People are allowed to talk about anything they want. They just can't force others to act according to whatever f#$@ed opinion of what is moral. Morality can only be the rules one sets for oneself. Don't confuse moral and ethical.
The "community" is a group of willing participants (as in Slashdot or your local street). The WILLINGNESS to participate to participate in community activities is not indicated by presense in the community but by taking active steps to participate in the said activities. There is nothing childish about not wanting to be forced to do things you don't want to do. If the "community" at large starts to disagree with what I do with some of the members of the community (e.g., play video games, have an orgy, etc.) the community should realize that just because it's not their cup of tea, that does not mean it shouldn't be mine. In a lawful society it will bud out. In a dictatorship, it will have the power to stop others from doing things that don't harm it. You mischaracterize forcing me to do something as "disagreeing". Disagreeing is having a different opinion -- it is not forcing others to act according to your opinion.
You'll be happy to know that your advice has been taken by many an artist already. That's why Japanese anime is so much better than American. It's full of sexuality and violence. And because it is artfully incorporated into the anime it is of better quality. But you can't produce these kinds of products in America without paying heed to the gods of the think-of-the-children nonsense. So in the area of anime, we are just left behind. That JG has left. We all pay the price.
Legitimizing those who would oppress you by having a "conversation" with them is no solution either. By acknoledging them as a force of civilized society rather than as bullies who showed to a school-yard fight would, in fact, legitimize them. Sometimes you have to take a stand against the forces of that would oppose freedom. This must be fought with the war tactics. When your enemy is stronger than you, evade him (Sun Tzu). Sell them from outside the country, if you have to. Fight them in court, if you can. But do not try to convince them that you are not a good target. That train has left the station when you became successful. Either welcome your new overlords, or fight them. So far (intentionally or not) they have taken a step towards a fight. I repeat myself, kudos to them.
Well, since we are down to the "screw this and screw that". I'll join in. Screw your community. I am an individual and I don't care what your community says I should do with my life as long as I am not hurting anyone. And if you show up at my door and DEMAND me to be your keeper, expect to get shot. If you don't like violent games, don't let your kids buy it. Same goes for porn.
You will be looted because you have something to loot. Kudos for them on ignoring those who contribute nothing and yet seek to control the product of their minds.
Clearly, I was much too tired when I wrote this. You got the acronym
that I meant to say just right. IANAL.
Having said that, I would say that Fallwell vs. Hustler doesn't
even need to apply. Because to sue for libel, one has to show
that the statement is libelous. For that, it has to be defamatory.
If calling someone a lesbian is a BAD THING (TM), then it's a bad
thing whether they are, in fact, a lesbian or not. But that would
require proving that being a lesbian is a bad thing. Would she be
any less qualified for her profession as a lesbian? Surely, we can
agree that homosexuals cannot be disqualified from holding public
positions. If fake page claimed that she was a pedophile, that
would be a different story.
But if we must insist that, in itself, being a lesbian is a BAD THING,
then I would still insist that Fallwell vs. Hustler applies. The student
did not insist that the administrator is a lesbian after the student was discovered. So clearly,
the page was meant to be humorous. To say that a reasonable person would not
be able to tell whether this was real or not is tentamount to saying that the
joke was not sufficiently blown out of proportion. This, of course, is a
subjective artistic-value call. And people attempting to ridicule public figures should not be put in the position of expecting to have a judicial review of the artistic value of their mockery.
A principal in a public school is a public figure. For these kids he/she is a person of authority. It sounds more like they were making a misguided attempt at political mockery. How is this not protected by the Flynt vs. Falwell? Especially,
since the administrator is suing the parents. School have the right to regulate
student's speech. But if they admit (as they do by suing the parents) that in this case the children were under assumed supervision of the parents, they relinquish the authority over them in the educator/minor context. So the only relationship between the administrator and the children is that of citizen and another citizen. As such,
mocking public officials by making obsene statements about them is protected speech.
AMNAL
With readership around three quarters of a million and influence on the opinions much stronger than any party affiliation, it is hard to argue that slashdot has no voice in deciding elections. Remember that it is ran by less than a dozen editors who decide on all the story and all of a sudden you realize that if they can manage to get people to vote they are likely to vote their way. Could this be a beginning of a Technocrats party?
It all depends on whether they entered into a real world contract before playing the game. Roulette is a game, but you can loose real world "stuff" in it. And real world contracts are enforceable by real world governments.
Are we under attack? Moon is soveign US territory (we planted the flag first -- end of story). Is this the first wave of attack? Are we not going to respond? Anyone know the scoop? Is Christiane Amanpour on her way to the moon?
Wouldn't anyone ambitious enough to look for others' customer service experience just google first? If there something to vent about, someone has already done it on the web.
It would never to be a proxy US state. They have more educated people than the ENTIRE middle east. If Israel had Oil reserves, it would be richer than Japan.
Seriously, how often do you meet an average person who's even heard of a Field's medal (say vs the people who've heard of the Nobel)? But now that this story is all over the place, the words Field's medal will enter common vernacular again. BTW, if you read carefully, it sounds like Andrei Okounkov's work is the most interesting of all the nominees. He tied together "Probability" (<intended pun>probably</intended pun> meaning measure theory), representation theory and algebraic geometry. This is about as cool as cool can get in math.
The mediocracy is marching on. There is no inate talent. There is only prespiration. Just look at
Edison. Forget the nature vs. nurture debate, take your pet dog and train him A LOT and really well
and he'll be the next genius physicist. Because genetics have nothing to do with it. Never mind, that good eye-hand coordination makes people good artists without even trying. Never mind that Gauss spotted a (later to be called) gaussian sum without ever learning anything about it. Never mind that Mozart could play at -- the age when most people (not for a lack of their parents trying) cannot put together a sentence. How about recognizing that certain people could have slight... tiny really variations in their brains that give the ability to take the most advantage of great training. How about not trying to make social theories from a few statistical experiments on individuals? How about recognizing geniuses as better people rather than as nerds, geaks, freaks, or whatever other ways we choose to ostricize them that ends up discouraging them from receiving that better training that would allow them to improve the world and the lives of all of us? Why must we fear the brilliant instead of being inspired by them?
They are synonymous. US VP's power is limited to breaking ties in case of a 50-50 Senate
vote.... and to cheerleading. The president of Iran is just a cheerleader.
I still think that he is in the position he is in because he was put there. He might be a good orator, but
that is why is allowed to orate. All that makes him is a very good press secretary. We should put the
blame where it belongs -- the regime. By going after the joker the press only gives the Ayatolahs a free hand.
Like I said, Palestinians are a different issue. You can argue that one either way. So I don't
think I have to address your June 23rd, June 24th, June 27th and June 28th comments. Israel-Palestine
conflict is incredibly convoluted. Honestly, I feel sorry for both people on that one.
As for the other points, let's see... you seem to rely on vagaries too much. Which makes me think
you are taking a side and refusing to be objective. More specifically, where is the May 23rd info from?
How is May 26th info related to Israel? I understand the reasons for suspicion... even for a strong
suspicion, but without direct tie (like for instance killing of soldiers or civilians by a known
source) this is at best a well-disguised espionage operation -- not an act of war. May 28th recount
does indeed support your point that hostilities were happening on the border, but again the initiator
of acts of war (the party WAGING the war) seems to be Hizbolah. I don't see how the Hizbolah (a shiite
group) was forced to act from Lebanese terriotory to support Hamas (a suni group). So I really don't see
the logic in the "Early July" comment. I also don't see why you downplay Isaeli casulty numbers instead
of 8 soldiers killed (the widely accepted number) you claim 3 and instead of 2 soldiers kidnapped (also
a widely accpeted number) you claim 1.
It seems clear that you want to make a situation more vague than it really is. There is really no question
about the fact that Isael withdrew from Lebanon and didn't want to have anything more to do with it.
It is also clear (a fact that you don't seem to mention in your timeline even though you do bring unrelated
issues like Palestine) that this occured at the time when the international community was considering
sanctioning Iran for its neuclear research. So Iran had the motif, the means and it saw an opportunity.
A soldier who participated in the operation (after being captured) confessed to being trained in Iran. How
is this anything but Iran using its proxy to wage war against an American proxy to divert attention?
I think you are confusing the concepts of "fighting" a war and "waging" a war. Shooting back
is not waging a war. While you can easily argue on either side of the palestinian question when
discussing Israel, there is no doubt that this Lebanon-Israel war was waged by Hizbulah. Israel
was at peace with Lebanon until Hizbulah crossed the border and killed 8 soldier and kidnapped 2.
That was clearly an act of war. So you can't say that Israel "waged" this war. It did fight it
with a lot of American help though. But the original discussion talked about Iran helping
to "wage" wars -- not helping to fight them.
This guy has NO power. He is there to be a colorful distraction from
the guy who really controls the country. His power is a little less
than that of a US VP. He just happens to say outrageous things and
the media eats it up instead of reporting on the real problems that
are caused by the people actually running Iran -- the religious military
dictatorship with the Ayatolla at its lead.
What's the point of interviewing a jokester and asking him what his
vision is when his vision has as much to do with the running of the
country as that of a press-secretary. The guy likes writting letters.
That's why he was allowed to run for this postion. And, since he
was the only one really allowed to run, he won. He is not the modern
day Hitler. Hitler was a power-hungry maniac. This guy has no power.
He just thinks he is so eloquent that he can convince people that black
is white. Noone with guns in Iran reports to him. So he is irrelevant.
It doesn't matter if it makes you angry or what consequences this will have. This is results of a
scientific research. Although... I have a neuroscientist sitting next to me right now... and her
only comment on all statiscs-based brain research is a loud pfff.
Efficiency only flourishes when resources are scarce. When resources become more abundant
those able to prolifirate faster do better than those able to utilize resources more
efficiently.
This is why stupid people do better when there is more food to go around and this is why lower
life forms do better when the water is warm -- there is more energy available.
I tend to stay very polite when it comes to discussions with strangers, but your argument
is complete asinine.
Working for a company that harms its customes harms, its industry and
generally "doesn't get it" makes one part of an organization that harms people, harms an industry
and tries to influence events it doesn't understand. If such people are stopped in their tracks
when they do that that's a GOOD THING. The fact that they were making a living at it is a
BAD THING.
Working at AOL must mean suspending one's sense of decency. One should not feel sorry for
the people who suffer the consequences of suspending their sense of decency. As a matter of fact
one should feel joy at the suffering of people who were part of an organization causing harm of
the people who did not cause them harm.
So we, hereby, are expressing that joy. Clear enough now?
Well, I am all for "deciding which systems to adopt as your own". What I object to is "how about figuring it out for yourself". The subtle but important difference is that the first one allows for "eclecticism" (mentioned in one of the other replies by someone more educated than I am), while the second implies (for all intents and purposes dictates) rejection of ideas that come from others. BTW, the second is, in fact, more consistant with the original greek definition of Cynics. An as I tried to explain before, it generally would lead to not availing oneself of creative solutions that other have already thought of and one may not come across when considering the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
People are allowed to talk about anything they want. They just can't force others to act according to whatever f#$@ed opinion of what is moral. Morality can only be the rules one sets for oneself. Don't confuse moral and ethical.
The "community" is a group of willing participants (as in Slashdot or your local street). The WILLINGNESS to participate to participate in community activities is not indicated by presense in the community but by taking active steps to participate in the said activities. There is nothing childish about not wanting to be forced to do things you don't want to do. If the "community" at large starts to disagree with what I do with some of the members of the community (e.g., play video games, have an orgy, etc.) the community should realize that just because it's not their cup of tea, that does not mean it shouldn't be mine. In a lawful society it will bud out. In a dictatorship, it will have the power to stop others from doing things that don't harm it. You mischaracterize forcing me to do something as "disagreeing". Disagreeing is having a different opinion -- it is not forcing others to act according to your opinion.
You'll be happy to know that your advice has been taken by many an artist already. That's why Japanese anime is so much better than American. It's full of sexuality and violence. And because it is artfully incorporated into the anime it is of better quality. But you can't produce these kinds of products in America without paying heed to the gods of the think-of-the-children nonsense. So in the area of anime, we are just left behind. That JG has left. We all pay the price.
Legitimizing those who would oppress you by having a "conversation" with them is no solution either. By acknoledging them as a force of civilized society rather than as bullies who showed to a school-yard fight would, in fact, legitimize them. Sometimes you have to take a stand against the forces of that would oppose freedom. This must be fought with the war tactics. When your enemy is stronger than you, evade him (Sun Tzu). Sell them from outside the country, if you have to. Fight them in court, if you can. But do not try to convince them that you are not a good target. That train has left the station when you became successful. Either welcome your new overlords, or fight them. So far (intentionally or not) they have taken a step towards a fight. I repeat myself, kudos to them.
Well, since we are down to the "screw this and screw that". I'll join in. Screw your community. I am an individual and I don't care what your community says I should do with my life as long as I am not hurting anyone. And if you show up at my door and DEMAND me to be your keeper, expect to get shot. If you don't like violent games, don't let your kids buy it. Same goes for porn.
You will be looted because you have something to loot. Kudos for them on ignoring those who contribute nothing and yet seek to control the product of their minds.
Clearly, I was much too tired when I wrote this. You got the acronym that I meant to say just right. IANAL.
Having said that, I would say that Fallwell vs. Hustler doesn't even need to apply. Because to sue for libel, one has to show that the statement is libelous. For that, it has to be defamatory. If calling someone a lesbian is a BAD THING (TM), then it's a bad thing whether they are, in fact, a lesbian or not. But that would require proving that being a lesbian is a bad thing. Would she be any less qualified for her profession as a lesbian? Surely, we can agree that homosexuals cannot be disqualified from holding public positions. If fake page claimed that she was a pedophile, that would be a different story.
But if we must insist that, in itself, being a lesbian is a BAD THING, then I would still insist that Fallwell vs. Hustler applies. The student did not insist that the administrator is a lesbian after the student was discovered. So clearly, the page was meant to be humorous. To say that a reasonable person would not be able to tell whether this was real or not is tentamount to saying that the joke was not sufficiently blown out of proportion. This, of course, is a subjective artistic-value call. And people attempting to ridicule public figures should not be put in the position of expecting to have a judicial review of the artistic value of their mockery.
A principal in a public school is a public figure. For these kids he/she is a person of authority. It sounds more like they were making a misguided attempt at political mockery. How is this not protected by the Flynt vs. Falwell? Especially, since the administrator is suing the parents. School have the right to regulate student's speech. But if they admit (as they do by suing the parents) that in this case the children were under assumed supervision of the parents, they relinquish the authority over them in the educator/minor context. So the only relationship between the administrator and the children is that of citizen and another citizen. As such, mocking public officials by making obsene statements about them is protected speech. AMNAL
With readership around three quarters of a million and influence on the opinions much stronger than any party affiliation, it is hard to argue that slashdot has no voice in deciding elections. Remember that it is ran by less than a dozen editors who decide on all the story and all of a sudden you realize that if they can manage to get people to vote they are likely to vote their way. Could this be a beginning of a Technocrats party?
It all depends on whether they entered into a real world contract before playing the game. Roulette is a game, but you can loose real world "stuff" in it. And real world contracts are enforceable by real world governments.
Are we under attack? Moon is soveign US territory (we planted the flag first -- end of story). Is this the first wave of attack? Are we not going to respond? Anyone know the scoop? Is Christiane Amanpour on her way to the moon?
Wouldn't anyone ambitious enough to look for others' customer service experience just google first? If there something to vent about, someone has already done it on the web.
It would never to be a proxy US state. They have more educated people than the ENTIRE middle east. If Israel had Oil reserves, it would be richer than Japan.
Seriously, how often do you meet an average person who's even heard of a Field's medal (say vs the people who've heard of the Nobel)? But now that this story is all over the place, the words Field's medal will enter common vernacular again. BTW, if you read carefully, it sounds like Andrei Okounkov's work is the most interesting of all the nominees. He tied together "Probability"
(<intended pun>probably</intended pun> meaning measure theory), representation theory and algebraic geometry. This is about as cool as cool can get in math.
The mediocracy is marching on. There is no inate talent. There is only prespiration. Just look at Edison. Forget the nature vs. nurture debate, take your pet dog and train him A LOT and really well and he'll be the next genius physicist. Because genetics have nothing to do with it. Never mind, that good eye-hand coordination makes people good artists without even trying. Never mind that Gauss spotted a (later to be called) gaussian sum without ever learning anything about it. Never mind that Mozart could play at -- the age when most people (not for a lack of their parents trying) cannot put together a sentence. How about recognizing that certain people could have slight... tiny really variations in their brains that give the ability to take the most advantage of great training. How about not trying to make social theories from a few statistical experiments on individuals? How about recognizing geniuses as better people rather than as nerds, geaks, freaks, or whatever other ways we choose to ostricize them that ends up discouraging them from receiving that better training that would allow them to improve the world and the lives of all of us? Why must we fear the brilliant instead of being inspired by them?
They are synonymous. US VP's power is limited to breaking ties in case of a 50-50 Senate vote.... and to cheerleading. The president of Iran is just a cheerleader.
I still think that he is in the position he is in because he was put there. He might be a good orator, but that is why is allowed to orate. All that makes him is a very good press secretary. We should put the blame where it belongs -- the regime. By going after the joker the press only gives the Ayatolahs a free hand.
Like I said, Palestinians are a different issue. You can argue that one either way. So I don't think I have to address your June 23rd, June 24th, June 27th and June 28th comments. Israel-Palestine conflict is incredibly convoluted. Honestly, I feel sorry for both people on that one.
As for the other points, let's see... you seem to rely on vagaries too much. Which makes me think you are taking a side and refusing to be objective. More specifically, where is the May 23rd info from? How is May 26th info related to Israel? I understand the reasons for suspicion... even for a strong suspicion, but without direct tie (like for instance killing of soldiers or civilians by a known source) this is at best a well-disguised espionage operation -- not an act of war. May 28th recount does indeed support your point that hostilities were happening on the border, but again the initiator of acts of war (the party WAGING the war) seems to be Hizbolah. I don't see how the Hizbolah (a shiite group) was forced to act from Lebanese terriotory to support Hamas (a suni group). So I really don't see the logic in the "Early July" comment. I also don't see why you downplay Isaeli casulty numbers instead of 8 soldiers killed (the widely accepted number) you claim 3 and instead of 2 soldiers kidnapped (also a widely accpeted number) you claim 1.
It seems clear that you want to make a situation more vague than it really is. There is really no question about the fact that Isael withdrew from Lebanon and didn't want to have anything more to do with it. It is also clear (a fact that you don't seem to mention in your timeline even though you do bring unrelated issues like Palestine) that this occured at the time when the international community was considering sanctioning Iran for its neuclear research. So Iran had the motif, the means and it saw an opportunity. A soldier who participated in the operation (after being captured) confessed to being trained in Iran. How is this anything but Iran using its proxy to wage war against an American proxy to divert attention?
I think you are confusing the concepts of "fighting" a war and "waging" a war. Shooting back is not waging a war. While you can easily argue on either side of the palestinian question when discussing Israel, there is no doubt that this Lebanon-Israel war was waged by Hizbulah. Israel was at peace with Lebanon until Hizbulah crossed the border and killed 8 soldier and kidnapped 2. That was clearly an act of war. So you can't say that Israel "waged" this war. It did fight it with a lot of American help though. But the original discussion talked about Iran helping to "wage" wars -- not helping to fight them.
This guy has NO power. He is there to be a colorful distraction from the guy who really controls the country. His power is a little less than that of a US VP. He just happens to say outrageous things and the media eats it up instead of reporting on the real problems that are caused by the people actually running Iran -- the religious military dictatorship with the Ayatolla at its lead.
What's the point of interviewing a jokester and asking him what his vision is when his vision has as much to do with the running of the country as that of a press-secretary. The guy likes writting letters. That's why he was allowed to run for this postion. And, since he was the only one really allowed to run, he won. He is not the modern day Hitler. Hitler was a power-hungry maniac. This guy has no power. He just thinks he is so eloquent that he can convince people that black is white. Noone with guns in Iran reports to him. So he is irrelevant.
It doesn't matter if it makes you angry or what consequences this will have. This is results of a scientific research. Although... I have a neuroscientist sitting next to me right now... and her only comment on all statiscs-based brain research is a loud pfff.
Efficiency only flourishes when resources are scarce. When resources become more abundant those able to prolifirate faster do better than those able to utilize resources more efficiently.
This is why stupid people do better when there is more food to go around and this is why lower life forms do better when the water is warm -- there is more energy available.
I tend to stay very polite when it comes to discussions with strangers, but your argument is complete asinine.
Working for a company that harms its customes harms, its industry and generally "doesn't get it" makes one part of an organization that harms people, harms an industry and tries to influence events it doesn't understand. If such people are stopped in their tracks when they do that that's a GOOD THING. The fact that they were making a living at it is a BAD THING.
Working at AOL must mean suspending one's sense of decency. One should not feel sorry for the people who suffer the consequences of suspending their sense of decency. As a matter of fact one should feel joy at the suffering of people who were part of an organization causing harm of the people who did not cause them harm.
So we, hereby, are expressing that joy. Clear enough now?Conference founder Emmanuel Goldstein said organizers were trying to figure out where the FBI had taken Rambam
Why didn't they just announce the arch-criminal himself?... circa 1984.Well, I am all for "deciding which systems to adopt as your own". What I object to is "how about figuring it out for yourself". The subtle but important difference is that the first one allows for "eclecticism" (mentioned in one of the other replies by someone more educated than I am), while the second implies (for all intents and purposes dictates) rejection of ideas that come from others. BTW, the second is, in fact, more consistant with the original greek definition of Cynics. An as I tried to explain before, it generally would lead to not availing oneself of creative solutions that other have already thought of and one may not come across when considering the problem.