To begin with, like many previous posts are stating, the FBI doesn't handle individual cases of home intrusion or even very small business intrusions.
The best place to call would be local law enforcement (eg. county or state). Depending on their practices, you may or may not get a response. However, the unfortunate reality is most law enforcement agencies are too understaffed and underfunded in their computer crimes departments to be able to give an effective response to individuals. This goes for organizations from the FBI all the way down to your local PD.
All of the money being currently allocated to cyber crime is more geared toward terrorism (Since that's the buzzword these days), or general attacks on public infrastructure, government and large businesses. Furthermore, attacks on individuals are so prolific that I don't think any PD would even know where to begin.
As if that wasn't enough, there is such a shortage of law enforcement professionals who understand and can perform an effective incident response, that even if such PDs and agencies had the cash, they couldn't hire many more quality people. The best security professionals often tend to make their way toward the private sector (Again serving big business or big government contracts) where they'll make real money.
Sadly, you're just not going to get much help these days from government. Someone earlier mentioned posting your problem on slashdot or somewhere else (Does anyone know of a good site to post for home incident response advice), and that's probably the best idea, because you're better off just defending yourself.
As a species we can't feed everyone.
Subsets of our species, or "cultures", routinely commit mass murder on each other.
We can't agree on how to govern ourselves.
We can't agree on what is right and what is wrong.
(Hell, I can't eat lunch without staining my cloths, but that's me.)
And we want to control the very evolution of all life on this planet to a level so minute that we can churn our new life forms in a matter of weeks with a machine that, and I quote the article, "Is like a word processor for DNA"!! LOL. Give me a break.
Does anyone here seriously think we will be able to do this responsibly? I mean, don't get me wrong, I sincerely hope we can, because it's going to happen whether we can or not. I love science, and I am all for expanding our knowledge and ability, but we need to have a reality check here. We are no more mature as a species than we were a couple thousand years ago. Yeah, we're more "advanced" now. We have cars and books. We have factories and airplanes. But we still have the same problems we've always had. We have the same famine, the same crime, the same war, for the same reasons.
I realize that the statement I am about to make is pure speculation, but think about it. If we continue to increase our technical abilities without increasing our WISDOM then we are seriously going to hurt ourselves.
It's like giving a 7 year old child the keys to your car. Sure he can get around better, but do you really think he won't crash?
I think we need to learn how to live with each other in a calm and rational manner. We need to learn how to control our own minds before we go creating new forms of life.
"There were thousands of years before that the world didn't collapse without the US's guidance."
Correct. There were thousands of years of wars, and just general violence and bloodshed (Not to mention the previous lack of women's rights, among many other unacceptable situations). It just so happened that during most of history nobody waging war had the power to destroy massive amounts of humans with a single action (ie. Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons). If someone had that power in the past, we might not be here now. Previously, in world history, other factors contributed to the fact that no dictator or tyrant could commit irreversable destruction of life. Now, they can.
Who's going to stop the next tyrant who obtains WMD from using them? Zimbabwe? Puerto Rico? No, either the U.S., France, Britain, Russia, China, or preferrably, the U.N. I just want somebody to ensure safety for the next generation of humanity.
We live in a global society, and like I said, I'd prefer that the U.N. be the moral authority. It should be a place where nations collaborate and decide what should be right and wrong for the world, and what should be left up to a particular societies disgression. Until an organization like the U.N. takes that leadership role, different societies are going to hate each other, and more importantly, act on that hate.
Now people keep mistaking me. I'm not saying that the United States is the moral authority. I'm saying that someone has to step up and take control of the chaos. Anybody who thinks there hasn't been a lot of chaos needs only read world history for the past century.
I'm also not saying that the U.S. is doing a good job of trying to bring a bit of order. We ARE being too selfish and self-centered. I'm also not recommending or claiming that a particular course of action be taken. I don't know what needs to be done. I just know that I don't feel like the world is a very safe place in general, and I am hoping that my country can get itself straight, and help out like we should.
When I said, "It's like we're the automatic moral authority," I was actually complaining about the fact that people seem to think that here. I wasn't making the statement myself. I am confused as to why people in my country feel that we are always the moral authority.
In general, I feel that this mindset is due to the fact that people don't bother to educate themselves, and they believe whatever the media and popular culture feeds them. So, no, I don't feel attacked by your comment. You just supported what I was thinking.
And yes, I do want people to like the U.S., and I want it them to like us for the correct reasons. I want my country to exercise good moral character when developing our foreign policy, which it doesn't do now.
Now I don't fully understand the U.S. sentiment because I am fairly uneducated in U.S. history and foreign policy. I am attempting to rememdy the situation. My post here helped me do exactly that. I put out the question of why, and I got the answer. Thank you.
sigh...I am certainly not well educated in history, and you make interesting points. I will look into the book, but it will probably fall behind the other 20 books already on my list that I don't have time to read.
I need to step off the planet for about 10 years, educate myself, and then come back to the discussion.
You're right, there aren't any magic solutions, and I think much of the sentiment against our country can be attributed to the causes that you listed.
I also think that it's obvious that some of our policies are misguided. Not that I could necessarily have made better decisions, were I the one in power, I'm only in my mid-20's and I really don't know anything.
The question is where to begin. If everyone did simple things like purchase fuel efficient cars, the demand for petroleum would be lower, as would the prices and profit. That would in turn reduce our dependancy on other countries for it, and put less pressure on our representatives to act in our petroleum interests!
But people here don't want to sacrifice such parts of their lifestyle for the greater good. "With great power comes great responsiblity." As a powerful nation, people are going to scrutinize us, and dislike us. All the more reason to be morally upright.
As a "superpower" or whatever, it is our responsibility to guide the rest of the world, and to make sure that lunatics don't build nuclear bombs, or whatever. Like you said, isolationism didn't work. If we are going to take a leadership role, as we are trying to do, our policies have to follow good moral standards. I know we can't please everybody, but I don't think we're compromising enough.
"We can't. Even if we became a totalitarian regime, the country is just too big, we don't have the money, and it would disrupt our infrastructure too badly."
This statement is one of the things that is frustrating me. I totally agree with you in the sense that attacking the symptons is not going to help us if sources of our conflict continue without attention.
However, I think tackling some of the problems at the source of our conflicts is just as daunting as patching the holes. I think the mental state of most of the population of our country needs to be changed. The government will not be accountable and responsible until we make it so, plain and simple, and that is a huge undertaking.
Furthermore, I think some holes can be patched. If those in power exercised a little common sense, than certain things could be avoided without major rights violations. I think the idea of Homeland Security is a good one, in as much as it will allow our security organizations to share information and be more effective, but I just think the government goes too far in this pursuit (ie. TIA). And the task is not easy. As the article states, trying to balance openness and the release of potentially dangerous technology (A.I.) is a legitimate problem. Ugh, I wouldn't know where to begin.
The trend is disturbing, and in one specific sense I think you're right. They're trying to patch holes, or alleviate symptons, instead of attacking the source of the problem. Is anyone in government asking what the source is?
If a bunch of people are out to get the U.S., then why are they doing it? With all the anti-U.S. sentiment that I hear in some discussion groups, are we doing something wrong?
It's not that we shouldn't patch holes in our security, because we should. It just seems to me that nobody is addressing the policies of our country which have made us a target. Maybe we're doing something wrong, and maybe we're not, but nobody in the government is bothering to ask.
It's like we're the automatic moral authority.
The strong aversion you are referring to is mostly plain fear. People tend to react with fear to something that will fundamentally change their life or paradigm, especially something they do not understand, and most people do not understand cloning any further than the image portayed by popular culture. And while most people are not versed on the implications of the technology, I think they can understand, at least on some level, that it would bring very drastic changes to the way we live. That invokes fear. I know that at least for me personally, the more I dwell on the idea, the more tentative I become, sometimes for no reason that I can articulate.
Much of society's fear probably stems from the idea of what harm this technology could do, if abused, and from the broader standpoint of genetic technology, the potential for harm is significant. We are talking about the ability to control our own genetic recipe, and through that, our own evolution in a sense. I don't think the average person trusts those that have the ability to use this technology to use it in an ethical manner. I know that I don't.
Furthermore, per the comments in your first post, the majority of the world will react negatively to human cloning based on religious principles. After all, most of the world is still religious.
It is my opinion that the points above are the major basis for contention. It is unlikely that the average person could point out an actual logical argument, based on accepted premises, against cloning from any moral standpoint other than religion. If you are seeking such an argument, you had best consult a philopher, or bioethicist, as those are the only people who think about it at that level.
I know that I personally operate from a relativistic moral standpoint. Society basically determines the moral tenants by which we must operate (Or leave or be punished if caught not doing so). If society decides that the technology is repugnant, than it is, until some person or group is successful in changing the popular opinion. From this standpoint, there is no absolute moral "grade" for cloning.
First, begin with the premise that most societies hold human life to be relatively "sacred", in the sense that each person in a society has certain rights. In the medical world, this tenant results in certain rules, such as the fact that a new medical procedure or drug must be experimented with on other species before human testing is allowed.
Now apply that general idea to human cloning. In its current state, cloning is an extremely inexact science, where the failure rate is very, very high (I would define failure as the creation of a human in any other form than what is considered "healthy" by society's standards, ie. no genetic abnormalities, etc.) Most attempts at cloning result in a genetically deformed organism. When we start trying to clone humans, and the result of most of our attempts is a genetically deformed human, I think it is obvious why cloning, in its current state is wrong.
I think that the argument of most of the scientific community is that cloning may not be wrong in principle, but is currently immoral because of the danger of creating a damaged human life. If the FDA applied the same rules to cloning as it does to every other medical procedure, would the state of the technology be such that test of cloning on humans would be acceptable? Most definitely not.
I would have to think more about the principle of cloning to discuss the morality of it in that light.
I'd try not to think of it as playing God. The ability to manipulate genetics is present and viable. Given that fact, there are two possible choices to prevent the disasters of which science fiction authors such as Mary Shelley speak.
We can ban such work, or regulate it.
I think most people would agree that a ban on genetic experimentation such as cloning would probably be impossible. What we need to realize is that our abilities as a species have already grown to the point where we are a significant danger to ourselves. There must be a constant open dialogue about technologies such as genetics, and the ethical implications of their use. Those dialogues should then be used to establish international regulation on the technology.
A prime example of how this is being attempted is with a more mature, dangerous technology, nuclear power/weapons. There are international treaties and regulations on the use of nuclear technology. Unfortunately, the international bodies responsible for enforcing such regulations and agreements are ineffective (ie. N. Korea's re-activation of their nuclear plants.
Groups like this must be controlled, even if they operate across international borders.
We can already splice gene sequences from one species into another. To my knowledge that has not been done with humans, but if we allow rogue groups like this to do whatever they want, what's to stop them from combining genes from another species with a cloned human, to further their own ends?
We are verging on the ability to control our own evolution, or the here-to-fore random genetic changes which have characterized the development of all known life during the course of all known time on earth, and we are leaving it to the Raelians. Off-the-wall organizations such as the Raelians, which operate without respect for proper scientific method and basic ethics, cannot be allowed to pursue this line of experimentation. The stakes are too high.
Slashdot Mirror
To begin with, like many previous posts are stating, the FBI doesn't handle individual cases of home intrusion or even very small business intrusions.
The best place to call would be local law enforcement (eg. county or state). Depending on their practices, you may or may not get a response. However, the unfortunate reality is most law enforcement agencies are too understaffed and underfunded in their computer crimes departments to be able to give an effective response to individuals. This goes for organizations from the FBI all the way down to your local PD.
All of the money being currently allocated to cyber crime is more geared toward terrorism (Since that's the buzzword these days), or general attacks on public infrastructure, government and large businesses. Furthermore, attacks on individuals are so prolific that I don't think any PD would even know where to begin.
As if that wasn't enough, there is such a shortage of law enforcement professionals who understand and can perform an effective incident response, that even if such PDs and agencies had the cash, they couldn't hire many more quality people. The best security professionals often tend to make their way toward the private sector (Again serving big business or big government contracts) where they'll make real money.
Sadly, you're just not going to get much help these days from government. Someone earlier mentioned posting your problem on slashdot or somewhere else (Does anyone know of a good site to post for home incident response advice), and that's probably the best idea, because you're better off just defending yourself.
Let me get this straight.
As a species we can't feed everyone.
Subsets of our species, or "cultures", routinely commit mass murder on each other.
We can't agree on how to govern ourselves.
We can't agree on what is right and what is wrong.
(Hell, I can't eat lunch without staining my cloths, but that's me.)
And we want to control the very evolution of all life on this planet to a level so minute that we can churn our new life forms in a matter of weeks with a machine that, and I quote the article, "Is like a word processor for DNA"!! LOL. Give me a break.
Does anyone here seriously think we will be able to do this responsibly? I mean, don't get me wrong, I sincerely hope we can, because it's going to happen whether we can or not. I love science, and I am all for expanding our knowledge and ability, but we need to have a reality check here. We are no more mature as a species than we were a couple thousand years ago. Yeah, we're more "advanced" now. We have cars and books. We have factories and airplanes. But we still have the same problems we've always had. We have the same famine, the same crime, the same war, for the same reasons.
I realize that the statement I am about to make is pure speculation, but think about it. If we continue to increase our technical abilities without increasing our WISDOM then we are seriously going to hurt ourselves. It's like giving a 7 year old child the keys to your car. Sure he can get around better, but do you really think he won't crash?
I think we need to learn how to live with each other in a calm and rational manner. We need to learn how to control our own minds before we go creating new forms of life.
"There were thousands of years before that the world didn't collapse without the US's guidance."
Correct. There were thousands of years of wars, and just general violence and bloodshed (Not to mention the previous lack of women's rights, among many other unacceptable situations). It just so happened that during most of history nobody waging war had the power to destroy massive amounts of humans with a single action (ie. Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons). If someone had that power in the past, we might not be here now. Previously, in world history, other factors contributed to the fact that no dictator or tyrant could commit irreversable destruction of life. Now, they can.
Who's going to stop the next tyrant who obtains WMD from using them? Zimbabwe? Puerto Rico? No, either the U.S., France, Britain, Russia, China, or preferrably, the U.N. I just want somebody to ensure safety for the next generation of humanity.
We live in a global society, and like I said, I'd prefer that the U.N. be the moral authority. It should be a place where nations collaborate and decide what should be right and wrong for the world, and what should be left up to a particular societies disgression. Until an organization like the U.N. takes that leadership role, different societies are going to hate each other, and more importantly, act on that hate.
Now people keep mistaking me. I'm not saying that the United States is the moral authority. I'm saying that someone has to step up and take control of the chaos. Anybody who thinks there hasn't been a lot of chaos needs only read world history for the past century.
I'm also not saying that the U.S. is doing a good job of trying to bring a bit of order. We ARE being too selfish and self-centered. I'm also not recommending or claiming that a particular course of action be taken. I don't know what needs to be done. I just know that I don't feel like the world is a very safe place in general, and I am hoping that my country can get itself straight, and help out like we should.
When I said, "It's like we're the automatic moral authority," I was actually complaining about the fact that people seem to think that here. I wasn't making the statement myself. I am confused as to why people in my country feel that we are always the moral authority.
In general, I feel that this mindset is due to the fact that people don't bother to educate themselves, and they believe whatever the media and popular culture feeds them. So, no, I don't feel attacked by your comment. You just supported what I was thinking.
And yes, I do want people to like the U.S., and I want it them to like us for the correct reasons. I want my country to exercise good moral character when developing our foreign policy, which it doesn't do now.
Now I don't fully understand the U.S. sentiment because I am fairly uneducated in U.S. history and foreign policy. I am attempting to rememdy the situation. My post here helped me do exactly that. I put out the question of why, and I got the answer. Thank you.
sigh...I am certainly not well educated in history, and you make interesting points. I will look into the book, but it will probably fall behind the other 20 books already on my list that I don't have time to read.
I need to step off the planet for about 10 years, educate myself, and then come back to the discussion.
You're right, there aren't any magic solutions, and I think much of the sentiment against our country can be attributed to the causes that you listed.
I also think that it's obvious that some of our policies are misguided. Not that I could necessarily have made better decisions, were I the one in power, I'm only in my mid-20's and I really don't know anything.
The question is where to begin. If everyone did simple things like purchase fuel efficient cars, the demand for petroleum would be lower, as would the prices and profit. That would in turn reduce our dependancy on other countries for it, and put less pressure on our representatives to act in our petroleum interests!
But people here don't want to sacrifice such parts of their lifestyle for the greater good. "With great power comes great responsiblity." As a powerful nation, people are going to scrutinize us, and dislike us. All the more reason to be morally upright.
As a "superpower" or whatever, it is our responsibility to guide the rest of the world, and to make sure that lunatics don't build nuclear bombs, or whatever. Like you said, isolationism didn't work. If we are going to take a leadership role, as we are trying to do, our policies have to follow good moral standards. I know we can't please everybody, but I don't think we're compromising enough.
"We can't. Even if we became a totalitarian regime, the country is just too big, we don't have the money, and it would disrupt our infrastructure too badly."
This statement is one of the things that is frustrating me. I totally agree with you in the sense that attacking the symptons is not going to help us if sources of our conflict continue without attention.
However, I think tackling some of the problems at the source of our conflicts is just as daunting as patching the holes. I think the mental state of most of the population of our country needs to be changed. The government will not be accountable and responsible until we make it so, plain and simple, and that is a huge undertaking.
Furthermore, I think some holes can be patched. If those in power exercised a little common sense, than certain things could be avoided without major rights violations. I think the idea of Homeland Security is a good one, in as much as it will allow our security organizations to share information and be more effective, but I just think the government goes too far in this pursuit (ie. TIA). And the task is not easy. As the article states, trying to balance openness and the release of potentially dangerous technology (A.I.) is a legitimate problem. Ugh, I wouldn't know where to begin.
The trend is disturbing, and in one specific sense I think you're right. They're trying to patch holes, or alleviate symptons, instead of attacking the source of the problem. Is anyone in government asking what the source is?
If a bunch of people are out to get the U.S., then why are they doing it? With all the anti-U.S. sentiment that I hear in some discussion groups, are we doing something wrong?
It's not that we shouldn't patch holes in our security, because we should. It just seems to me that nobody is addressing the policies of our country which have made us a target. Maybe we're doing something wrong, and maybe we're not, but nobody in the government is bothering to ask.
It's like we're the automatic moral authority.
The strong aversion you are referring to is mostly plain fear. People tend to react with fear to something that will fundamentally change their life or paradigm, especially something they do not understand, and most people do not understand cloning any further than the image portayed by popular culture. And while most people are not versed on the implications of the technology, I think they can understand, at least on some level, that it would bring very drastic changes to the way we live. That invokes fear. I know that at least for me personally, the more I dwell on the idea, the more tentative I become, sometimes for no reason that I can articulate.
Much of society's fear probably stems from the idea of what harm this technology could do, if abused, and from the broader standpoint of genetic technology, the potential for harm is significant. We are talking about the ability to control our own genetic recipe, and through that, our own evolution in a sense. I don't think the average person trusts those that have the ability to use this technology to use it in an ethical manner. I know that I don't.
Furthermore, per the comments in your first post, the majority of the world will react negatively to human cloning based on religious principles. After all, most of the world is still religious.
It is my opinion that the points above are the major basis for contention. It is unlikely that the average person could point out an actual logical argument, based on accepted premises, against cloning from any moral standpoint other than religion. If you are seeking such an argument, you had best consult a philopher, or bioethicist, as those are the only people who think about it at that level.
I know that I personally operate from a relativistic moral standpoint. Society basically determines the moral tenants by which we must operate (Or leave or be punished if caught not doing so). If society decides that the technology is repugnant, than it is, until some person or group is successful in changing the popular opinion. From this standpoint, there is no absolute moral "grade" for cloning.
First, begin with the premise that most societies hold human life to be relatively "sacred", in the sense that each person in a society has certain rights. In the medical world, this tenant results in certain rules, such as the fact that a new medical procedure or drug must be experimented with on other species before human testing is allowed.
Now apply that general idea to human cloning. In its current state, cloning is an extremely inexact science, where the failure rate is very, very high (I would define failure as the creation of a human in any other form than what is considered "healthy" by society's standards, ie. no genetic abnormalities, etc.) Most attempts at cloning result in a genetically deformed organism. When we start trying to clone humans, and the result of most of our attempts is a genetically deformed human, I think it is obvious why cloning, in its current state is wrong.
I think that the argument of most of the scientific community is that cloning may not be wrong in principle, but is currently immoral because of the danger of creating a damaged human life. If the FDA applied the same rules to cloning as it does to every other medical procedure, would the state of the technology be such that test of cloning on humans would be acceptable? Most definitely not.
I would have to think more about the principle of cloning to discuss the morality of it in that light.
I'd try not to think of it as playing God. The ability to manipulate genetics is present and viable. Given that fact, there are two possible choices to prevent the disasters of which science fiction authors such as Mary Shelley speak.
We can ban such work, or regulate it.
I think most people would agree that a ban on genetic experimentation such as cloning would probably be impossible. What we need to realize is that our abilities as a species have already grown to the point where we are a significant danger to ourselves. There must be a constant open dialogue about technologies such as genetics, and the ethical implications of their use. Those dialogues should then be used to establish international regulation on the technology.
A prime example of how this is being attempted is with a more mature, dangerous technology, nuclear power/weapons. There are international treaties and regulations on the use of nuclear technology. Unfortunately, the international bodies responsible for enforcing such regulations and agreements are ineffective (ie. N. Korea's re-activation of their nuclear plants.
Ok, I've rambled enough.
Groups like this must be controlled, even if they operate across international borders. We can already splice gene sequences from one species into another. To my knowledge that has not been done with humans, but if we allow rogue groups like this to do whatever they want, what's to stop them from combining genes from another species with a cloned human, to further their own ends? We are verging on the ability to control our own evolution, or the here-to-fore random genetic changes which have characterized the development of all known life during the course of all known time on earth, and we are leaving it to the Raelians. Off-the-wall organizations such as the Raelians, which operate without respect for proper scientific method and basic ethics, cannot be allowed to pursue this line of experimentation. The stakes are too high.