I'd be against such a law, for the very reason you're seeing here. Cyber-bullying laws wouldn't be enforced unless someone committed suicide.
Essentially, we'd be creating a body of law whose purpose would be allowing kids to make martyrs of themselves. Grin and bear it, and your tormentor will never be prosecuted. Kill yourself, and they'll go to jail.
Frankly, I feel it's rewarding bad behaviour just because it's easy to sympathize with.
Let's say that this kid didn't kill herself. Let's say she robbed a bank, or killed her tormentor's daughter. In these cases, this woman wouldn't face any legal consequences for her part in causing the tragedy. Why should it be that because the girl killed herself, this case should get special attention?
Even if that were the case, I'm still strongly against the idea of punishing this woman just because the kid commited suicide.
Everyone on this site has had to face injustice. Some of us have had to deal with things far worse than a heckler on Facebook. It's unfair to us to punish this bully but not ours just because the kid committed suicide, and it's unfair to the bully to be punished just because her target committed suicide.
Unless you're injecting them with anti-depressants and altering their brain chemistry, the final choice rests with the person who commits suicide.
Virtually every person on this site has a story to tell. We're nerds. The people who tormented us will never be charged on trumped up charges, because no matter how much it hurt, most of what's happened is legal. The reason then that this girl gets justice, is that she killed herself. We don't get justice, by contrast, because we didn't commit suicide.
It's not fair that we punish the few bullies whose targets choose to martyr themselves. They didn't choose to have their target commit suicide.
So? We're on Slashdot. Every single person here has stories just as bad, if not worse, than this one. What happened to us is completely legal most often because it doesn't meet the level required for a criminal offense.
We didn't commit suicide. Most people don't commit suicide. It's stupid, irrational, and unfair to your friends and loved ones to commit suicide.
Why do we, the survivors of torment, deserve a lower standard of justice just becuase we were strong enough and smart enough to endure it?
Yeah, there's a million sob stories on Slashdot. Many, I'm sure, are worse than this one.
Why should this woman be charged, while the millions of people involved in all the injustices slashdotters have endured go unpunished, simply because this girl chose to commit suicide, while we didn't?
I think the woman should get off scott free. If you commit suicide, you've done something terrible. You don't deserve more retribution for your stupid, senseless, inconsiderate act than someone who endures it and doesn't commit suicide. Don't reward bad behaviour.
Why is it that this woman deserves special attention just because the girl committed suicide? Why is it that the million people who suffer similarly legal injustices but don't commit suicide face knowing those who harm them will never be punished? Why is their strength in the face of adversity punished with a lower standard of justice?
The only person responsible for a suicide is the person who commits suicide.
We're on a site with 1,000,000 usernames, and behind each one was a kid who was abused and ridiculed in school. We didn't commit suicide, but this girl did. Why should it be that the unlucky woman that 'drove' her to it should get charged, but the assholes we grew up with shouldn't, just becuase we're not irrational, and none of us became an hero?
In this case, isn't it more a matter of being sucked under a transport truck or into a trains wheels?
The simple act of using a pseudonym, and the simple act of simply bugging another girl wasn't morally too bad. Hell, if it was, most of us would have filed charges against the assholes of the world ages ago.
The fact that the girl committed suicide is unfortunate, but it's her own choice, and her own fault. Intent is a large part of the law, and there's no way any kid would actually intend to make another kid kill herself.
It's tragic, but just like we slashdotters can't go after that bully who was relly mean, but didn't break any laws with their meanness, we shouldn't be able to go after this girl if she didn't actually commit any crime, regardless of the consequences.
Yeah, that sounds great in theory, but you know what else sounds great in theory AND in practice?
Just putting in fake information. It protects your privacy, AND it lets you visit the website.
Following the rules just because they exist is ignorant. Boycotting a website because they ask for your name and address is just fighting a fight nobody will win, and you'll lose.
Unless there's a case for criminal harassment, it's just that no charges be filed against someone for 'inciting' suicide.
Committing suicide is an inherently irrational act. It's not anyone's fault but the person who does it.
If people could be held responsible for 'inciting' suicide, it'd be terrible. Imagine, you break up with your girlfriend and she decides to do something stupid, and suddenly you're to blame. Imagine, you tease someone a little, as is normal among friends, but that person takes it too seriously and a court finds that you've incited suicide. Imagine you do nothing, but this girl has a crush on you and kills herself because she thinks she can't even talk to you.
If there's a criminal act, such as criminal harassment (a very tough charge to make stick), or slander or libel, then charge for that. Don't charge for the consequences where someone else makes a very stupid, irrational decision.
These websites routinely ask for information that is none of their business to know. It's not their business what my home address is, what my home/fax/cell phone number is, and so I've always lied. If anyone asks, my zip code is 90210, and half the time my name is Bob Dylan. I don't know of any internet saavy person who would put real information onto the Internet about themselves. It's the first thing they teach you.
Frankly, this should be struck down upon on summary judgement. The law goes against a basic and fundamental rule of using the Internet. To follow this law is to put yourself in danger. To follow this law is to make it extremely easy to invade your privacy.
This is like a law against pretty girls lying about their phone number to get creepy guys to stop bugging them, or a law against putting locks on your doors. It makes the Internet experience less safe, and that strikes me as an unjust law.
I think my method works better than you'd think. When people start to hear about Bush and that, they immediately put up their "liberal shield", and get ready to attack my inevitable call for more social programs.
That said, I've posed the same question, with the same rhetoric, in less intelligent forums, and instead of considering my points, I got back a bunch of generic hate for Democrats. That's why I can't be nearly as optimistic as you.
Iraq and Iran are interested in Nuclear power for the same reason Canada and the US are.
It's stupid to burn your reserves on domestic electricity when you could be making ridiculous profits on the open market with it. Either you're going to have to charge your impoverished people amazingly high prices to break even, or you're going to have to take a loss on a precious and finite resource for no good reason.
Canada is the same. They're the largest oil exporting nation to the US, They've got six times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. Despite this, they rely on hydroelectric power anywhere they can, and use nuclear reactors in the east. Why? Because even if they've got oil to spare, it makes no sense to either burn money by selling electricity derived from crude at a fraction of the market value, or put the squeeze on Canadians by selling electricity derived from crude at the market value for the energy involved.
If you've got a pile of money, would you throw it in your fireplace, or would you go outside to chop down some trees? Both will burn, after all.
Actually, you're the ignorant one, assuming from a single phrase that you understand what I do or don't understand.
The debt itself wouldn't be a problem if Republicans weren't ideologically opposed to surpluses. If they didn't mind surpluses and payin back the debts we incur, then running in defecit once in a while would be perfectly acceptable, just as I ran in defecit while I went to college for a couple years, then I ran in defecit for about a year while I ran up debts buying a vehicle and buying furniture for my first apartment, but with my school properly financed, I was in a position to easily pay back that debt by cutting spending and achieving some surpluses.
It's impossible to blame the media, in my view, because most of this is common sense, and because the truth is there, plain to see, almost entirely in the mainstream media.
Everyone has a household budget. Everyone. Common sense dictates that if you take out a loan, you'll have to pay it back. The same doesn't stop applying to governments just becuase they're big and we're small. In fact, the same ideas apply MORE, because unlike a person, whose debt dies with them, a nation will transfer its debts to future generations. This is just common sense. You don't have to read Keyes to understand that. You've got to be wilfully ignorant to ignore it.
I knew, through the mainstream media, within hours of the PATRIOT act being passed, and the negative ramifications the act had. I've seen, again through the mainstream media, the blatant abuses. I know, again through the mainstream media, that no terrorists have been affected by the PATRIOT act. Blame the media if you want, but the information is there. It's this cult of wilful ignorance that keeps the people from seeing what's going on.
We're in Iraq now, but there was a time when we weren't. All you had to do was look at the facts presented in the days leading up to the war, and it was obvious something was fishy. Why was the "coalition of the willing" only composed of America, the United Kingdom, and a smattering of 'never were' powers like poland? Because everyone else was paying attention and realised the information just wasn't there. Again, you can't blame the media, becuase the information was already there to see and digest.
The people supported the war, right until it stopped feeling good to do so. Poll numbers show this. The Congress acted upon these numbers and almost unanimously supported invading Iraq. Afterwards, the people who got us into the war were re-elected for another term. Bush got another 4 years. I can absolutely blame the American people for their wilful ignorance in this regard.
All the people, the voters, the congress, the senate, the president, are to blame. If the voters, the congress, and the senate simply looked at the information and thought for half a second, we wouldn't be in a situation where a third of the federal government is run with our children's dollars. We wouldn't be in a war we can't win but are loathe to lose. We wouldn't be losing our freedoms to protect against people who supposedly hate our freedoms.
Excuses are for kids. Anyone who insists on being part of this cult of ignorance is my enemy, and the enemy of my kids, and of my grandkids.
Why, exactly, is it the role of your kids and grandkids to finance an economic turnaround?
The Republicans have shown through their actions that they're opposed to a budget surplus. They consider it 'over taxation'. This means they're opposed to paying back the debt, because they'll never net enough money to pay back any debt. Despite this, they're not opposed to running massive defecits, year after year.
This will leave trillions of dollars of debt for our kids and grandkids to pay back. I'm simply arguing that if we're going to spend money, we should pay that money into the system first, rather than just pull more and more money out of the line of credit, year after year, and ignore that it will have to be paid back someday, and we're not going to be the ones paying it back.
The fact that you refuse to even consider that your kids and grandkids are paying for your economic prosperity with THEIR yet unearned dollars is wilfully ignorant, and I consider you the enemy of myself, my children, and grandchildren, far more dangerous than Al Queda could ever hope to be.
If I pluralized nations, it was a mistake on my part. It won't be a mistake for long, if the warmongers decide to rush into Iran based on the same obviously false information.
Really, it just makes my arguement stronger. Why was the yellowcake such a big deal if it wasn't such a big deal? Who cares if Saddam was trying to get some from Iraq if he already had a tonne that he couldn't do anything with anyway? Who cares if Bush lied about it if it really wasn't all that important in the first place?
Ron Paul HAS to run as a Republican. He doesn't have any choice. If you run as anything but a Republican or a Democrat, then you're just a spoiler candidate because of the myth of the 2-party inevitability in the US.
I agree with you for the most part, but you should note that you can't lie about speculation. If their estimates were wrong, then they were wrong, but by their nature you can't lie about something that hasn't happened yet that you don't have any real foreknowledge of.
The Intelligence estimate for Iran, released some time ago, shows the sort of lying that goes on. The intelligence community is saying one thing, the politicians are saying another.
Anyone who would vote for Bush Jr. twice is wilfully ignorant.
Anyone who supports perpetual budget defecits we're going to leave to our grandkids to pay back is wilfully ignorant.
Anyone who supports tax cuts and rebate cheques while we're 500 billion overdrawn every year is wilfully ignorant.
Anyone who supports war against relatively innocent nations, first on the basis of dishonest 9/11 rhetoric, then on dishonest WMD rhetoric, then on dishonest "He's a very bad man. Aren't you glad he's dead?" rhetoric, is wilfully ignorant.
Anyone who supports demolishing our freedoms in order to attack terrorists who supposedly hate us for our freedom is wilfully ignorant.
These wilfully ignorant people, they are supporting policies which are having a massive negative impact on the entire world and her people. Tens of thousands, maybe millions of people are dead because of the actions brought about by their wilful ignorance. More Americans are dead because of these ignorant policies than were killed on 9/11.
So all the fuss about Bush lying about Saddam trying to get large quantities of yellowcake was pretty much blustering and arm waving on both sides of the political aisle over nothing, eh?
I mean, if the guy already had 550 tonnes of the stuff, why should the right make it a big deal that he's looking for more? I'm certain you can get enough fissionable material from 550 tonnes of yellowcake to make a good bomb or two.
Also, on the left, if the guy already had 550 tonnes of the stuff, why make this big deal out of the fact that it turned out to be a lie that he was trying to acquire more? If a guy already has a gun with half a clip in it, does it really make him less dangerous if he's not out looking for the rest of the clip?
I work at a big industrial plant that kicks tonnes of sulphides into the air every day.
If I can live a 15 minute truck ride away, I'm happy to.
That said, I'd be thrilled if I could get a bus route going. I'd prefer getting to work on time without spending 2000 a year just on gasoline for the privilege.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be against such a law, for the very reason you're seeing here. Cyber-bullying laws wouldn't be enforced unless someone committed suicide.
Essentially, we'd be creating a body of law whose purpose would be allowing kids to make martyrs of themselves. Grin and bear it, and your tormentor will never be prosecuted. Kill yourself, and they'll go to jail.
Frankly, I feel it's rewarding bad behaviour just because it's easy to sympathize with.
Let's say that this kid didn't kill herself. Let's say she robbed a bank, or killed her tormentor's daughter. In these cases, this woman wouldn't face any legal consequences for her part in causing the tragedy. Why should it be that because the girl killed herself, this case should get special attention?
Even if that were the case, I'm still strongly against the idea of punishing this woman just because the kid commited suicide.
Everyone on this site has had to face injustice. Some of us have had to deal with things far worse than a heckler on Facebook. It's unfair to us to punish this bully but not ours just because the kid committed suicide, and it's unfair to the bully to be punished just because her target committed suicide.
Unless you're injecting them with anti-depressants and altering their brain chemistry, the final choice rests with the person who commits suicide.
Virtually every person on this site has a story to tell. We're nerds. The people who tormented us will never be charged on trumped up charges, because no matter how much it hurt, most of what's happened is legal. The reason then that this girl gets justice, is that she killed herself. We don't get justice, by contrast, because we didn't commit suicide.
It's not fair that we punish the few bullies whose targets choose to martyr themselves. They didn't choose to have their target commit suicide.
So? We're on Slashdot. Every single person here has stories just as bad, if not worse, than this one. What happened to us is completely legal most often because it doesn't meet the level required for a criminal offense.
We didn't commit suicide. Most people don't commit suicide. It's stupid, irrational, and unfair to your friends and loved ones to commit suicide.
Why do we, the survivors of torment, deserve a lower standard of justice just becuase we were strong enough and smart enough to endure it?
Yeah, there's a million sob stories on Slashdot. Many, I'm sure, are worse than this one.
Why should this woman be charged, while the millions of people involved in all the injustices slashdotters have endured go unpunished, simply because this girl chose to commit suicide, while we didn't?
I think the woman should get off scott free. If you commit suicide, you've done something terrible. You don't deserve more retribution for your stupid, senseless, inconsiderate act than someone who endures it and doesn't commit suicide. Don't reward bad behaviour.
Why is it that this woman deserves special attention just because the girl committed suicide? Why is it that the million people who suffer similarly legal injustices but don't commit suicide face knowing those who harm them will never be punished? Why is their strength in the face of adversity punished with a lower standard of justice?
The only person responsible for a suicide is the person who commits suicide.
We're on a site with 1,000,000 usernames, and behind each one was a kid who was abused and ridiculed in school. We didn't commit suicide, but this girl did. Why should it be that the unlucky woman that 'drove' her to it should get charged, but the assholes we grew up with shouldn't, just becuase we're not irrational, and none of us became an hero?
In this case, isn't it more a matter of being sucked under a transport truck or into a trains wheels?
The simple act of using a pseudonym, and the simple act of simply bugging another girl wasn't morally too bad. Hell, if it was, most of us would have filed charges against the assholes of the world ages ago.
The fact that the girl committed suicide is unfortunate, but it's her own choice, and her own fault. Intent is a large part of the law, and there's no way any kid would actually intend to make another kid kill herself.
It's tragic, but just like we slashdotters can't go after that bully who was relly mean, but didn't break any laws with their meanness, we shouldn't be able to go after this girl if she didn't actually commit any crime, regardless of the consequences.
Yeah, that sounds great in theory, but you know what else sounds great in theory AND in practice?
Just putting in fake information. It protects your privacy, AND it lets you visit the website.
Following the rules just because they exist is ignorant. Boycotting a website because they ask for your name and address is just fighting a fight nobody will win, and you'll lose.
Unless there's a case for criminal harassment, it's just that no charges be filed against someone for 'inciting' suicide.
Committing suicide is an inherently irrational act. It's not anyone's fault but the person who does it.
If people could be held responsible for 'inciting' suicide, it'd be terrible. Imagine, you break up with your girlfriend and she decides to do something stupid, and suddenly you're to blame. Imagine, you tease someone a little, as is normal among friends, but that person takes it too seriously and a court finds that you've incited suicide. Imagine you do nothing, but this girl has a crush on you and kills herself because she thinks she can't even talk to you.
If there's a criminal act, such as criminal harassment (a very tough charge to make stick), or slander or libel, then charge for that. Don't charge for the consequences where someone else makes a very stupid, irrational decision.
Igor Petrov Freely here, from Ukraine. I didn't know the Freelys had moved onto spain or portugal.
These websites routinely ask for information that is none of their business to know. It's not their business what my home address is, what my home/fax/cell phone number is, and so I've always lied. If anyone asks, my zip code is 90210, and half the time my name is Bob Dylan. I don't know of any internet saavy person who would put real information onto the Internet about themselves. It's the first thing they teach you.
Frankly, this should be struck down upon on summary judgement. The law goes against a basic and fundamental rule of using the Internet. To follow this law is to put yourself in danger. To follow this law is to make it extremely easy to invade your privacy.
This is like a law against pretty girls lying about their phone number to get creepy guys to stop bugging them, or a law against putting locks on your doors. It makes the Internet experience less safe, and that strikes me as an unjust law.
I think my method works better than you'd think. When people start to hear about Bush and that, they immediately put up their "liberal shield", and get ready to attack my inevitable call for more social programs.
That said, I've posed the same question, with the same rhetoric, in less intelligent forums, and instead of considering my points, I got back a bunch of generic hate for Democrats. That's why I can't be nearly as optimistic as you.
Iraq and Iran are interested in Nuclear power for the same reason Canada and the US are.
It's stupid to burn your reserves on domestic electricity when you could be making ridiculous profits on the open market with it. Either you're going to have to charge your impoverished people amazingly high prices to break even, or you're going to have to take a loss on a precious and finite resource for no good reason.
Canada is the same. They're the largest oil exporting nation to the US, They've got six times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. Despite this, they rely on hydroelectric power anywhere they can, and use nuclear reactors in the east. Why? Because even if they've got oil to spare, it makes no sense to either burn money by selling electricity derived from crude at a fraction of the market value, or put the squeeze on Canadians by selling electricity derived from crude at the market value for the energy involved.
If you've got a pile of money, would you throw it in your fireplace, or would you go outside to chop down some trees? Both will burn, after all.
The man has run the country into the ground the same way he ran his oil companies into the ground.
Incompetence. More likely than malice.
Actually, you're the ignorant one, assuming from a single phrase that you understand what I do or don't understand.
The debt itself wouldn't be a problem if Republicans weren't ideologically opposed to surpluses. If they didn't mind surpluses and payin back the debts we incur, then running in defecit once in a while would be perfectly acceptable, just as I ran in defecit while I went to college for a couple years, then I ran in defecit for about a year while I ran up debts buying a vehicle and buying furniture for my first apartment, but with my school properly financed, I was in a position to easily pay back that debt by cutting spending and achieving some surpluses.
It's impossible to blame the media, in my view, because most of this is common sense, and because the truth is there, plain to see, almost entirely in the mainstream media.
Everyone has a household budget. Everyone. Common sense dictates that if you take out a loan, you'll have to pay it back. The same doesn't stop applying to governments just becuase they're big and we're small. In fact, the same ideas apply MORE, because unlike a person, whose debt dies with them, a nation will transfer its debts to future generations. This is just common sense. You don't have to read Keyes to understand that. You've got to be wilfully ignorant to ignore it.
I knew, through the mainstream media, within hours of the PATRIOT act being passed, and the negative ramifications the act had. I've seen, again through the mainstream media, the blatant abuses. I know, again through the mainstream media, that no terrorists have been affected by the PATRIOT act. Blame the media if you want, but the information is there. It's this cult of wilful ignorance that keeps the people from seeing what's going on.
We're in Iraq now, but there was a time when we weren't. All you had to do was look at the facts presented in the days leading up to the war, and it was obvious something was fishy. Why was the "coalition of the willing" only composed of America, the United Kingdom, and a smattering of 'never were' powers like poland? Because everyone else was paying attention and realised the information just wasn't there. Again, you can't blame the media, becuase the information was already there to see and digest.
The people supported the war, right until it stopped feeling good to do so. Poll numbers show this. The Congress acted upon these numbers and almost unanimously supported invading Iraq. Afterwards, the people who got us into the war were re-elected for another term. Bush got another 4 years. I can absolutely blame the American people for their wilful ignorance in this regard.
All the people, the voters, the congress, the senate, the president, are to blame. If the voters, the congress, and the senate simply looked at the information and thought for half a second, we wouldn't be in a situation where a third of the federal government is run with our children's dollars. We wouldn't be in a war we can't win but are loathe to lose. We wouldn't be losing our freedoms to protect against people who supposedly hate our freedoms.
Excuses are for kids. Anyone who insists on being part of this cult of ignorance is my enemy, and the enemy of my kids, and of my grandkids.
Why, exactly, is it the role of your kids and grandkids to finance an economic turnaround?
The Republicans have shown through their actions that they're opposed to a budget surplus. They consider it 'over taxation'. This means they're opposed to paying back the debt, because they'll never net enough money to pay back any debt. Despite this, they're not opposed to running massive defecits, year after year.
This will leave trillions of dollars of debt for our kids and grandkids to pay back. I'm simply arguing that if we're going to spend money, we should pay that money into the system first, rather than just pull more and more money out of the line of credit, year after year, and ignore that it will have to be paid back someday, and we're not going to be the ones paying it back.
The fact that you refuse to even consider that your kids and grandkids are paying for your economic prosperity with THEIR yet unearned dollars is wilfully ignorant, and I consider you the enemy of myself, my children, and grandchildren, far more dangerous than Al Queda could ever hope to be.
If I pluralized nations, it was a mistake on my part. It won't be a mistake for long, if the warmongers decide to rush into Iran based on the same obviously false information.
Really, it just makes my arguement stronger. Why was the yellowcake such a big deal if it wasn't such a big deal? Who cares if Saddam was trying to get some from Iraq if he already had a tonne that he couldn't do anything with anyway? Who cares if Bush lied about it if it really wasn't all that important in the first place?
Pretty close to everyone.
I haven't met anyone who thinks it's a good thing.
Ron Paul HAS to run as a Republican. He doesn't have any choice. If you run as anything but a Republican or a Democrat, then you're just a spoiler candidate because of the myth of the 2-party inevitability in the US.
I agree with you for the most part, but you should note that you can't lie about speculation. If their estimates were wrong, then they were wrong, but by their nature you can't lie about something that hasn't happened yet that you don't have any real foreknowledge of.
The Intelligence estimate for Iran, released some time ago, shows the sort of lying that goes on. The intelligence community is saying one thing, the politicians are saying another.
I disagree.
Anyone who would vote for Bush Jr. twice is wilfully ignorant.
Anyone who supports perpetual budget defecits we're going to leave to our grandkids to pay back is wilfully ignorant.
Anyone who supports tax cuts and rebate cheques while we're 500 billion overdrawn every year is wilfully ignorant.
Anyone who supports war against relatively innocent nations, first on the basis of dishonest 9/11 rhetoric, then on dishonest WMD rhetoric, then on dishonest "He's a very bad man. Aren't you glad he's dead?" rhetoric, is wilfully ignorant.
Anyone who supports demolishing our freedoms in order to attack terrorists who supposedly hate us for our freedom is wilfully ignorant.
These wilfully ignorant people, they are supporting policies which are having a massive negative impact on the entire world and her people. Tens of thousands, maybe millions of people are dead because of the actions brought about by their wilful ignorance. More Americans are dead because of these ignorant policies than were killed on 9/11.
These people are my enemies.
So all the fuss about Bush lying about Saddam trying to get large quantities of yellowcake was pretty much blustering and arm waving on both sides of the political aisle over nothing, eh?
I mean, if the guy already had 550 tonnes of the stuff, why should the right make it a big deal that he's looking for more? I'm certain you can get enough fissionable material from 550 tonnes of yellowcake to make a good bomb or two.
Also, on the left, if the guy already had 550 tonnes of the stuff, why make this big deal out of the fact that it turned out to be a lie that he was trying to acquire more? If a guy already has a gun with half a clip in it, does it really make him less dangerous if he's not out looking for the rest of the clip?
Considering some of the 9/11 conspiracy theories, who says they aren't? :P
I work at a big industrial plant that kicks tonnes of sulphides into the air every day.
If I can live a 15 minute truck ride away, I'm happy to.
That said, I'd be thrilled if I could get a bus route going. I'd prefer getting to work on time without spending 2000 a year just on gasoline for the privilege.