, he is to be admired for this accomplishment. will you look at the frothing at the mouth comments here!? awesome. pure power
look at this panty-twisting fest of outrage and high holy indignation in the comments here. a troll wins by provoking a response. all of those who don't want his articles posted here anymore: stop f***ing responding, then slashdot will stop posting his missives. but if everyone of his articles posted here results in a crapfest of rage and moral outrage, then everyone wins:
1. dvorak wins- more hits to his columns, thus convincing him to troll more 2. slashdot wins- more posts, more traffic, thus convincing them to post more dvorak 3. yes, YOU win- you get off on your masturbatorial sense of outraged superiority in your posts, complete with a warm little glow in the belly of smugness, of having defeated an obvious straw man waved in front of you on a slow moving stick. jokes on you, dear outraged slashdotter
don't want to see a dvorak post on slashdot anymore?
stop reponding. duh
but you respond, in droves, predictably, continually. and so we shall see lots more dvorak
trolls like dvorak, in a way, aren't to blame for the reaction they get. we all are. mindless low iq negativity is nothing new, and will never go away. the large scale RESPONSE to such predictable and pointless negativity is the problem
it's the greatest tragedy of the commons: the dependable useless outrage that pointless negativity always and faithfully achieves. and we, the community, we are the ones to blame for it, not the troll, not dvorak. remember that
you get the story posts you deserve. by your behavior, you deserve dvorak. sorry, but that's just the ironclad truth. same observation applies to paris hilton and britney spears on our teevee, and anywhere else in the media that some skanks provoke mass interest
the first of rule of pr: there's no such thing as bad pr. you honeslty think dvorak would trade in well-thought out reasonable dry articles no one reads for outrageous obvious trolls that everyone goes nuclear in reaction to? it's the SIZE of the reaction that counts, not the EMOTIONAL AFFECT (love it or hate it, doesn't matter, as long as you react at all)
welcome to the way of the troll. only you can innoculate yourself from it. not many here on slashdot apparently are innoculated
it is true that the only criminals we hear about are the dumb ones, leading to the supposition that you never hear about the smart ones, not because they don't exist, but because they are smart
but, having heard from you, i guess we can safely conclude which camp you lie in?;-)
ok i'm confused. criminality has always favored the not so bright, since if you were smart enough, you'd figure out a better way to get some loot- more of it in a safer way, which usually means you'd find a legal way
and this guy was a DBA? all jokes aside, we are talking about a baseline level of intelligence here
reference: e-voting. where technophiles will trade in paper with ovals on it for a more complex, expensive voting system that has more attack vectors and is not transparent to independent verification, thereby undermining faith in democracy, for the sake of a touchscreen
reference: e-books. where technophiles will trade in something that has no DRM, infinite battery life, excellent contrast, its media format never goes extinct, etc. i am of course talking about that strange exotic object called a plain old "book" that is in NO WAY improved upon by an e-book
the point of technology is to improve life. the point of life is not to improve technology
you are unable to evaulate the veracity of my thesis on your own, you need a crutch?
say i do provide a link. and? what does the link say in terms of how believable or unbelievable my thesis is?
you need to use your own mind to evaluate if what i say is pure bullshit, vaguely redeemable, or golden truth. why is it my responsible to hold your hand and patronizingly spoonfeed you?
providing pretty linkies to various pieces of information that don't add up to the whole truth of my idea is trafficking in half-truths, propaganda. gun control advocates/ detractors and abortion rights advocates/ detractors have legions of pretty links, "solid irrefutable scientific evidence". as if any one of those actually proves the larger belief. some of those links are hold cold facts. and yet still people have different interpretations. it's all useless, it's all propaganda
you need to reason, evaluate, and form an opinion on what you hear, on your own. the existence of a pretty link or not has no bearing on the veracity or lack thereof as determined by your mind, and if it DOES, then you are easily swayed by facts out of context, facts that don't add up to a whole, and other forms of propagandistic influence
use your mind, think, form an opinion. no crutch for you
please to be telling the trench coated emos who shoot up schools and malls, that they just need to hang out with jocks more, they'll be very understanding to your thesis about sports being a better way to relieve asocial violence instincts
yes, videogames desensitize you to asocial violence
THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT
then, there is catharsis IN THE VIDEOGAME, a release
ta-da, the dump drunk of the mind has been emptied
you are refreshed, rejunvenated
now you can go out back into the real world, no need to do in real life what you just did on a video screen
that's the whole point
violent videogames do NOT create violence. they merely uncap what is already there, and release it harmlessly on a keyboard
if you own a bike, you can lock it in your garage, guard it with a shotgun, etc.: you own it
but if you put that bike on your front lawn, someone may take it. doesn't make it right, but everyone understands the common sense about defending your property
so yes, the concept of owning property in real life is just as coontrived as owning bits and bytes, EXCEPT that you can actually defend your property in real life, so it has some value as a concept
if you own say a "movie", when you give it to someone, you've given it to everyone
it is the philosphical equivalent of leaving your bike on your front lawn.
furthermore, with as much effort as it takes me to blink, i can make 10,000 copies of your bike and give it to 10,000 random people, effortlessly
now how the hell is ownership of bits and bytes enforceable then, a sstealing isn't so much stealing, as it is effortless copying
so yes, you can make intellectual property laws if you want, if you like to make unenforceable laws
that fact should lead you to realize you need to change your philosphy about whether or not ip should exist as a valid concept in the real world
the issue of unwanted expression of violence isn't that you can't suppress it, but that you have too much rage. it doesn't matter if your ability to decipher right and wrong is pristine when you are in a fit of madness: the gates of reason may be strong, but the flood can be worse
therefore, a superior way to prevent spasms of violence in real life is to allow for some way to express violence in harmless ways
such as violent videogames
what gets released harmlessly on a keyboard or joystick is that which will not be released in real life situations
it's not like the violent videogame creates violence. what made the ancient romans violent? violent is inherent to human nature. look at a roomful of 4 year olds if you don't believe this. a violent videogame can only catalyze the release of violent potential that is already in the person
so certainly, if someone is already unstable, a violent videogame could serve as the flashpoint which makes a previously unstable person blow up. but this still isn't a ding against violent videogames, since something else would have eventually set an unstable person off
by and large, violent videogames reduce violence in society
the daily friction of life creates a build up of rage. the question is how is that rage released. a violent videogame provides that release, in exaclt the mechanism described above. but it's not like that rage has anywhere else to go were it not for violent videogames
i think we as a society should play more violent videogames to reduce real world violence
i am not in the least joking
there are unstable individuals who can't differentiate from reality who should not play them, sure. as if the existence of violent videogames or not makes them any more or less unstable
1. menace comes from smart and ill-intentioned people as well as just dumb people 2. that tools of war are used by men engaging the defense from those with bad intentions just as much as it is used by those with bad intentions
thought experiment for you: a lunatic comes into town with a samurai sword and starts slashing people. reference recent news from omaha nnebraska if you think this scenario is not a constant danger throughout human existence
1. in society #1, the people calmly stand there, explaining to him, much in your line of thought, of the stupidity of what he is doing. shortly before their jugulars are slashed. the whole town is wiped out. also wiped out with them, is the philosophy of nonviolence
2. in society #2, as soon as the guy raises his sword, a common townsfolk raises his sword, and the only blood spilled is that of the lunatic. the philosophy of prudent use of arms survives
interestingly enough, the philosophy of nonviolence results in more bloodletting and death (scenario #1). paradoxical, but true
darwinistically speaking, nonviolence is a path to extinction. it sounds really nice, but in the reality of human nature and how human nature plays out, you must, UNFORTUNATELY (see, no warmongering here) have constant use of arms close by, to guard from those with bad intent. you will never stop the creation of people with bad intent in this world. if you respect free will, you respect that every once in awhile, someone somewhere will make a horrible choice, and you must guard against that. i suppose you could disallow free will. that's a certain path to nonviolence: a superfascist state. is that superior in your mind than a free but armed society?
peace in this world is not maintained by an absence of armament, peace in this world is maintained by a balance of armament, a constant tension, a potential that is released to restore the balance of peace when an imbalance in fair action occurs by bad intentioned individuals in public settings
human nature is paradoxically selfless and selfish at the same time
so any social system: a government, a legal structure, that attemptes to straightjacket human nature as totally selfish or totally selfless fails, because it misses half of human nature. a legal structure must attempt to reflect the nature of the human beings it is forced onto as much as it can. if you instead try to force human nature into unnatural simplistic assumptions, you are automatically weakening the social structure, and the lives of the human beings in that structure
you can't boil human nature down to simple philosophies. human nature is complex, and so must its legal structures reflect that. when you try to simplify human existence, such as with fundamentalist teachings for example, you only impoverish the lives of the human beings toiling under strict simplistic strictures
i'm not talking about what we SHOULD do, i'm making an observation about people's irrational expectations
i'm not saying you have to secure wifi
you misrepresented what i said as saying we HAVE to compel people to secure their wifi
we don't have to make any laws, no one has to secure their wifi
i'm just saying that if you kvetch about people with unsecure wifi, stop kvetching about this retarded law. or, if you kvetch about this retarded law, stop kvetching about people with unsecure wifi. because it is not logically consistent to be able to do both at the same time, under current technology, and with an understanding of essential human laziness
i'm saying that noobs will not make the extra effort to secure their wireless unless the laws are insane and severe
and i'm not saying this is a good thing, i'm just making a sad observation about reality
it's all an example of the corporatization of our creativity and our culture
it's sort of the opposite of communism, where it was believed that by expelling selfishness as a motiviation in life, all will be enriched. when in reality, communism just makes all of society as poor as its poorest member, as selfishness is a motivation to succeed and do better, and this enriches society in indirect ways
meanwhile, business law thinkers know that innovation is the wellspring of all of their profits. so the idea is to lock in the wellspring of creativity at earlier stages, so as to ride the wave to greater and greater financial success later
but actually, locking the wellspring of innovation at earlier and earlier stages has the perverse effect of killing the wellspring of innovation
so much like the paradoxical dichotomy that ruins communism (that selfish behavior leads to rich societies), there is a paradoxical dichotomy at work when it comes to business, the law, open culture, and creativity: if you let innovation proceed freely, it will enrich your business more in indirect ways than if you try to cage it
itr's counterintuitive, and it goes against the human desire to control things, even that which they cannot control, and if they just stopped trying to control it, they would actually be richer, figuratively and literally
Slashdot Mirror
why can't we just lease or buy the info to build reactor tech from a friendly government, say, a pebble bed reactor tech from germany?
propaganda poses all the negatives of a scenario in a vacuum, and assumes deductions that can be made from those negatives looked at by themselves have any real world value
true intelligence, not just on nuclear power, but any contentious issue, is gotten at by looking at the negatives of many competing solutions, and trying to pick that which is the least negative
this is very difficult. you are asking people to pick from between varying shades of gray, whose shade of gray is gotten at via a complicated value assessment of various goals and potential pitfalls. choosing thew right energy source to invest in is hard, even without all of the ignorant and propagandized yelling their very loud and shrill opinions, arrived at by looking at the negatives of only one solution, and expecting their opinion to mean anything
a REALISTIC environmentalist champions nuclear, as from an environmental point of view, it is the least hazardous to the environment. there is however, a very loud and shrill arm of the environmental movement which poses "solutions" which equate to nothing more than an agrarian utopianism, who want us all to become amish somehow
but the real tipping point towards nuclear in the west nowadays is anyone worried about energy security. anyone worried about energy security chooses nuclear as it is the power source least held hostage by autocrats in russia and venezuela, and religious fundamentalists in the middle east. the use of oil in the west does nothing more than hand money to its enemies. chavez's grip on power, and putin's grip on power owe themselves to petrodollars. wahabbi fundamentalism, funded by the saudis and influential in the creation of islamic fascists, is in turn funded by petrodollars
meanwhile, going nuclear starves our enemies. in the current world climate, the west is basically funding those who are out to destroy the west. it is a no-brainer that we have to go as 100% nuclear as possible, and drive nothing but electric cars. extremely difficult task. as if sending our children, husbands/ wives, or parents to iraq every 10 years is supposed to be easier. if japan and france can embrace nuclear for as long as they have, without horrible pitfalls, then the west can begin a new foray into nuclear, with all of the modern technological improvements that have taken place since the 1960s, making things a lot safer than the cold war era technology that a lot of anti-nuclear western opinions concerned with safety are based on
really, it is energy security which is causing the recent turn towards nuclear in today's world. the environmental benefits of nuclear are just pure gravy on top of that
i don't remember many changes. dancer chicks in hockey masks, more unicorns running around
;-)
and?
doesn't f***ing matter what they changed in minutaie
if i love the film for the same reason so many slashdotters do, it's one of the best f***ing movies ever made, and the minutaie doesn't matter, the whole of its incredible existence does
and it really is best in the theatres. 17 inch crt monitors don't do it much justice. if you missed it in the theatre 2 months ago, all i have to say to you is
if only you had seen what i had seen with your eyes
or something like that
go join al qaeda
your idea to solutions to problems in this world is a good fit with their ideology
otherwise, you're just an asshole
#1. make death threats on the public web with your unique id
#2. turn dvorak into a great troll martyr to remembered for the ages and whose words will be recited by children. which, of course, would be the ultimate troll
the point moron, is to never respond, not up the negative response to outright murder. the strength of the troll is directly proportional to the fury of the response. you've just made him win more, by bein gmore furious. DON'T RESPOND. get it?
you fail, miserably
because olpc computers won't feature his keyboard
(please don't lecture me on the actual provenance of the dvorak keyboard, dear humor deprived)
seriously: dvorak is one of the highest level trolls you will ever encounter. if the point is to provoke an emotional reaction, then dvorak reigns supreme. he just completed 50 uninterrupted kills on networked halo, beat the level boss on WoW on his own, and performed a fatality on the collective peace and comfort of the slashdot aficionado's mind. in a way, he is to be admired for this accomplishment. will you look at the frothing at the mouth comments here!? awesome. pure power
look at this panty-twisting fest of outrage and high holy indignation in the comments here. a troll wins by provoking a response. all of those who don't want his articles posted here anymore: stop f***ing responding, then slashdot will stop posting his missives. but if everyone of his articles posted here results in a crapfest of rage and moral outrage, then everyone wins:
1. dvorak wins- more hits to his columns, thus convincing him to troll more
2. slashdot wins- more posts, more traffic, thus convincing them to post more dvorak
3. yes, YOU win- you get off on your masturbatorial sense of outraged superiority in your posts, complete with a warm little glow in the belly of smugness, of having defeated an obvious straw man waved in front of you on a slow moving stick. jokes on you, dear outraged slashdotter
don't want to see a dvorak post on slashdot anymore?
stop reponding. duh
but you respond, in droves, predictably, continually. and so we shall see lots more dvorak
trolls like dvorak, in a way, aren't to blame for the reaction they get. we all are. mindless low iq negativity is nothing new, and will never go away. the large scale RESPONSE to such predictable and pointless negativity is the problem
it's the greatest tragedy of the commons: the dependable useless outrage that pointless negativity always and faithfully achieves. and we, the community, we are the ones to blame for it, not the troll, not dvorak. remember that
you get the story posts you deserve. by your behavior, you deserve dvorak. sorry, but that's just the ironclad truth. same observation applies to paris hilton and britney spears on our teevee, and anywhere else in the media that some skanks provoke mass interest
the first of rule of pr: there's no such thing as bad pr. you honeslty think dvorak would trade in well-thought out reasonable dry articles no one reads for outrageous obvious trolls that everyone goes nuclear in reaction to? it's the SIZE of the reaction that counts, not the EMOTIONAL AFFECT (love it or hate it, doesn't matter, as long as you react at all)
welcome to the way of the troll. only you can innoculate yourself from it. not many here on slashdot apparently are innoculated
it is true that the only criminals we hear about are the dumb ones, leading to the supposition that you never hear about the smart ones, not because they don't exist, but because they are smart
;-)
but, having heard from you, i guess we can safely conclude which camp you lie in?
ok i'm confused. criminality has always favored the not so bright, since if you were smart enough, you'd figure out a better way to get some loot- more of it in a safer way, which usually means you'd find a legal way
and this guy was a DBA? all jokes aside, we are talking about a baseline level of intelligence here
does not compute
reference: e-voting. where technophiles will trade in paper with ovals on it for a more complex, expensive voting system that has more attack vectors and is not transparent to independent verification, thereby undermining faith in democracy, for the sake of a touchscreen
reference: e-books. where technophiles will trade in something that has no DRM, infinite battery life, excellent contrast, its media format never goes extinct, etc. i am of course talking about that strange exotic object called a plain old "book" that is in NO WAY improved upon by an e-book
the point of technology is to improve life. the point of life is not to improve technology
you are unable to evaulate the veracity of my thesis on your own, you need a crutch?
say i do provide a link. and? what does the link say in terms of how believable or unbelievable my thesis is?
you need to use your own mind to evaluate if what i say is pure bullshit, vaguely redeemable, or golden truth. why is it my responsible to hold your hand and patronizingly spoonfeed you?
providing pretty linkies to various pieces of information that don't add up to the whole truth of my idea is trafficking in half-truths, propaganda. gun control advocates/ detractors and abortion rights advocates/ detractors have legions of pretty links, "solid irrefutable scientific evidence". as if any one of those actually proves the larger belief. some of those links are hold cold facts. and yet still people have different interpretations. it's all useless, it's all propaganda
you need to reason, evaluate, and form an opinion on what you hear, on your own. the existence of a pretty link or not has no bearing on the veracity or lack thereof as determined by your mind, and if it DOES, then you are easily swayed by facts out of context, facts that don't add up to a whole, and other forms of propagandistic influence
use your mind, think, form an opinion. no crutch for you
please to be telling the trench coated emos who shoot up schools and malls, that they just need to hang out with jocks more, they'll be very understanding to your thesis about sports being a better way to relieve asocial violence instincts
yes, videogames desensitize you to asocial violence
THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT
then, there is catharsis IN THE VIDEOGAME, a release
ta-da, the dump drunk of the mind has been emptied
you are refreshed, rejunvenated
now you can go out back into the real world, no need to do in real life what you just did on a video screen
that's the whole point
violent videogames do NOT create violence. they merely uncap what is already there, and release it harmlessly on a keyboard
are you providing me with a masters degree at the end of the effort?
welcome to the comments section of slashdot. it's not peer-reviewed journal, sorry you had that mistaken impression
suck my dick, grammar nazi
is under my boot
don't release it in public
but when you release it in public, it is in fact free
so you are misdirecting the argument to one about privacy. no, wrong subject
the subject is about commerce: those who attempt to install tollbooths on the flow of information in public: the riaa, mpaa, etc.
unfortunately, they can make all the ip laws that they want. they just happen to be unenforceable laws
in my world, i would like to make valid laws, laws that someone can actually enforce
but if you want to pass laws that the sky should be green and every little girl has a pony, well then be my guest if that makes you happy
good luck then enforcing those laws that can't be enforced in the real world
makes you happy, who am i to argue?
just don't expect that laws that can't be enforced have any meaning in the real world
if you own a bike, you can lock it in your garage, guard it with a shotgun, etc.: you own it
but if you put that bike on your front lawn, someone may take it. doesn't make it right, but everyone understands the common sense about defending your property
so yes, the concept of owning property in real life is just as coontrived as owning bits and bytes, EXCEPT that you can actually defend your property in real life, so it has some value as a concept
if you own say a "movie", when you give it to someone, you've given it to everyone
it is the philosphical equivalent of leaving your bike on your front lawn.
furthermore, with as much effort as it takes me to blink, i can make 10,000 copies of your bike and give it to 10,000 random people, effortlessly
now how the hell is ownership of bits and bytes enforceable then, a sstealing isn't so much stealing, as it is effortless copying
so yes, you can make intellectual property laws if you want, if you like to make unenforceable laws
that fact should lead you to realize you need to change your philosphy about whether or not ip should exist as a valid concept in the real world
the issue of unwanted expression of violence isn't that you can't suppress it, but that you have too much rage. it doesn't matter if your ability to decipher right and wrong is pristine when you are in a fit of madness: the gates of reason may be strong, but the flood can be worse
therefore, a superior way to prevent spasms of violence in real life is to allow for some way to express violence in harmless ways
such as violent videogames
what gets released harmlessly on a keyboard or joystick is that which will not be released in real life situations
it's not like the violent videogame creates violence. what made the ancient romans violent? violent is inherent to human nature. look at a roomful of 4 year olds if you don't believe this. a violent videogame can only catalyze the release of violent potential that is already in the person
so certainly, if someone is already unstable, a violent videogame could serve as the flashpoint which makes a previously unstable person blow up. but this still isn't a ding against violent videogames, since something else would have eventually set an unstable person off
by and large, violent videogames reduce violence in society
the daily friction of life creates a build up of rage. the question is how is that rage released. a violent videogame provides that release, in exaclt the mechanism described above. but it's not like that rage has anywhere else to go were it not for violent videogames
i think we as a society should play more violent videogames to reduce real world violence
i am not in the least joking
there are unstable individuals who can't differentiate from reality who should not play them, sure. as if the existence of violent videogames or not makes them any more or less unstable
e=mc^2
so m=e/c^2
therefore, i owe you e/c^2 for the mass of yours i am using
do you take picodollars?
a few things your intellect hasn't realized yet:
1. menace comes from smart and ill-intentioned people as well as just dumb people
2. that tools of war are used by men engaging the defense from those with bad intentions just as much as it is used by those with bad intentions
thought experiment for you: a lunatic comes into town with a samurai sword and starts slashing people. reference recent news from omaha nnebraska if you think this scenario is not a constant danger throughout human existence
1. in society #1, the people calmly stand there, explaining to him, much in your line of thought, of the stupidity of what he is doing. shortly before their jugulars are slashed. the whole town is wiped out. also wiped out with them, is the philosophy of nonviolence
2. in society #2, as soon as the guy raises his sword, a common townsfolk raises his sword, and the only blood spilled is that of the lunatic. the philosophy of prudent use of arms survives
interestingly enough, the philosophy of nonviolence results in more bloodletting and death (scenario #1). paradoxical, but true
darwinistically speaking, nonviolence is a path to extinction. it sounds really nice, but in the reality of human nature and how human nature plays out, you must, UNFORTUNATELY (see, no warmongering here) have constant use of arms close by, to guard from those with bad intent. you will never stop the creation of people with bad intent in this world. if you respect free will, you respect that every once in awhile, someone somewhere will make a horrible choice, and you must guard against that. i suppose you could disallow free will. that's a certain path to nonviolence: a superfascist state. is that superior in your mind than a free but armed society?
peace in this world is not maintained by an absence of armament, peace in this world is maintained by a balance of armament, a constant tension, a potential that is released to restore the balance of peace when an imbalance in fair action occurs by bad intentioned individuals in public settings
you can't own information
you can own atoms: a ham sandwich, your car in the driveway, but bits and bytes, sorry, not yours, never will be
you'll figure it out in 200 years at the rate you are going
but i do get my political advice from slashdot comments"
which is worse?
human nature is paradoxically selfless and selfish at the same time
so any social system: a government, a legal structure, that attemptes to straightjacket human nature as totally selfish or totally selfless fails, because it misses half of human nature. a legal structure must attempt to reflect the nature of the human beings it is forced onto as much as it can. if you instead try to force human nature into unnatural simplistic assumptions, you are automatically weakening the social structure, and the lives of the human beings in that structure
you can't boil human nature down to simple philosophies. human nature is complex, and so must its legal structures reflect that. when you try to simplify human existence, such as with fundamentalist teachings for example, you only impoverish the lives of the human beings toiling under strict simplistic strictures
i'm not talking about what we SHOULD do, i'm making an observation about people's irrational expectations
i'm not saying you have to secure wifi
you misrepresented what i said as saying we HAVE to compel people to secure their wifi
we don't have to make any laws, no one has to secure their wifi
i'm just saying that if you kvetch about people with unsecure wifi, stop kvetching about this retarded law. or, if you kvetch about this retarded law, stop kvetching about people with unsecure wifi. because it is not logically consistent to be able to do both at the same time, under current technology, and with an understanding of essential human laziness
i'm saying that noobs will not make the extra effort to secure their wireless unless the laws are insane and severe
and i'm not saying this is a good thing, i'm just making a sad observation about reality
it's all an example of the corporatization of our creativity and our culture
it's sort of the opposite of communism, where it was believed that by expelling selfishness as a motiviation in life, all will be enriched. when in reality, communism just makes all of society as poor as its poorest member, as selfishness is a motivation to succeed and do better, and this enriches society in indirect ways
meanwhile, business law thinkers know that innovation is the wellspring of all of their profits. so the idea is to lock in the wellspring of creativity at earlier stages, so as to ride the wave to greater and greater financial success later
but actually, locking the wellspring of innovation at earlier and earlier stages has the perverse effect of killing the wellspring of innovation
so much like the paradoxical dichotomy that ruins communism (that selfish behavior leads to rich societies), there is a paradoxical dichotomy at work when it comes to business, the law, open culture, and creativity: if you let innovation proceed freely, it will enrich your business more in indirect ways than if you try to cage it
itr's counterintuitive, and it goes against the human desire to control things, even that which they cannot control, and if they just stopped trying to control it, they would actually be richer, figuratively and literally