Yeah, I did that to my roommate in college after he pissed me off. I suppose it was less malicious than a friend who ran a magnet over all of his roommate's ZIP disks.
"The individual is irrelevant. Unless you change the behavior patterns of large populations, you're not making a difference."
Large populations are made up of many individuals. You can't change a million people's minds if you can't change one. There can't be large scale population-wide changes if you can't inspire the individual. It's why collectivist societies fail; because they don't recognize the importance of individuals.
Regardless, isn't our energy better spent on figuring out how to clean up the mess Bush has made, than on dwelling on unsubstantiated claims and lamenting the past?
So in other words, there's nothing stopping them from at least getting the impeachment. Considering they've only been able to pass symbolic, non-binding resolutions in defiance of the president, one would think they'd jump at the chance to make such a loud (if ultimately inconsequential) statement.
I thiink the GP post has it right; they don't want to expose their own to the same treatment.
I think that Apple should allow users to tinker with the internal workings of the iPhone, but they would be justified in cancelling the warranty of modified devices.
Is the typical Slashdot tinkerer willing to assume that risk on a device that costs so much?
"...2004 showed me how fucking powerless we are to do anything about it."
Are you still clinging to the myth that the 2004 election was illegitmately won by Bush? Or are you saying that the democratic process is broken because you didn't get the result you wanted?
Just wondering; I'm not a Bush supporter. Too many people these days justify their apathy and lack of conviction with excuses like yours. Things are the way they are, in part, because people today simply give up when things get tough.
The only problem with that is waving a wand and making them legal isn't going to solve anything. You suddenly have 12 million (mostly) unskilled people who are now entitled to minimum wage, union representation, and social benefit programs. Why would businesses that traditionally exploit illegal immigrants hire the newly-legal ones? What makes you think they won't continue to exploit illegals who will work under slavish conditions?
So then we still have companies hiring illegal immigrants for peanuts (because you KNOW that laws against that sort of thing will be enforced), and 12 million more people who are basically unhirable and forced to suckle at the government teat. Brilliant!
I'm not saying we need a national ID system, by any means.
What I don't understand is why people get so up in arms about requiring people to prove that they are eligible for the services for which they are applying.
Why do so many people advocate the abuse of services that could otherwise go to deserving, eligible American citizens?
I'd be willing to bet that as the number of "addictions" classified rises, the amount of grant money allocated to addiction research increases. If that is the case, it stands to reason that researchers would try to get as many compulsive and/or destructive behaviors classified as addictions as possible.
Perhaps if someone had taken this poster up on his idea and in fact went out and killed a bunch of Palestinians, perhaps you'd have a point.
However this sounds like your run-of-the-mill troll. He didn't "incite" anyone. His only "crime", as far as I can tell, was to sound exceptionally ignorant.
And that's just the poster, not the person whose nuts they're trying to put in a sling. Imagine how things would be if, for example, CmdrTaco could be thrown in jail because a troll post advocating the assassination of the president was allowed to remain on Slashdot.
"However, if someone notices you of the existence of hate speech or similar, you should probably remove it."
Why?
"The purpose of this law is to make sure that you can't post hate speech under the guise of anonymous posters."
Why shouldn't someone, anonymous or not, be able to speak his/her mind?
"it's meant to punish those that promote hate speech"
That's my exact bone of contention though. Why should the expression of certain beliefs be punished? Who gets to decide what is "hateful" and what is not? It's not like we're dealing with a very concrete, objective term here.
In a society that values free speech, the most unpopular beliefs are the ones that need the most vigorous defense.
Does not the question of whether the poster or the blog's owner is "responsible" assume that something "wrong" has been done?
And in this case, the "wrong" is little more than an expressed opinion to which a single person took exception. This has everything to do with punishing unpopular beliefs and intimidating anyone who might dare express them in the future.
Pay attention everyone; expecially those of you who support hate crime and speech laws. This is what happens when you regulate certain "unacceptable" kinds of speech with the intent of "correcting" unpopular beliefs.
"Thoughtcrime" won't be relegated to fiction for long.
People who make the "I don't buy DVDs because the movies are garbage" argument are pretty sure to reap some karma, but it doesn't hold up so well when those same people download said garbage for free.
Not necessarily saying YOU download movies (because you didn't say so), but there are certainly a lot of hypocrites who do.
"A great way to raise kids that don't ever need to handle any responsibility!"
We ban the sale of tobacco and alcohol to minors. Would you suggest that a greater good is somehow being lost because of that?
If you can't think of better ways to teach kids responsibility, you need to try a little harder to be a parent. You do realize that kids managed to learn how to handle responsibility before they had video games, or even their own spending money, for that matter.
"most stores aren't going to carry an AO game. This prevents it from getting into my hands."
There's nothing stopping Rockstar from marketing their game directly from their website (and as I understand it, that's exactly what they're doing), and hence nothing stopping you from buying it directly from them.
If it meant a less costly monthly bill, I'd be all for a limited, capped service. I don't use nearly as much bandwidth or generate comparable traffic as someone who leaches crap off P2P networks and bittorrent, so why should I have to pay as if I do?
Slashdot Mirror
For the very reasons you pointed out, thank goodness this story has nothing to do with robots.
Yeah, I did that to my roommate in college after he pissed me off. I suppose it was less malicious than a friend who ran a magnet over all of his roommate's ZIP disks.
Brought to you by Taco Bell.
"The individual is irrelevant. Unless you change the behavior patterns of large populations, you're not making a difference."
Large populations are made up of many individuals. You can't change a million people's minds if you can't change one. There can't be large scale population-wide changes if you can't inspire the individual. It's why collectivist societies fail; because they don't recognize the importance of individuals.
Regardless, isn't our energy better spent on figuring out how to clean up the mess Bush has made, than on dwelling on unsubstantiated claims and lamenting the past?
What other phone manufacturers allows people to modify their phones' software?
So in other words, there's nothing stopping them from at least getting the impeachment. Considering they've only been able to pass symbolic, non-binding resolutions in defiance of the president, one would think they'd jump at the chance to make such a loud (if ultimately inconsequential) statement.
I thiink the GP post has it right; they don't want to expose their own to the same treatment.
I think that Apple should allow users to tinker with the internal workings of the iPhone, but they would be justified in cancelling the warranty of modified devices.
Is the typical Slashdot tinkerer willing to assume that risk on a device that costs so much?
"...2004 showed me how fucking powerless we are to do anything about it."
Are you still clinging to the myth that the 2004 election was illegitmately won by Bush? Or are you saying that the democratic process is broken because you didn't get the result you wanted?
Just wondering; I'm not a Bush supporter. Too many people these days justify their apathy and lack of conviction with excuses like yours. Things are the way they are, in part, because people today simply give up when things get tough.
The only problem with that is waving a wand and making them legal isn't going to solve anything. You suddenly have 12 million (mostly) unskilled people who are now entitled to minimum wage, union representation, and social benefit programs. Why would businesses that traditionally exploit illegal immigrants hire the newly-legal ones? What makes you think they won't continue to exploit illegals who will work under slavish conditions?
So then we still have companies hiring illegal immigrants for peanuts (because you KNOW that laws against that sort of thing will be enforced), and 12 million more people who are basically unhirable and forced to suckle at the government teat. Brilliant!
Perhaps if they didn't try to accomplish so much at once, they wouldn't have so many opportunities to screw us over.
Frankly I'd rather congress do absolutely nothing these days.
You do realize they can (and do!) already do all that without RealID, right?
"I guess eventually they'll relax those laws that say a cop can't stop you for no reason and they'll be free to put up checkpoints on the roads."
Ever hear of DUI checkpoints? Bye bye 4th Amendment!
But then, those occur without a national ID, so I'm not really sure what one has to do with the other.
I'm not saying we need a national ID system, by any means.
What I don't understand is why people get so up in arms about requiring people to prove that they are eligible for the services for which they are applying.
Why do so many people advocate the abuse of services that could otherwise go to deserving, eligible American citizens?
I'd be willing to bet that as the number of "addictions" classified rises, the amount of grant money allocated to addiction research increases. If that is the case, it stands to reason that researchers would try to get as many compulsive and/or destructive behaviors classified as addictions as possible.
Perhaps if someone had taken this poster up on his idea and in fact went out and killed a bunch of Palestinians, perhaps you'd have a point.
However this sounds like your run-of-the-mill troll. He didn't "incite" anyone. His only "crime", as far as I can tell, was to sound exceptionally ignorant.
And that's just the poster, not the person whose nuts they're trying to put in a sling. Imagine how things would be if, for example, CmdrTaco could be thrown in jail because a troll post advocating the assassination of the president was allowed to remain on Slashdot.
"However, if someone notices you of the existence of hate speech or similar, you should probably remove it."
Why?
"The purpose of this law is to make sure that you can't post hate speech under the guise of anonymous posters."
Why shouldn't someone, anonymous or not, be able to speak his/her mind?
"it's meant to punish those that promote hate speech"
That's my exact bone of contention though. Why should the expression of certain beliefs be punished? Who gets to decide what is "hateful" and what is not? It's not like we're dealing with a very concrete, objective term here.
In a society that values free speech, the most unpopular beliefs are the ones that need the most vigorous defense.
Does not the question of whether the poster or the blog's owner is "responsible" assume that something "wrong" has been done?
And in this case, the "wrong" is little more than an expressed opinion to which a single person took exception. This has everything to do with punishing unpopular beliefs and intimidating anyone who might dare express them in the future.
Pay attention everyone; expecially those of you who support hate crime and speech laws. This is what happens when you regulate certain "unacceptable" kinds of speech with the intent of "correcting" unpopular beliefs.
"Thoughtcrime" won't be relegated to fiction for long.
Boy, ain't that the truth.
People who make the "I don't buy DVDs because the movies are garbage" argument are pretty sure to reap some karma, but it doesn't hold up so well when those same people download said garbage for free.
Not necessarily saying YOU download movies (because you didn't say so), but there are certainly a lot of hypocrites who do.
Guess what? Nobody banned the game. You can buy it from Rockstar for yourself, or your kid if you think it's appropriate for him.
The "freedom" strawman was a nice touch too.
Perhaps Rockstar should have considered that possibility when designing their game.
"A great way to raise kids that don't ever need to handle any responsibility!"
We ban the sale of tobacco and alcohol to minors. Would you suggest that a greater good is somehow being lost because of that?
If you can't think of better ways to teach kids responsibility, you need to try a little harder to be a parent. You do realize that kids managed to learn how to handle responsibility before they had video games, or even their own spending money, for that matter.
"most stores aren't going to carry an AO game. This prevents it from getting into my hands."
There's nothing stopping Rockstar from marketing their game directly from their website (and as I understand it, that's exactly what they're doing), and hence nothing stopping you from buying it directly from them.
If it meant a less costly monthly bill, I'd be all for a limited, capped service. I don't use nearly as much bandwidth or generate comparable traffic as someone who leaches crap off P2P networks and bittorrent, so why should I have to pay as if I do?