(Found on a bathroom wall somewhere in the U.S.A.)
You've taken over my mind. You've raped my thoughts with your image viruses then sold me fake cures for your own disease. Your words and pictures scream orders at me like angry prison wardens. When I cover my ears, your voices echo in my head. I hate you. When I see your billboards, your talk shows, your rock concerts and your factories, when I see the work of your twisted libidos, I want to kill you. I want to set fires, plant bombs, derail trains. I want to smash your buildings and tear at your bodies until the skin of my hands is worn to the bone. I am filled with a rage that burns my eyes.
I don't want to feel this way. You have done this to me. These feelings are the fruits of your multi-billion dollar sowing. And I am not alone. There are others like me out here. Every suicide, every madman, every man and woman who gets a gun and just starts shooting -- these are your illegitimate children. They don't all know what they are doing. All they know is hate for the invisible walls which you have raised around them, hate for the narrow path you have tried to make them walk. And the innocent pay in blood for your negligence.
Remember this: My mind is big. The more you try to push me down and make me small, the greater the pressure inside me becomes. The greater the pressure, the greater the chance of an explosion. There was once a time when I felt love, but now I feel only hate and anger, and fear at what I might do. And you can tell me to "BE HAPPY," but I know that you really mean "BE QUIET". Believe me, I want to be happy. You stand in my way.
Sound trite? Maybe.
No, I'm not a whacko and I didn't write this. However, I just thought I'd throw that out for a different perspective. I found that at abrupt.org. I think there is quite of bit of insight into our system and the twisted minds it produces there. take a look.
Our cultural maliase runs very deep. Guns are not the problem, nor is TV violence, nor is jocks or high school cliques. These things have been going on since civilization began.
I believe the causes run much deeper; our obsession with amusement is a great part of it. If you understand that everything (from the drug wars to the daily news to our political campaigns) is being presented to us in the form of entertainment, I think you will see at least the beginning of the problem. Would ritalin have "cured" these kids? Maybe, but ritalin is the problem. Armed guards in schools is ludicrous - one is reminded (sorry) of all the ad hoc patches and crap that makes up our least favorite OS. At some point one needs to start over.
If you want to understand our deep cutural sickness you need to read. I'm suggesting a few books and I'll leave it at that:
Nieztsche: The Portable Nietzsche (an honest reading of Nietzsche is, I think, key to our illness)
I know where I work (and I know this isn't uncommon) my actual "boss" (who makes almost twice what I make, BTW) has no clue. About the summation of his computer skills is creating little reports in sql. He doesn't know anything about shit, he just wants to collect his check and go home.
I've managed to "subversively" introduce linux in a number of odd capacities, without opposition (because he doesn't know what he's talking about).
My advice is this: if you can think of some service your company can use, that they aren't using because of whatever reason, look at what linux can do for you. then just install it.
I happen to be a little lucky in this regard since we have a lot of older machines laying about (well, we did), and I have a lot of decision making power (see regarding clueless boss).
arrest them for playing QUAKE!!!
on
CALEA update
·
· Score: 1
it's more dangerous than coke... of course, if the wiretappers are determined enough, everything you talk about is just a code for talking about evil, sinful, filthy drugs
"terrorism" is one of the most used tools of government propaganda. "The fight against terrorism" has been the excuse for a tremendous amount of atrocities.
Nothing could have been more destructive to democracy than television. Our democracy was very dependent on communication and literacy: television has eroded that so much that Americans can't even think anymore; we're so inundated by advertisements that the tremendous falseness and dishonesty in the rhetoric of our politicians and businessmen simply goes unquestioned as the air we breathe. Why does anyone even listen to the State of the Union address anymore? Is there really anything there? Why do we even sit through TQM meetings? One wonders whether Gore or Bush, if they were the last men on earth, would even then be able to speak honestly.
We've moved from a typographic society to an image based one in just 30 short years. Politics as entertainment. Religeon as entertainment. Life as amusement.
Television has reduced us to a nation of drooling idiots who can't do anything but sit in front of the dull blue screen getting our buttons pushed.
In the ruins of this anesthetized disaster there is a faint glimmer of hope and that is the net. Media corporations are fighting it tooth and nail: they want to turn the net into entertainment, a glorified TV. For them, the net is not the opposite of TV but it's crowning jewel - interactive entertainment.
I still have a little faith that the net can turn this trend around but people have to be aware of the danger of being entertained by information.
I would be personally be very disappointed if Chomsky came forward promoting any sort of censorship.
Just because Chomsky has spend the greater part of his life pointing out the hypocrysies of the system does not mean that he is a socialist by default. AFAIK he is an anarcho-syndicalist, but seems to have socialist leanings at times for some pragmatic reasons.
They're both just idiots who sit in an ivory tower inventing theories of how the economy works that have no basis in reality. They both spend their time pontificating instead of researching.
Chomsky does not have much to say regarding "how the economy works" since he is not a capitalist at all (he is more or less an anarchist) - as such this separates very cleanly from someone like Thurow. You still disregard the point: the "free market" as propogated by Gingrich and friends is nothing more than a propaganda machine. I don't care that people are conservative, or liberal, or socialist or what - I just want the propagandists to own up.
As we are, there is no such thing as a "free market": the government subsidizes many industries. In theory, there is, but in practice, the free market amount to corporations getting handouts from the state. The collusion between government and corporation, from both parties, is intense. If the government were to stop it's "meddling", and if companies were not allowed to raid thrid world nations for slave labor, many industries would collapse.
The internet is anarchy in all it's beauty. He says "I've never seen a self regulated system that worked" - duh: IT'S WORKING JUST FINE ASSHOLE.
Can there be no freedom in this world? Will humanity forever be trounced by facist state bastards on one hand and greedy corporate assholes on the other?
"NO-RULES INTERNET MAKES CONTROL DIFFICULT"
That about says it all. I'm just about tired of this facist shit. Free Speech takes a back seat to eCommerce? What the hell is this? Incredible! Why do people babble on and on about consumer rights? What ever the fuck happened to citizens rights?
Kind of a shock seeing this guy is from MIT, the same place Stallman and Noam Chomsky are (does anyone else ever wonder if they know each other?).
theism does not mean that life has meaning, nor does it imply - in and of itself - that there are absolute values: what if god is not good? what if god was indifferent?
Nor does atheism "prove" that "life has no meaning" - you give your life meaning. The fear of atheism is the fear of no absolutes,... but this is just a popular opinion, it doesn't have to be this way. Religeon is just a retreat into culture, an excuse for misery and war.
Needless to say, your statement is, as luck would have it, entirely fallacious. Religious belief for many people is best described as "faith seeking understanding". Far from an enemy of knowledge, it can be a spur to obtain greater knowledge. Doubt is simply a natural by-product of our quest for understanding.
This is just unintelligible. Religeon, as the most honest theists will admit, is just faith. "Faith seeking understanding" is an oxymoron.
And if they were truly happy, why would this be bad? If you start spouting shit like inaliable rights and human nature, you're making the same arguments as the creationists that you so vehemently despise.
Duh - the argument would be that a rational being can't be happy under such circumstances.
We already have "pleasure loopbacks" as you describe them, and they do not make us happy. Then, we must go back what is "pleasure" and what is "happiness".
To the "non-theist" gods existence is simply irrelevant and meaningless - see AJ Ayer's "God is meaningless" (links to other arguments here). It is highly erroneous to suppose that atheism represents some refusal to believe; this is just disingenuous and wishful thinking on your part.
Man is driven to discover these things through doubt and rigorous self-examination, out of a desire to live honestly, not out of some ridiculous desire to demonstrate god does not exist. We don't need to demonstrate anything vis-a-vis gods existence. Religeon makes a villain of doubt, an enemy of knowledge. Religeon is dishonest, rooted in fear, and is pure bunkum.
God does not matter. Man makes gods. It's time for man to stop being so primitive.
Free Software is NOT communism, although one supposes it could be viewed from that angle.
Marxist communism is not just an economic theory, but an entire cosmology. I also see a lot of people comparing the USSR with Marxism - this is wrong. Marxism is quite fantastic (as in fantasy) and rather bizarre, and very few people here seem to have any grasp of what it is.
That said, he does make some good points - Free Software is extremely anti-capitalistic: it is anarchic, but I fail to see anything to do with Marxism in it. Free Software is more like Bakunin's ideal rather than Marx's.
Just because libertarians such as ESR desire to filter everything through their special Rand-glasses doesn't mean egoism is the only angle. We've been beaten with this egoistic crap from day one... I find Stallman's "free speech" approach far more refreshing than the usual libertarian appeals to capitalism and other free market nonsense.
it's been used for more crappy ui design that I can handle... Someone's sig on usenet I found pretty funny (in your best yoda voice): "java leads to javascript... javascript leads to shockwave... shockwave leads to suffering...
Kurosawa was great, but I'll be damned if we can let Lucas compare himself to that man. Lucas is a moron.
I remember in ran there is a scene where a vassal is exhorting his lord to quickly take advantage of an opportunity to sieze power, but the image behind them is a castle burning furiously... Lucas would not ever come up with something like that.
Slashdot Mirror
How about a law banning internet censorship? That would be impressive.
no money for education but plenty of hand outs for corporations in their death throes.
Who would you most like to see George C. slap in the face?
Sound trite? Maybe.
No, I'm not a whacko and I didn't write this. However, I just thought I'd throw that out for a different perspective. I found that at abrupt.org. I think there is quite of bit of insight into our system and the twisted minds it produces there. take a look.
Our cultural maliase runs very deep. Guns are not the problem, nor is TV violence, nor is jocks or high school cliques. These things have been going on since civilization began.
I believe the causes run much deeper; our obsession with amusement is a great part of it. If you understand that everything (from the drug wars to the daily news to our political campaigns) is being presented to us in the form of entertainment, I think you will see at least the beginning of the problem. Would ritalin have "cured" these kids? Maybe, but ritalin is the problem. Armed guards in schools is ludicrous - one is reminded (sorry) of all the ad hoc patches and crap that makes up our least favorite OS. At some point one needs to start over.
If you want to understand our deep cutural sickness you need to read. I'm suggesting a few books and I'll leave it at that:
Star Fleet Battles: now there's a waste of money.
PS: I liked Katz better when he was political. He's trying to suck up to his "geeks" too much lately.
haven't you seen "goodfellas"?
I've managed to "subversively" introduce linux in a number of odd capacities, without opposition (because he doesn't know what he's talking about).
My advice is this: if you can think of some service your company can use, that they aren't using because of whatever reason, look at what linux can do for you. then just install it.
I happen to be a little lucky in this regard since we have a lot of older machines laying about (well, we did), and I have a lot of decision making power (see regarding clueless boss).
it's more dangerous than coke ... of course, if the wiretappers are determined enough, everything you talk about is just a code for talking about evil, sinful, filthy drugs
"terrorism" is one of the most used tools of government propaganda. "The fight against terrorism" has been the excuse for a tremendous amount of atrocities.
We've moved from a typographic society to an image based one in just 30 short years. Politics as entertainment. Religeon as entertainment. Life as amusement.
Television has reduced us to a nation of drooling idiots who can't do anything but sit in front of the dull blue screen getting our buttons pushed.
In the ruins of this anesthetized disaster there is a faint glimmer of hope and that is the net. Media corporations are fighting it tooth and nail: they want to turn the net into entertainment, a glorified TV. For them, the net is not the opposite of TV but it's crowning jewel - interactive entertainment.
I still have a little faith that the net can turn this trend around but people have to be aware of the danger of being entertained by information.
No! I want the brain of a 50 year old and the body of a 20 year old!
Maybe they can cure conservatism, a disease statitically linked with aging and losing brain cells.
Just because Chomsky has spend the greater part of his life pointing out the hypocrysies of the system does not mean that he is a socialist by default. AFAIK he is an anarcho-syndicalist, but seems to have socialist leanings at times for some pragmatic reasons.
Chomsky does not have much to say regarding "how the economy works" since he is not a capitalist at all (he is more or less an anarchist) - as such this separates very cleanly from someone like Thurow. You still disregard the point: the "free market" as propogated by Gingrich and friends is nothing more than a propaganda machine. I don't care that people are conservative, or liberal, or socialist or what - I just want the propagandists to own up.
until they get laid off ... How about if we just changed their ideologies instead?
Cute.
As we are, there is no such thing as a "free market": the government subsidizes many industries. In theory, there is, but in practice, the free market amount to corporations getting handouts from the state. The collusion between government and corporation, from both parties, is intense. If the government were to stop it's "meddling", and if companies were not allowed to raid thrid world nations for slave labor, many industries would collapse.
Can there be no freedom in this world? Will humanity forever be trounced by facist state bastards on one hand and greedy corporate assholes on the other?
"NO-RULES INTERNET MAKES CONTROL DIFFICULT"
That about says it all. I'm just about tired of this facist shit. Free Speech takes a back seat to eCommerce? What the hell is this? Incredible! Why do people babble on and on about consumer rights? What ever the fuck happened to citizens rights?
Kind of a shock seeing this guy is from MIT, the same place Stallman and Noam Chomsky are (does anyone else ever wonder if they know each other?).
Nor does atheism "prove" that "life has no meaning" - you give your life meaning. The fear of atheism is the fear of no absolutes, ... but this is just a popular opinion, it doesn't have to be this way. Religeon is just a retreat into culture, an excuse for misery and war.
This is just unintelligible. Religeon, as the most honest theists will admit, is just faith. "Faith seeking understanding" is an oxymoron.
Duh - the argument would be that a rational being can't be happy under such circumstances.
We already have "pleasure loopbacks" as you describe them, and they do not make us happy. Then, we must go back what is "pleasure" and what is "happiness".
Man is driven to discover these things through doubt and rigorous self-examination, out of a desire to live honestly, not out of some ridiculous desire to demonstrate god does not exist. We don't need to demonstrate anything vis-a-vis gods existence. Religeon makes a villain of doubt, an enemy of knowledge. Religeon is dishonest, rooted in fear, and is pure bunkum.
God does not matter. Man makes gods. It's time for man to stop being so primitive.
Free Software is NOT communism, although one supposes it could be viewed from that angle.
Marxist communism is not just an economic theory, but an entire cosmology. I also see a lot of people comparing the USSR with Marxism - this is wrong. Marxism is quite fantastic (as in fantasy) and rather bizarre, and very few people here seem to have any grasp of what it is.
That said, he does make some good points - Free Software is extremely anti-capitalistic: it is anarchic, but I fail to see anything to do with Marxism in it. Free Software is more like Bakunin's ideal rather than Marx's.
Just because libertarians such as ESR desire to filter everything through their special Rand-glasses doesn't mean egoism is the only angle. We've been beaten with this egoistic crap from day one ... I find Stallman's "free speech" approach far more refreshing than the usual libertarian appeals to capitalism and other free market nonsense.
it's been used for more crappy ui design that I can handle ... Someone's sig on usenet I found pretty funny (in your best yoda voice): "java leads to javascript ... javascript leads to shockwave ... shockwave leads to suffering ...
I remember in ran there is a scene where a vassal is exhorting his lord to quickly take advantage of an opportunity to sieze power, but the image behind them is a castle burning furiously ... Lucas would not ever come up with something like that.