Not that I support Intelligent Design (I think it's hokum, personally), but I can't help thinking this decision is politically-motivated. Doesn't mean it's not deserved, but it sure is convenient, coming on the heels of the ID court decision.
I think a well-planned project would account for typing issues. Not to mention, Python has that type() function to tell you exactly what a given variable is, so if you simply don't trust the input, you can figure out what it is programmatically.
Re:Semi-Off-Topic Python vs. Perl discussion
on
Guido Goes Google
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I can't speak for anyone else, but I did make the leap from perl to Python, and have no regrets.
I still use perl for quick-and-dirty text-processing and so forth, but Python is excellent for creating scripts you want to be able to maintain later. The syntax is sparse (compared to most other languages), so there isn't as much code to maintain. I found most of my favorite perl features were also represented (foreach, regular expressions, etc.)
People who've never spent much time with Python will gripe about the whitespace. It was never an issue for me, and I've never had problems with it.
If you plan to do any significant object-oriented programming, Python is very good for that. For procedural programs, the only edge it has over perl is readability, due to the concise syntax.
One thing to keep in mind with Python, however, is that it does NOT convert between numbers and strings automatically, while perl does. It's no big deal to cast a number as a str() or cast a string as int(), but if you don't know about it beforehand, it will get you.
From what I understand, Python is also very nice for metaprogramming, but I've never used it for that. I have used it for quick command-line utilities, GUI apps (with wxPython), and game programming. The object-oriented features are really why I prefer it over perl. They are intuitive, and you have a lot of power over how the objects behave in various circumstances.
If you have any C# experience, I've found you can port C# code to Python with only minor (mostly cosmetic) changes. (This obviously excludes using libraries written for C#, though--I was referring to the syntax of the code itself as being easily ported.)
Sorry if this explanation wasn't technical enough. I was just trying to lay out the general reasons I found a move from perl to Python relatively painless.
It's true. I have an Optiplex GX280 sitting right here, and it had the same problem. I had to throw out the Dell-provided mousepad and use a different one. The cursor still flies around suddenly, but it doesn't happen a lot. Fine movements are still very difficult, though--the cursor tends to wobble when I make slow, straight motions.
Empires fall for various reasons. Rome's collapse was due to insufficient technology for end-to-end communication, which is critical to an empire of that size. Its government also eliminated most incentives to join the military, while losing control of much of its military to individual commanders. This, combined with serious military pressure from nearby tribes, made their empire unsustainable.
Most other empires fell for similar reasons: lack of material resources, forces stretched too thinly, poor treatment of subjects leading to revolts, etc.
The US has worked around many of these issues. We don't need to be everywhere at once--we have created a system in which most of the planet is dependent on us. We prop up many regimes that would otherwise collapse, and that keeps them in our debt. The world buys our products, which we only really design and market--someone else builds them, and they know without us, they wouldn't have jobs. We employ a lot of foreigners in a lot of industries, and that obviously creates economic interdependence. Neither side would benefit if the relationship were severed.
We don't need to militarily dominate the planet. Our military is not terribly huge in terms of manpower per capita. But it's highly trained and technically advanced.
The world uses our currency to trade oil--which is the lifesblood of the industrial economy.
People wishing for the US to collapse are really wishing for the world economy to collapse.
All the above bothers me, because I don't like the world being so dependent on one single country. But that's how it is, and barring some horrible catastrophe, that's how it will be for the foreseeable future. Like it or not.
The US Department of Commerce specifically regulates what VeriSign can and can't do. For instance, they approve all new TLDs. Not sure how far their authority goes, but it seems to be pretty extensive.
This may be the single most short-sighted and ignorant post I have ever seen on Slashdot.
Al Qaeda does not blow shit up for "fun" or because it's "cool." They do it for many reasons, and these reasons are not difficult to comprehend. They attack in protest of America's support of Israel. They despise Israel for both occupying one of their holiest lands (Jerusalem) and for oppressing their brothers (the Palestinians.) Regardless of the political motivations involved in keeping the Palestinians as a stateless people, followers of al Qaeda do consider this a serious issue. Usama bin Laden's biggest stated issue is of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the Muslim holy land. He's said as much time and again.
Of course, the solution is not to give in, because the crimes have already been committed. We have already defiled their holy land, and have already supported Israel, and this will be used as continued justification for their attacks far into the future. There are two main problems, though, in combating terrorists like al Qaeda. The first is that we have no realistic win-win method for dealing with them. If we kill them, they're martyrs, and they only inspire more to join their cause. If we capture them, they don't care if they die or not, so the humiliation of captivity will drive them (more or less) to suicidal acts, and like-minded individuals will see it as further justification for more violence. If we do nothing, they will still seek to destroy us. The second problem is that they are not bound by any "rules of war" we try to observe. Their specialty is asymmetrical warfare. They cannot compete with us on grounds of technology or training, but they absolutely surpass us in the sheer gutsiness and spectacle of their attacks. It is difficult to fight someone who does not share your rules of engagement or care what government you represent. This is a major, major problem that people often fail to understand. Al Qaeda does not simply stand against the USA and our military. They stand against Western civilization itself. They do not want to endure cultural imperialism, and may see violence as the only means to hold it off. This is not as simple as Bush's claim that they "hate freedom." They do not share the same concepts of rights and freedoms as we do, but that does not make them bad people. That they kill civilians to achieve their ends makes them bad people.
Al Qaeda is only the tip of the iceberg as terrorism goes. We will never be able to defeat them or those like them as long as there is a division between Western civilization and the Islamic world. No amount of war will ever unite us, unless we simply kill them all. And if we can't kill them all, maybe it will suffice to conquer and demoralize them. And even that won't work for long.
The direct reply to my original post totally missed the point, I think. Obviously, climatologists have considered the overall impact of increased CO2 levels, but what I find bothersome is people who turn it into a political issue. Either rising CO2 levels are our fault or they aren't, but whose fault it is should not be a political issue. Unfortunately, it gets treated that way.
To the parent poster, I would say this: I doubt climatologists are idiots, but I cannot doubt that those who harp so seriously on the global warming issue are not politically motivated to do so.
I've seen some responses already that doubt global warming, which is good, and they're more articulate than usual.
Yes, global warming is real. Do we have anything to do with it? Probably not. Claims that our production of carbon dioxide will destroy life as we know it demonstrate ignorance of how the entire carbon cycle works. Plankton and plants absolutely THRIVE on carbon dioxide, and produce oxygen as waste. This is elementary school biology, folks.
The Earth will not bake us to oblivion, and we will not cause some horrific ice age. Things we DO need to be concerned about are ozone depletion and deforestation, because these directly affect the chemical cycle of this planet. The fact is, we simply don't know enough about the long-term trends of terrestrial climate to make credible doomsday scenarios. As it is, we are recovering from the "Little Ice Age," which means we're going to warm up. The planet has its own way of keeping the climate stable and self-sustaining. Thinking humans can make or break it is arrogant and egotistical, to say the least.
I am not a climatologist, but I wish people would avoid jumping onto bandwagons whose positions they have not examined with any depth.
US dollars do not fluctuate in value because of the quality of our workers. They fluctuate because of global oil prices.
On the world stage, there is no such thing as "fiat money"--money not backed by something tangible. Most money in the world is backed by gold, silver, or other precious metals. US dollars are, in a real sense, backed by oil. You can only buy oil globally with US dollars. No other currency is accepted. So, other nations have to buy US dollars in order to buy oil. As the price of oil increases, the value of a dollar decreases. It's simply inflation--your money can't buy you as much as it used to. Since other currencies tend to be based on goods with stable prices (by comparison), their values do not fluctuate so much.
Other factors affect exchange rates, but it must be pointed out that the value of US dollars is influenced primarily by oil prices. So, carry on...
Something most Americans do not seem to be aware of is that, up until the Civil War, it was relatively common for the government to essentially "kill" corporations that got out of hand. Each corporation was chartered in a state, and if a state did not like what a company was up to, they could revoke the charter, which made it impossible for the company to legally do business. During the Civil War, many large corporations used the chaos to buy immunity from what was basically a corporate death penalty.
Now, the idea seems absurd, since few suggest it anymore. But, as the parent said, companies exist on the basis of a social contract, that they will benefit and so will we. If society is actually harmed by a corporation's actions, it should not be allowed to exist, since that is a violation of that contract.
Something a few people mention but no one ever seems to get into their heads is that SMTP already accounts for most of the ways people can spam you. A decent MTA is supposed to strip off the domain name of the originating address and ask that server to verify that the user exists on the domain. For instance, if you receive a mail from me@mydomain.com, your MTA will ask mydomain.com if "me" is a real user there. If so, it next checks the sender's IP address--does the address match up to the same IP as the mail server? If not, the address is real, but was spoofed. Those two things right there--validating addresses and IPs--would eliminate the vast majority of spam. The only people who'd still be able to spam would be people who got a REAL email account on a REAL ISP and used that--and those are easily shut down.
I have not RTFA, but you touched on the nature of mitochondria...
It is generally believed that mitochondria used to be the anaerobic bacteria present on primordial Earth. As they discharged oxygen as a waste product, they basically filled the atmosphere full of a chemical they couldn't respirate at all. As aerobic bacteria arose to take advantage of the vast amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere, the anaerobics started dying off, and it is believed that some of them managed to establish symbiotic relationships with the aerobic bacteria, eventually being absorbed into a single organism. The anaerobic bacteria, as I recall, produce energy much more efficiently than aerobic bacteria, while the aerobic bacteria can provide the chemicals necessary for the reaction to the anaerobics within.
I Am Not A Molecular Biologist, so I may not be entirely accurate, but that is the best of my recollection.
Except in the US, corporations do have the same rights as individuals--including full Constitutional rights and everything else.
With our current civil court system, you can sue anyone for anything, and if you're a big enough company, you can just keep entering new evidence and wasting the court's time until your target--almost certainly not rolling in money--goes broke and decides to settle.
That is how this system is broken. People aren't getting locked up for infringing copyrights. They're being financially obliterated. One could argue over which is worse, but realistically, neither is acceptable punishment for the mere act of duplicating a copyrighted work.
Some had some interesting ideas, but they pretty much involved deliberately confusing any such equipment by switching from field to field, typing only a few characters at a time, choosing random insertion points, etc. So the logger would still get the data, but it would be in a nonsensical order.
Altogether, there is probably no 100% foolproof solution at this point in time. If someone besides you has physical access to the system, it's just not safe.
As others have pointed out, there really is no software solution to prevent keyloggers, because there are also hardware models you put on the keyboard port to intercept keystrokes before they even go to the PC. The only defense against those would be a visual check, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are even more sophisticated models that are harder to spot.
In an ideal world, no one would restrict your movement to any country of your choice. But this world is far from ideal.
I find it sad that people can't move freely about the globe despite the technology being readily available. People here complain about governments restricting technology all the time, but few ever mention how our methods of distance transportation are so heavily regulated and highly priced as to make them inaccessible to the vast majority of the world's population. Sure, you can go anywhere in the world you want, if you have enough money, and the target nation's government decides you should be allowed in.
(I am not talking about travel for purposes of tourism, either, but mostly in situations where people have good reason to want to flee their home country, but can't, due to oppression by their native regime and/or reluctance of other nations to grant them any sort of passage or asylum.)
Who gets to decide who is "supposed to" move from point A to point B? The government? Come on. No one has any right to tell you what countries you can or cannot go to. Beware of anyone who suggests otherwise.
I don't mind long-winded posts. I enjoy a good debate.:)
You bring up a lot of good points. I, personally, don't find anarchy a particularly bad end result of an AP system. But that's because I believe in moral autonomy and no government in the world respects moral autonomy, and it is unlikely any government ever *will* respect it, because that would mean giving up most of their powers.
I agree wholeheartedly that the two-party system is harmful to this country. I avoid voting for Democrats or Republicans out of principle. Too bad you can't put a vote *against* someone you particularly dislike. I think I might enjoy putting my votes toward keeping someone out of office than putting someone else in.
I imagine all the debate and wrangling in the world won't solve the heart of the problem--plain, ol' ignorance. It'd be nice if people paid attention to what the government is doing right under their noses. There is not much I can do about it, but at least I have *some* idea what's going on and can try to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. So, education is probably a much better solution than AP. As long as the education is not coming from the current public school system, anyway.
A few points to your responses... Also note I did not come up with the idea of AP. I am not so sure it would work. I just find it a fascinating idea and something people here might also be interested in at least as a thought exercise.
You're right, anyone could set up an AP pool. That has advantages and disadvantages. I'm sure nothing would stop large corporations from starting their own APs to shut down people they consider a threat to their agenda. And yeah, nothing would stop a company from bribing a supposedly public-friendly AP. The initial years of such a system would make or break it--either the ensuing chaos would result in a massive housecleaning of corrupt politicians and corporatists, or their iron hold on people's lives will become even stronger.
The system is certainly open to abuse, but probably no moreso than the present one. Since those donating money to the AP are anonymous, and even those running it could technically be anonymous, it makes it slightly more difficult to circumvent. The more money that gets involved, the more interested authorities would be in shutting it down. This would help to keep the systems underground and mostly out of the reach of corporations. Think of the way many sub/countercultures are now--tightly-knit, but powerful in their own right. APs would probably be dominated in the same way. There'd be one for every kind of person. I think of this as a strength rather than a weakness.
I admit I can't think of a truly effective way to keep corporate dollars from corrupting the system's intent. But, if such a system were established, a solution might arise. Since no system exists, it is impossible to know how it would be dealt with in advance.
There are lots of problems to be dealt with regarding an AP system, and I imagine it'll be a while before we see one, if ever. That may be a good thing or a bad thing. I am just proposing it as a potential tool against corruption, but it could just as easily be a tool *for* corruption.
Well, like I said, it depends on the good guys outnumbering the bad guys. If the bad guys are more willing to put up the money, then people will get the government they deserve.
Slashdot Mirror
Hm, maybe ID is right. Only a truly Intelligent Designer could create such stupid people.
Not that I support Intelligent Design (I think it's hokum, personally), but I can't help thinking this decision is politically-motivated. Doesn't mean it's not deserved, but it sure is convenient, coming on the heels of the ID court decision.
Aw, what do I know?
I think a well-planned project would account for typing issues. Not to mention, Python has that type() function to tell you exactly what a given variable is, so if you simply don't trust the input, you can figure out what it is programmatically.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I did make the leap from perl to Python, and have no regrets.
I still use perl for quick-and-dirty text-processing and so forth, but Python is excellent for creating scripts you want to be able to maintain later. The syntax is sparse (compared to most other languages), so there isn't as much code to maintain. I found most of my favorite perl features were also represented (foreach, regular expressions, etc.)
People who've never spent much time with Python will gripe about the whitespace. It was never an issue for me, and I've never had problems with it.
If you plan to do any significant object-oriented programming, Python is very good for that. For procedural programs, the only edge it has over perl is readability, due to the concise syntax.
One thing to keep in mind with Python, however, is that it does NOT convert between numbers and strings automatically, while perl does. It's no big deal to cast a number as a str() or cast a string as int(), but if you don't know about it beforehand, it will get you.
From what I understand, Python is also very nice for metaprogramming, but I've never used it for that. I have used it for quick command-line utilities, GUI apps (with wxPython), and game programming. The object-oriented features are really why I prefer it over perl. They are intuitive, and you have a lot of power over how the objects behave in various circumstances.
If you have any C# experience, I've found you can port C# code to Python with only minor (mostly cosmetic) changes. (This obviously excludes using libraries written for C#, though--I was referring to the syntax of the code itself as being easily ported.)
Sorry if this explanation wasn't technical enough. I was just trying to lay out the general reasons I found a move from perl to Python relatively painless.
It's true. I have an Optiplex GX280 sitting right here, and it had the same problem. I had to throw out the Dell-provided mousepad and use a different one. The cursor still flies around suddenly, but it doesn't happen a lot. Fine movements are still very difficult, though--the cursor tends to wobble when I make slow, straight motions.
Empires fall for various reasons. Rome's collapse was due to insufficient technology for end-to-end communication, which is critical to an empire of that size. Its government also eliminated most incentives to join the military, while losing control of much of its military to individual commanders. This, combined with serious military pressure from nearby tribes, made their empire unsustainable.
Most other empires fell for similar reasons: lack of material resources, forces stretched too thinly, poor treatment of subjects leading to revolts, etc.
The US has worked around many of these issues. We don't need to be everywhere at once--we have created a system in which most of the planet is dependent on us. We prop up many regimes that would otherwise collapse, and that keeps them in our debt. The world buys our products, which we only really design and market--someone else builds them, and they know without us, they wouldn't have jobs. We employ a lot of foreigners in a lot of industries, and that obviously creates economic interdependence. Neither side would benefit if the relationship were severed.
We don't need to militarily dominate the planet. Our military is not terribly huge in terms of manpower per capita. But it's highly trained and technically advanced.
The world uses our currency to trade oil--which is the lifesblood of the industrial economy.
People wishing for the US to collapse are really wishing for the world economy to collapse.
All the above bothers me, because I don't like the world being so dependent on one single country. But that's how it is, and barring some horrible catastrophe, that's how it will be for the foreseeable future. Like it or not.
The US Department of Commerce specifically regulates what VeriSign can and can't do. For instance, they approve all new TLDs. Not sure how far their authority goes, but it seems to be pretty extensive.
This may be the single most short-sighted and ignorant post I have ever seen on Slashdot.
Al Qaeda does not blow shit up for "fun" or because it's "cool." They do it for many reasons, and these reasons are not difficult to comprehend. They attack in protest of America's support of Israel. They despise Israel for both occupying one of their holiest lands (Jerusalem) and for oppressing their brothers (the Palestinians.) Regardless of the political motivations involved in keeping the Palestinians as a stateless people, followers of al Qaeda do consider this a serious issue. Usama bin Laden's biggest stated issue is of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the Muslim holy land. He's said as much time and again.
Of course, the solution is not to give in, because the crimes have already been committed. We have already defiled their holy land, and have already supported Israel, and this will be used as continued justification for their attacks far into the future. There are two main problems, though, in combating terrorists like al Qaeda. The first is that we have no realistic win-win method for dealing with them. If we kill them, they're martyrs, and they only inspire more to join their cause. If we capture them, they don't care if they die or not, so the humiliation of captivity will drive them (more or less) to suicidal acts, and like-minded individuals will see it as further justification for more violence. If we do nothing, they will still seek to destroy us. The second problem is that they are not bound by any "rules of war" we try to observe. Their specialty is asymmetrical warfare. They cannot compete with us on grounds of technology or training, but they absolutely surpass us in the sheer gutsiness and spectacle of their attacks. It is difficult to fight someone who does not share your rules of engagement or care what government you represent. This is a major, major problem that people often fail to understand. Al Qaeda does not simply stand against the USA and our military. They stand against Western civilization itself. They do not want to endure cultural imperialism, and may see violence as the only means to hold it off. This is not as simple as Bush's claim that they "hate freedom." They do not share the same concepts of rights and freedoms as we do, but that does not make them bad people. That they kill civilians to achieve their ends makes them bad people.
Al Qaeda is only the tip of the iceberg as terrorism goes. We will never be able to defeat them or those like them as long as there is a division between Western civilization and the Islamic world. No amount of war will ever unite us, unless we simply kill them all. And if we can't kill them all, maybe it will suffice to conquer and demoralize them. And even that won't work for long.
But we've already found it! And yes, I've been there.
The direct reply to my original post totally missed the point, I think. Obviously, climatologists have considered the overall impact of increased CO2 levels, but what I find bothersome is people who turn it into a political issue. Either rising CO2 levels are our fault or they aren't, but whose fault it is should not be a political issue. Unfortunately, it gets treated that way.
To the parent poster, I would say this: I doubt climatologists are idiots, but I cannot doubt that those who harp so seriously on the global warming issue are not politically motivated to do so.
I've seen some responses already that doubt global warming, which is good, and they're more articulate than usual.
Yes, global warming is real. Do we have anything to do with it? Probably not. Claims that our production of carbon dioxide will destroy life as we know it demonstrate ignorance of how the entire carbon cycle works. Plankton and plants absolutely THRIVE on carbon dioxide, and produce oxygen as waste. This is elementary school biology, folks.
The Earth will not bake us to oblivion, and we will not cause some horrific ice age. Things we DO need to be concerned about are ozone depletion and deforestation, because these directly affect the chemical cycle of this planet. The fact is, we simply don't know enough about the long-term trends of terrestrial climate to make credible doomsday scenarios. As it is, we are recovering from the "Little Ice Age," which means we're going to warm up. The planet has its own way of keeping the climate stable and self-sustaining. Thinking humans can make or break it is arrogant and egotistical, to say the least.
I am not a climatologist, but I wish people would avoid jumping onto bandwagons whose positions they have not examined with any depth.
US dollars do not fluctuate in value because of the quality of our workers. They fluctuate because of global oil prices.
On the world stage, there is no such thing as "fiat money"--money not backed by something tangible. Most money in the world is backed by gold, silver, or other precious metals. US dollars are, in a real sense, backed by oil. You can only buy oil globally with US dollars. No other currency is accepted. So, other nations have to buy US dollars in order to buy oil. As the price of oil increases, the value of a dollar decreases. It's simply inflation--your money can't buy you as much as it used to. Since other currencies tend to be based on goods with stable prices (by comparison), their values do not fluctuate so much.
Other factors affect exchange rates, but it must be pointed out that the value of US dollars is influenced primarily by oil prices. So, carry on...
Something most Americans do not seem to be aware of is that, up until the Civil War, it was relatively common for the government to essentially "kill" corporations that got out of hand. Each corporation was chartered in a state, and if a state did not like what a company was up to, they could revoke the charter, which made it impossible for the company to legally do business. During the Civil War, many large corporations used the chaos to buy immunity from what was basically a corporate death penalty.
Now, the idea seems absurd, since few suggest it anymore. But, as the parent said, companies exist on the basis of a social contract, that they will benefit and so will we. If society is actually harmed by a corporation's actions, it should not be allowed to exist, since that is a violation of that contract.
Something a few people mention but no one ever seems to get into their heads is that SMTP already accounts for most of the ways people can spam you. A decent MTA is supposed to strip off the domain name of the originating address and ask that server to verify that the user exists on the domain. For instance, if you receive a mail from me@mydomain.com, your MTA will ask mydomain.com if "me" is a real user there. If so, it next checks the sender's IP address--does the address match up to the same IP as the mail server? If not, the address is real, but was spoofed. Those two things right there--validating addresses and IPs--would eliminate the vast majority of spam. The only people who'd still be able to spam would be people who got a REAL email account on a REAL ISP and used that--and those are easily shut down.
I have not RTFA, but you touched on the nature of mitochondria...
It is generally believed that mitochondria used to be the anaerobic bacteria present on primordial Earth. As they discharged oxygen as a waste product, they basically filled the atmosphere full of a chemical they couldn't respirate at all. As aerobic bacteria arose to take advantage of the vast amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere, the anaerobics started dying off, and it is believed that some of them managed to establish symbiotic relationships with the aerobic bacteria, eventually being absorbed into a single organism. The anaerobic bacteria, as I recall, produce energy much more efficiently than aerobic bacteria, while the aerobic bacteria can provide the chemicals necessary for the reaction to the anaerobics within.
I Am Not A Molecular Biologist, so I may not be entirely accurate, but that is the best of my recollection.
Except in the US, corporations do have the same rights as individuals--including full Constitutional rights and everything else.
With our current civil court system, you can sue anyone for anything, and if you're a big enough company, you can just keep entering new evidence and wasting the court's time until your target--almost certainly not rolling in money--goes broke and decides to settle.
That is how this system is broken. People aren't getting locked up for infringing copyrights. They're being financially obliterated. One could argue over which is worse, but realistically, neither is acceptable punishment for the mere act of duplicating a copyrighted work.
And people who drive faster than the speed limit are often guilty of rape and murder!
Try again.
I've got a few.
"strcat() for Dummies" - Linux developers
"POSIX for Dummies" - LSB architects
"Making Money for Dummies" - Any Linux co.
Don't hate me for my cynicism!
Some had some interesting ideas, but they pretty much involved deliberately confusing any such equipment by switching from field to field, typing only a few characters at a time, choosing random insertion points, etc. So the logger would still get the data, but it would be in a nonsensical order.
Altogether, there is probably no 100% foolproof solution at this point in time. If someone besides you has physical access to the system, it's just not safe.
As others have pointed out, there really is no software solution to prevent keyloggers, because there are also hardware models you put on the keyboard port to intercept keystrokes before they even go to the PC. The only defense against those would be a visual check, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are even more sophisticated models that are harder to spot.
In an ideal world, no one would restrict your movement to any country of your choice. But this world is far from ideal.
I find it sad that people can't move freely about the globe despite the technology being readily available. People here complain about governments restricting technology all the time, but few ever mention how our methods of distance transportation are so heavily regulated and highly priced as to make them inaccessible to the vast majority of the world's population. Sure, you can go anywhere in the world you want, if you have enough money, and the target nation's government decides you should be allowed in.
(I am not talking about travel for purposes of tourism, either, but mostly in situations where people have good reason to want to flee their home country, but can't, due to oppression by their native regime and/or reluctance of other nations to grant them any sort of passage or asylum.)
Who gets to decide who is "supposed to" move from point A to point B? The government? Come on. No one has any right to tell you what countries you can or cannot go to. Beware of anyone who suggests otherwise.
I don't mind long-winded posts. I enjoy a good debate. :)
You bring up a lot of good points. I, personally, don't find anarchy a particularly bad end result of an AP system. But that's because I believe in moral autonomy and no government in the world respects moral autonomy, and it is unlikely any government ever *will* respect it, because that would mean giving up most of their powers.
I agree wholeheartedly that the two-party system is harmful to this country. I avoid voting for Democrats or Republicans out of principle. Too bad you can't put a vote *against* someone you particularly dislike. I think I might enjoy putting my votes toward keeping someone out of office than putting someone else in.
I imagine all the debate and wrangling in the world won't solve the heart of the problem--plain, ol' ignorance. It'd be nice if people paid attention to what the government is doing right under their noses. There is not much I can do about it, but at least I have *some* idea what's going on and can try to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. So, education is probably a much better solution than AP. As long as the education is not coming from the current public school system, anyway.
A few points to your responses... Also note I did not come up with the idea of AP. I am not so sure it would work. I just find it a fascinating idea and something people here might also be interested in at least as a thought exercise.
You're right, anyone could set up an AP pool. That has advantages and disadvantages. I'm sure nothing would stop large corporations from starting their own APs to shut down people they consider a threat to their agenda. And yeah, nothing would stop a company from bribing a supposedly public-friendly AP. The initial years of such a system would make or break it--either the ensuing chaos would result in a massive housecleaning of corrupt politicians and corporatists, or their iron hold on people's lives will become even stronger.
The system is certainly open to abuse, but probably no moreso than the present one. Since those donating money to the AP are anonymous, and even those running it could technically be anonymous, it makes it slightly more difficult to circumvent. The more money that gets involved, the more interested authorities would be in shutting it down. This would help to keep the systems underground and mostly out of the reach of corporations. Think of the way many sub/countercultures are now--tightly-knit, but powerful in their own right. APs would probably be dominated in the same way. There'd be one for every kind of person. I think of this as a strength rather than a weakness.
I admit I can't think of a truly effective way to keep corporate dollars from corrupting the system's intent. But, if such a system were established, a solution might arise. Since no system exists, it is impossible to know how it would be dealt with in advance.
There are lots of problems to be dealt with regarding an AP system, and I imagine it'll be a while before we see one, if ever. That may be a good thing or a bad thing. I am just proposing it as a potential tool against corruption, but it could just as easily be a tool *for* corruption.
Well, like I said, it depends on the good guys outnumbering the bad guys. If the bad guys are more willing to put up the money, then people will get the government they deserve.