on the bright side, that should galvanize mainstream support against them...
I know there are lots of movies we want to see and CDs we want to get, good stuff. But how long must we be the RIAA/MPAA's slavish bootlickers? I guess as long as the bootleather tastes pretty good.
Then there lies the problem. Is it ugly for a human to express his true feeling? Or is it uglier when the hypocrisy is revealed?
It _is_ ugly to express your true feelings always. And to express your true feelings to people you don't even know. Civilized society is based on a level of manners and treating others decently. Doing otherwise leads to chaos and barbarity. Which is pretty much what we have in the US today.
I care greatly about my close friends as I've said before. Should I make others feel awkward by patting them on the back, saying how much I care and all, and then when I'm needed or most counted on, I turn my back because I'm truely not interested in their friendship even though X-mas has passed?
Just be polite to everyone you run across, all the time, if you can. It doesn't mean empty your wallet for them.
You, my friend, if you are as nice as you claim to be year 'round, and feel the same kinship to everyone year 'round are not a hypocrite.
Am I your friend already? I don't feel kinship with everyone. I don't feel familial love with people on the other continents. But with strangers, there is a politeness and kindness. It makes life in society much more pleasant than a Darwinian jungle. It makes it civilized. Opening doors for people, letting someone else in in traffic, etc. It says a lot how you treat others, because you're acting on your initiative, despite your treatment, not just reacting instinctively to others' behavior, giving good for good and evil for evil.
Maybe our society (if you are in the US) doesn't know manners anymore, so it's assumed you should be willing to empty your wallets at every chance, or you're just a hard-hearted greedy person. I would say that's a bizarre cultural expectation, since it expects you to love strangers like you love your family.
That's called hypocrisy my friend. You aren't being nice for the sake of being nice. You are being nice because someone else or society tells you to be nice.
I don't think letting everything hang out is some virtue--the virtue is in being able to behave in a civilized manner, taming your wilder passions. I certainly think that hypocrisy is preferable to everybody just letting all their ugliness hang out in some quest for being "real". The "real" in people is far from perfection, as our decadent culture attests, and much of it is not fit for viewing. It can only be good for people to try to be nicer. I try to be nicer all the time.
Are you talking about CCLI (Christian Copyright Liscensing International) ? Are they really part of the RIAA? I've dealt with them before and have heard nothing about it, but i probably wouldn't.
I can't remember who, but I checked, and they certainly _were_ a member of the RIAA. I went and trolled around RIAA's website to find the list of member companies.
X-mas has become a cookie cutter holiday where everyone is supposed to be nice, and then go back to the daily grind.
Given that it's not ever likely that people are going to be nice to each other all the time, isn't it a good thing that they are more nice for even a couple of weeks of the year? What kind of Scrooge are you, anyway?
The church where I go pays a license fee (based on the size of the church) to sing a bunch of the newer songs. I protested to the guy who pays the bills, saying we should only sing public domain stuff. The fee (which is not all that much, really) goes to some company which is part of the RIAA. I figured all this out and am still trying to determine how upset I should be. I love the image of a Christian musician offering his works to the church "for the glory of God", and looming behind him is the dark visage of the State: "don't even think about singing these without paying!"
I'm sure this is going to get me flamed, but why can't we have more focus on how we can make others happy rather than how we can make ourselves happy, before Christmas truly does become nothing more than Giftmas, the celebration of all things commercial.
These rants have been going on since before I was born. But we ranted much better in my day, you young whippersnappers can't hold a candle to the best ranters of my day! What's this world coming to? I think it's due mainly to the shoddiness of our education system, and too many lawyers run amok.
Give them some coloring books, or a novel depending on how old they are, and you'll be pleasantly suprised as they immerse themselves in quiet non-confrontational learning.
Who among us will volunteer to get ElcomSoft's product, and churn out all sorts of decrypted ebooks, get caught, and fight this good fight? Who will sign up for this noble cause to get the DMCA declared unconstitutional? Anyone, anyone?
Hey, if it comes out of the judge's mouth that way, then it's fair game. Besides, this is real life, not Seinfeld. Most jurors (most, not all) are lemmings that do what the judge tells them to do. Reading the article, it almost seems as though the judge told them something like "You go in that jury room over there and come back out when you've reached a not-guilty verdict."
I spent a month on a murder trial jury. Yeah, fun stuff! The judge spent a couple of days at the end reading us the law. Now, it was his job to tell us the applicable law. He did not tell us or even hint at what decision to come to. Since it seemed to be a fair and sensible and moral law to us, we used it as told to us, and applied the evidence fairly and objectively. Then we hanged that mangy varmint of a murderer.
We were NOT lemmings, we are not lawyers, and neither lawyer was appealing to our sense of justice to "rise above the inherent injustice of this law" or whatever. I don't know what we'd have to do to prove we weren't lemmings.
It's called "Progress". That somehow, merely due to the passage of time, things get better. Therefore, the old things are useless, and should be discarded. Well, sure, technology changes, and we have technological progress, but human progress? I saw the 20th Century as a massive refutation of the notion of human progress. We move forward, we regress, and on average we stay the same.
I think David Brin is just living in the Past (early 1900s USA, the so-called "Progressive Era"), and is pining for a Star Trekkian Utopia.
While I agree that state-run schools (I've been in them whole life, even in college and graduate school) have some issues at the primary and secondary education levels, I don't see how people want to give up on them.
Why the assumption that there will simply be a void? Once the state gets its dead hand off of education, I bet it will flourish. This blurb brought to you by Coca-Cola. Coke adds life. There already proven alternatives: private schools, homeschooling. I know in my state the homeschooling community is very active and helpful.
Wow, you;re a real winner there man. What make you think that people with degrees in education and work for the state are "bottom of the barrel?"
Because a degree in Education is an intellectual joke? Everyone at college knew it was the bottom intellectually--if you couldn't hack it, you could get your degree in education. No wonder education is run over with quick-fix fads--they can't hack the rigors of a disciplined intellectual training, and reach for the easy promises of some quackish program.
I have a friend who got a Master's in Education, and many of his courses were freshman-level courses. No kidding, he was getting his Master's and he had freshmen in his classes.
Because what goes on in government schools is a joke? I was there, it was pretty bad...the lowest common denominator, uniformity and conformity, the absolute idiocy of pep rallies, easy grades, illiterates graduating, the jockocracy.
OK, I'll give points on the idealism and dreams and selfless spirit. But really, those will get absolutely killed in the State/ union bureaucracy.
And I too am a brilliant idealistic person, and have a bunch of such friends, but the government school system really revolted all of us, and tried to kill our spirits.
I honestly don't think your comment bears any weight or validity. Care to elaborate on your comment?
It does, remotely, because the whole thing Winston Smith went through was set up for him by BB's minions. He really thought he was part of a heroic resistance! And that there was hope (even if it was in the proles, those lottery-loving losers). And in the end, he was a broken man, betraying Julia. It was all a clever mind game he was put through. That was some depressing end to the whole thing, which I never really hear mentioned about _1984_, and which I take every opportunity to bring up--that he _loved_ BB.
And in the end, I agree with your thoughts on taking over the mind. They want our hearts, minds, and souls, those devilish Statist Idols. Everything else will follow--the proper enthusiasm at the 5-minute hate, etc.
Wow, I see you give your child all the opportunities a geek's son could want. He's not even out of elementary school yet and not only do you already have his future profession picked out, you know where he's going to go to college! What a lucky boy.
Isn't that how they do that in all these places that are supposedly overtaking us? Thanks, dude!
He claims his son was worse off because of playing Everquest
He'd know, he's the kid's father. I could be reading Acquinas' _Summa Theologica_ and here I am reading/. instead. I'm sure my father would be gravely disappointed.
Her reply? "Just wait until you have kids, and have to spend your time helping them with their homework."
Tell you what, just wait until you have kids, and not only do they spend all day in school, you have to help them do their homework all evening so they can learn what they should have in eight hours at school. It's just easier to homeschool 'em.
Slashdot Mirror
I know there are lots of movies we want to see and CDs we want to get, good stuff. But how long must we be the RIAA/MPAA's slavish bootlickers? I guess as long as the bootleather tastes pretty good.
It _is_ ugly to express your true feelings always. And to express your true feelings to people you don't even know. Civilized society is based on a level of manners and treating others decently. Doing otherwise leads to chaos and barbarity. Which is pretty much what we have in the US today.
I care greatly about my close friends as I've said before. Should I make others feel awkward by patting them on the back, saying how much I care and all, and then when I'm needed or most counted on, I turn my back because I'm truely not interested in their friendship even though X-mas has passed?
Just be polite to everyone you run across, all the time, if you can. It doesn't mean empty your wallet for them.
You, my friend, if you are as nice as you claim to be year 'round, and feel the same kinship to everyone year 'round are not a hypocrite.
Am I your friend already? I don't feel kinship with everyone. I don't feel familial love with people on the other continents. But with strangers, there is a politeness and kindness. It makes life in society much more pleasant than a Darwinian jungle. It makes it civilized. Opening doors for people, letting someone else in in traffic, etc. It says a lot how you treat others, because you're acting on your initiative, despite your treatment, not just reacting instinctively to others' behavior, giving good for good and evil for evil.
Maybe our society (if you are in the US) doesn't know manners anymore, so it's assumed you should be willing to empty your wallets at every chance, or you're just a hard-hearted greedy person. I would say that's a bizarre cultural expectation, since it expects you to love strangers like you love your family.
I don't think letting everything hang out is some virtue--the virtue is in being able to behave in a civilized manner, taming your wilder passions. I certainly think that hypocrisy is preferable to everybody just letting all their ugliness hang out in some quest for being "real". The "real" in people is far from perfection, as our decadent culture attests, and much of it is not fit for viewing. It can only be good for people to try to be nicer. I try to be nicer all the time.
I can't remember who, but I checked, and they certainly _were_ a member of the RIAA. I went and trolled around RIAA's website to find the list of member companies.
Given that it's not ever likely that people are going to be nice to each other all the time, isn't it a good thing that they are more nice for even a couple of weeks of the year? What kind of Scrooge are you, anyway?
The church where I go pays a license fee (based on the size of the church) to sing a bunch of the newer songs. I protested to the guy who pays the bills, saying we should only sing public domain stuff. The fee (which is not all that much, really) goes to some company which is part of the RIAA. I figured all this out and am still trying to determine how upset I should be. I love the image of a Christian musician offering his works to the church "for the glory of God", and looming behind him is the dark visage of the State: "don't even think about singing these without paying!"
She rings that bell, we drool.
These rants have been going on since before I was born. But we ranted much better in my day, you young whippersnappers can't hold a candle to the best ranters of my day! What's this world coming to? I think it's due mainly to the shoddiness of our education system, and too many lawyers run amok.
BTW, you are right.
Wake up, you're daydreaming again.
Just ask OJ Simpson. Yes, it _is_ amazing!
Everyone.
Who among us will volunteer to get ElcomSoft's product, and churn out all sorts of decrypted ebooks, get caught, and fight this good fight? Who will sign up for this noble cause to get the DMCA declared unconstitutional? Anyone, anyone?
One thing I do know: _I_ ain't volunteerin'.
Killing in self-defense, manslaughter, 1st degree murder: a human is dead by your hand, but the _intent_ makes _all_ the difference.
I spent a month on a murder trial jury. Yeah, fun stuff! The judge spent a couple of days at the end reading us the law. Now, it was his job to tell us the applicable law. He did not tell us or even hint at what decision to come to. Since it seemed to be a fair and sensible and moral law to us, we used it as told to us, and applied the evidence fairly and objectively. Then we hanged that mangy varmint of a murderer.
We were NOT lemmings, we are not lawyers, and neither lawyer was appealing to our sense of justice to "rise above the inherent injustice of this law" or whatever. I don't know what we'd have to do to prove we weren't lemmings.
Two words for great justice: 'Jury Nullification'
I think David Brin is just living in the Past (early 1900s USA, the so-called "Progressive Era"), and is pining for a Star Trekkian Utopia.
Why the assumption that there will simply be a void? Once the state gets its dead hand off of education, I bet it will flourish. This blurb brought to you by Coca-Cola. Coke adds life. There already proven alternatives: private schools, homeschooling. I know in my state the homeschooling community is very active and helpful.
I wish _I_ had said that.
They'd take over the operation. Then, what do you do with an offer you can't refuse?
Because a degree in Education is an intellectual joke? Everyone at college knew it was the bottom intellectually--if you couldn't hack it, you could get your degree in education. No wonder education is run over with quick-fix fads--they can't hack the rigors of a disciplined intellectual training, and reach for the easy promises of some quackish program.
I have a friend who got a Master's in Education, and many of his courses were freshman-level courses. No kidding, he was getting his Master's and he had freshmen in his classes.
Because what goes on in government schools is a joke? I was there, it was pretty bad...the lowest common denominator, uniformity and conformity, the absolute idiocy of pep rallies, easy grades, illiterates graduating, the jockocracy.
OK, I'll give points on the idealism and dreams and selfless spirit. But really, those will get absolutely killed in the State/ union bureaucracy. And I too am a brilliant idealistic person, and have a bunch of such friends, but the government school system really revolted all of us, and tried to kill our spirits.
It does, remotely, because the whole thing Winston Smith went through was set up for him by BB's minions. He really thought he was part of a heroic resistance! And that there was hope (even if it was in the proles, those lottery-loving losers). And in the end, he was a broken man, betraying Julia. It was all a clever mind game he was put through. That was some depressing end to the whole thing, which I never really hear mentioned about _1984_, and which I take every opportunity to bring up--that he _loved_ BB.
And in the end, I agree with your thoughts on taking over the mind. They want our hearts, minds, and souls, those devilish Statist Idols. Everything else will follow--the proper enthusiasm at the 5-minute hate, etc.
Hey! It's _hard work_ getting through all the /. stories in one day's work!
Isn't that how they do that in all these places that are supposedly overtaking us? Thanks, dude!
He'd know, he's the kid's father. I could be reading Acquinas' _Summa Theologica_ and here I am reading /. instead. I'm sure my father would be gravely disappointed.
Tell you what, just wait until you have kids, and not only do they spend all day in school, you have to help them do their homework all evening so they can learn what they should have in eight hours at school. It's just easier to homeschool 'em.