Evolution by natural selection is a process that is inferred from three facts about populations:
1) more offspring are produced than can possibly survive
2) traits vary among individuals, leading to different rates of survival and reproduction
3) trait differences are heritable.
None of that generates new genetic material.
Without new genetic material, this "evolution" is unable to "progress". If evolution is simply "change", there is no controversy - it's quite obvious that organisms are able to change from generation to generation. (And evolutionary theory is completely unnecessary to observe this, as Mendel illustrates)
But there is an evolution controversy, and it's rooted in the evolutionary belief that if you add up a lot of small changes, you eventually end up with a big change; and that you can get from simple species to complex species by a lot of small incremental steps.
"Government" being filled with useless people is also true for businesses where its near-impossible to get rid of people for being incompetent. One "local" solution is to promote them away where they become someone else's problem.
But for businesses, outside of gov't granted monopolies, you don't have to give them a cent to fund their dysfunctionality.
The gov't also happens to have a monopoly on violence.
If you are a Republican, you should listen to richest people on this planet since they by your believe system are the most right. So... what do Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have to say about politics? Mmm?
Nope. Their ability to profit from the existing system does not mean that they have the right principles. A munchkin would never push rules that would help himself, right?
That you even think that Republican principles are about "helping the rich" shows that you have no clue what they think.
It's not about favoring a certain group; it's about not favoring anyone at all.
It's a pity you got hit with offtopic. It is relevant to the discussions triggered by the story.
It was a nice nerd-ish thing for a dad to do for his little girl, but people seem to be reading more into it than they should.
How is a man accommodating a girl showing female empowerment? It would be if her mom did it, but all this shows the little girl is that her Daddy is cool. That's still a good thing, but it's a different kind of good thing.
What is great about this story is that this is how sexism ENDS. It's about little steps that fathers take for their daughters, mothers for their sons, and people for one another.
Dunno about that. That little girl still isn't going to grow up to be a football linebacker, or combat soldier. Litttle boys still aren't going to become mothers. (They can take on some motherly duties as a father, but they can't *be* the mother)
Men and women are equal in importance, but it doesn't translate into equal capabilities or potentials. I do like that the father did this to please his daughter; I just don't think you can "fix" reality by gender flipping a video game. Nor do I think that that reality needs to be "fixed". (If it ain't broke...)
It's the reflexive, knee-jerk anti-government types I think will be more amusing. Here we have a company (and potentially an entire industry) jump-started by a government loan, turning out to be a success, and actually repaying the loan. That sort of thing goes against all their beliefs.
Calling this a success without looking at the total level of investment and the total payback is... not a good fiscal analysis. No one should consider a casino a good investment vehicle, but hey, sometimes it "pays out"! (Reality: Expected value for $1 gambled is less than $1 at a casino; average gamble is a loss)
Also, a plan to repay the loan early is not "actually repaying the loan". Save those congratulations for 2017.
They didn't quite get there with Sims 3, since it's still run on the user side and thus users can load stuff. I'm sure the primary motivation for always-on DRM in SC5 is to test completely locking out users and beginning the move to pure dollar-and-tenning everyone (have you seen the price of their DLC?).
My jaw dropped when I discovered that Sims3 + all expansions was still $100+ with a 66% off Steam sale; non sale price was in the $300~400 range, IIRC.
A star rating on Amazon is one of the best ways to gauge a game's reception? On the contrary, I'd say the fact that 20 people rated a game that lacks basic functionality as worthy of five stars is an indication that the star system is ineffective and fails to tell you much of anything. Were those 20 people rating the graphics of the splash screen? We're they rating what they imagined the game would be like once they could save? Were they purists who believe saves are a form of cheating, and they welcome this new, more-realistic gameplay?
Bell curve. There are always outliers. In my experiences, there's been games with mediocre reviews that I've liked, and a few highly rated games that I find meh.
The portion of 5-star Amazon reviewers who actually enjoyed the game (some of those reviews were sarcastic) probably don't care about the DRM issues, and were the lucky few that had no server issues. Then there are the fanboy types are willing to enjoy *anything* because they've put their identity into it.
Statistically, they're a tiny tiny minority of the 900+ people who bothered to write a review for SimCity. Current stats are 53 positive (3+ stars) reviews out of 931 reviews. 5% of reviewers were willing to call the game "above average".
People who don't have much information are going to see that graph and the average rating (1.2 stars) and not bother. People who would still like to give the game a chance can drill down into the individual reviews and give it a shot - but if they decide to try it and it's a dud, they can't say they weren't warned. I'd say the system is working quite well.
)True. The issue is how we ascertain when human labour is obsolete as most economic models do not contain any provisions that deal with it. For example, the idea that lowering interest/expanding monetary supply will stimulate growth in employment is only valid if added demand actually leads to higher employment which may not be the case anymore.
Humans create and measure value, so I'd suggest that human labor is demonstrably becoming obsolete if there is a sustained high level (say 50+%) of unemployment that cannot be explained by political factors. (Ex: A war)
An important trend to acknowledge is that humans have innovated entirely new technologies and industries throughout history. The belief that robots will take over many of the currently known jobs does not factor in the (unpredictable) addition of new jobs.
I think that belief also glosses over the suitability of robots to fill current human jobs; if they can't replace humans, they're nothing more than a fancier tool. A hammer is not a threat to human jobs; if anything, it increases human jobs because it makes an individual human more productive. A ditch digging machine may have the productivity of 100 humans with shovels, but the existence of the machine has not made society poorer, nor has it created 99 unemployed humans.
A system of robotic systems may be insanely productive, but if it needs human guidance at any level, then it is simply a productivity multiplier for human beings - aka a tool.
Perhaps connecting 'standard' working week to unemployment levels would be possible to slowly adjust the economy and balance it, but that has its own problems as well.
That idea seems economically retarded to me. Work hours are not zero sum. A janitor working overtime does not take away work hours from the plumber or from a software developer. If you forced a team of software developers to each work 20% hours less so you can make the team ~20% larger, you're creating the same product, but with extra overhead to coordinate a larger team. The result is that you've lost productivity and value. You cannot make society richer by destroying value.
Well, since the judiciary can't write new laws, but can only decide which of two contradictory laws is more important, then no: it's not a failure of democracy. It's a demonstration that legislators can not produce a consistent set of rules and that sometimes, being true to your principles means putting down a bad habit.
Technically, the judiciary can't write new laws.
In reality, they've sometimes stretched the law beyond all recognition to come to some crazy conclusions. Such as Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce being a power to regulate a farmer growing crops for his own use, which has been the basis for new regulations far outside the scope of the original Constitutional language.
My assertion was already backed by news articles. If you wish to refute it, fine, provide your own citation. Don't pretend I'm the one not supporting my assertions. That would be you.
"Innocent" is not likely to be written down in a gov't report. (terrorist activity verified/not verified, perhaps). A media source claiming "innocence" is offering an opinion instead of reporting facts. I don't have access to the source material and you're not interested in pointing to it; As I said, there's nothing further we can discuss then.
the "public need to know" is not an absolute defense for "whistleblowing", as you've tried to use it.
I didn't say that. Show me where you think I tried to use it as an absolute defense for whistleblowing.
It is my understanding of your position:
Agreed100%. I think Manning blew it. But when judging him we need to look at his motivations, and they were good, even if misguided. Therefore he should be fired, charged with leaking classified documents, and sentenced modestly. He is not a traitor nor an enemy of America.
... Do you accept that as moral, legal, and on top of that something that the public shouldn't even be aware of?
You're asking for leniency for Manning from his actions based on intent, to serve some public "need to know". This nebulous "good" intent is supposed to serve as a defense against "espionage". It's a red herring. Espionage is the action, not the intent.
There is no publically available evidence of harm or intent to harm. Google it for yourself.
Please be serious. A Google Search is not remotely an authority on the harm done by an information leak.
And as for theories involving "secret evidence of harm"? What would be the point? The enemy already knows what it did with any information that was released, so what possible need for secrecy can there be for keeping what the enemy did secret from the public? That's just idiotic.
It's funny how you treat America's enemies as a single entity with perfect information sharing.
Would you like to explain why your personal judgement of "this information is useless" should be accepted as an expert opinion?
Your assessment of no harm ignores the PR issues I mentioned. "Collateral Murder" was a propaganda effort to undermine the US actions in Iraq; it would not have been possible without Manning's leak. That is a harm, though it may be hard to quantify.
That's not all. The leaks expose US procedures in the military and diplomatic realm. They reveal political tensions that could be exploited. It provides information that a "lone wolf" terrorist could attempt to use on his own. These harms are difficult to measure but they do exist, and they won't necessarily pop up in a Google search.
Read the statute. He needs intent.
An intentional public release releases the information to any and all enemies. Intent has been demonstrated by his actions. Intent is intentionally releasing information, as opposed to accidental release.
Again, unauthorized information release even to an American ally is espionage. "This information was used to help US allies!" is not a defense; that information was to be kept confidential and released based on national priorities, not personal ones. Those national priorities are determined by publicly elected officials in the White House and in Congress. Subversion of that authority is an act against the public, unless it can be demonstrated that the release served the public's best interest - but you already conceded that Manning was misguided and in the wrong.
Here's a bone for you: Guilt for espionage is independent of intentions, but the sentencing for espionage can be adjusted based on intentions. (Then there's presidential pardons). But Manning's clearly guilty of espionage based just on the facts we know.
There needs to be a serious discussion on what kind of society we are going to have when human labour is obsolete. The current system will start seriously breaking down when capacity outstrips demand by a significant degree and any increase in demand will be met by further automation.
That discussion needs to be reserved for when human labor actually is obsolete. Do it prematurely and you risk rebuilding society on a flawed premise and causing as much harm as you wished to prevent.
If you are going to challenge the fact widely reported by the news then its on you to demonstrate they the information is false.
So you don't care to support your own assertion? Alrighty then. I don't trust the summaries out there; and you don't want to cite anything else, so we'll just have to disagree there.
But it illustrates the TRUTH that there is information that the public does not NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW.
I never stated otherwise.
Because there exists information that the public doesn't need to know (right now), the "public need to know" is not an absolute defense for "whistleblowing", as you've tried to use it.
I don't expect a whistleblower type to be "qualified". That's an absurd criteria to demand. They must follow their conscience.
The whistleblower has a basic duty to be in the right, and to do the least amount of harm. I guess whistleblowers don't need any qualifications; but they need to meet some standards if they expect public support and to avoid punishment.
Manning was not in the right, and he's getting a trial based on the harm he has done.
Would you treat Manning any differently if wikileaks simply deleted the data? Remember Manning didn't give the information to "the enemy" he gave it to wikileaks. Wikileaks ultimately released it in the form it was released. Manning created a vulnerability by making it possible for wikileaks to release it to the pubic.
If wikileaks didn't put the data on the internet, there would be a lesser amount of harm to judge Manning on; but the nature of wikileaks and digital information means you can't trust the data was actually deleted.
Your use of the word "enemy" and the one used by the legal definition of espionage are not the same thing. Data leakage is espionage even if the information was given to an "ally"; the crime is unauthorized release of data to any recipient. That you don't consider wikileaks to be an "enemy" is irrelevant.
Manning compromised data by entrusting confidential data to an unauthorized recipient, Wikileaks. That is sufficient to charge him with espionage, and the trial will find if he's guilty of it or not.
The government reports on that very subject is that Manning didn't really cause any harm. So what are you on about out for blood for exactly? There was no significant harm.
Citation requested.
Just the PR and propaganda results from the leak are clear examples of harm. Perhaps it is acceptable harm, but they were triggered by Manning actions, and so he gets to face the results of his own decisions.
As for "out for blood", I'm just arguing for the status quo, where Manning gets a court martial to find if he is guilty of espionage. I don't see much to find him not guilty, but I do recognize I don't have access to all the evidence involved, and expect the judge(s) to make the right judgement. Are you arguing that Manning shouldn't be charged with espionage, or that the court martial should find him not guilty?
Its hard to found legally innocent or guilty except in the media if they leave you in prison for 12 years without a trial. The Manning leak indicated that even the government believed many were outright innocent. Why is someone in prison for a decade if even the prosecution thinks they are innocent?
You're repeating the media summary. The media are not an authority on who is innocent. Quote source material, or recognize that you don't actually have the evidence to show that "gov't believed many were outright innocent."
Is that what was released? No. Not even close. You can throw the book at imaginary villains who do imaginary things all you like. But that isn't what Manning did so why treat it as if he did?
No, that information wasn't what was released. But it illustrates the TRUTH that there is information that the public does not NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW. Should they know eventually? I do think so. When? Depends on the information in question.
Is Manning the best authority on when to release confidential information to the public? I think we've already agreed that he made a mistake, which indicates poor judgement; I say no, he was not qualified.
Merely having the affair compromised himself and the US military. YOU were the one who argued that whether or not the enemy took advantage of that is irrelevant, and that whether or not he intended them to is irrelevant. That was your argument. Why the double standard?
You seem to have trouble differentiating between a vulnerability and an actual compromise.
The key part here is harm - harm is giving enemies access to confidential information. With Petraeus, we don't know if confidential information was leaked from him; maybe it did, maybe it didn't. With Manning, we know that he leaked information to the Internet, and that anyone with an internet connection (such as an enemy) had full access.
TLDR: The affair might have led to harm. Uploading to wikileaks was harm. The former needs investigation. The latter needs a trial and a judgement based on the evidence.
The Guantanamo bay inmate assessment files show the imprisonment of detainees for years without trials. Inmates that even the US internal assessments classified as innocent, or very low level. 5 to 10 years in prison without trial for individuals that aren't even really suspected of being guilty?
Do you accept that as moral, legal, and on top of that something that the public shouldn't even be aware of?
Illegal by what law? Morally, those who are innocent should be released; but a media conclusion of "innocent" is not in of itself proof of innocence.
As for what the public should be aware of, intelligence and spycraft are not things that the public has an instant need to know on. There should be a chain of accountability and a way for eventual declassification, but information given to the public is information accessible by the terrorists we're hunting. Does the public need to know where Bin Laden is hiding before we actually attack him?
And yet here we are.
It's what he would deserve if f he leaked information. The media report does sound suspicious, but they haven't determined if Petreaus was the source of the classified documents.
That Petraeus had the affair disqualifies him from continued service due to compromised integrity; but the affair in of itself is not an act of espionage unless classified material was leaked through him due to the affair - that is under investigation.
As for Manning, that part of the investigation is done - he did leak the materials, he did give confidential information to enemies of the US, and now he'll be tried for the actions he chose to make.
Do you think the US government is entitled to break the law? Are the laws dictating their behaviour just friendly advice?
They are not entitled to break the law.
Would you like to point out what Manning has disclosed that indicates illegal actions by the US?
No question there. But we don't punish good intentions to the same extent as malicious reasons for very good reasons. Intent matters.
Good intentions cannot transform traitorous results into non-traitorous results.
As opposed to the innocent deaths I'm supposed to tolerate due to potential whistleblowers who lacked the confidence to come forward?
A good point to bring up; both are potentials that are hard to measure.
So David Petraeus should be strung up as well right? He was reckless, stupid, and violated multiple oaths. We can't afford generals who allow themselves to be compromised like that either, but he just lost his job, and that's fine. And that's all Manning deserves too.
I'm unaware of him being involved with any espionage, but if his affair resulted in loss of classified data, that's textbook "aiding enemies of the US".
And yes, in that case he'd deserve to get the book thrown at him because he's a freakin' general with access to highly classified information, and whose actions affect thousands of soldiers.
And our only concern there was oil. Not people. Not diplomacy. Not democracy. Not liberty. Not prestige. Just oil and the politics of oil. There are plenty of shit-holes in the world, some of them far worse than Iraq ever was.
Read the authorization of force against Iraq. Those officially stated reasons are relevant and valid. To say that democracy and other things are not a factor, you're going to have to explain why Iraq now enjoys one (if they can keep it).
There is no way you can honestly discount national prestige from foreign diplomacy and war. The US is still under the spectre of Vietnam; that we can't fight long wars; that we can't win guerilla wars; that we abandon our allies and commitments at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, it looks like that last item is already being replayed in current events.
On a more positive note, we'll soon get to see a world with diminished US influence - hope you like how that turns out. I don't expect to.
That's a cop-out answer up there with "I was just following orders." Neither holds any water. He has a duty and responsibility to think for himself.
Do you think the laws regarding disclosure of confidential documents are friendly advice?
It was Manning's DUTY to take responsibility for his ACTIONS. Such as actually doing the right thing. If he wanted to be a whistleblower, he didn't do it right, which is why a good portion of people just want him to get what he's earned.
Agreed100%. I think Manning blew it. But when judging him we need to look at his motivations, and they were good, even if misguided. Therefore he should be fired, charged with leaking classified documents, and sentenced modestly. He is not a traitor nor an enemy of America.
Misguided good motivations are just as capable of killing people as evil intentions.
The action was traitorous and was damaging to the US. That makes him a traitor and an enemy. We can't afford to have an army full of Mannings who use bad judgement to recklessly release documents. I guess we've survived Manning, but I'm not interested in finding out how many Mannings we can afford. How many inncoent deaths will you tolerate due to whistleblowers with bad judgement?
That's why he did it anonymously?
"I'm important. I've decided that I have the authority and judgement to violate US law and breach my commitments by leaking this information to an online website who will do who-knows-what with it"
Go ahead and count how many innocent people we've killed around the world since 9/11. We've isolated ourselves from even having to think about it, its disgusting. 10s of thousands. We should be subjected to having to watch them all die. Maybe then we'd figure out it was wrong.
How many innocent people die if the US simply goes back to isolationism? What price do you put on national prestige? After all, there were tons of laws and threats made against Hussein's Iraq - are empty threats a superior means of foreign diplomacy? Bad leaders make their people suffer; it's dishonest to put 100% blame on the US for every innocent killed in the course of military operations since 9/11.
Public also includes public, the people ultimately responsible for what the government does. Governement by the people for the people and all that. The needs of the public to know what illegal activity the government is keeping secret transcends any vague potential some poorly defined "enemy" might gather from the information.
Above Manning's paygrade, especially since he was not the author or ultimate stakeholder on any of those documents. No one has elected Manning to be an arbiter of US secrets.
Now, if his release *had* served the public interest, you'd expect public support for a presidential pardon; we'd say he is guilty of a crime but for a good cause. But the fact that we're debating this at all shows that the leak is harder to judge if it's not outright unjustified.
Manning's duty as a citizen and a patriot is to report the crimes perpetrated by the government to the public. That this conflicts with his job description is a distant secondary consideration.
Was every document released by Manning about some gov't evil that the public needed to know and correct? If not, why were those documents released? What case is Manning trying to make with the set of documents he released?
From my perspective, I saw indiscriminate leaking of documents with a goal of self-aggrandizement.
What of it? You just said they don't need out of context documents from the govt itself to come up with a pretext.
Aid and comfort to the enemy. Official US documents have propaganda value. The "Collateral Murder" framing of the helicopter in combat is a prime example. "Innocent and unarmed people died! War crimes!"
Why did you include "drunkenly"?
Why wasn't it enough that he hit another car and caused loss of life?
Cognitive impairment implies a lack of "intentional harm" - yet if anything, we judge just as harshly on that lack of intent. We do that because we want to avoid unnecessary harm, and drunkenness is entirely voluntary.
It's why we punish DUIs who don't harm anyone, because it's about the potential for harm.
I can conceive of no rational universe in which I "unintentionally" take confidential documents and upload them to a stranger on the Internet.
So what?
That just establishes intent to make the documents public.
Making the documents public is giving that information to the enemy. "public" includes "enemy" - unless you live in a universe where enemies are incapable of gathering public information. Congratulations on making my point.
To restate your flawed car analogy, I might say, "The ambulance driver intended to bring the shooting victim to the hospital, and in his haste he exceeded the speed limit where he felt it was safe but nonetheless potentially increased the risk to other drivers and pedestrians; any accident that could have resulted was clearly not intended, and as it turned out, nobody got hurt anyway."
Bad analogy, because the ambulance driver's job is to deliver the patient to the hospital quickly and safely, and the law does give them latitude on breaking speed limits to save a life. Your example driver is doing exactly what he's supposed to - delivering the patient.
Manning's job was to safeguard the documents he had access to - but he chose instead to leak the documents to strangers on his personal judgement.
It'd be more like an ambulance driver *not* picking up the patient, because, "hey, I think the patient looks fine". What qualifies that driver to make that medical judgement? What happens if he judges wrong? (people die)
Recently, we've seen attacks on US embassies rationalized because of some independent filmmaker who lives in the US releasing an obscure internet video. If that's enough pretext for violence, then what of out-of-context documents from the US gov't itself? It's not just about the actual harm you can measure, it's about the potential for harm that could have resulted from the action.
Slashdot Mirror
Keep changing the goalpost because the facts don't match your dogma, kinda like "climate change"
What change in goalpost?
Without new genetic material, evolution from simple to complex species does not happen.
Evolution by natural selection is a process that is inferred from three facts about populations:
1) more offspring are produced than can possibly survive
2) traits vary among individuals, leading to different rates of survival and reproduction
3) trait differences are heritable.
None of that generates new genetic material.
Without new genetic material, this "evolution" is unable to "progress". If evolution is simply "change", there is no controversy - it's quite obvious that organisms are able to change from generation to generation. (And evolutionary theory is completely unnecessary to observe this, as Mendel illustrates)
But there is an evolution controversy, and it's rooted in the evolutionary belief that if you add up a lot of small changes, you eventually end up with a big change; and that you can get from simple species to complex species by a lot of small incremental steps.
"Government" being filled with useless people is also true for businesses where its near-impossible to get rid of people for being incompetent. One "local" solution is to promote them away where they become someone else's problem.
But for businesses, outside of gov't granted monopolies, you don't have to give them a cent to fund their dysfunctionality.
The gov't also happens to have a monopoly on violence.
If you are a Republican, you should listen to richest people on this planet since they by your believe system are the most right. So... what do Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have to say about politics? Mmm?
Nope. Their ability to profit from the existing system does not mean that they have the right principles. A munchkin would never push rules that would help himself, right?
That you even think that Republican principles are about "helping the rich" shows that you have no clue what they think.
It's not about favoring a certain group; it's about not favoring anyone at all.
"Eat the Rich". A "greedy algorithm" that is destined for poverty.
It's a pity you got hit with offtopic. It is relevant to the discussions triggered by the story.
It was a nice nerd-ish thing for a dad to do for his little girl, but people seem to be reading more into it than they should.
How is a man accommodating a girl showing female empowerment? It would be if her mom did it, but all this shows the little girl is that her Daddy is cool. That's still a good thing, but it's a different kind of good thing.
What is great about this story is that this is how sexism ENDS. It's about little steps that fathers take for their daughters, mothers for their sons, and people for one another.
Dunno about that. That little girl still isn't going to grow up to be a football linebacker, or combat soldier. Litttle boys still aren't going to become mothers. (They can take on some motherly duties as a father, but they can't *be* the mother)
Men and women are equal in importance, but it doesn't translate into equal capabilities or potentials. I do like that the father did this to please his daughter; I just don't think you can "fix" reality by gender flipping a video game. Nor do I think that that reality needs to be "fixed". (If it ain't broke ...)
It's the reflexive, knee-jerk anti-government types I think will be more amusing. Here we have a company (and potentially an entire industry) jump-started by a government loan, turning out to be a success, and actually repaying the loan. That sort of thing goes against all their beliefs.
Calling this a success without looking at the total level of investment and the total payback is ... not a good fiscal analysis. No one should consider a casino a good investment vehicle, but hey, sometimes it "pays out"! (Reality: Expected value for $1 gambled is less than $1 at a casino; average gamble is a loss)
Also, a plan to repay the loan early is not "actually repaying the loan". Save those congratulations for 2017.
They didn't quite get there with Sims 3, since it's still run on the user side and thus users can load stuff. I'm sure the primary motivation for always-on DRM in SC5 is to test completely locking out users and beginning the move to pure dollar-and-tenning everyone (have you seen the price of their DLC?).
My jaw dropped when I discovered that Sims3 + all expansions was still $100+ with a 66% off Steam sale; non sale price was in the $300~400 range, IIRC.
A star rating on Amazon is one of the best ways to gauge a game's reception? On the contrary, I'd say the fact that 20 people rated a game that lacks basic functionality as worthy of five stars is an indication that the star system is ineffective and fails to tell you much of anything. Were those 20 people rating the graphics of the splash screen? We're they rating what they imagined the game would be like once they could save? Were they purists who believe saves are a form of cheating, and they welcome this new, more-realistic gameplay?
Bell curve. There are always outliers. In my experiences, there's been games with mediocre reviews that I've liked, and a few highly rated games that I find meh.
The portion of 5-star Amazon reviewers who actually enjoyed the game (some of those reviews were sarcastic) probably don't care about the DRM issues, and were the lucky few that had no server issues. Then there are the fanboy types are willing to enjoy *anything* because they've put their identity into it.
Statistically, they're a tiny tiny minority of the 900+ people who bothered to write a review for SimCity. Current stats are 53 positive (3+ stars) reviews out of 931 reviews. 5% of reviewers were willing to call the game "above average".
People who don't have much information are going to see that graph and the average rating (1.2 stars) and not bother. People who would still like to give the game a chance can drill down into the individual reviews and give it a shot - but if they decide to try it and it's a dud, they can't say they weren't warned. I'd say the system is working quite well.
Same as the USA did two hundred and odd years ago.
The United States had a lot more in common with each other compared to Europe right before the EU.
Granted, that's not to stop EU from trying, but the result doesn't seem to be working out too well at the moment. Good luck.
)True. The issue is how we ascertain when human labour is obsolete as most economic models do not contain any provisions that deal with it. For example, the idea that lowering interest/expanding monetary supply will stimulate growth in employment is only valid if added demand actually leads to higher employment which may not be the case anymore.
Humans create and measure value, so I'd suggest that human labor is demonstrably becoming obsolete if there is a sustained high level (say 50+%) of unemployment that cannot be explained by political factors. (Ex: A war)
An important trend to acknowledge is that humans have innovated entirely new technologies and industries throughout history. The belief that robots will take over many of the currently known jobs does not factor in the (unpredictable) addition of new jobs.
I think that belief also glosses over the suitability of robots to fill current human jobs; if they can't replace humans, they're nothing more than a fancier tool. A hammer is not a threat to human jobs; if anything, it increases human jobs because it makes an individual human more productive. A ditch digging machine may have the productivity of 100 humans with shovels, but the existence of the machine has not made society poorer, nor has it created 99 unemployed humans.
A system of robotic systems may be insanely productive, but if it needs human guidance at any level, then it is simply a productivity multiplier for human beings - aka a tool.
Perhaps connecting 'standard' working week to unemployment levels would be possible to slowly adjust the economy and balance it, but that has its own problems as well.
That idea seems economically retarded to me. Work hours are not zero sum. A janitor working overtime does not take away work hours from the plumber or from a software developer. If you forced a team of software developers to each work 20% hours less so you can make the team ~20% larger, you're creating the same product, but with extra overhead to coordinate a larger team. The result is that you've lost productivity and value. You cannot make society richer by destroying value.
Well, since the judiciary can't write new laws, but can only decide which of two contradictory laws is more important, then no: it's not a failure of democracy. It's a demonstration that legislators can not produce a consistent set of rules and that sometimes, being true to your principles means putting down a bad habit.
Technically, the judiciary can't write new laws.
In reality, they've sometimes stretched the law beyond all recognition to come to some crazy conclusions. Such as Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce being a power to regulate a farmer growing crops for his own use, which has been the basis for new regulations far outside the scope of the original Constitutional language.
My assertion was already backed by news articles. If you wish to refute it, fine, provide your own citation. Don't pretend I'm the one not supporting my assertions. That would be you.
"Innocent" is not likely to be written down in a gov't report. (terrorist activity verified/not verified, perhaps). A media source claiming "innocence" is offering an opinion instead of reporting facts. I don't have access to the source material and you're not interested in pointing to it; As I said, there's nothing further we can discuss then.
the "public need to know" is not an absolute defense for "whistleblowing", as you've tried to use it.
I didn't say that. Show me where you think I tried to use it as an absolute defense for whistleblowing.
It is my understanding of your position:
Agreed100%. I think Manning blew it. But when judging him we need to look at his motivations, and they were good, even if misguided. Therefore he should be fired, charged with leaking classified documents, and sentenced modestly. He is not a traitor nor an enemy of America.
... Do you accept that as moral, legal, and on top of that something that the public shouldn't even be aware of?
You're asking for leniency for Manning from his actions based on intent, to serve some public "need to know". This nebulous "good" intent is supposed to serve as a defense against "espionage". It's a red herring. Espionage is the action, not the intent.
There is no publically available evidence of harm or intent to harm. Google it for yourself.
Please be serious. A Google Search is not remotely an authority on the harm done by an information leak.
And as for theories involving "secret evidence of harm"? What would be the point? The enemy already knows what it did with any information that was released, so what possible need for secrecy can there be for keeping what the enemy did secret from the public? That's just idiotic.
It's funny how you treat America's enemies as a single entity with perfect information sharing.
Would you like to explain why your personal judgement of "this information is useless" should be accepted as an expert opinion?
Your assessment of no harm ignores the PR issues I mentioned. "Collateral Murder" was a propaganda effort to undermine the US actions in Iraq; it would not have been possible without Manning's leak. That is a harm, though it may be hard to quantify.
That's not all. The leaks expose US procedures in the military and diplomatic realm. They reveal political tensions that could be exploited. It provides information that a "lone wolf" terrorist could attempt to use on his own. These harms are difficult to measure but they do exist, and they won't necessarily pop up in a Google search.
Read the statute. He needs intent.
An intentional public release releases the information to any and all enemies. Intent has been demonstrated by his actions. Intent is intentionally releasing information, as opposed to accidental release.
Again, unauthorized information release even to an American ally is espionage. "This information was used to help US allies!" is not a defense; that information was to be kept confidential and released based on national priorities, not personal ones. Those national priorities are determined by publicly elected officials in the White House and in Congress. Subversion of that authority is an act against the public, unless it can be demonstrated that the release served the public's best interest - but you already conceded that Manning was misguided and in the wrong.
Here's a bone for you: Guilt for espionage is independent of intentions, but the sentencing for espionage can be adjusted based on intentions. (Then there's presidential pardons). But Manning's clearly guilty of espionage based just on the facts we know.
There needs to be a serious discussion on what kind of society we are going to have when human labour is obsolete. The current system will start seriously breaking down when capacity outstrips demand by a significant degree and any increase in demand will be met by further automation.
That discussion needs to be reserved for when human labor actually is obsolete. Do it prematurely and you risk rebuilding society on a flawed premise and causing as much harm as you wished to prevent.
Thanks for the follow up.
I know I find it hard to admit if I'm wrong on the Internets, so kudos to you.
If you are going to challenge the fact widely reported by the news then its on you to demonstrate they the information is false.
So you don't care to support your own assertion? Alrighty then. I don't trust the summaries out there; and you don't want to cite anything else, so we'll just have to disagree there.
But it illustrates the TRUTH that there is information that the public does not NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW.
I never stated otherwise.
Because there exists information that the public doesn't need to know (right now), the "public need to know" is not an absolute defense for "whistleblowing", as you've tried to use it.
I don't expect a whistleblower type to be "qualified". That's an absurd criteria to demand. They must follow their conscience.
The whistleblower has a basic duty to be in the right, and to do the least amount of harm. I guess whistleblowers don't need any qualifications; but they need to meet some standards if they expect public support and to avoid punishment.
Manning was not in the right, and he's getting a trial based on the harm he has done.
Would you treat Manning any differently if wikileaks simply deleted the data? Remember Manning didn't give the information to "the enemy" he gave it to wikileaks. Wikileaks ultimately released it in the form it was released. Manning created a vulnerability by making it possible for wikileaks to release it to the pubic.
If wikileaks didn't put the data on the internet, there would be a lesser amount of harm to judge Manning on; but the nature of wikileaks and digital information means you can't trust the data was actually deleted.
Your use of the word "enemy" and the one used by the legal definition of espionage are not the same thing. Data leakage is espionage even if the information was given to an "ally"; the crime is unauthorized release of data to any recipient. That you don't consider wikileaks to be an "enemy" is irrelevant.
Manning compromised data by entrusting confidential data to an unauthorized recipient, Wikileaks. That is sufficient to charge him with espionage, and the trial will find if he's guilty of it or not.
The government reports on that very subject is that Manning didn't really cause any harm. So what are you on about out for blood for exactly? There was no significant harm.
Citation requested.
Just the PR and propaganda results from the leak are clear examples of harm. Perhaps it is acceptable harm, but they were triggered by Manning actions, and so he gets to face the results of his own decisions.
As for "out for blood", I'm just arguing for the status quo, where Manning gets a court martial to find if he is guilty of espionage. I don't see much to find him not guilty, but I do recognize I don't have access to all the evidence involved, and expect the judge(s) to make the right judgement. Are you arguing that Manning shouldn't be charged with espionage, or that the court martial should find him not guilty?
Its hard to found legally innocent or guilty except in the media if they leave you in prison for 12 years without a trial. The Manning leak indicated that even the government believed many were outright innocent. Why is someone in prison for a decade if even the prosecution thinks they are innocent?
You're repeating the media summary. The media are not an authority on who is innocent. Quote source material, or recognize that you don't actually have the evidence to show that "gov't believed many were outright innocent."
Is that what was released? No. Not even close. You can throw the book at imaginary villains who do imaginary things all you like. But that isn't what Manning did so why treat it as if he did?
No, that information wasn't what was released. But it illustrates the TRUTH that there is information that the public does not NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW. Should they know eventually? I do think so. When? Depends on the information in question.
Is Manning the best authority on when to release confidential information to the public? I think we've already agreed that he made a mistake, which indicates poor judgement; I say no, he was not qualified.
Merely having the affair compromised himself and the US military. YOU were the one who argued that whether or not the enemy took advantage of that is irrelevant, and that whether or not he intended them to is irrelevant. That was your argument. Why the double standard?
You seem to have trouble differentiating between a vulnerability and an actual compromise.
The key part here is harm - harm is giving enemies access to confidential information. With Petraeus, we don't know if confidential information was leaked from him; maybe it did, maybe it didn't. With Manning, we know that he leaked information to the Internet, and that anyone with an internet connection (such as an enemy) had full access.
TLDR: The affair might have led to harm. Uploading to wikileaks was harm. The former needs investigation. The latter needs a trial and a judgement based on the evidence.
The Guantanamo bay inmate assessment files show the imprisonment of detainees for years without trials. Inmates that even the US internal assessments classified as innocent, or very low level. 5 to 10 years in prison without trial for individuals that aren't even really suspected of being guilty?
Do you accept that as moral, legal, and on top of that something that the public shouldn't even be aware of?
Illegal by what law? Morally, those who are innocent should be released; but a media conclusion of "innocent" is not in of itself proof of innocence.
As for what the public should be aware of, intelligence and spycraft are not things that the public has an instant need to know on. There should be a chain of accountability and a way for eventual declassification, but information given to the public is information accessible by the terrorists we're hunting. Does the public need to know where Bin Laden is hiding before we actually attack him?
And yet here we are.
It's what he would deserve if f he leaked information. The media report does sound suspicious, but they haven't determined if Petreaus was the source of the classified documents.
That Petraeus had the affair disqualifies him from continued service due to compromised integrity; but the affair in of itself is not an act of espionage unless classified material was leaked through him due to the affair - that is under investigation.
As for Manning, that part of the investigation is done - he did leak the materials, he did give confidential information to enemies of the US, and now he'll be tried for the actions he chose to make.
Do you think the US government is entitled to break the law? Are the laws dictating their behaviour just friendly advice?
They are not entitled to break the law.
Would you like to point out what Manning has disclosed that indicates illegal actions by the US?
No question there. But we don't punish good intentions to the same extent as malicious reasons for very good reasons. Intent matters.
Good intentions cannot transform traitorous results into non-traitorous results.
As opposed to the innocent deaths I'm supposed to tolerate due to potential whistleblowers who lacked the confidence to come forward?
A good point to bring up; both are potentials that are hard to measure.
So David Petraeus should be strung up as well right? He was reckless, stupid, and violated multiple oaths. We can't afford generals who allow themselves to be compromised like that either, but he just lost his job, and that's fine. And that's all Manning deserves too.
I'm unaware of him being involved with any espionage, but if his affair resulted in loss of classified data, that's textbook "aiding enemies of the US".
And yes, in that case he'd deserve to get the book thrown at him because he's a freakin' general with access to highly classified information, and whose actions affect thousands of soldiers.
And our only concern there was oil. Not people. Not diplomacy. Not democracy. Not liberty. Not prestige. Just oil and the politics of oil. There are plenty of shit-holes in the world, some of them far worse than Iraq ever was.
Read the authorization of force against Iraq. Those officially stated reasons are relevant and valid. To say that democracy and other things are not a factor, you're going to have to explain why Iraq now enjoys one (if they can keep it).
There is no way you can honestly discount national prestige from foreign diplomacy and war. The US is still under the spectre of Vietnam; that we can't fight long wars; that we can't win guerilla wars; that we abandon our allies and commitments at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, it looks like that last item is already being replayed in current events.
On a more positive note, we'll soon get to see a world with diminished US influence - hope you like how that turns out. I don't expect to.
That's a cop-out answer up there with "I was just following orders." Neither holds any water. He has a duty and responsibility to think for himself.
Do you think the laws regarding disclosure of confidential documents are friendly advice?
It was Manning's DUTY to take responsibility for his ACTIONS. Such as actually doing the right thing. If he wanted to be a whistleblower, he didn't do it right, which is why a good portion of people just want him to get what he's earned.
Agreed100%. I think Manning blew it. But when judging him we need to look at his motivations, and they were good, even if misguided. Therefore he should be fired, charged with leaking classified documents, and sentenced modestly. He is not a traitor nor an enemy of America.
Misguided good motivations are just as capable of killing people as evil intentions.
The action was traitorous and was damaging to the US. That makes him a traitor and an enemy. We can't afford to have an army full of Mannings who use bad judgement to recklessly release documents. I guess we've survived Manning, but I'm not interested in finding out how many Mannings we can afford. How many inncoent deaths will you tolerate due to whistleblowers with bad judgement?
That's why he did it anonymously?
"I'm important. I've decided that I have the authority and judgement to violate US law and breach my commitments by leaking this information to an online website who will do who-knows-what with it"
Go ahead and count how many innocent people we've killed around the world since 9/11. We've isolated ourselves from even having to think about it, its disgusting. 10s of thousands. We should be subjected to having to watch them all die. Maybe then we'd figure out it was wrong.
How many innocent people die if the US simply goes back to isolationism? What price do you put on national prestige? After all, there were tons of laws and threats made against Hussein's Iraq - are empty threats a superior means of foreign diplomacy? Bad leaders make their people suffer; it's dishonest to put 100% blame on the US for every innocent killed in the course of military operations since 9/11.
Uh, yes it is. It's the reason we have different legal definitions of e.g. murder and manslaughter.
"I didn't intend to [...] kill that family" is a perfectly valid legal defense against a charge of first-degree murder.
It's not a defense against being responsible for causing harm. (we still charge a non-intentional killing with manslaughter)
it's not even a defense against *not* causing harm. "Hey, you caught me DUI, but I didn't intend to hurt anyone *and* no one got hurt!"
It's beside the point - DUI *is* the crime. Any other harm is just additional charges.
Public also includes public, the people ultimately responsible for what the government does. Governement by the people for the people and all that. The needs of the public to know what illegal activity the government is keeping secret transcends any vague potential some poorly defined "enemy" might gather from the information.
Above Manning's paygrade, especially since he was not the author or ultimate stakeholder on any of those documents. No one has elected Manning to be an arbiter of US secrets.
Now, if his release *had* served the public interest, you'd expect public support for a presidential pardon; we'd say he is guilty of a crime but for a good cause. But the fact that we're debating this at all shows that the leak is harder to judge if it's not outright unjustified.
Manning's duty as a citizen and a patriot is to report the crimes perpetrated by the government to the public. That this conflicts with his job description is a distant secondary consideration.
Was every document released by Manning about some gov't evil that the public needed to know and correct? If not, why were those documents released? What case is Manning trying to make with the set of documents he released?
From my perspective, I saw indiscriminate leaking of documents with a goal of self-aggrandizement.
What of it? You just said they don't need out of context documents from the govt itself to come up with a pretext.
Aid and comfort to the enemy. Official US documents have propaganda value. The "Collateral Murder" framing of the helicopter in combat is a prime example. "Innocent and unarmed people died! War crimes!"
Why did you include "drunkenly"? Why wasn't it enough that he hit another car and caused loss of life?
Cognitive impairment implies a lack of "intentional harm" - yet if anything, we judge just as harshly on that lack of intent. We do that because we want to avoid unnecessary harm, and drunkenness is entirely voluntary.
It's why we punish DUIs who don't harm anyone, because it's about the potential for harm.
I can conceive of no rational universe in which I "unintentionally" take confidential documents and upload them to a stranger on the Internet.
So what?
That just establishes intent to make the documents public.
Making the documents public is giving that information to the enemy. "public" includes "enemy" - unless you live in a universe where enemies are incapable of gathering public information. Congratulations on making my point.
To restate your flawed car analogy, I might say, "The ambulance driver intended to bring the shooting victim to the hospital, and in his haste he exceeded the speed limit where he felt it was safe but nonetheless potentially increased the risk to other drivers and pedestrians; any accident that could have resulted was clearly not intended, and as it turned out, nobody got hurt anyway."
Bad analogy, because the ambulance driver's job is to deliver the patient to the hospital quickly and safely, and the law does give them latitude on breaking speed limits to save a life. Your example driver is doing exactly what he's supposed to - delivering the patient.
Manning's job was to safeguard the documents he had access to - but he chose instead to leak the documents to strangers on his personal judgement.
It'd be more like an ambulance driver *not* picking up the patient, because, "hey, I think the patient looks fine". What qualifies that driver to make that medical judgement? What happens if he judges wrong? (people die)
Recently, we've seen attacks on US embassies rationalized because of some independent filmmaker who lives in the US releasing an obscure internet video. If that's enough pretext for violence, then what of out-of-context documents from the US gov't itself? It's not just about the actual harm you can measure, it's about the potential for harm that could have resulted from the action.
It's a Jewish conspiracy!