All that claptrap about "the free press" and "guardians of democracy" is a pile of cow dung, as anyone who lived through the last 10 years can easily tell. Read your history books and you will see that it has always been thus.
This is true only if U.S. history begins at World War II. In the late 1800s and early 1900s there were labor papers which were mainly subscription supported, with local news, educational articles, and union events. There were many of these, some small, some with a broader reach. For example as late as the 1930s the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, which taught people how to read and think critically, had significant influence.
The media consists almost entirely of hired shills, whose job it is to influence your opinion in exchange for money.
Yeah that was a pretty big deal at the time. And whether fixing NoScript so it played better with AdBlock was for technical or philosophical reasons or both, I'm still grateful daily for both add-ons. In fact I just today surfed the Internet on a browser that had neither, and the huge bright banner ads and flashing side-ads were distracting to the point of repulsive. Parent is right, it's past time to donate, to both.
Is this possibly a thing humans do, as individuals and in various organized groups?
Sure, this does (roughly) generalize to the psychology individuals, families, and groups; as well as corporations. We're all familiar with dirty family secrets and the elephant in the room which no one talks about. The big difference being, of course, the scale of effects when dealing with environmental or economic damage--which, unlike families (unless they're Koch brothers-sized), large or multinational corporations profit from while the public pays the risks of.
Lets look at every problem with any company. (E.g. BP Oil spill, Three Mile Island, TEPCO's reactor, Sony's rootkit, Exxon Valdez, Apple's antenna, Microsoft's uhhh everything, various company's spinach, peanuts, milk, salmonella in meat, etc.) They all have similar reactions.
Silence, followed by small admissions, followed by admissions it's much worse that it appears, followed by more silence, followed by admissions that some members of the public may have been harmed, repeat. No timetables, no estimates.
Read the "Hint" again, the parenthetical means it applies to any country's government.
You started with "North Korea invaded the South to begin with. Period. End of story." Declaring that the only requirement necessary for outside intervention is siding with the invaded. You didn't like this notion when applying it to the American Civil War though, so apparently that moral generalization doesn't hold up. Maybe determining what's "evil" requires some investigation and some looking in the mirror. Wars are way more complicated than you present them.
When you say "nothing wrong with America helping" it shows disregard for what happens in a war, the horrible deaths of civilians, the long term damage from mines, the psychological trauma of everyone and their families. War is always bad for everyone involved; it's what you do when nothing else works, and maybe not even then, depending on the circumstances. And maybe your quibbles are irrelevant, and the local people of a country should be asked what they want.
This line of discussion started with morals. So far you've avoided that topic with the single exception of "I've been playing Homefront, and it reminds me why pacifism is an morally corrupt philosophy." We seem to be just trading words and not getting anywhere. So perhaps, if you're at all interested in expanding moral philosophy beyond a cartoon war game, you'd consider checking out Kohlberg's work on moral development. Hint: believing your (or any country's) government is always right is obedience to authority, a child's level of morality.
>>During the American Civil War, should Korea have invaded the northern US states which were attacking the southern states?
During the Civil War, the South was begging for help from Britain and other European powers that they felt they had a natural alliance with due to the cotton trade. Since you're making it a normative question, from the point of view of the South, they'd have loved it if someone had intervened on their behalf.
When asked if it would be moral for Korea to invade the Northern US, the response is the Southern US wanted help. Do you see what happened there? It's a fallacy called shifting goal posts.
North Korea invaded the South to begin with. Period. End of story.
Generally, when a person uses "Period. End of story" you can tell their minds are closed to facts which disagree with their opinions.
you're a shithead parasite who will benefit from the sacrifices of our armed forces, while spitting on their faces.
Talk like this makes listening difficult.
McArthur's invasion of the North was entirely the result of their invading first.
Not factual. A civil war is not necessarily anyone else's concern. During the American Civil War, should Korea have invaded the northern US states which were attacking the southern states? No? Of course not, it's nearly impossible to imagine. Much less justify.
One of the major reasons the US got involved Korea was "protection of Japan." Try wondering what it's like as a Korean during the war. The bombs that are actually killing your family and neighbors are an attempt to prevent a theoretical invasion of Japan. Think that's moral?
"Ya, he got a virus, but the dumb noob was using Internet Explorer."
"Ya, she got a virus, but the dumb noob used MS Security Essentials."
"Ya, he got trojaned, but the dumb noob didn't run Malwarebytes or Combofix in Safe Mode."
"Ya, her WiFi was infiltrated, but the dumb noob only used WEP."
"Ya, his server was infiltrated, but the dumb noob didn't use port forwarding."
"Ya, her box was infiltrated, but the dumb noob used Windows instead of Linux."
"Ya, his network was infiltrated, but the dumb noob used Ubuntu instead of Red Hat Enterprise."
"Ya, her network was infiltrated, but the dumb noob used FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD."
Ya, crap happens, because I'm a dumb noob about a lot of subjects. Who isn't?
One more, and back on topic: "Ya, this game is about Korea invading the US, but didn't the US in reality invade Korea in the 1950s? And just because the US did it, does that mean Korea deserved it?"
Oh, come on now, let's be fair, they're all really quite sorry...
...sorry the public was made aware of the breach.
Don't forget, they also "regret this has taken place" in the public eye and "are working diligently... and continue to protect your personal information" by sharing your info with Experian, TransUnion, Equifax, and ChoicePoint every month; along with the occasional publicized data breach. So there you have it, a sorry, a regret, and a things will continue. You can go back to using your accounts and rest assured they are as safe as they ever were. Whatever that means.
Whenever you or I lose a company laptop, violate a contract, disclose a non-disclosure agreement, expose a sealed order, blow the whistle on environmental violations, expose internal corporate corruption, we are harangued, demoted, sued, fined, fired, jailed, or blacklisted. Maybe the difference between being a human and a corporation having the same rights as a person hasn't worked out and is slowly changing?
That is exactly what insurance is about - distribute predictable risk at a cost. It is not about the low-risk subsidizing the high-risk. If you want the low-risk to sponsor the at-risk, then what you are talking about is government management of healthcare.
That is exactly what US "insurance" is about - deny healthcare for a profit. It is not about risk. If you want affordable and fair healthcare, then what you are talking about is single-payer, public option, government management of healthcare; somewhat like the fire department.
Ahhh so quick to blame the private enterprises. Maybe you don't actually pay attention but the nuclear industry is the most heavily regulated industry in existence.
"In one case at the Peach Bottom nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, workers at the plant were required to periodically test the control rods, which are used to control chain reactions. To circumvent regulations that would have forced a plant shutdown, workers slowed down the control rod testing, said the report. Inspectors from the NRC knew about both the problem with the rods and the plant's attempts to skirt past the testing, according to the UCS, but failed to respond properly." Source: Report reveals U.S. nuclear plant safety issues
Don't be too quick to excuse private enterprise, there's enough "blame" to go around.
There's always room for an extra quadruple redundant cooling system, but in the end cost cutting does feed in the ultimate ability to build a project. If we build anything to withstand everything it is often no longer economical to build it.
And that, right there, is exactly why greedy profit-seekers should not build nuclear reactors.
That's nonsense. Do you know why a corporation needs "975 tax accountants?" Think about it for just one minute (hint: they are tax accountants, so maybe it's to help avoid paying taxes). Do you know why corporations register in business friendly countries (used to be Ireland and Cayman Islands, I don't know the hot ones now)? (Hint: it's to avoid paying taxes.) Do you know why corporations place funds in off-shore tax havens? (Hint: tax havens help avoid taxes.) Do you know why corporations and CEOs and board members hire, or send in their own, government officials to change federal and state tax rules? (Hint: it's to avoid paying taxes.) Do you know why corporations and their indoctrinated supporters want to do away with corporate taxes? (Hint: if you need a hint here, you're indoctrinated.)
Corporations are having some of their best years ever, profits are at record highs (this is generalizing, so exceptions apply). Those profits should be taxed and the money returned to public programs and benefits. Corporate executive's salaries are at all time highs, those salaries should be taxed at a high percentage and the money used to benefit workers and people. Shareholder profits are high, those profits should be taxed and the money returned to the public. All of these profits are being taken from the many and given to a few. That's a system that cannot be sustained.
The Physicians for Social Responsibility has a tagline of "United States Affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War". Which raises serious questions about their credibility.
Yes indeed. Any person or group opposed to nuclear war has enormous credibility; at least regarding nuclear war. Anyone who favors or is neutral to nuclear war has serious credibility problems.
If you're serious about who's spreading what, then blaming (North?) "Americans" is unfair to many people in the United States and Canada since they too suffer from corporate tyranny (and are making some progress in challenging it). So in addition to Bush and Obama's US government and US corporations, you should include Berlusconi's Italian government, Blair and Cameron's English government, Netanyahu's Israeli government, and the list goes on to many other governments and the multinational corporations which control them. The battle is not between countries, but between a loose group of rich powerful people with similar greedy interests (whom want to, for example, own and charge for public resources, copyright indefinitely, patent and trademark beyond reason) and regular people (the populace, the public, the poor).
All excellent points, except for "We won't solve our problems by picking winners and losers..." There is a hierarchy if we're going to plan longterm. With solar, wind, and hydro near the top for providing renewable energy with the fewest longterm downsides. Obvious winners, though with currently limited capacity and smaller but not insignificant environmental concerns. Nuclear would be considerably lower because of profit-seeking mining and storage problems (see Hanford), and being a limited resource. With coal, oil, and natural gas at the bottom, for the reasons you listed.
Paramount would be cutting back on use of those bottom 3 or 4 (as there is a race between running out and cooking and polluting ourselves); which appears to be in the committee stage for the greedy industrial countries, and practiced mainly by some of Latin and South America, large swaths of Africa, and in small pockets of sensible people on bicycles, skate boards, and foot elsewhere. (Tangentially, check out the documentary Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action for examples of people doing while we're typing.)
Nuclear sounds good in theory but in practice there are problems, long-term residual ones. NIMBY is a term that can be an excuse to not take responsibility, it can also be used to dismiss real concerns. Just ask those who have actually, not theoretically, mined it. For example: the damage to humans and groundwater from nuclear mining in New Mexico.
But still, thanks a lot Cantor and Siegel! You should have patented it! "A Method and Process of Sending Unwanted Advertisements to Everyone on the Internet, Which They Don't Want, and Don't need."
The PR industry (c. early 1900s) is way ahead of them. And if Bernays had patented the technique, it would have expired long ago. Except for the Internet part. So you're right, they could have patented it. Except the patent would expire in 3 years. Unless someone could figure out a slight modification, or an iApp, that was worthy of another patent. Except that couldn't happen.
Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need. -- Will Rogers
The Nobel Peace Prize, according to Alfred Nobel's will, should be awarded to the person (or organization) who "...shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
Depends on if "nations" means the rich ruling class or the general population. Is Egypt Mr. Mubarak or the people gathering in city squares? Is the US the corporate executives (whether working in their corp or doing their time in federal positions) or the people whose jobs are outsourced and left with low-paying no-benefits jobs? Similar for Tunisia, Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan, Columbia, and others.
Whatever you might think about WikiLeaks' contributions to free speech politics, government transparency, etc., it's hard to see how it's filled any of those criteria. The release of diplomatic cables arguably did a lot to damage fraternity between nations.
Depending on your definition of "nation," you could make a strong argument that transparency makes for more fair and thus more peaceful relations, and less need for armies. Are you better friends with someone you talk with openly, or with someone who lies to you? With which one are you more defensive?
Thanks for pointing that out, Firefox's network.prefetch-next does indeed only apply to sites that use rel="prefetch" and is not a general solution to the problem of prefetching.
Before they both drown, the frog asks the scorpion, Why? The frog states: It's my nature.
Even with the mistake, this. The scorpion's nature is to sting and the frog's is to trust. (OK maybe not in nature, but in storyland.) The scorpion is a corporation whose only requirement is making money for shareholders and executives, anything else is an externality. One of the frog's purposes is to help others have a fair life.
The relevant part is that this has been going on for 1000s of years. From kings to feudal lords to international corporations, the scorpion barely evolves and always destroys. The frog's evolution is slow too, but its purposes are better. Thank you PJ, for being a public frog.
You're already taken the first step, educating yourself and acknowledging your responsibility to act on this knowledge. There is no general answer to your question, you must first pick a problem.
Then what to do depends on what you're good at or are willing to learn. Talking with family and friends about facts is useful. Good at IT? Find a local or national or international group needing some tech help. Check the paper, find out about upcoming group or community meetings and go to some until you find what you're looking for. Go to city council meetings, talk with a speaker that seems to have similar interests, or a decent cause. Volunteer to write, print pamphlets, or knock on neighbor's or congressperson's doors.
There are lots of small groups in your town, but frequently don't know about each other; maybe you could be the go-between and find the common ground, set up some way to share documents, info, skills, people. Good organizers are desperately needed, maybe that's something you could accomplish. Get outside your comfort zone, feel that peculiar aspect of freedom. Get fired up, get sick and tired of it, switch or add causes but don't give up. The plutocracy has been working on this for centuries, we must be too, big results won't come easy or quickly. Heck, you convinced me, now I'm going to follow your lead and do something new. Thanks, sincerely.
I have been to CountryX (including the US and France). Most of the people I met were friendly and treated me well, and I did more or less the same. A very few were rude, either because of something about me or something about them, or one or both of us having a bad day. And if you get to know someone well enough often you find something to disagree about strongly, and it's hard to not take that personally. Now I could single out the rare rude person and make some sort of generalization except, unsurprisingly, my experiences traveling in my own country are exactly the same. Therefore, if you want to get real, your prejudices are those of a bigot looking for a country to hate.
However if you want to hate the way the US government and its greedy owners (the rich and the multinational corporations, including Bank of America) are treating the poor, gambling on mortgages, misinforming the public (which the released cables are helping to un-misinform), despise the killing wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia), and theft of public resources--you will find most of the US public in agreement with you. Including the ones having a bad day.
And on a tangent, what the rich from France and the US have done and are doing to Haiti is a horror. The US and France owe the Haitians reparations.
Slashdot Mirror
All that claptrap about "the free press" and "guardians of democracy" is a pile of cow dung, as anyone who lived through the last 10 years can easily tell. Read your history books and you will see that it has always been thus.
This is true only if U.S. history begins at World War II. In the late 1800s and early 1900s there were labor papers which were mainly subscription supported, with local news, educational articles, and union events. There were many of these, some small, some with a broader reach. For example as late as the 1930s the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, which taught people how to read and think critically, had significant influence.
The media consists almost entirely of hired shills, whose job it is to influence your opinion in exchange for money.
While this is generally true of US corporate news, here are four exceptions: Amnesty International, Christian Science Monitor, DemocracyNow, and Z Magazine.
It's the ad-supported news that increasingly becomes business-supporting news; particularly when the news media organization is owned by big business.
Yeah that was a pretty big deal at the time. And whether fixing NoScript so it played better with AdBlock was for technical or philosophical reasons or both, I'm still grateful daily for both add-ons. In fact I just today surfed the Internet on a browser that had neither, and the huge bright banner ads and flashing side-ads were distracting to the point of repulsive. Parent is right, it's past time to donate, to both.
Chernobyl is another excellent example, along with Union Carbide's leak and many other corporate disasters.
Is this possibly a thing humans do, as individuals and in various organized groups?
Sure, this does (roughly) generalize to the psychology individuals, families, and groups; as well as corporations. We're all familiar with dirty family secrets and the elephant in the room which no one talks about. The big difference being, of course, the scale of effects when dealing with environmental or economic damage--which, unlike families (unless they're Koch brothers-sized), large or multinational corporations profit from while the public pays the risks of.
Lets look at every problem with any company. (E.g. BP Oil spill, Three Mile Island, TEPCO's reactor, Sony's rootkit, Exxon Valdez, Apple's antenna, Microsoft's uhhh everything, various company's spinach, peanuts, milk, salmonella in meat, etc.) They all have similar reactions.
Silence, followed by small admissions, followed by admissions it's much worse that it appears, followed by more silence, followed by admissions that some members of the public may have been harmed, repeat. No timetables, no estimates.
Is this possibly a corporate thing?
Answer: yes
Read the "Hint" again, the parenthetical means it applies to any country's government.
You started with "North Korea invaded the South to begin with. Period. End of story." Declaring that the only requirement necessary for outside intervention is siding with the invaded. You didn't like this notion when applying it to the American Civil War though, so apparently that moral generalization doesn't hold up. Maybe determining what's "evil" requires some investigation and some looking in the mirror. Wars are way more complicated than you present them.
When you say "nothing wrong with America helping" it shows disregard for what happens in a war, the horrible deaths of civilians, the long term damage from mines, the psychological trauma of everyone and their families. War is always bad for everyone involved; it's what you do when nothing else works, and maybe not even then, depending on the circumstances. And maybe your quibbles are irrelevant, and the local people of a country should be asked what they want.
This line of discussion started with morals. So far you've avoided that topic with the single exception of "I've been playing Homefront, and it reminds me why pacifism is an morally corrupt philosophy." We seem to be just trading words and not getting anywhere. So perhaps, if you're at all interested in expanding moral philosophy beyond a cartoon war game, you'd consider checking out Kohlberg's work on moral development. Hint: believing your (or any country's) government is always right is obedience to authority, a child's level of morality.
>>During the American Civil War, should Korea have invaded the northern US states which were attacking the southern states?
During the Civil War, the South was begging for help from Britain and other European powers that they felt they had a natural alliance with due to the cotton trade. Since you're making it a normative question, from the point of view of the South, they'd have loved it if someone had intervened on their behalf.
When asked if it would be moral for Korea to invade the Northern US, the response is the Southern US wanted help. Do you see what happened there? It's a fallacy called shifting goal posts.
North Korea invaded the South to begin with. Period. End of story.
Generally, when a person uses "Period. End of story" you can tell their minds are closed to facts which disagree with their opinions.
you're a shithead parasite who will benefit from the sacrifices of our armed forces, while spitting on their faces.
Talk like this makes listening difficult.
McArthur's invasion of the North was entirely the result of their invading first.
Not factual. A civil war is not necessarily anyone else's concern. During the American Civil War, should Korea have invaded the northern US states which were attacking the southern states? No? Of course not, it's nearly impossible to imagine. Much less justify.
One of the major reasons the US got involved Korea was "protection of Japan." Try wondering what it's like as a Korean during the war. The bombs that are actually killing your family and neighbors are an attempt to prevent a theoretical invasion of Japan. Think that's moral?
"Ya, he got a virus, but the dumb noob was using Internet Explorer."
"Ya, she got a virus, but the dumb noob used MS Security Essentials."
"Ya, he got trojaned, but the dumb noob didn't run Malwarebytes or Combofix in Safe Mode."
"Ya, her WiFi was infiltrated, but the dumb noob only used WEP."
"Ya, his server was infiltrated, but the dumb noob didn't use port forwarding."
"Ya, her box was infiltrated, but the dumb noob used Windows instead of Linux."
"Ya, his network was infiltrated, but the dumb noob used Ubuntu instead of Red Hat Enterprise."
"Ya, her network was infiltrated, but the dumb noob used FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD."
Ya, crap happens, because I'm a dumb noob about a lot of subjects. Who isn't?
One more, and back on topic: "Ya, this game is about Korea invading the US, but didn't the US in reality invade Korea in the 1950s? And just because the US did it, does that mean Korea deserved it?"
Oh, come on now, let's be fair, they're all really quite sorry...
Don't forget, they also "regret this has taken place" in the public eye and "are working diligently... and continue to protect your personal information" by sharing your info with Experian, TransUnion, Equifax, and ChoicePoint every month; along with the occasional publicized data breach. So there you have it, a sorry, a regret, and a things will continue. You can go back to using your accounts and rest assured they are as safe as they ever were. Whatever that means.
Whenever you or I lose a company laptop, violate a contract, disclose a non-disclosure agreement, expose a sealed order, blow the whistle on environmental violations, expose internal corporate corruption, we are harangued, demoted, sued, fined, fired, jailed, or blacklisted. Maybe the difference between being a human and a corporation having the same rights as a person hasn't worked out and is slowly changing?
That is exactly what insurance is about - distribute predictable risk at a cost. It is not about the low-risk subsidizing the high-risk. If you want the low-risk to sponsor the at-risk, then what you are talking about is government management of healthcare.
That is exactly what US "insurance" is about - deny healthcare for a profit. It is not about risk. If you want affordable and fair healthcare, then what you are talking about is single-payer, public option, government management of healthcare; somewhat like the fire department.
Ahhh so quick to blame the private enterprises. Maybe you don't actually pay attention but the nuclear industry is the most heavily regulated industry in existence.
"In one case at the Peach Bottom nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, workers at the plant were required to periodically test the control rods, which are used to control chain reactions. To circumvent regulations that would have forced a plant shutdown, workers slowed down the control rod testing, said the report. Inspectors from the NRC knew about both the problem with the rods and the plant's attempts to skirt past the testing, according to the UCS, but failed to respond properly." Source: Report reveals U.S. nuclear plant safety issues
Don't be too quick to excuse private enterprise, there's enough "blame" to go around.
There's always room for an extra quadruple redundant cooling system, but in the end cost cutting does feed in the ultimate ability to build a project. If we build anything to withstand everything it is often no longer economical to build it.
And that, right there, is exactly why greedy profit-seekers should not build nuclear reactors.
YOU IDIOT, CORPORATIONS DO NOT PAY TAXES EVER!
That's nonsense. Do you know why a corporation needs "975 tax accountants?" Think about it for just one minute (hint: they are tax accountants, so maybe it's to help avoid paying taxes). Do you know why corporations register in business friendly countries (used to be Ireland and Cayman Islands, I don't know the hot ones now)? (Hint: it's to avoid paying taxes.) Do you know why corporations place funds in off-shore tax havens? (Hint: tax havens help avoid taxes.) Do you know why corporations and CEOs and board members hire, or send in their own, government officials to change federal and state tax rules? (Hint: it's to avoid paying taxes.) Do you know why corporations and their indoctrinated supporters want to do away with corporate taxes? (Hint: if you need a hint here, you're indoctrinated.)
Corporations are having some of their best years ever, profits are at record highs (this is generalizing, so exceptions apply). Those profits should be taxed and the money returned to public programs and benefits. Corporate executive's salaries are at all time highs, those salaries should be taxed at a high percentage and the money used to benefit workers and people. Shareholder profits are high, those profits should be taxed and the money returned to the public. All of these profits are being taken from the many and given to a few. That's a system that cannot be sustained.
The Physicians for Social Responsibility has a tagline of "United States Affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War". Which raises serious questions about their credibility.
Yes indeed. Any person or group opposed to nuclear war has enormous credibility; at least regarding nuclear war. Anyone who favors or is neutral to nuclear war has serious credibility problems.
If you're serious about who's spreading what, then blaming (North?) "Americans" is unfair to many people in the United States and Canada since they too suffer from corporate tyranny (and are making some progress in challenging it). So in addition to Bush and Obama's US government and US corporations, you should include Berlusconi's Italian government, Blair and Cameron's English government, Netanyahu's Israeli government, and the list goes on to many other governments and the multinational corporations which control them. The battle is not between countries, but between a loose group of rich powerful people with similar greedy interests (whom want to, for example, own and charge for public resources, copyright indefinitely, patent and trademark beyond reason) and regular people (the populace, the public, the poor).
How is this not a patent on (emotional) blackmail?
All excellent points, except for "We won't solve our problems by picking winners and losers..." There is a hierarchy if we're going to plan longterm. With solar, wind, and hydro near the top for providing renewable energy with the fewest longterm downsides. Obvious winners, though with currently limited capacity and smaller but not insignificant environmental concerns. Nuclear would be considerably lower because of profit-seeking mining and storage problems (see Hanford), and being a limited resource. With coal, oil, and natural gas at the bottom, for the reasons you listed.
Paramount would be cutting back on use of those bottom 3 or 4 (as there is a race between running out and cooking and polluting ourselves); which appears to be in the committee stage for the greedy industrial countries, and practiced mainly by some of Latin and South America, large swaths of Africa, and in small pockets of sensible people on bicycles, skate boards, and foot elsewhere. (Tangentially, check out the documentary Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action for examples of people doing while we're typing.)
Nuclear sounds good in theory but in practice there are problems, long-term residual ones. NIMBY is a term that can be an excuse to not take responsibility, it can also be used to dismiss real concerns. Just ask those who have actually, not theoretically, mined it. For example: the damage to humans and groundwater from nuclear mining in New Mexico.
But still, thanks a lot Cantor and Siegel! You should have patented it! "A Method and Process of Sending Unwanted Advertisements to Everyone on the Internet, Which They Don't Want, and Don't need."
The PR industry (c. early 1900s) is way ahead of them. And if Bernays had patented the technique, it would have expired long ago. Except for the Internet part. So you're right, they could have patented it. Except the patent would expire in 3 years. Unless someone could figure out a slight modification, or an iApp, that was worthy of another patent. Except that couldn't happen.
Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need. -- Will Rogers
The Nobel Peace Prize, according to Alfred Nobel's will, should be awarded to the person (or organization) who "...shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
Depends on if "nations" means the rich ruling class or the general population. Is Egypt Mr. Mubarak or the people gathering in city squares? Is the US the corporate executives (whether working in their corp or doing their time in federal positions) or the people whose jobs are outsourced and left with low-paying no-benefits jobs? Similar for Tunisia, Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan, Columbia, and others.
Whatever you might think about WikiLeaks' contributions to free speech politics, government transparency, etc., it's hard to see how it's filled any of those criteria. The release of diplomatic cables arguably did a lot to damage fraternity between nations.
Depending on your definition of "nation," you could make a strong argument that transparency makes for more fair and thus more peaceful relations, and less need for armies. Are you better friends with someone you talk with openly, or with someone who lies to you? With which one are you more defensive?
Thanks for pointing that out, Firefox's network.prefetch-next does indeed only apply to sites that use rel="prefetch" and is not a general solution to the problem of prefetching.
For those using Firefox: about:config and set network.prefetch-next to false (the default is true).
Before they both drown, the frog asks the scorpion, Why? The frog states: It's my nature.
Even with the mistake, this. The scorpion's nature is to sting and the frog's is to trust. (OK maybe not in nature, but in storyland.) The scorpion is a corporation whose only requirement is making money for shareholders and executives, anything else is an externality. One of the frog's purposes is to help others have a fair life.
The relevant part is that this has been going on for 1000s of years. From kings to feudal lords to international corporations, the scorpion barely evolves and always destroys. The frog's evolution is slow too, but its purposes are better. Thank you PJ, for being a public frog.
You're already taken the first step, educating yourself and acknowledging your responsibility to act on this knowledge. There is no general answer to your question, you must first pick a problem.
Then what to do depends on what you're good at or are willing to learn. Talking with family and friends about facts is useful. Good at IT? Find a local or national or international group needing some tech help. Check the paper, find out about upcoming group or community meetings and go to some until you find what you're looking for. Go to city council meetings, talk with a speaker that seems to have similar interests, or a decent cause. Volunteer to write, print pamphlets, or knock on neighbor's or congressperson's doors.
There are lots of small groups in your town, but frequently don't know about each other; maybe you could be the go-between and find the common ground, set up some way to share documents, info, skills, people. Good organizers are desperately needed, maybe that's something you could accomplish. Get outside your comfort zone, feel that peculiar aspect of freedom. Get fired up, get sick and tired of it, switch or add causes but don't give up. The plutocracy has been working on this for centuries, we must be too, big results won't come easy or quickly. Heck, you convinced me, now I'm going to follow your lead and do something new. Thanks, sincerely.
I have been to CountryX (including the US and France). Most of the people I met were friendly and treated me well, and I did more or less the same. A very few were rude, either because of something about me or something about them, or one or both of us having a bad day. And if you get to know someone well enough often you find something to disagree about strongly, and it's hard to not take that personally. Now I could single out the rare rude person and make some sort of generalization except, unsurprisingly, my experiences traveling in my own country are exactly the same. Therefore, if you want to get real, your prejudices are those of a bigot looking for a country to hate.
However if you want to hate the way the US government and its greedy owners (the rich and the multinational corporations, including Bank of America) are treating the poor, gambling on mortgages, misinforming the public (which the released cables are helping to un-misinform), despise the killing wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia), and theft of public resources--you will find most of the US public in agreement with you. Including the ones having a bad day.
And on a tangent, what the rich from France and the US have done and are doing to Haiti is a horror. The US and France owe the Haitians reparations.