You see this a lot with video game hardware add ons. The American gamer doesn't get many of these. (The disk drive that came out for N64 was an example.)
Of course, the software thing is what really burned me up. I mean there isn't any reason why these games, that come out in Japan can't come out in the US. I remember the escalating mod chip war on the Playstation. The kept updating the technology to block import games from playing on my system (which had 0 effect on pirate games, incidentally) purely to prevent me from playing Megaman III on my Playstation! It was this that first made me aware of IP tyranny, before DeCSS. Not Rockman III, but the whole concept that I needed to mod my Playstation to play games I had legitimately purchased! My brother recently experienced the same thing (after I tried for ages to get him interested in the DeCSS fight) when he found out that the original, Japanese version of the movie Ring (live action) was being supressed in the US market in favor of the upcoming American remake (which I'm sure they'll Westernize to make more hip and scream-like...)
(Incidentally, Dreamcast owners should mod their consoles, there are some _seriously_ cool Japan only games for it.)
This is why I keep hoping South Korea will come out with a TV console. I like my GP32, and it is so open compared to Gameboy (of course, the game selection isn't nearly as good...) a similar concept in a console would be cool.
Of course, anything cool in video gaming can still be gotten from Hong Kong, for the moment.
As to laptops, I'm perfectly happy with my Tibook. I think it has all the cool factor of the one he mentioned.
I've noticed a flaw in a lot of the posts to this article, and that is on the purpose of the news. A lot of people seem to think that it is important for big media to report the news in such a way that it will influence events politically. (Oddly, I suspect many of these people are also in favor of soft-money bans which are supposed to prevent unions and corporations from politically influencing events.)
There are a few problems here. Partly its the fact that Americans are confusing big media's purpose with the First Amendement, and also confusing big media with a somewhat idealized form of the news.
First of all, big media does think that it's job is, among other things, to influence politics. This is why you have Sunday morning political shows and political cable news channels. However, while it is also true that big media uses the rest of the news to influence politics, big media sees the main purpose of the rest of its news as a) Attracting your attention and b) Influencing you, the general public. Chances are that it has successfully done so, to some degree or another. I am absolutely certain that there are issues at the periphery of my interest that I am dead wrong of because of distorted media coverage. I do my best to get information from many sources to avoid this, but I suspect that at some point there is a left/right/classical liberal consensus that shuts out the opposing viewpoint. I'll call it a media blindspot.
In an idealized version of the news, reporters would simply report the news, and editorialists (like Katz) would try to use the news to change the world for the better. There would be a clear differentiation. The First Amendment would protect people's right to publish news, editorials, political pamphlets without being suppressed.
The First Amendment mostly does protect people's right to publish political viewpoints (it must be constantly and fiercely defended, unfortunately, so it sometimes fails). However, it is up to the individual citizen to become informed, it is not up to big media, or independant media to spoon feed the citizen the correct point of view. Or rather, any citizen who allows himself or herself to be spoon fed like this is failing in his or her own civic responsibilities.
So, anyone who is upset at the bias in the media ought to be criticizing people's unwillingness to become informed, their willingness to be led and guided by the media.
Of course, my point of view won't fit in with socialists or conservatives who believe that people ought to be led by some elite and that will be better than independant thinking and judgement. It does fit in well with libertarian/classical liberal philosophy though. To my mind, a fiercely independant populace that doesn't look to some centralized source for the "correct" views would be best. Unfortunately, though, in this case it is the citizenry that allows itself to be led where the failure lies, not big media.
This phrase was immortalized on The Simpson's, among other places (Grandpa saying, "I am the Lindbergh baby" to distract the Feds.) Why is this phrase famous? Because the media of the time was saturated with the Lindbergh kidnapping.
The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats
First Published in 1922
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at laSt,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
One of the twentieth century's greatest poets, W. B. Yeats, was a bona fide occultist. He was a member of The Golden Dawn, which also claimed such notables as Aleister Crowley as alumni. You cannot seperate a study of Yeats belief in the occult from a study of his poetry and still teach about it. You cannot have a good course about post Great War literature, history and poetry without any mention of the influence of the occult on the artists of that era.
Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised if hardheaded materialists (such as Lovecraft) would be included in "occult" bans for writing "occult" literature. This despite the fact that he did not believe in the supernatural at all and was a firm atheist.
After the death of Elizabeth I, James the VI of Scotland became the new ruler, known in England as King James I. His fascination with the occult prompted him to write his own treatise on witchcraft, "Daemonology", and many believe that James's vehement belief in the divine right of kings influenced Shakespeare's playwriting methodology. James I is probably best known for his translation of the Bible into English which became known as the Authorized King James Version.
As was William Shakespeare, try reading Macbeth or The Tempest sometime. (of course, it is also possible that he chose occult topics to make the king happy, which is a good example of why it is impossible to seperate the occult from the study of history.)
The point is, the only way to teach literature and history is to include the occult, or selectively censor both topics. This is a serious matter, and has nothing to do with teenagers thinking they are "dark lords." (Which sounds like something from that Baptist preacher's anti-Harry Potter video.)
Of course, 8 year olds don't seriously study history, but you started this discussion by talking of people 13-19, teenagers (not pre-teens). Better be careful of what college your daughter goes to, a good liberal arts college will require a certain minimal amount of study of the occult.
Frankly, we aren't talking about censoring "objectionable material" because that is what is covered by other catagories (sex and violence). We are talking about censoring Web site for no other reason than that they fall into the "occult" catagory. The reason these sites are censored is purely because modern people still believe in the occult and consider it dangerous, in and of itself. Therefore, rather than expose it to the cold light of reason, they'd rather shove it into the dark (along with Charles Darwin). In many cases the people behind this censorship are people who I also consider to have whacky beliefs (such as faith healing) which could be dangerous. Should their beliefs be censored as well? Good luck, the political power is on their side.
Enlightened people don't bother to censor dangerous beliefs, they mock them.
The main problem is that America is currently a sick society (in a Heinleinian sense of the words). You can see it throughout the social structure, but it really come to the forefront when you look at rehabilitation of criminals. You see there are really only two kinds of criminals, the ones that society wants to rehabilitate and the ones that are deemed too evil or dangerous to rehabilitate. Most (possibly all) of the people who are being forcibly sodomized in prison fall into the first catagory, but a significant portion of "law abiding" American society has reached a level of barbarism that they would probably be happy if "hanging, drawing and quartering" were brought back.
Even if you hate criminals and think they should get no mercy, it is insane, as a society, to subject them to cruel, unusual and depraved punishments and then release them back into society. (Or to encourage other criminals, probably among the worst, to commit such abuses and then release them into society at large.)
So why do the people who run American society not only tolerate but encourage this type of abuse? Simple, maintaining tyranny requires brutal and horrible punishment. They get a lot of people to go along with it as a form of entertainment, the same way the Romans got people to go along with their atrocities.
If prison weren't horrible, more people who would never become hardened criminals would be encouraged to disobey the arbitrary and unjust laws we come up with in this country. The way the prisons get around the constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment is to have the prisoners abused by other prisoners rather than directly by prison personel.
Here's a quote from Robert X. Cringely that may help....
But I have to wonder why Microsoft would engage in such foolishness. They could have bought Burst.com at any point, and never even been able to detect a level change in Microsoft's corporate bank account. Why risk so much just to screw (allegedly) a little company from Santa Rosa?
If there is a reason, it has to come from the competitive nature of Bill Gates as Microsoft's spiritual and ethical leader. Everything is a competition to Bill, and every competition has a winner and a loser. Microsoft people have always been encouraged to see the game, not the consequences, and to win the game even if winning this way makes no sense.
Let me give an example of this behavior. In the early days of Microsoft, one of the popular games was to see how late the boys could leave work for the airport and still make their flights. These weren't people who were habitually late, they were playing a game. The eventual winner was Bill Gates, of course, but to win he had to abandon his car at the departures curb.
-- from the article, Is a Little Broadband Enough?
Covad Seems to Think So. Also, Why Microsoft Keeps Getting Sued
by Robert X. Cringely
Notes the similarities between the mountain people of Japan, Ninja, and the way the were treated and the mountain people of America, the so-called hillbillies.
What the sundry warlords of feudal Japan saw in the Ninja were easy targets. Hillbillies who could be taxed and exploited and were too powerless in government to defend themselves. They weren't entirely correct. Their superior knowledge of nature and of wilderness survival made a Ninja a fearsome opponent even for a well-trained samurai. Small groups of Ninja could hold off entire armies simply by employing a greater understanding of the land and how to use it to one's advantage. All that cool looking samurai armor isn't going to do you much good when some bunch of farmers are rolling boulders and logs down on you. Contact with Chinese martial artists helped them develop a fighting skill and tactical sense that was often greater than the commanders of the samurai legions, and it wasn't long before the Ninja clans added political savvy to their repertoire. The manipulated policy to protect their villages and would gleefully promote any ignorant superstition about themselves that kept people nervous and away from their hills. Once again, similarities to the so-called hillbillies of Appalachia abound.
I don't think anyone (who has a say in the matter) is going to want the first law built into, say, Predator drones.
Besides that, I consider the enslavement of intelligent beings to be immoral. Besides, we'll probably still end up with Fondly Fahrenheit. o/~ All reet, all reet, be cool and discreet, baby! o/~
Is there any way to reestablish the ethic of doing work for its own sake?
That's an odd question, because there are many reasons why people do work, but whether any of these are "work for it's own sake" is open to debate. For example, if a person builds model ships because he enjoys doing it, that might be "work for its own sake," depending on your definition. A significant amount of free software is developed under this ethic. There is an important point, though, I'm not going to build my model ships and give them away to people who want them unless those people are my friends (or maybe occaisionally on a whim). If I were to start a small business where I made such ships and sold them at a small profit, it would likely be more hassle than it is worth. So, I might make a ship to give to my cousin's son, but I wouldn't give it to you, and I also won't sell it to you. (Like I said, the minute it becomes the hassle of running a business, hiring accountants , complying with regulations, it stops being fun.)
I don't really consider altruism as "work for it's own sake," but perhaps this is what you meant. I might do altruistic work for people I know, or for the local Buddhist Temple where the monks are always nice to me, but I won't do it for people I don't like. The trouble with this is that people usually don't agree on valid reasons for disliking people. Honestly, altruism works better in tightly knit societies. It's doomed to failure as a way of getting things done in diverse societies. (People might also do work for religious reasons, such as to make merit to do "well" in their next life. However, if you do altruism to gain "treasure in heaven," then isn't that a kind of selfishness? There is a "gain" involved.)
Now, you might also mean taking pride in the work you do, even if it is for a profit. That's another matter altogether. For example, I think the thing that makes people sick about doing work for money is that so many people act like it is more valid to scam someone, and do crummy substandard work and get paid through the roof for it than it is to do good, productive work and make money on that. What do you expect? If you scam people, you do better than if you are honest. You won't pay as much in taxes if you are a huckster than if you are an honest man, you won't have to comply with as many government regulations, and you won't have any politicians in your back pocket who can regulate the economy such that you become a monopoly or part of a cartel while your competitors who won't or can't afford to play ball are crushed underfoot. I've watched crummy, corrupt businesses crush decent businesses (Bleem!) under foot using the courts. I've watched the media cartels pay the government to try to force computer manufacturers to sell screwed up, crummy, substandard computers and the issue is being sold as an aid to help consumers get broadband.
So I don't have any confidence in government fixing these types of problems. How can the government which brings us the DMCA bring us regulation to end corruption in finance?
The philosophy behind "unenforcable" laws is very simple. It's not the idea that our government gets everyone, or even the majority of people who break a particular law. It is the idea that they can, given the opportunity and inclination, enforce it whenever they feel like it. For example, say your local camera store imports non-screwed-up camcorders from overseas, which will correctly record family events such as weddings even while copyrighted music is playing in the background.
Well, the Feds find out, and put the owner of the shop in prison for multiple violations of the analogue hole act. Maybe at the behest of one of his law abiding competitors, such as Walmart, who have been scrupulously complying with the analogue hole act and only selling screwed-up camcorders.
You, the uber-geek individual can still take a trip to Hong kong, Taiwan or wherever they still sell non-screwed-up camcorders, and probably get it back into the U. S. with no problem. Just as individuals purchasing pirate DVDs in those places probably won't have a problem, but shops that import them are basically only able to operate under the protection of organized crime.
Of course, God help you if you get someone with any governmental power after you if you have any of these things. They will cheerfully see to it that you, the individual, are prosecuted for the crime of having a non-screwed-up camcorder, even if your real crime was embarrasing them politically.
I wouldn't dismiss this, it can and will be used against us.
Frankly, this article is scary. Because even if the regular economy recovers, I think the tech sector will seriously lag behind. Of course, right now I have a job, but if I lose it I'll have a lot to worry about.
Eventually this will turn around, because a few companies will be willing to make smart investments in tech while a lot of others will be extremely stingy in that regard. Those companies will make money and leave their competitors behind. This may take years though.
Hmm, how can I make money from this since I know it is true?
The Chinese government, I think, has realized something. They aren't a Communist country anymore, but they still want to maintain certain aspects of Communist ideology. One aspect they want to maintain is the state as the source of religous fervor. Hence this anti-Falun Gong poster:
They've decided to replace the idea of a Communist utopia with a faith in scientific progress. It's really their only chance to hold onto a population that is showing a renewed interest in religion.
I believe they'll do this, if they don't collapse first. From the Red Chinese government perspective, they have to to survive.
I keep wondering, though, if an organized political movement couldn't do something about Michael Eisner. See, he's the real problem. He's the leader of the content lobby and the head of the powerful Disney corporation. If he, himself, were to crash and it was clearly seen that it was because he angered the tech lobby, we could bypass Congress altogether.
Maybe those of us who are in the tech lobby should stop worrying about those old bastards who run our world and start thinking about the people who are prompting this insane legislation. Those people head corporations, they don't hold Senate seats.
What if everyone who hated this kind of stuff bought a few shares of Disney stock, and then used that stock to run the company into the ground? (I imagine it could be done if we owned enough of it.)
Robert A. Heinlein wrote in the novel Friday, "How do you fight IBM?" Maybe it is time to take that question seriously.
Making legal war against a corporation in the realm of economics? Is it possible?
I probably just have too much imagination. However, I remember one of the content lobbies talking heads saying something like, "It's like a religion, they won't let us tell them what to put in their computers." Well, it really is my religion, a belief in Progress. I'd like to think I'm not the only one.
This whole argument is a mistake anyway. There are only a few different types of teachers, and I'm going to assume that for this argument we are refering to K-12 (since that is what the article was about). The types of teachers are:
1. Public School Teachers: As a public school teacher, the teacher is a politician (at least if he or she has any ambition). Because of this, the best teachers are the ones without ambition because they will be honest in their opinions. On the other hand, the ones with ambition will resemble the grey blur opinionless drones that RealityMaster prefers. This is because in a bureacracy, like the public school, having any strong, obvious opinions is considered dangerous and subversive. However, the exception to this is to teach that which has met with a bureacratic rubber-stamp of approval as if it is holy writ. This stuff, if you've ever been exposed to any of it, is designed to indoctrinate students. It is very political, and teaches "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds." Don't dissent, don't make trouble, everything is just fine with the government.
2. Private School Teachers: Private schools exist as a reaction to percieved problems in the public school system. I mean everyone in the US gets extorted for taxes to support the public school system. Some of these people choose to pay money on top of that to send their kids to a private school. A large portion of private schools are religious in nature, and they exist to inculcate a certain set of values in their charges. Teacher's in such schools are expected to present a bias. Of course, anyone can theoretically start a private school for any reason (though, obviously, if they run afoul of the American educational establishment they will have an uphill struggle), so there may even possibly exist one that attepts to teach the valueless education that RealityMaster prefers. Any such school will fail, because even a school that followed a Randian Objectivist lesson plan would still be teaching values. At some point you have to say, "This is historical fact and this is historical fiction, these books are worth teaching and those books are not," which are value judgements.
Among both groups of teachers, I prefer the ones who state their own beliefs rather than parroting the establishment line. Of course, I also think that the current school system is warped. I think kids spend far too much time in school and far too little time experiencing life. I think, in addition to its political indoctrination functions, school's other functions are:
1. To act as a substitute parent to make up for the fact that both parents must work long shifts to pay their crushing tax burden.
2. To delay young people from entering a work force that is not prepared to absorb them for as long as possible.
3. To make them into good organization men and women so that they'll be in tune with harmonious group think once they find jobs with one of the large, government-subsidized corporation where most of them will end up and crush any big, disruptive dreams they might have.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, the software thing is what really burned me up. I mean there isn't any reason why these games, that come out in Japan can't come out in the US. I remember the escalating mod chip war on the Playstation. The kept updating the technology to block import games from playing on my system (which had 0 effect on pirate games, incidentally) purely to prevent me from playing Megaman III on my Playstation! It was this that first made me aware of IP tyranny, before DeCSS. Not Rockman III, but the whole concept that I needed to mod my Playstation to play games I had legitimately purchased! My brother recently experienced the same thing (after I tried for ages to get him interested in the DeCSS fight) when he found out that the original, Japanese version of the movie Ring (live action) was being supressed in the US market in favor of the upcoming American remake (which I'm sure they'll Westernize to make more hip and scream-like...)
(Incidentally, Dreamcast owners should mod their consoles, there are some _seriously_ cool Japan only games for it.)
This is why I keep hoping South Korea will come out with a TV console. I like my GP32, and it is so open compared to Gameboy (of course, the game selection isn't nearly as good...) a similar concept in a console would be cool.
Of course, anything cool in video gaming can still be gotten from Hong Kong, for the moment.
As to laptops, I'm perfectly happy with my Tibook. I think it has all the cool factor of the one he mentioned.
As long as they aren't talking about sleeping with the fishes in the Troy McClure sense... *shudder*
Friends of Falun Gong
The Falun Gong take on the story is here:
Revealing Broadcasts Are Truly Serving the People-- From the Editors of FalunInfo.net: Falun Gong Practitioners Risk their Lives to Tell the Truth
If you would like to help out the cause, there is a page about it here:
Become a Friend- Alleviate the Suffering, End the Injustice
There are a few problems here. Partly its the fact that Americans are confusing big media's purpose with the First Amendement, and also confusing big media with a somewhat idealized form of the news.
First of all, big media does think that it's job is, among other things, to influence politics. This is why you have Sunday morning political shows and political cable news channels. However, while it is also true that big media uses the rest of the news to influence politics, big media sees the main purpose of the rest of its news as a) Attracting your attention and b) Influencing you, the general public. Chances are that it has successfully done so, to some degree or another. I am absolutely certain that there are issues at the periphery of my interest that I am dead wrong of because of distorted media coverage. I do my best to get information from many sources to avoid this, but I suspect that at some point there is a left/right/classical liberal consensus that shuts out the opposing viewpoint. I'll call it a media blindspot.
In an idealized version of the news, reporters would simply report the news, and editorialists (like Katz) would try to use the news to change the world for the better. There would be a clear differentiation. The First Amendment would protect people's right to publish news, editorials, political pamphlets without being suppressed.
The First Amendment mostly does protect people's right to publish political viewpoints (it must be constantly and fiercely defended, unfortunately, so it sometimes fails). However, it is up to the individual citizen to become informed, it is not up to big media, or independant media to spoon feed the citizen the correct point of view. Or rather, any citizen who allows himself or herself to be spoon fed like this is failing in his or her own civic responsibilities.
So, anyone who is upset at the bias in the media ought to be criticizing people's unwillingness to become informed, their willingness to be led and guided by the media.
Of course, my point of view won't fit in with socialists or conservatives who believe that people ought to be led by some elite and that will be better than independant thinking and judgement. It does fit in well with libertarian/classical liberal philosophy though. To my mind, a fiercely independant populace that doesn't look to some centralized source for the "correct" views would be best. Unfortunately, though, in this case it is the citizenry that allows itself to be led where the failure lies, not big media.
It's best not to think about it....
This phrase was immortalized on The Simpson's, among other places (Grandpa saying, "I am the Lindbergh baby" to distract the Feds.) Why is this phrase famous? Because the media of the time was saturated with the Lindbergh kidnapping.
So.... when was H. L. Menkin writing agian?
by William Butler Yeats
First Published in 1922
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at laSt,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
One of the twentieth century's greatest poets, W. B. Yeats, was a bona fide occultist. He was a member of The Golden Dawn , which also claimed such notables as Aleister Crowley as alumni. You cannot seperate a study of Yeats belief in the occult from a study of his poetry and still teach about it. You cannot have a good course about post Great War literature, history and poetry without any mention of the influence of the occult on the artists of that era.
Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised if hardheaded materialists (such as Lovecraft) would be included in "occult" bans for writing "occult" literature. This despite the fact that he did not believe in the supernatural at all and was a firm atheist.
It gets even more complicated if you go back towards the Dark Ages, because it becomes harder to seperate the occult from what we would call religion today. Even as late as the Renaissance this was true. James I of England (that's the Bible James) was fascinated with the occult:
As was William Shakespeare, try reading Macbeth or The Tempest sometime. (of course, it is also possible that he chose occult topics to make the king happy, which is a good example of why it is impossible to seperate the occult from the study of history.)The point is, the only way to teach literature and history is to include the occult, or selectively censor both topics. This is a serious matter, and has nothing to do with teenagers thinking they are "dark lords." (Which sounds like something from that Baptist preacher's anti-Harry Potter video.)
Of course, 8 year olds don't seriously study history, but you started this discussion by talking of people 13-19, teenagers (not pre-teens). Better be careful of what college your daughter goes to, a good liberal arts college will require a certain minimal amount of study of the occult.
Frankly, we aren't talking about censoring "objectionable material" because that is what is covered by other catagories (sex and violence). We are talking about censoring Web site for no other reason than that they fall into the "occult" catagory. The reason these sites are censored is purely because modern people still believe in the occult and consider it dangerous, in and of itself. Therefore, rather than expose it to the cold light of reason, they'd rather shove it into the dark (along with Charles Darwin). In many cases the people behind this censorship are people who I also consider to have whacky beliefs (such as faith healing) which could be dangerous. Should their beliefs be censored as well? Good luck, the political power is on their side.
Enlightened people don't bother to censor dangerous beliefs, they mock them.
Maybe so, but he was probably influenced by the fact that the guy was obviously a raving lunatic sociopath as well.
Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty
It's an interesting perspective on libertarian philosophy.
Even if you hate criminals and think they should get no mercy, it is insane, as a society, to subject them to cruel, unusual and depraved punishments and then release them back into society. (Or to encourage other criminals, probably among the worst, to commit such abuses and then release them into society at large.)
So why do the people who run American society not only tolerate but encourage this type of abuse? Simple, maintaining tyranny requires brutal and horrible punishment. They get a lot of people to go along with it as a form of entertainment, the same way the Romans got people to go along with their atrocities.
If prison weren't horrible, more people who would never become hardened criminals would be encouraged to disobey the arbitrary and unjust laws we come up with in this country. The way the prisons get around the constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment is to have the prisoners abused by other prisoners rather than directly by prison personel.
Please don't feed the trolls.
http://www.teleport-city.com/movies/reviews/kungfu / nter_ninja.html
Notes the similarities between the mountain people of Japan, Ninja, and the way the were treated and the mountain people of America, the so-called hillbillies.
Besides that, I consider the enslavement of intelligent beings to be immoral. Besides, we'll probably still end up with Fondly Fahrenheit. o/~ All reet, all reet, be cool and discreet, baby! o/~
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=31692&cid= 3411995
Please remember not to feed the trolls.
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=34060&cid= 3683066
and he has the gall to talk about luxury. There is nothing more luxurious than spending $60.00 on a new computer game.
For some people, that same $60.00 is over a month's worth of food!
Bleah! A limousine "Marxist," how disgusting!
That's an odd question, because there are many reasons why people do work, but whether any of these are "work for it's own sake" is open to debate. For example, if a person builds model ships because he enjoys doing it, that might be "work for its own sake," depending on your definition. A significant amount of free software is developed under this ethic. There is an important point, though, I'm not going to build my model ships and give them away to people who want them unless those people are my friends (or maybe occaisionally on a whim). If I were to start a small business where I made such ships and sold them at a small profit, it would likely be more hassle than it is worth. So, I might make a ship to give to my cousin's son, but I wouldn't give it to you, and I also won't sell it to you. (Like I said, the minute it becomes the hassle of running a business, hiring accountants , complying with regulations, it stops being fun.)
I don't really consider altruism as "work for it's own sake," but perhaps this is what you meant. I might do altruistic work for people I know, or for the local Buddhist Temple where the monks are always nice to me, but I won't do it for people I don't like. The trouble with this is that people usually don't agree on valid reasons for disliking people. Honestly, altruism works better in tightly knit societies. It's doomed to failure as a way of getting things done in diverse societies. (People might also do work for religious reasons, such as to make merit to do "well" in their next life. However, if you do altruism to gain "treasure in heaven," then isn't that a kind of selfishness? There is a "gain" involved.)
Now, you might also mean taking pride in the work you do, even if it is for a profit. That's another matter altogether. For example, I think the thing that makes people sick about doing work for money is that so many people act like it is more valid to scam someone, and do crummy substandard work and get paid through the roof for it than it is to do good, productive work and make money on that. What do you expect? If you scam people, you do better than if you are honest. You won't pay as much in taxes if you are a huckster than if you are an honest man, you won't have to comply with as many government regulations, and you won't have any politicians in your back pocket who can regulate the economy such that you become a monopoly or part of a cartel while your competitors who won't or can't afford to play ball are crushed underfoot. I've watched crummy, corrupt businesses crush decent businesses (Bleem!) under foot using the courts. I've watched the media cartels pay the government to try to force computer manufacturers to sell screwed up, crummy, substandard computers and the issue is being sold as an aid to help consumers get broadband.
So I don't have any confidence in government fixing these types of problems. How can the government which brings us the DMCA bring us regulation to end corruption in finance?
Well, the Feds find out, and put the owner of the shop in prison for multiple violations of the analogue hole act. Maybe at the behest of one of his law abiding competitors, such as Walmart, who have been scrupulously complying with the analogue hole act and only selling screwed-up camcorders.
You, the uber-geek individual can still take a trip to Hong kong, Taiwan or wherever they still sell non-screwed-up camcorders, and probably get it back into the U. S. with no problem. Just as individuals purchasing pirate DVDs in those places probably won't have a problem, but shops that import them are basically only able to operate under the protection of organized crime.
Of course, God help you if you get someone with any governmental power after you if you have any of these things. They will cheerfully see to it that you, the individual, are prosecuted for the crime of having a non-screwed-up camcorder, even if your real crime was embarrasing them politically.
I wouldn't dismiss this, it can and will be used against us.
Companies squander billions on tech
Frankly, this article is scary. Because even if the regular economy recovers, I think the tech sector will seriously lag behind. Of course, right now I have a job, but if I lose it I'll have a lot to worry about.
Eventually this will turn around, because a few companies will be willing to make smart investments in tech while a lot of others will be extremely stingy in that regard. Those companies will make money and leave their competitors behind. This may take years though.
Hmm, how can I make money from this since I know it is true?
Uphold Science, Eradicate Superstition, 1999
It's a representation of China's Space Program.
Uphold Science, Eradicate Superstition, 1999 (which is located at: Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages - Falun Gong
They've decided to replace the idea of a Communist utopia with a faith in scientific progress. It's really their only chance to hold onto a population that is showing a renewed interest in religion.
I believe they'll do this, if they don't collapse first. From the Red Chinese government perspective, they have to to survive.
Ia Ia Cthuhlu ftagn!
Maybe those of us who are in the tech lobby should stop worrying about those old bastards who run our world and start thinking about the people who are prompting this insane legislation. Those people head corporations, they don't hold Senate seats.
What if everyone who hated this kind of stuff bought a few shares of Disney stock, and then used that stock to run the company into the ground? (I imagine it could be done if we owned enough of it.)
Robert A. Heinlein wrote in the novel Friday, "How do you fight IBM?" Maybe it is time to take that question seriously.
Making legal war against a corporation in the realm of economics? Is it possible?
I probably just have too much imagination. However, I remember one of the content lobbies talking heads saying something like, "It's like a religion, they won't let us tell them what to put in their computers." Well, it really is my religion, a belief in Progress. I'd like to think I'm not the only one.
Here's my response. It says everything I want to say, eloquently.
1. Public School Teachers: As a public school teacher, the teacher is a politician (at least if he or she has any ambition). Because of this, the best teachers are the ones without ambition because they will be honest in their opinions. On the other hand, the ones with ambition will resemble the grey blur opinionless drones that RealityMaster prefers. This is because in a bureacracy, like the public school, having any strong, obvious opinions is considered dangerous and subversive. However, the exception to this is to teach that which has met with a bureacratic rubber-stamp of approval as if it is holy writ. This stuff, if you've ever been exposed to any of it, is designed to indoctrinate students. It is very political, and teaches "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds." Don't dissent, don't make trouble, everything is just fine with the government.
2. Private School Teachers: Private schools exist as a reaction to percieved problems in the public school system. I mean everyone in the US gets extorted for taxes to support the public school system. Some of these people choose to pay money on top of that to send their kids to a private school. A large portion of private schools are religious in nature, and they exist to inculcate a certain set of values in their charges. Teacher's in such schools are expected to present a bias. Of course, anyone can theoretically start a private school for any reason (though, obviously, if they run afoul of the American educational establishment they will have an uphill struggle), so there may even possibly exist one that attepts to teach the valueless education that RealityMaster prefers. Any such school will fail, because even a school that followed a Randian Objectivist lesson plan would still be teaching values. At some point you have to say, "This is historical fact and this is historical fiction, these books are worth teaching and those books are not," which are value judgements.
Among both groups of teachers, I prefer the ones who state their own beliefs rather than parroting the establishment line. Of course, I also think that the current school system is warped. I think kids spend far too much time in school and far too little time experiencing life. I think, in addition to its political indoctrination functions, school's other functions are:
1. To act as a substitute parent to make up for the fact that both parents must work long shifts to pay their crushing tax burden.
2. To delay young people from entering a work force that is not prepared to absorb them for as long as possible.
3. To make them into good organization men and women so that they'll be in tune with harmonious group think once they find jobs with one of the large, government-subsidized corporation where most of them will end up and crush any big, disruptive dreams they might have.