All China can really do is stop lending to us. Which would be catastrophic for the US, and a smaller but still really big problem for the rest of the world.
It's the shot we need to become competitive again. If we had a Greek-style fiscal crisis it *just might* be serious enough that we could begin to approach maybe thinking about possibly in the future trimming some entitlement programs. Shit I'll never be elected now.
Punitive damages are there because you don't want people getting the idea they can take their chances.
Why do we not want them to have that idea? We already have it in many other circumstances, don't we? For instance there are a bunch of minor crimes that happen and there simply aren't enough police to enforce them so we have to choose what we want to enforce. The question becomes why do we want to spend all these legal resources chasing crimes in the $5 - $10 range?
If you can steal something and all you have to pay if you get caught is the price of the thing you stole, then you'll end up paying less for all your stuff by only paying for the few things you get caught stealing.
I know if someone kept coming to my house and stealing stuff, I would stop them from coming to my house. Then if they broke in, that's a more serious crime and the state involvement could escalate.
Imagine if you called the police and accused Mr. X, who was at your house last night, of stealing a fork, valued at $2. What would happen? Is there an avenue you could pursue to be paid $200 for the missing fork, and have the state enforce that? Why not?
We have to choose as a society what laws we want and what punishments we want to dole out. I'm not convinced that we're at a fair spot right now when it comes to intellectual property.
If the limit for your legal liability is $1, then why would you bother paying? The worst-case for you is that you would have to pay the $1.
Many people would still pay because they are honest.
The punishment has to fit the crime. If you caused $1 of harm, maybe that shouldn't even be a crime. People should have tools to defend their property, and the freedom to use or not use those tools -- we have to investigate what's appropriate for intellectual property -- but the state should only become involved where there are serious offenses.
It's kind of like trespassing. Should the police station a patrol car outside my house to make sure kids don't step into my lawn when they go/come from school? Why not, shouldn't they uphold the law? Or if not, shouldn't they harass the kids and their parents every single time I call them to report trespassing? Why not, if I'm taking the time to make a report?
We have to have common sense in law and law enforcement. A $1 crime is no crime at all.
Other businesses are legally obligated to not discriminate against who they provide service though, aren't they? Like a restaurant cannot have a sign that says they don't serve blacks or Hispanics. Or is that also a misconception?
Actually, even for government agencies, they still don't have to provide everyone an outlet for their opinions. You can't demand that the CIA puts someone's anti-globalization rant on their front page, nor that the FBI publishes a rant about how pot should be legal, although both are completely funded and run by the government.
True but they are not in the business of publishing for the citizens. If they were, I don't think they could discriminate. I think for anti-discrimination to apply to a service, you have to be engaged in offering the service to begin with.
Plus, I'm not sure if getting some government subsidies automatically trumps someone's rights. Otherwise the government could tell all those corn farmers what they can say and what not.
You're right, I think the government can only encourage people by threatening to cut off their subsidies if they don't meet certain obligations. That's how it works with things like the old "55 speed limit on all highways" stuff, from what I've read.
Regardless, all laws come down to protecting a social function. To me, in the modern internet age, the types of speech and the methods of production of speech are different enough from 200 years ago that maybe we need to reevaluate how speech is protected.
I disagree since when you go to xyz.com you have no idea who is hosting it unless you dig. For 99% of the population there's absolutely no association between Rackspace and this church.
Now someone in the 1% could dig out the information and get people to pressure Rackspace. And Rackspace could give in. And if they continue doing that with each webhost that puts up the website, then they've achieved censorship.
Personally I think avoiding censorship is a valuable social goal. When there are big movements that are against each other, maybe the government needs to step in and set down some rules.
I understand that. However, I hope you see that keeping the principle of free speech strong in the public is important to protecting the legal right of free speech in the future.
When people no longer care about non-government discrimination, why would they care about government discrimination? In fact I'd say one leads the other. If I start thinking, jeeze this is really awful, I really really want that guy to stop and I'm going to protest and call for boycotts of any webhost that takes him.. then it's just a little more of a step to say "screw it that's too much work, let the police do it. After all most of the public agrees with my view."
Would you agree that a private ISP should not be allowed to discriminate based on speech? Why?
I feel like Rackspace, though not an ISP, is conceptually pretty close since the speech hosted on Rackspace is not directed at Rackspace or trying to engage with Rackspace. Rackspace is a conduit from the pastor to the world via the Internet. I know it's not technically an ISP but it is providing an internet service, so..
satire: A literary technique of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. Humour is often used to aid this.
If you agree with that definition, burning the Koran is definitely a way to ridicule extremist Muslims because it shows how powerless they are in the modern world of mass media and internationally differing freedoms. I think it's also meant to provoke change, if you believe what the pastor says about a new way to confront terrorism.
Personally I think it would be an awesome message for moderate Muslims to join in the Koran burning to show that they really are moderate. Someone who cries or gets terribly upset (but not violent) at the sight of an insult to their religion is pretty damn far from moderate imho.
But Rackspace is already limited in how they can control the use of their resources. Would they be allowed to say "We don't allow websites about black people on OUR resources." No.
Since the characteristics in the production and delivery of speech have changed quite a bit in 200 years, maybe it's something we need to revisit. Why not consider speech on controversial topics like religion to be protected against discrimination just like religion itself?
I'm confused by all the common book burning references too. These people are not purging a school or library of korans and burning them. They're buying new ones to make a statement. They're destroying nothing, no more than if they bought the books and simply kept them on their private bookshelves.
Just because he has a legal right to proceed with his moronic plan, the irony of which, I'm sure, is probably much too subtle to have an impression on him, doesn't mean that, you, I, Rackspace, or anyone else has to facilitate his stupidity.
Maybe we need laws to ensure that companies providing public services can't discriminate based on how those services are used in terms of speech. It's a public question after all... we already have laws that limit free will in private companies, like anti-discrimination laws. Seems like we could fold certain protected speech under anti-discrimination in fact. I wonder if Rackspace is hosting a site that is offensive to Christians, and refusing to host sites offensive to Muslims. That's close to discrimination based on religion, which I believe is protected.
When most people talk about free speech, they're talking about the principle of free speech, not the legal right. Rackspace, as an American company, should endorse the principle of free speech. Once there's widespread apathy towards free speech in the public, it's a matter of time before legal free speech is also whittled away.
Indeed. And the funny thing is, people like this pastor who provoke Muslims despite receiving death threats are called "Islamophobes." The real Islamophobes are the ones who are, you know, afraid of Muslims. Pretty ridiculous use of the word these days.
I think the line is bit more blurry when it comes to things like ISPs. They're working with public property and they get government funding for crap like the national broadband initiative. So how can they turn around and resell services with restrictions that the government would not be allowed to have? Imagine if your electric company said "We're turning off the lights on any residence we feel is associated with hate speech." Private company, maybe, but I feel like that's different since they're also in a government protected market.
Both situations are different from, say, a restaurant refusing to allow you to get up and preach to all their customers. That's not the business of a restaurant.
Point being, they already have access to sex, visual entertainment, etc. Taliban commanders are going around raping and having forced marriages. Fighters sleep with young boys. I see that soft core porn may be pacifying to some degree, but there's also porn that appeals to extremists. Hell I've seen porn of Jewish girls with Arab guys (at least that's how it was titled) and I wasn't even looking for it. If you want anti-infidel porn you'll find it, just like racists can find porn that humiliates a particular race.
Go to any university and you will find plenty of extremes and very few moderates.
I've had experiences with 3 universities. One of them, a very expensive private women's college (Wellesley) was as you say, more radical than moderate in many political respects. The other two (state schools) were by far more moderate than extreme, unless you're counting irrelevant things like "how much do you support your team vs. Duke". For the 500 people who go to various political events on the quad and are screaming and shouting about some nonsense, there are thousands and thousands who don't even live on campus and are fairly mainstream in their political views. That's my experience anyway.
No difference between some holier then thou muslim youth and some vegan fanatic who protests outside KFC or an anti-abortion nutter. All these groups bring forth terrorists.
There's certainly a difference in degree between those groups! Just count the news stories.
Kidnapping journalists you explicitly know are "innocent" (indeed not even accused of anything) because you want a ransom, and kidnapping suspected terrorists who may be innocent because you want information and/or to get a terrorist off the streets... I don't see how they're similar policies. Can you explain what you mean by policy? I mean with your analogy it seems like legitimate law enforcement arrests would also be a similar policy.
Well.. they will have computers, copies of Wikipedia, the complete collection of all literature ever, etc. And probably way more than 500 people. If a giant asteroid strikes the Earth, it's not the impact that kills us is it? I thought it was the nuclear-winter-like conditions from all the debris that is thrown up into the atmosphere. So with nuclear power and all that, we could last a year, plenty of time to send more shuttle loads of people to Mars. If not a bunch of people, then at least a bunch of information that hadn't yet been sent to Mars.
I think it's a good point. With a gradual reduction, people have time to prepare themselves for self-government. They probably need things that they wouldn't need in a strong government environment, like guns and other home defenses.
When Somalia collapsed because of an Islamic insurgency, I don't see how you can call the resulting situation "absence of central authority." What you have is two central authorities with different centers that are in conflict. Would you say the US is currently self-governed because we're at war with the Taliban and don't have ultimate authority? Or from another perspective, would you say the Taliban controlled areas lack a government because the Taliban is at war?
Personally I don't think self-government or anarchy are sustainable models, though the idea of a gradual transition into self-government is interesting.
The wheel is an interesting example. I didn't know it wasn't around in the New World. Plenty of other foundational technologies/ideas were independently developed though, like positional number systems, written language, boats, etc. Have you thought of other things besides the wheel to refute op's argument?
Do you really think almost none of them would ? The percentage who would goes up with the severity of the attacks. The more harm you do - the more people's point-of-no-return you'll breach. You say "scorched earth" - by definition you're going to hit nearly every survivor with that strategy.
When you originally said "You're using scorched earth tactics NOW. All it does is make MORE enemies who have LESS to loose", I assumed that you were talking about modern wars. My reply was really about the characterization of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as "scorched earth" just because there is collateral damage and civilian casualties.
With that in mind I mostly agree with what you said. If your enemy has already decided you need to be exterminated, then all you can do is fight. My point is only that even in a scorched earth campaign, that is usually not the case. Most enemies are willing to accept your surrender. So the common line about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq creating more terrorists... well it may be true, but it's not rational, justifiable, or understandable. There is other stuff going on than assuming the US attacks are somehow responsible for all that.
Slashdot Mirror
All China can really do is stop lending to us. Which would be catastrophic for the US, and a smaller but still really big problem for the rest of the world.
It's the shot we need to become competitive again. If we had a Greek-style fiscal crisis it *just might* be serious enough that we could begin to approach maybe thinking about possibly in the future trimming some entitlement programs. Shit I'll never be elected now.
Punitive damages are there because you don't want people getting the idea they can take their chances.
Why do we not want them to have that idea? We already have it in many other circumstances, don't we? For instance there are a bunch of minor crimes that happen and there simply aren't enough police to enforce them so we have to choose what we want to enforce. The question becomes why do we want to spend all these legal resources chasing crimes in the $5 - $10 range?
If you can steal something and all you have to pay if you get caught is the price of the thing you stole, then you'll end up paying less for all your stuff by only paying for the few things you get caught stealing.
I know if someone kept coming to my house and stealing stuff, I would stop them from coming to my house. Then if they broke in, that's a more serious crime and the state involvement could escalate.
Imagine if you called the police and accused Mr. X, who was at your house last night, of stealing a fork, valued at $2. What would happen? Is there an avenue you could pursue to be paid $200 for the missing fork, and have the state enforce that? Why not?
We have to choose as a society what laws we want and what punishments we want to dole out. I'm not convinced that we're at a fair spot right now when it comes to intellectual property.
If the limit for your legal liability is $1, then why would you bother paying? The worst-case for you is that you would have to pay the $1.
Many people would still pay because they are honest.
The punishment has to fit the crime. If you caused $1 of harm, maybe that shouldn't even be a crime. People should have tools to defend their property, and the freedom to use or not use those tools -- we have to investigate what's appropriate for intellectual property -- but the state should only become involved where there are serious offenses.
It's kind of like trespassing. Should the police station a patrol car outside my house to make sure kids don't step into my lawn when they go/come from school? Why not, shouldn't they uphold the law? Or if not, shouldn't they harass the kids and their parents every single time I call them to report trespassing? Why not, if I'm taking the time to make a report?
We have to have common sense in law and law enforcement. A $1 crime is no crime at all.
That's when you reverse the polarity of the tubes.
Very interesting! I didn't know that.
Other businesses are legally obligated to not discriminate against who they provide service though, aren't they? Like a restaurant cannot have a sign that says they don't serve blacks or Hispanics. Or is that also a misconception?
What makes you think the aliens won't be racist too?
Some people like white horses, personally I prefer brown or brown/black. Some people like German Sherpherds, others like pitbulls.
Actually, even for government agencies, they still don't have to provide everyone an outlet for their opinions. You can't demand that the CIA puts someone's anti-globalization rant on their front page, nor that the FBI publishes a rant about how pot should be legal, although both are completely funded and run by the government.
True but they are not in the business of publishing for the citizens. If they were, I don't think they could discriminate. I think for anti-discrimination to apply to a service, you have to be engaged in offering the service to begin with.
Plus, I'm not sure if getting some government subsidies automatically trumps someone's rights. Otherwise the government could tell all those corn farmers what they can say and what not.
You're right, I think the government can only encourage people by threatening to cut off their subsidies if they don't meet certain obligations. That's how it works with things like the old "55 speed limit on all highways" stuff, from what I've read.
Regardless, all laws come down to protecting a social function. To me, in the modern internet age, the types of speech and the methods of production of speech are different enough from 200 years ago that maybe we need to reevaluate how speech is protected.
I disagree since when you go to xyz.com you have no idea who is hosting it unless you dig. For 99% of the population there's absolutely no association between Rackspace and this church.
Now someone in the 1% could dig out the information and get people to pressure Rackspace. And Rackspace could give in. And if they continue doing that with each webhost that puts up the website, then they've achieved censorship.
Personally I think avoiding censorship is a valuable social goal. When there are big movements that are against each other, maybe the government needs to step in and set down some rules.
I understand that. However, I hope you see that keeping the principle of free speech strong in the public is important to protecting the legal right of free speech in the future.
When people no longer care about non-government discrimination, why would they care about government discrimination? In fact I'd say one leads the other. If I start thinking, jeeze this is really awful, I really really want that guy to stop and I'm going to protest and call for boycotts of any webhost that takes him.. then it's just a little more of a step to say "screw it that's too much work, let the police do it. After all most of the public agrees with my view."
True I misspoke.
Would you agree that a private ISP should not be allowed to discriminate based on speech? Why?
I feel like Rackspace, though not an ISP, is conceptually pretty close since the speech hosted on Rackspace is not directed at Rackspace or trying to engage with Rackspace. Rackspace is a conduit from the pastor to the world via the Internet. I know it's not technically an ISP but it is providing an internet service, so..
satire: A literary technique of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. Humour is often used to aid this.
If you agree with that definition, burning the Koran is definitely a way to ridicule extremist Muslims because it shows how powerless they are in the modern world of mass media and internationally differing freedoms. I think it's also meant to provoke change, if you believe what the pastor says about a new way to confront terrorism.
Personally I think it would be an awesome message for moderate Muslims to join in the Koran burning to show that they really are moderate. Someone who cries or gets terribly upset (but not violent) at the sight of an insult to their religion is pretty damn far from moderate imho.
But Rackspace is already limited in how they can control the use of their resources. Would they be allowed to say "We don't allow websites about black people on OUR resources." No.
Since the characteristics in the production and delivery of speech have changed quite a bit in 200 years, maybe it's something we need to revisit. Why not consider speech on controversial topics like religion to be protected against discrimination just like religion itself?
I'm confused by all the common book burning references too. These people are not purging a school or library of korans and burning them. They're buying new ones to make a statement. They're destroying nothing, no more than if they bought the books and simply kept them on their private bookshelves.
Just because he has a legal right to proceed with his moronic plan, the irony of which, I'm sure, is probably much too subtle to have an impression on him, doesn't mean that, you, I, Rackspace, or anyone else has to facilitate his stupidity.
Maybe we need laws to ensure that companies providing public services can't discriminate based on how those services are used in terms of speech. It's a public question after all... we already have laws that limit free will in private companies, like anti-discrimination laws. Seems like we could fold certain protected speech under anti-discrimination in fact. I wonder if Rackspace is hosting a site that is offensive to Christians, and refusing to host sites offensive to Muslims. That's close to discrimination based on religion, which I believe is protected.
When most people talk about free speech, they're talking about the principle of free speech, not the legal right. Rackspace, as an American company, should endorse the principle of free speech. Once there's widespread apathy towards free speech in the public, it's a matter of time before legal free speech is also whittled away.
Indeed. And the funny thing is, people like this pastor who provoke Muslims despite receiving death threats are called "Islamophobes." The real Islamophobes are the ones who are, you know, afraid of Muslims. Pretty ridiculous use of the word these days.
I think the line is bit more blurry when it comes to things like ISPs. They're working with public property and they get government funding for crap like the national broadband initiative. So how can they turn around and resell services with restrictions that the government would not be allowed to have? Imagine if your electric company said "We're turning off the lights on any residence we feel is associated with hate speech." Private company, maybe, but I feel like that's different since they're also in a government protected market.
Both situations are different from, say, a restaurant refusing to allow you to get up and preach to all their customers. That's not the business of a restaurant.
I will play it in 1080p on my phone!
There are a few interesting articles on homosexuality in the Islamic fundamentalist world, like this one: http://www.globalgayz.com/country/Afghanistan/view/AFG/gay-afghanistan-homoeroticism-among-kabul-s-warriors
Point being, they already have access to sex, visual entertainment, etc. Taliban commanders are going around raping and having forced marriages. Fighters sleep with young boys. I see that soft core porn may be pacifying to some degree, but there's also porn that appeals to extremists. Hell I've seen porn of Jewish girls with Arab guys (at least that's how it was titled) and I wasn't even looking for it. If you want anti-infidel porn you'll find it, just like racists can find porn that humiliates a particular race.
Go to any university and you will find plenty of extremes and very few moderates.
I've had experiences with 3 universities. One of them, a very expensive private women's college (Wellesley) was as you say, more radical than moderate in many political respects. The other two (state schools) were by far more moderate than extreme, unless you're counting irrelevant things like "how much do you support your team vs. Duke". For the 500 people who go to various political events on the quad and are screaming and shouting about some nonsense, there are thousands and thousands who don't even live on campus and are fairly mainstream in their political views. That's my experience anyway.
No difference between some holier then thou muslim youth and some vegan fanatic who protests outside KFC or an anti-abortion nutter. All these groups bring forth terrorists.
There's certainly a difference in degree between those groups! Just count the news stories.
Kidnapping journalists you explicitly know are "innocent" (indeed not even accused of anything) because you want a ransom, and kidnapping suspected terrorists who may be innocent because you want information and/or to get a terrorist off the streets... I don't see how they're similar policies. Can you explain what you mean by policy? I mean with your analogy it seems like legitimate law enforcement arrests would also be a similar policy.
Well.. they will have computers, copies of Wikipedia, the complete collection of all literature ever, etc. And probably way more than 500 people. If a giant asteroid strikes the Earth, it's not the impact that kills us is it? I thought it was the nuclear-winter-like conditions from all the debris that is thrown up into the atmosphere. So with nuclear power and all that, we could last a year, plenty of time to send more shuttle loads of people to Mars. If not a bunch of people, then at least a bunch of information that hadn't yet been sent to Mars.
I think it's a good point. With a gradual reduction, people have time to prepare themselves for self-government. They probably need things that they wouldn't need in a strong government environment, like guns and other home defenses.
When Somalia collapsed because of an Islamic insurgency, I don't see how you can call the resulting situation "absence of central authority." What you have is two central authorities with different centers that are in conflict. Would you say the US is currently self-governed because we're at war with the Taliban and don't have ultimate authority? Or from another perspective, would you say the Taliban controlled areas lack a government because the Taliban is at war?
Personally I don't think self-government or anarchy are sustainable models, though the idea of a gradual transition into self-government is interesting.
The wheel is an interesting example. I didn't know it wasn't around in the New World. Plenty of other foundational technologies/ideas were independently developed though, like positional number systems, written language, boats, etc. Have you thought of other things besides the wheel to refute op's argument?
Do you really think almost none of them would ? The percentage who would goes up with the severity of the attacks. The more harm you do - the more people's point-of-no-return you'll breach. You say "scorched earth" - by definition you're going to hit nearly every survivor with that strategy.
When you originally said "You're using scorched earth tactics NOW. All it does is make MORE enemies who have LESS to loose", I assumed that you were talking about modern wars. My reply was really about the characterization of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as "scorched earth" just because there is collateral damage and civilian casualties.
With that in mind I mostly agree with what you said. If your enemy has already decided you need to be exterminated, then all you can do is fight. My point is only that even in a scorched earth campaign, that is usually not the case. Most enemies are willing to accept your surrender. So the common line about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq creating more terrorists... well it may be true, but it's not rational, justifiable, or understandable. There is other stuff going on than assuming the US attacks are somehow responsible for all that.