Unfortunately corporations are structured in a way that only benefits greed and shareholders, not stakeholders. If bullying, corruption and toxic law promise a higher profit, even by a margin, that's where these entities put their efforts. Better service and healthy competition do not guarantee profits higher than the promise of competition-killing laws.
If corporations were truly persons, many of them would be in jail or mental health institutions.
I've been involved in nonviolent parenting for a while. Violence is taught, in subtle and not so-subtle ways, from the cradle. Until we change how we raise humans, our belief that violence could resolve differences will remain.
See Parenting for a Peaceful World by Robin Grille for a glimpse of the hellish parenting practices of the Western civilization, and the incredible potential that nonviolent parenting holds.
Also, check out the works of Alice Miller who addresses child abuse as a formative force in our society.
Because we are creators. Creation gives us infinite joy. We don't do it for money, we do it because we want and need to. Monetizing thoughts, imagination, art is a fairly recent development, leading to the attempt to fence the unfencable.
Take a look at the videos on this page. These people were not paid, and Kutiman, the guy who spent hundreds of hours editing, didn't get paid either.
The optimal price model for the consumer is where you pay for exactly what you use at a fair per-unit price *and get tiered discounts for higher volume*.
If the ISPs make money for each unit, they ought to encourage use and give some love to their big customers.
Corporate lawyers live in an alternate reality with calculable monetary penalties and rewards for every possible action, no matter how immoral. Their advise is based on the size of the monetary rewards and risk calculation.
I wonder if this is less about value and more about power and influence. More powerful positions with more ability to change the behavior of the company carry more responsibility and potentially bring more value to the company.
That would be the logic from a corporation's standpoint. From a human standpoint, it is absurd to value one's time thousands of times more than another's.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture where early conditioning in greed and separation result in a belief system that puts money and possessions ahead of life, safety, dignity and health.
Current IP laws do not aim for the benefit of the public or fairness or logic. They only aim for the benefit of corporations by enabling them to extort money from the public, i.e. from humanity.
The initial intention of the law, to benefit inventors, artists, scientists etc. who actually put time and money into the creation of their work has been blown out of proportion, aiming to turn IP into something similar to real estate.
Anyone can have an idea, it doesn't take that much time to do research or write a song. Implying that the products of these efforts should be property forever* is ridiculous.
*I consider 100+ years to be "forever" given that it's longer than the average lifespan.
5, 10, 15 year terms encourage artists, inventors, scientists enough.
The public is what makes a work more valuable by giving its collective attention to it. The current copyright law terms and conditions are overreaching and rob the public.
Money is god in this nation and when we say in god we trust we mean cash. Potential earnings are more important than lives, especially others' lives. If you come to peace with this fact, you'll see that things fall into place: healthcare is an extortionist's business, advertising and pr are the main concern of corporations and not the quality of their product. The government has legalized corruption and called it lobbying. Laws that are toxic for both earth and humanity are available to the highest bidder, and then come into power to define our lives. There are millions of people in prison, most of them for victimless crimes.
Money is god in this nation, has been for a long time. The government does not serve the people, it serves the people to the moneyed elite.
"When the likes of Jon Stewart are the finest investigative political journalists that your country has then you know you are in trouble."
I enthusiastically concur.
This tiny NYC Jew with big balls keeps asking the important questions indirectly and directly, pointing out the surreal absurdity of the BS statements fed through CNN ABC etc.
In a time when TV reporters are only chosen for their ability to look and sound authoritative while regurgitating the government approved, corporation funded newspeak fed by their teleprompters, Stewart is an incredible phenomena. And funny as hell.
Oh, and he would be the first one to call himself a tiny Jew, so hold your horses political correctness nazis.
Go to www.thedailyshow.com and see a couple of episodes. The more brainwashed you are by politics, the more you'll suffer... but the cure is worth the pain, you'll thank me later!
I'll try to address a few of these, in case you are actually interested in discourse.
"You sound pretty willing to proclaim what "most parenting education" is and does." -- Yes, I do, based on a review of the currently available titles. Behavioral research is prevalent. Books tend to teach parents how to break their kid's will in order to make them more obedient or nice... in many cases before the child is developmentally ready, catering to the parents' needs rather than the child's.
"... your apparent belief that parenting should not involve dominating the child at least at times seems naive. Do you recommend not dominating your toddler when he tries to run into the street? Should we not control our child's willfulness and make them wear a bicycle helmet?"
Again, nonviolent parenting != permissive parenting. Taking your toddler to safety when they are running into the street is not dominating, it's protecting them. Explaining to your child WHY they have to wear a helmet and refusing to let them out without it is not dominating either.
But... do you punish your toddler for going into the street again? Do you take the bike away for a week if you see your child going out without the helmet anyway? Both of these situations require imagination, possible change of approach and conflict resolution. Making the child not do what they want to do is just one of the ways, which happens to be the most straightforward for the parent. Understanding what the child needs and resolving the conflict together, possibly by offering alternatives (another place to run, buying a helmet together etc.), is also a possibility.
Nonviolence means doing all the protection that your children need, in collaboration with them. Staying emotionally connected, preserving your respect for their human dignity and their trust in you.
Unfortunately for most of us who grew up in violence, getting what we want involves power over. It is possible to support and guide a child with less or no bullying and more collaboration. And, as studies consistently show that it is more efficient and healthier, I don't see a reason to not support the nonviolent paradigm.
For reference, check this and this and compare to this.
True, it is not illegal yet, in the U.S.A. It is in the U.A.E. however. Laws may change, so I suggest we start thinking for ourselves about what's right and what's not.
Meanwhile, minors are having a lot of sex, mostly amongst themselves. Trying to disallow that is like trying to disallow the tide.
Educating them on how to do it safely and how to navigate consent is more on the side of support that children could use from their parents. Educating them about the existence of adults who are willing to manipulate, lie, drug, blackmail etc. in order to exploit them is also helpful.
Where are the interviews with the children? Where is their say in this situation? After all, they are the victims of their own crime, right?
This is a wonderful example of parenting being done to children, not with children. Adults are freaking out of control and exercising their power to dominate the children's lives without a real need apart from the adult's emotional insecurity.
I wonder how are the girls and their classmates feeling after their private lives were taken into the spotlight? Their childish (not very well thought out) actions judged and classified as child pornography acts?
Yes, maybe it is not direct sexual abuse. But how does the violation of their privacy feel? And yes obviously they took these photos and distributed them themselves... not to their teachers / principle, though.
How can we be sure that at least one of the adults involved is not secretly getting sexual / emotional gratification from the photos AND the emotional violation/domination, safely hiding behind the facade of "caring for the children?"
What do the children have to say about this? If the goal of this investigation is to protect children from abuse then let's talk to the children involved and find out if they feel better and safer after the investigation.
If this is not the case, then maybe the investigation is catering to a different agenda.
I've been studying nonviolent parenting in the last 6 months. All parents were once children and the parenting they will disperse is based on the parenting they received.
Children trigger countless issues in parents, resulting in all kinds of child abuse.
Expecting parents can reduce the harm they'll do their child by
1. Learn about child development and adjust their expectations. For example believing that a baby is manipulating their parents by crying at night or punishing a toddler for having a nervous breakdown ( often called "tantrums" by adults ) is inappropriate and dangerous.
2. Getting in touch with their own childhood and the abuse they received, and stop calling the abuse "parenting." This may take therapy and time. You were spanked as a child and turned OK? Wrong. You were spanked as a child and turned out to believe that spanking is OK.
3. Learn to feel, accept, process and understand their own emotions so that they don't act on autopilot when triggered. Losing it as a parent and shaking/smacking/spanking a child who can not protect themselves or run away is very, very harmful and never brings good. Never.
4. Learn to maintain emotional connection with another human being, especially when things are not perfect. You can be angry with someone, not just at someone.
5. I highly recommend looking into nonviolent parenting and nonviolent communication. The war between parent and child wastes time, energy and only teaches war/violence. Boundaries may be kept without violence. Alfie Kohn's books are founded on research and very accessible. ( www.alfiekohn.com )
Ultimately, parents parent the way they were parented. Abused children grow up to be adults whose gut feeling tells them that abuse is the norm.
Most parenting education focuses on behavioral psychology and successful control and domination over the child's will. In the long term, breaking a child's will is the worst thing for that human being and takes a lot of effort to repair.
Most schools are extremely oppressive and violent. You are observing a natural reaction to that environment. Children adapt very well.
It is the adults' responsibility to maintain an emotional connection with the child. This requires time, attention and relatively healthy adults.
We still haven't learned how to efficiently deal with crowds of children, and somehow we are not interested in approaching the crowd part of the issue.
Why on earth do we think that raising a child in a prisoner camp type of environment is a good idea? And how did we conclude that the job is not important enough to give it more resources?
This is not about the music, and whether you are paying for it or not. This is about the breach of privacy.
The USPS does not open all my letters to check for mp3 cds or a photocopied page from a cookbook.
The phone company does not listen to all my phone calls just in case I may whistle a popular tune on someone's voicemail or using a trademarked phrase without paying royalties.
I am a paying customer and I am paying for data traffic between my computer and the other computers I want to communicate with. I am not interested in paying for another business entity scrutinizing my behavior to protect their business interests by making my life miserable.
I am my ISP's client and they are responsible to me. Making agreements about my data with a 3rd party is unacceptable.
Slashdot Mirror
Beautifully said, thank you.
Unfortunately corporations are structured in a way that only benefits greed and shareholders, not stakeholders. If bullying, corruption and toxic law promise a higher profit, even by a margin, that's where these entities put their efforts. Better service and healthy competition do not guarantee profits higher than the promise of competition-killing laws.
If corporations were truly persons, many of them would be in jail or mental health institutions.
Awesome sig!
Thank you for the insightful comment.
I've been involved in nonviolent parenting for a while. Violence is taught, in subtle and not so-subtle ways, from the cradle. Until we change how we raise humans, our belief that violence could resolve differences will remain.
See Parenting for a Peaceful World by Robin Grille for a glimpse of the hellish parenting practices of the Western civilization, and the incredible potential that nonviolent parenting holds.
Also, check out the works of Alice Miller who addresses child abuse as a formative force in our society.
Thank you.
Because we are creators. Creation gives us infinite joy. We don't do it for money, we do it because we want and need to. Monetizing thoughts, imagination, art is a fairly recent development, leading to the attempt to fence the unfencable.
Take a look at the videos on this page. These people were not paid, and Kutiman, the guy who spent hundreds of hours editing, didn't get paid either.
Because you are the Creator -- Kutiman remixes.
Exactly, and
The optimal price model for the consumer is where you pay for exactly what you use at a fair per-unit price *and get tiered discounts for higher volume*.
If the ISPs make money for each unit, they ought to encourage use and give some love to their big customers.
No, really, is this arrogance or ignorance or Igor-rance?
Corporate lawyers live in an alternate reality with calculable monetary penalties and rewards for every possible action, no matter how immoral. Their advise is based on the size of the monetary rewards and risk calculation.
Everything else is irrelevant.
The logic is there, just not quite human.
I wonder if this is less about value and more about power and influence. More powerful positions with more ability to change the behavior of the company carry more responsibility and potentially bring more value to the company.
That would be the logic from a corporation's standpoint. From a human standpoint, it is absurd to value one's time thousands of times more than another's.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture where early conditioning in greed and separation result in a belief system that puts money and possessions ahead of life, safety, dignity and health.
Mod parent up, this is interesting and insightful.
This was never about the artist, bro.
Always about the money squeezed out of the public domain by selling the artist's creation.
Marching on to the 1000 year copyright law extension!
Does Time Warner offer some kind of better, more expensive internet I didn't know about? How come their bandwidth is worth so much more?
Can't be just greed, can it?
You missed the fact that both types of comments are relevant to the situation.
I doubt that TW & Comcast would be jumping on the charge/per/kilobyte model so quickly if they hadn't monopolized and divided the market.
What are our options for alternative providers? Any suggestions for the LA Westside area?
Fixed that for you.
Current IP laws do not aim for the benefit of the public or fairness or logic. They only aim for the benefit of corporations by enabling them to extort money from the public, i.e. from humanity.
The initial intention of the law, to benefit inventors, artists, scientists etc. who actually put time and money into the creation of their work has been blown out of proportion, aiming to turn IP into something similar to real estate.
Anyone can have an idea, it doesn't take that much time to do research or write a song. Implying that the products of these efforts should be property forever* is ridiculous.
*I consider 100+ years to be "forever" given that it's longer than the average lifespan.
5, 10, 15 year terms encourage artists, inventors, scientists enough.
The public is what makes a work more valuable by giving its collective attention to it. The current copyright law terms and conditions are overreaching and rob the public.
Money is god in this nation and when we say in god we trust we mean cash. Potential earnings are more important than lives, especially others' lives. If you come to peace with this fact, you'll see that things fall into place: healthcare is an extortionist's business, advertising and pr are the main concern of corporations and not the quality of their product. The government has legalized corruption and called it lobbying. Laws that are toxic for both earth and humanity are available to the highest bidder, and then come into power to define our lives. There are millions of people in prison, most of them for victimless crimes.
Money is god in this nation, has been for a long time. The government does not serve the people, it serves the people to the moneyed elite.
Call it fascism if you like.
"When the likes of Jon Stewart are the finest investigative political journalists that your country has then you know you are in trouble."
I enthusiastically concur.
This tiny NYC Jew with big balls keeps asking the important questions indirectly and directly, pointing out the surreal absurdity of the BS statements fed through CNN ABC etc.
In a time when TV reporters are only chosen for their ability to look and sound authoritative while regurgitating the government approved, corporation funded newspeak fed by their teleprompters, Stewart is an incredible phenomena. And funny as hell.
Oh, and he would be the first one to call himself a tiny Jew, so hold your horses political correctness nazis.
Go to www.thedailyshow.com and see a couple of episodes. The more brainwashed you are by politics, the more you'll suffer... but the cure is worth the pain, you'll thank me later!
I'll try to address a few of these, in case you are actually interested in discourse.
"You sound pretty willing to proclaim what "most parenting education" is and does." -- Yes, I do, based on a review of the currently available titles. Behavioral research is prevalent. Books tend to teach parents how to break their kid's will in order to make them more obedient or nice... in many cases before the child is developmentally ready, catering to the parents' needs rather than the child's.
"... your apparent belief that parenting should not involve dominating the child at least at times seems naive. Do you recommend not dominating your toddler when he tries to run into the street? Should we not control our child's willfulness and make them wear a bicycle helmet?"
Again, nonviolent parenting != permissive parenting. Taking your toddler to safety when they are running into the street is not dominating, it's protecting them. Explaining to your child WHY they have to wear a helmet and refusing to let them out without it is not dominating either.
But... do you punish your toddler for going into the street again? Do you take the bike away for a week if you see your child going out without the helmet anyway? Both of these situations require imagination, possible change of approach and conflict resolution. Making the child not do what they want to do is just one of the ways, which happens to be the most straightforward for the parent. Understanding what the child needs and resolving the conflict together, possibly by offering alternatives (another place to run, buying a helmet together etc.), is also a possibility.
Nonviolence means doing all the protection that your children need, in collaboration with them. Staying emotionally connected, preserving your respect for their human dignity and their trust in you.
Unfortunately for most of us who grew up in violence, getting what we want involves power over. It is possible to support and guide a child with less or no bullying and more collaboration. And, as studies consistently show that it is more efficient and healthier, I don't see a reason to not support the nonviolent paradigm.
For reference, check this and this and compare to this.
True, it is not illegal yet, in the U.S.A. It is in the U.A.E. however. Laws may change, so I suggest we start thinking for ourselves about what's right and what's not.
Meanwhile, minors are having a lot of sex, mostly amongst themselves. Trying to disallow that is like trying to disallow the tide.
Educating them on how to do it safely and how to navigate consent is more on the side of support that children could use from their parents. Educating them about the existence of adults who are willing to manipulate, lie, drug, blackmail etc. in order to exploit them is also helpful.
Where are the interviews with the children? Where is their say in this situation? After all, they are the victims of their own crime, right?
This is a wonderful example of parenting being done to children, not with children. Adults are freaking out of control and exercising their power to dominate the children's lives without a real need apart from the adult's emotional insecurity.
I wonder how are the girls and their classmates feeling after their private lives were taken into the spotlight? Their childish (not very well thought out) actions judged and classified as child pornography acts?
Yes, maybe it is not direct sexual abuse. But how does the violation of their privacy feel? And yes obviously they took these photos and distributed them themselves... not to their teachers / principle, though.
How can we be sure that at least one of the adults involved is not secretly getting sexual / emotional gratification from the photos AND the emotional violation/domination, safely hiding behind the facade of "caring for the children?"
What do the children have to say about this? If the goal of this investigation is to protect children from abuse then let's talk to the children involved and find out if they feel better and safer after the investigation.
If this is not the case, then maybe the investigation is catering to a different agenda.
I've been studying nonviolent parenting in the last 6 months. All parents were once children and the parenting they will disperse is based on the parenting they received.
Children trigger countless issues in parents, resulting in all kinds of child abuse.
Expecting parents can reduce the harm they'll do their child by
1. Learn about child development and adjust their expectations. For example believing that a baby is manipulating their parents by crying at night or punishing a toddler for having a nervous breakdown ( often called "tantrums" by adults ) is inappropriate and dangerous.
2. Getting in touch with their own childhood and the abuse they received, and stop calling the abuse "parenting." This may take therapy and time. You were spanked as a child and turned OK? Wrong. You were spanked as a child and turned out to believe that spanking is OK.
3. Learn to feel, accept, process and understand their own emotions so that they don't act on autopilot when triggered. Losing it as a parent and shaking/smacking/spanking a child who can not protect themselves or run away is very, very harmful and never brings good. Never.
4. Learn to maintain emotional connection with another human being, especially when things are not perfect. You can be angry with someone, not just at someone.
5. I highly recommend looking into nonviolent parenting and nonviolent communication. The war between parent and child wastes time, energy and only teaches war/violence. Boundaries may be kept without violence. Alfie Kohn's books are founded on research and very accessible. ( www.alfiekohn.com )
Ultimately, parents parent the way they were parented. Abused children grow up to be adults whose gut feeling tells them that abuse is the norm.
Most parenting education focuses on behavioral psychology and successful control and domination over the child's will. In the long term, breaking a child's will is the worst thing for that human being and takes a lot of effort to repair.
And, nonviolent parenting != permissive parenting.
Policies replace decision making and personal responsibility with scripted procedure.
Much easier for individuals averse to responsibility.
The Nazi's knew that 70 years ago. Today everybody knows it.
They were just doing their jobs. Who wrote the "zero tolerance" policy and who voted for it?
Most schools are extremely oppressive and violent. You are observing a natural reaction to that environment. Children adapt very well.
It is the adults' responsibility to maintain an emotional connection with the child. This requires time, attention and relatively healthy adults.
We still haven't learned how to efficiently deal with crowds of children, and somehow we are not interested in approaching the crowd part of the issue.
Why on earth do we think that raising a child in a prisoner camp type of environment is a good idea? And how did we conclude that the job is not important enough to give it more resources?
Nonviolent parenting != permissive parenting
This is not about the music, and whether you are paying for it or not. This is about the breach of privacy.
The USPS does not open all my letters to check for mp3 cds or a photocopied page from a cookbook.
The phone company does not listen to all my phone calls just in case I may whistle a popular tune on someone's voicemail or using a trademarked phrase without paying royalties.
I am a paying customer and I am paying for data traffic between my computer and the other computers I want to communicate with. I am not interested in paying for another business entity scrutinizing my behavior to protect their business interests by making my life miserable.
I am my ISP's client and they are responsible to me. Making agreements about my data with a 3rd party is unacceptable.