You still make one classic error: The assumption that the Linux coders want people to "change over". Simply put, that's not the case. Some want it, some don't. Most devs I've talked to are quite happy to cater to accademics, hackers or whatever group they count themselves in, but usually that is not "windows users about to change over"... Projects for these exist (Linspire, XPDE, etc.), but they're not the biggest ones around simply because there's no majority of devs that want that.
There is the misconception that Linux (nevermind the fact that there is no such thing as a collective will here, that can at best be attributed to different Distros) needs or even wants to attract new users. That is wrong (and a highly dangerous anthropomorphization). "Linux" neither needs nor wants anything but exist, which the GPL guarantees. End of story.
To adapt your metaphor: I'm happy to tinker with my self-tuned and self-assembled car, some parts of which I've bought pre-assembled (done by the Distro), while I avoid the one offered complete (Windows, MacOS, etc.) because they weld the hood shut (so I cannot look at their proprietary engine design, that's pretty shabby, judged by repair costs and parts that can be found after an accident). That doesn't make me want to stop anyone from using those and I don't think my "kit" will gain anything from anyone who "changes", but I am dumbfounded when someone suggests that those "kits" should come pre-assembled, because they would be easier that way... It's simply missing the point by assuming a definition of "successful" that rarely matches the intention of the original creators (Namely: Being used by many people, being commercially successfull, etc.).
Speak for yourself and yourself only. "We" don't need a thing.
I have never understood people insisting on Linux Look & Feel to copy Windows Look & Feel pixel precise if possible, since I've never had much touble finding my way through a menu structure for example, as long as it has some logical connections (e.g. I don't care whether "print" is under "file" or "tools"). I've seen people aghast at OOo because it ain't Word... Guess what, I don't notice the differences, because I think in functions (and their names and icons), not "second to left icon in the third row".
To make a long story short: If you want your grandma to use Linux, get her one consistent Distro (SuSE is good, or Linspire if you're really interested in Windows Look-alike, whatever) and be done with it. She's not going to install anything of importance anyway. But don't tell ME how I "need" to organize my computer, ok?
The parent is of course referring to a fictional "book" and its author, both presented in "The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" by Neal Stephenson. A very good read, though not exactly for preteens, I'd say. It's esier if you already understand nano-technology and turing-machines:-)
Under all circumstances, more Heinlein: You can add the other "juveniles" first, the gradually increase the amount of "adult situations" over the years. Heinlein gives a few excellent examples of societies built upon different social systems and moral ideas (My own views were heavily influenced by his depictions of relationships in "Time enough for love", which I read first at the age of 13, I think. Don't if you don't want them to end up like Lapis & Lazuli, personality-wise, though:-P )
If you want you can try leaving a few copies of John Norman's Gor around when they're teenaged, they helped me discover and understand my BDSM side (Bugger if they don't have any or aren't bright enough to differentiate fantasy from reality!). This advice is not for the faint of heart, though (Still, I'm thankful for my father having these on his library board, where I was free to read since aged about 12).
Later again I can recommend the RGB-Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson, which offers a few great examples of scientific thinking along with idealism vs. realism, but the reading is quite dry, so wait till they're 16 or so.
From the top of my head I can also think of these (Don't consider them "recommended", though. They were simply the ones I read...), that I liked quite well then (but then, I am male, though I doubt reading preferences are much more than behavior adopted from the surrounding society): The "Riverworld" series by Philip Jose Farmer, "The ragged astronauts" series ("Wooden spaceships" & "The Fugitive Worlds" are the other two, I believe) by Bob Shaw, the "Omega 2" books by Bo Anders (were particularly intersting when I was younger still (8,9?), so you might want to check them out. The author is german, so they might be difficult to find), "Hellstroms Hive" by Frank Herbert (A lot easier to comprehend than "Dune", but grizzly nonetheless) and finally "House of stairs" by William Sleator (Rather easy to read as well, certainly a "juvenile")
Why not use the tag? It's exactly what it's there for! Or browsers that finally manage XML namespaces, so you could do this on an ? There is no need for this tag (And I highly doubt the author has spend a minute thinking about it)
..he had used Java and hadn't resorted to a non-W3C-standard (but WHATWG) tag, I might have considered that interesting. Check this guy's work out: http://www.brackeen.com/
As I said, I may be wrong, but sinking into dust is bullshit as well:) It would be highly compressed under it's own weight, so you can't sink in, just like you don't sink in the desert, you'll need quicksand for that.
I'm no astrophysics buff, but AFAIK the moon's spherical nature holds the key: Most such objects are giant clouds of dust and rocks that collided into a single body at their center of gravity (google for "accretion disc/k"). There can be enough heat (impacts, etc.) involved to melt that ball of dust'n'rubble, if cooled again, they become rather uniform (many (?) Planets). The Moon is a bit of an exception, since it hasn't formed from stellar dust, but after a big impact to earth. Still there was enough dust involved to cover the moon up to a rather spherical shape:-)
In short: rocks are rocks, but on the moon they're rare, because the dust wasn't melted into them.
There's a nice equivalent to "luggable" in german, it's the "Schlepptop" (to pronounce add "sh" prefix to "laptop"), stemming from "schleppen"=="hauling", I thought some of the Blinkenlichten (wrong, BTW, it's "Blinklichter") Ubergeeks (wrong as well, the first letter should be "Ü"=="Ü") might enjoy adding it to their vocabulary:-P
Some kind of cypher communication, using/. as a way to exchange data pretty anonymously? It's certainly interesting to observe that each block is repeated once, the ones between the "HELLO WORLD" maybe identifying a key, though I don't believe in a complex scheme (I'd bet you can en- & decode this thing without using a sheet a paper even), probably just subtract them. Any crypto-gurus around, I'm not interested in wasting my time on this one? Could be just trolling:-P
Even when my country was killing your people by the millions it'd still not be "right" to the same ("Two wrongs don't make a right", thogh I don't exactly agree, see below).
"Hypocrisy"... Please refrain from "ad hominem", ok? I don't tell you what's wrong, I tell you what "I consider not to be right". That neither states I consider it to be wrong (I can't know it's right, so I can't know it's wrong either), nor that I think you should agree. Moral values are individual, please have your own. (I think it's obvious that this quite the same argument as to why I think people may live their lives however they see fit, even if I don't agree it's a nice or enjoyable one).
"Truth" is something that exists only in math, in real life, there is no such thing as "truth that is self-evident", to claim so, especially if that truth is ones own, is arrogant.
I don't think you should make assumptions about the existance of my "moral compass", just because it doesn't align with yours, I'm afraid.
I don't consider those governments to be more (I consider them to be exactly as right, namely pretty wrong) "right" than a democracy, and indeed I'm quite content to live in a country that pretends to be one (I could go to length about the question of parliaments as opposed to rule-by-the-people, but this is not the time for that). What I don't do is consider them as "sympathetic" or "nice to live in".
The point being: What I don't consider "right" is to stop other people and governments from doing something else than my preferred way of doing things. It is their peoples choice, if they dislike their government they should overthrow it. If they're not enough to do so, then clearly they aren't a majority anyway... That may sound harsh, but since one can never know what is "right" (Unless one believes in a god who told people so, but then most "terrorists" do as well, and are equally right in it, namely not at all), all one does is violently impose ones own view on people who may not even want it (A lot of wars were fought in the past with the justification of bringing "civilization", etc. I'm thinking of the crusades or "White man's burden" in colonialization). This is about the choice to be undemocratic.
Put differently: No nation has the "right" to police others without some kind of international "constitution" (Just like, on a citizen level, the "real" police would have no right without the contries constitution). International law exists and the UN is something close to a government in that respect. (Don't misunderstand me here, I'm not saying the UN is always right, but without it or something in its place, there cannot be "right"). The only problem is creating such a constitution that is indeed accepted by all those "governed" by it.
But really, we're not going to reach anything in this discussion. Were I to live in a country that was undemocratic and were I content with that and your country were to "free" me and my countrymen, I'd consider your country an invader and enemy whom I'd fight, for which I'd likely be killed by your country. That is no more "right" to me than being killed by my own country, it is just less expected and more arrogant...
Well, I wasn't talking about "opressing", but outright "killing" and "torturing" and yes, I think it is wrong the US does this, no matter to whom, but it is especially horrible when done to "innocent" (And I agree, we won't agree what constitutes "innocence") people. We won't agree, you want interference (for reason you consider "right"), I want absense (because "right" reasons cannot exist). Let us conclude that different opinions on these matters exist and that they should all be taken into account by governments, ok?
I see, we disagree on a fundamental level: For me "turning aggressive fascist states into liberal democracies" IS " killing and maiming people of different opinion, or imprisoning and torturing innocents". We can't reach an agreement because of this, I fear.
Take that a level up (I never said people elected anything) and you'll see that the UN itself acts by voting of individual nations (instead of individuals), which is the most democratic way for it to act since it doesn't interfere with the nations internals.
You are not an EU citizen. There is no such country. You are a citizen of a country that is currently a member of the EU.
Correct, though the borders between nation and union of nations is blurring at the moment.
.eu is a country code, and there is no such country, so there is no such ccTLD.
Correct, see above.
Not adding a new TLD is not a restriction in the way that you imply it. They are not censoring, they are not taking something down. ICANN just didn't add the TLD.
I'm not implying anything, not adding those TLDs is a restriction. The.iq TLD is silly. They had an American that was arrested own it. Assets were seized, the.iq TLD was held. Maybe Iraq shouldn't have sold it to that guy?
Maybe ICANN, or the US, should keep out of decisisons Iraq makes? It was an independent and soverein state at that point.
The UN would guarantee no such thing as no restrictions. They would end up doing some mix of the following: completely screwing up DNS (a la most of their other programs), turning it into a tax source, making it a political system instead of a technical one, restricting it, futher encumbering it with IP bullshit.
Wow, you really have some misconceptions, do you? There is no initiative to change any technical aspect, so "screwing up DNS" and "IP Bullshit" aren't on any table. The UN cannot tax you and it doesn't tax any person, ok? The internet already IS a political thing, otherwise the whole discussion wouldn't have occured. Finally I don't feel like the UN is "screwing up" all the time, though it is usually a hinderance to extreme agendas, which is exactly what it was conceived for.
One of the things they're preaching about it internationalized domain names. This sounds wonderful, except for the part where that means much of the world can't access domains. How would you type in a chinese domain name on a british layout keyboard... or a cyrillic domain, or arabic, etc. I certainly understand the desire to do such things, but there are reasons for the limitation. I suppose we could all re-enable IDN support in our browsers and get that today, though, without the UN mucking anything up.
How does a japanese person enter english domain names today? Don't be so arrogant as to assume everyone had an english keyboard. And don't start how english is the most wide spoken language either, it isn't and even if it was that would not be an argument.
You have a dangerously high and misled faith in the UN. They are not some kind of perfection; they barely work at all! Countries are governed by their respective governments, which means the UN has no authority. The only reason the UN can do anything is by a country's permission, or through the use of members' force.
"You have a dangerously high and misled faith in the US. They are not some kind of perfection; they barely work at all! Countries are governed by their respective governments, which means the US has no authority. The only reason the US can do anything is by a country's permission, or through the use of force (Which they graciously apply whenever they feel like it)." Please refrain from such flawed arguments, the UN is constructed to keep different interests at bay on a global level. It has flaws, many, I agree, but it is better than no global entity at all (This is the standard democracy argument: While democracy is seriously flawed, it is still better than anything else). Another thing: I don't have "faith"...
I agree it was knee-jerk reaction, but when the US achieves it's goals (keeping control), despite the fact that it is against the interest of the rest of the world, my first tought is bullying. And then I read about reporters who were beaten and not allowed to attend. Sounds like someone didn't want them in on the talks... Who might that have been? Couldn't have been the world bully^H^H^H^H^H^Hpolice?
Knee-jerk, unfair and certainly not in-dubio-pro-reo, but my initial reaction nonetheless. I apologize for breaking argumentative protocol on this one.
"It's not like som god-like creature is running it. It's run by people, and people with power tend to get corrupted."
Which is exactly the reason why the UN is the best choice, from a democratic point of view. It keeps single-people-in-power (heads of states) from doing much harm to the whole world by requiring them to more-or-less agree. Just the way a parliamentary democracy works.
Yep, that is why the US has "free speech zones"... Wake up, your country isn't better than the others, honestly. And, just for the record, I don't want the EU or China to control the Internet, but the UN. If you don't see a difference there...
Concerning my accusation the violence was US-initiated: Who has a history of killing and maiming people of different opinion, or imprisoning and torturing innocents, the US or the UN?
I'd argue exactly the other way round. The US can and does impose restrictions (.eu,.xxx,.iq), while the UN (which is not "other countries"! (Though I, as EU citizen, feel flattered when EU and UN are considered the same, it's a high moral standard to be held to (An, sadly, not true, the EU is just as corrupt and incompetent as the US))) would guarantee that no restrictions could ever be imposed.
I'd say there is no such thing as "the slashdot crowd" or the "hive mind". In fact we're all individuals* with vastly different interests and opinions. It appears to be otherwise, because each given story is still commented on by hundreds of "us", but thousands decide not to. So, I'd postulate that the set of people advocating diversity over monopolism, etc. is pretty much disjunct from the set applauding the US in this case, while both groups may have advocates in a completely different fields, like E-paper, or some such thing... One could ask why the anti-monopoly set isn't more vocal here. I assume they either think the topic's been done to death or favour another argumentative approach (not necessarily a better one, but different, just compare the structure of discussions on different topics).
And, of course, there are still the wackos, Trolls, ACs and their ilk:-)
Ahead of the summit, rights watchdogs say, both Tunisian and foreign reporters have been harassed and beaten. Reporters Without Borders says its secretary-general, Robert Menard, has been banned from attending.
Slashdot Mirror
You still make one classic error: The assumption that the Linux coders want people to "change over". Simply put, that's not the case. Some want it, some don't. Most devs I've talked to are quite happy to cater to accademics, hackers or whatever group they count themselves in, but usually that is not "windows users about to change over"... Projects for these exist (Linspire, XPDE, etc.), but they're not the biggest ones around simply because there's no majority of devs that want that.
There is the misconception that Linux (nevermind the fact that there is no such thing as a collective will here, that can at best be attributed to different Distros) needs or even wants to attract new users. That is wrong (and a highly dangerous anthropomorphization). "Linux" neither needs nor wants anything but exist, which the GPL guarantees. End of story.
To adapt your metaphor: I'm happy to tinker with my self-tuned and self-assembled car, some parts of which I've bought pre-assembled (done by the Distro), while I avoid the one offered complete (Windows, MacOS, etc.) because they weld the hood shut (so I cannot look at their proprietary engine design, that's pretty shabby, judged by repair costs and parts that can be found after an accident). That doesn't make me want to stop anyone from using those and I don't think my "kit" will gain anything from anyone who "changes", but I am dumbfounded when someone suggests that those "kits" should come pre-assembled, because they would be easier that way... It's simply missing the point by assuming a definition of "successful" that rarely matches the intention of the original creators (Namely: Being used by many people, being commercially successfull, etc.).
Speak for yourself and yourself only. "We" don't need a thing.
I have never understood people insisting on Linux Look & Feel to copy Windows Look & Feel pixel precise if possible, since I've never had much touble finding my way through a menu structure for example, as long as it has some logical connections (e.g. I don't care whether "print" is under "file" or "tools"). I've seen people aghast at OOo because it ain't Word... Guess what, I don't notice the differences, because I think in functions (and their names and icons), not "second to left icon in the third row".
To make a long story short: If you want your grandma to use Linux, get her one consistent Distro (SuSE is good, or Linspire if you're really interested in Windows Look-alike, whatever) and be done with it. She's not going to install anything of importance anyway. But don't tell ME how I "need" to organize my computer, ok?
The parent is of course referring to a fictional "book" and its author, both presented in "The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" by Neal Stephenson. A very good read, though not exactly for preteens, I'd say. It's esier if you already understand nano-technology and turing-machines :-)
Under all circumstances, more Heinlein: You can add the other "juveniles" first, the gradually increase the amount of "adult situations" over the years. Heinlein gives a few excellent examples of societies built upon different social systems and moral ideas (My own views were heavily influenced by his depictions of relationships in "Time enough for love", which I read first at the age of 13, I think. Don't if you don't want them to end up like Lapis & Lazuli, personality-wise, though :-P )
If you want you can try leaving a few copies of John Norman's Gor around when they're teenaged, they helped me discover and understand my BDSM side (Bugger if they don't have any or aren't bright enough to differentiate fantasy from reality!). This advice is not for the faint of heart, though (Still, I'm thankful for my father having these on his library board, where I was free to read since aged about 12).
Later again I can recommend the RGB-Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson, which offers a few great examples of scientific thinking along with idealism vs. realism, but the reading is quite dry, so wait till they're 16 or so.
From the top of my head I can also think of these (Don't consider them "recommended", though. They were simply the ones I read...), that I liked quite well then (but then, I am male, though I doubt reading preferences are much more than behavior adopted from the surrounding society): The "Riverworld" series by Philip Jose Farmer, "The ragged astronauts" series ("Wooden spaceships" & "The Fugitive Worlds" are the other two, I believe) by Bob Shaw, the "Omega 2" books by Bo Anders (were particularly intersting when I was younger still (8,9?), so you might want to check them out. The author is german, so they might be difficult to find), "Hellstroms Hive" by Frank Herbert (A lot easier to comprehend than "Dune", but grizzly nonetheless) and finally "House of stairs" by William Sleator (Rather easy to read as well, certainly a "juvenile")
Why not use the tag? It's exactly what it's there for! Or browsers that finally manage XML namespaces, so you could do this on an ? There is no need for this tag (And I highly doubt the author has spend a minute thinking about it)
..he had used Java and hadn't resorted to a non-W3C-standard (but WHATWG) tag, I might have considered that interesting. Check this guy's work out: http://www.brackeen.com/
As I said, I may be wrong, but sinking into dust is bullshit as well :) It would be highly compressed under it's own weight, so you can't sink in, just like you don't sink in the desert, you'll need quicksand for that.
I'm no astrophysics buff, but AFAIK the moon's spherical nature holds the key: Most such objects are giant clouds of dust and rocks that collided into a single body at their center of gravity (google for "accretion disc/k"). There can be enough heat (impacts, etc.) involved to melt that ball of dust'n'rubble, if cooled again, they become rather uniform (many (?) Planets). The Moon is a bit of an exception, since it hasn't formed from stellar dust, but after a big impact to earth. Still there was enough dust involved to cover the moon up to a rather spherical shape :-)
In short: rocks are rocks, but on the moon they're rare, because the dust wasn't melted into them.
There's a nice equivalent to "luggable" in german, it's the "Schlepptop" (to pronounce add "sh" prefix to "laptop"), stemming from "schleppen"=="hauling", I thought some of the Blinkenlichten (wrong, BTW, it's "Blinklichter") Ubergeeks (wrong as well, the first letter should be "Ü"=="Ü") might enjoy adding it to their vocabulary :-P
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44985665@N00/66506810 /
Got the same thing twice today... If that shit persists into, say, next week, I think I should make heise.de my new "Home"...
"Periode is Period"
Well, not in the "at the end of the sentence", but the "menstruation" sense, which is a nod to the gay main characters.
Some kind of cypher communication, using /. as a way to exchange data pretty anonymously? It's certainly interesting to observe that each block is repeated once, the ones between the "HELLO WORLD" maybe identifying a key, though I don't believe in a complex scheme (I'd bet you can en- & decode this thing without using a sheet a paper even), probably just subtract them. Any crypto-gurus around, I'm not interested in wasting my time on this one? Could be just trolling :-P
Even when my country was killing your people by the millions it'd still not be "right" to the same ("Two wrongs don't make a right", thogh I don't exactly agree, see below).
"Hypocrisy"... Please refrain from "ad hominem", ok? I don't tell you what's wrong, I tell you what "I consider not to be right". That neither states I consider it to be wrong (I can't know it's right, so I can't know it's wrong either), nor that I think you should agree. Moral values are individual, please have your own. (I think it's obvious that this quite the same argument as to why I think people may live their lives however they see fit, even if I don't agree it's a nice or enjoyable one).
"Truth" is something that exists only in math, in real life, there is no such thing as "truth that is self-evident", to claim so, especially if that truth is ones own, is arrogant.
I don't think you should make assumptions about the existance of my "moral compass", just because it doesn't align with yours, I'm afraid.
I don't consider those governments to be more (I consider them to be exactly as right, namely pretty wrong) "right" than a democracy, and indeed I'm quite content to live in a country that pretends to be one (I could go to length about the question of parliaments as opposed to rule-by-the-people, but this is not the time for that). What I don't do is consider them as "sympathetic" or "nice to live in".
The point being: What I don't consider "right" is to stop other people and governments from doing something else than my preferred way of doing things. It is their peoples choice, if they dislike their government they should overthrow it. If they're not enough to do so, then clearly they aren't a majority anyway... That may sound harsh, but since one can never know what is "right" (Unless one believes in a god who told people so, but then most "terrorists" do as well, and are equally right in it, namely not at all), all one does is violently impose ones own view on people who may not even want it (A lot of wars were fought in the past with the justification of bringing "civilization", etc. I'm thinking of the crusades or "White man's burden" in colonialization). This is about the choice to be undemocratic.
Put differently: No nation has the "right" to police others without some kind of international "constitution" (Just like, on a citizen level, the "real" police would have no right without the contries constitution). International law exists and the UN is something close to a government in that respect. (Don't misunderstand me here, I'm not saying the UN is always right, but without it or something in its place, there cannot be "right"). The only problem is creating such a constitution that is indeed accepted by all those "governed" by it.
But really, we're not going to reach anything in this discussion. Were I to live in a country that was undemocratic and were I content with that and your country were to "free" me and my countrymen, I'd consider your country an invader and enemy whom I'd fight, for which I'd likely be killed by your country. That is no more "right" to me than being killed by my own country, it is just less expected and more arrogant...
Well, I wasn't talking about "opressing", but outright "killing" and "torturing" and yes, I think it is wrong the US does this, no matter to whom, but it is especially horrible when done to "innocent" (And I agree, we won't agree what constitutes "innocence") people. We won't agree, you want interference (for reason you consider "right"), I want absense (because "right" reasons cannot exist). Let us conclude that different opinions on these matters exist and that they should all be taken into account by governments, ok?
I see, we disagree on a fundamental level: For me "turning aggressive fascist states into liberal democracies" IS " killing and maiming people of different opinion, or imprisoning and torturing innocents". We can't reach an agreement because of this, I fear.
Take that a level up (I never said people elected anything) and you'll see that the UN itself acts by voting of individual nations (instead of individuals), which is the most democratic way for it to act since it doesn't interfere with the nations internals.
*sigh*
.eu is a country code, and there is no such country, so there is no such ccTLD.
.iq TLD is silly. They had an American that was arrested own it. Assets were seized, the .iq TLD was held. Maybe Iraq shouldn't have sold it to that guy?
You are not an EU citizen. There is no such country. You are a citizen of a country that is currently a member of the EU.
Correct, though the borders between nation and union of nations is blurring at the moment.
Correct, see above.
Not adding a new TLD is not a restriction in the way that you imply it. They are not censoring, they are not taking something down. ICANN just didn't add the TLD.
I'm not implying anything, not adding those TLDs is a restriction.
The
Maybe ICANN, or the US, should keep out of decisisons Iraq makes? It was an independent and soverein state at that point.
The UN would guarantee no such thing as no restrictions. They would end up doing some mix of the following: completely screwing up DNS (a la most of their other programs), turning it into a tax source, making it a political system instead of a technical one, restricting it, futher encumbering it with IP bullshit.
Wow, you really have some misconceptions, do you? There is no initiative to change any technical aspect, so "screwing up DNS" and "IP Bullshit" aren't on any table. The UN cannot tax you and it doesn't tax any person, ok? The internet already IS a political thing, otherwise the whole discussion wouldn't have occured. Finally I don't feel like the UN is "screwing up" all the time, though it is usually a hinderance to extreme agendas, which is exactly what it was conceived for.
One of the things they're preaching about it internationalized domain names. This sounds wonderful, except for the part where that means much of the world can't access domains. How would you type in a chinese domain name on a british layout keyboard... or a cyrillic domain, or arabic, etc. I certainly understand the desire to do such things, but there are reasons for the limitation. I suppose we could all re-enable IDN support in our browsers and get that today, though, without the UN mucking anything up.
How does a japanese person enter english domain names today? Don't be so arrogant as to assume everyone had an english keyboard. And don't start how english is the most wide spoken language either, it isn't and even if it was that would not be an argument.
You have a dangerously high and misled faith in the UN. They are not some kind of perfection; they barely work at all! Countries are governed by their respective governments, which means the UN has no authority. The only reason the UN can do anything is by a country's permission, or through the use of members' force.
"You have a dangerously high and misled faith in the US. They are not some kind of perfection; they barely work at all! Countries are governed by their respective governments, which means the US has no authority. The only reason the US can do anything is by a country's permission, or through the use of force (Which they graciously apply whenever they feel like it)." Please refrain from such flawed arguments, the UN is constructed to keep different interests at bay on a global level. It has flaws, many, I agree, but it is better than no global entity at all (This is the standard democracy argument: While democracy is seriously flawed, it is still better than anything else). Another thing: I don't have "faith"...
I agree it was knee-jerk reaction, but when the US achieves it's goals (keeping control), despite the fact that it is against the interest of the rest of the world, my first tought is bullying. And then I read about reporters who were beaten and not allowed to attend. Sounds like someone didn't want them in on the talks... Who might that have been? Couldn't have been the world bully^H^H^H^H^H^Hpolice?
Knee-jerk, unfair and certainly not in-dubio-pro-reo, but my initial reaction nonetheless. I apologize for breaking argumentative protocol on this one.
"It's not like som god-like creature is running it. It's run by people, and people with power tend to get corrupted."
Which is exactly the reason why the UN is the best choice, from a democratic point of view. It keeps single-people-in-power (heads of states) from doing much harm to the whole world by requiring them to more-or-less agree. Just the way a parliamentary democracy works.
Yep, that is why the US has "free speech zones"... Wake up, your country isn't better than the others, honestly. And, just for the record, I don't want the EU or China to control the Internet, but the UN. If you don't see a difference there...
Concerning my accusation the violence was US-initiated: Who has a history of killing and maiming people of different opinion, or imprisoning and torturing innocents, the US or the UN?
I'd argue exactly the other way round. The US can and does impose restrictions (.eu, .xxx, .iq), while the UN (which is not "other countries"! (Though I, as EU citizen, feel flattered when EU and UN are considered the same, it's a high moral standard to be held to (An, sadly, not true, the EU is just as corrupt and incompetent as the US))) would guarantee that no restrictions could ever be imposed.
I'd say there is no such thing as "the slashdot crowd" or the "hive mind". In fact we're all individuals* with vastly different interests and opinions. It appears to be otherwise, because each given story is still commented on by hundreds of "us", but thousands decide not to. So, I'd postulate that the set of people advocating diversity over monopolism, etc. is pretty much disjunct from the set applauding the US in this case, while both groups may have advocates in a completely different fields, like E-paper, or some such thing... One could ask why the anti-monopoly set isn't more vocal here. I assume they either think the topic's been done to death or favour another argumentative approach (not necessarily a better one, but different, just compare the structure of discussions on different topics). :-)
And, of course, there are still the wackos, Trolls, ACs and their ilk
* Yeah, I know, "I'm not"