The US was never the "free" place it has been so vaunted to be. Most people here have no idea of what true freedom is, and even if they do don't really want it. They want their mommy government to tell them what to do and to control every aspect of their lives. Those of us who actually DO desire freedom find this annoying, but are stuck in this failed system.
I feel for that girl, and I had an incident at Logan a few months ago that could've potentially gone very bad. But you see, I had the good sense to "get the hell out of Dodge" before the other shoe fell. I will never use Logan again, though I may have to if I want to fly internationally. I'm not sure if we can trust any large airport in the US. They are all driven by the same inanities, though Logan may be extra-paranoid due to its connection with 9/11.
I fear to wear certain tee-shirts to airports for fear of this paranoia. I have one that says "Bomb Technician. If you see me running, try to keep up!" It's a joke of course, but I really don't need to be thrown to the ground at gunpoint over a lousy tee-shirt. I do recall the airport security types giving one gentleman hell for merely having a book with a picture of a bomb on the front cover. Sheesh.
"At the expense of society" means acting in a way that may benefit you and a small number of others, but is a net cost to everyone else. For example, most polluters act at the expense of society. But how you could expect Mr. Turgid to explain your own examples of this without knowing the details of your life seems to be asking for generalizations, so here goes:
Well, aside from a general description of my life, you could of course find out more about me at the link to my web site below.
- You probably are a net polluter, without cleaning up after yourself. Most of us are.
See, if most of us are, then all of society does it at its own expense. Thus, this nullifies the assumption that it's a few gaining at the expense of many.
- You have probably obtained government-sanctioned monopolies (patents or copyrights) for your computer work, which benefit you but cost the rest of us.
Ah, finally something that's a challenge!:-)
You must've been to my website then, where you will clearly see I have a patent to a GUI system I created some years back. Now, I have seen -- and been a part of -- many discussions against software patents, and their merits or lack of the same. However, you did not specify software patents, but patents in general, so let's talk about that.
The whole idea behind patents is to give a temporary monolopy to the inventor so that he'd be willing to invest the capital to produce a useful product out of that invention that *the many* may benefit from.
It is not a perfect solution, but in all honesty, would you be willing to invest the millions of dollars it would take to bring your idea to market if your competitors could copy your ideas willy-nilly and beat you to the punch? Probably not. You are given a reasonable amount of time to capitalize on your idea, then it becomes available for everyone to jump in on the bandwagon after you have made your mark. In this fashion, it is supposed to encourage inventors to come forward and put out the sweat to create new products that will improve the lives of us all. And certainly this has happened -- just look around your room. I'm sure you'll see many devices and what not that never would've seen the light of day were it not for patents. Thus, you yourself have benefited from this temporary monopoly that you now criticise, even as much as you are using the same technology to portray your dissent!!!!!!!!
So how can you sit there and declare that patents "cost the rest of us" when clearly you are demonstrating otherwise by your own daily use of the same technologies that were spurred by patents?
Now, like I said, patents are not perfect. Big Corporations are misusing them to beat up on each other to gain an edge in the marketplace, in ways patents were never intended to be used. That I do see as a problem, but more for big corporations, not so much for us little guys.
So, if you are so against patents, how else is a struggling inventor suppose to receive incentives to carry an idea to the market so that the rest of us may benefit?
The same can be said, of course, for copyright. Many would be less inclined to produce works if they thought others could just publish and benefit from without providing due and just compensation. And yes, there are many abuses in that arena as well.
There are any number of other ways in which you could have acted selfishly, but it's hard to guess at them.
Newsflash: We all act selfishly, and that actually is a good thing. What we need to be careful of, of course, is that our selfishness, as individuals, does not lead to the direct harm of others. And in many cases, our selfishness does lead to the benefit of others in many ways direct and indirect. If I go out and make a purchase to satisfy my selfish desires, have I not also benefited the one I made a purchase from? And would I not be far more inclined to make selfish purchases than to simply give my money away? And if everyone simply gave money away, where would be incentives to provide goods and services where we could all benefit in the long -- and short -- run?
"So the keystone of your position is the idea that you can determine worth by parentage - that is social darwinism, and social darwinism is unscientific and dangerous, as history has shown."
I just knew someone would be silly enough to bring "social Darwinism" into what I've said. In actual fact, "social Darwinism" has nothing to do with how nature actually operates, but more the use of natural selection as an excuse by some to oppress by what they deem as "fit" or not. Quite a different thing from what I am talking about.
I do not take a "position", either. I just make observations, and reason from those observations, and leave as open what can be done based on the reasoning and observations.
Don't confuse basic principles in nature with those in the past who sought to pervert those principles for power, gain, and control. Quantum mechanics and nuclear science is not bad simply because our government decided to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents with technology based on those natural principles within an eyeblink.
Alas, I fear stiff resistance to some of my ideas based solely on that apparent confusion. But until we are able to see the truth past the knee-jerk reactions, we will never see any possible real solutions.
"Most of us are Liberals because we have been educated and understand what the world really needs and most of us are not greedy oil lovers. We look forward to change and hope for the future."
Do you indeed understand what the world really needs? I don't think so.
As far as "being educated", how do you know you actually have *education* and not indoctrination?
Those unable to distinguish the difference tends to fall into the latter camp.
Hey, I spend my time watching Star Trek reruns from what I downloaded from BitTorrent over a Fios connection in the comforts of my own home that I bought with my own economic success!!!!!!
Not to mention Dr. Who, Torchwood, Lexx, and Farscape to boot!
Of course there are those who want the world to be ordered and shaped for them. But the systems created to cater to their needs should not also curtail those of us who wish to be more self-directed!!!!
Alas, where you stand on a issue depends on where you sit.
If you are a big oil tycoon, you would say that capitalism works. If you are some starving kid in Ethopia, you would say that capitalism fails. So, who is "right" and who is "wrong"?
The sad thing from a human perspective is that any complex adaptive system must have *components* that not only will fail, but must be allowed to fail. Evolution could not have happened without the elimination of those components "less fit". When we are talking about *humans* as those components from a *human* perspective, it sound cruel and evil. But look up and down the spectrum in nature, from the smallest of living cells to the largest of complex organisms, and you will see the same principles in practice.
Simply put, nature does not care one iota about human morality. And therein lies the true dilemma. We can harp all we want about how it's "unfair", but that will not change how nature operates.
I am not saying, of course, that we should ignore the starving kids in the world. But at the same time, we should understand something about the nature of the complex systems we are dealing with and what laws -- mathematical and scientific, not human-created -- drives them.
Only then will true, pragmatic, workable, long-term, sustainable solutions emerge, and not before!
The problem is with the labels themselves, and the limited understanding most humans have of the complex systems that they themselves created.
The issues at hand will not be solved with simplistic political labels, sound-bites; nor will they be solved by religious adherence to ideologies. The problem must be understood for what it is, then action taken to remedy the problem and to give the maximum amount of autonomy and power back to the individual and the concentrated centers of uber-power must come to an end.
These things are not simple to solves, nor will they be solved overnight or even in our lifetimes. But if we are willing, we can begin to take the first meaningful steps towards the solution.
Please define in concrete terms what you mean by "expense of society:. It is so easy to kick such generalistic terms around without explaining exactly what you mean.
In particular, please explain, for example, the success I have had in the computer world over the past 30 years is "at the expense of society" as a whole. Do I not contribute back to that same society by making purchases, creating new businesses and opportunities for others, and even in sharing the knowledge I have gained with others to spur their own success?
Please explain to me how my success hurts others. I am all ears.
The definitions of certain words have changed over the years.
What we call "liberal" today is really *socialist*, what what used to be called "liberal" is now called "libertarian".
As far as capitalism goes, we don't have pure capitalism, either. And as far as capitalism "working" really depends on where you sit. I am sure the pan handlers I see everyday on the streets of Boston would say capitalism has failed.:-)
The real issue is power, and how power has distributed itself. In today's capitalist-driven world, politics is a joke, really. People are given the illusion of "democracy", as if their votes actually mattered. They are thrown bones daily to keep them from rioting whilst the powercrats rule and control to levels that would make any tyrant in our past green with envy!
A deeper issue of all this comes from understanding the entire system in terms of memetics, evolution, complex dynamical adaptive systems, and the like. I am currently working on a unifying mathematical system to tie all of this together, And so far the picture I am getting is truly frightening.
After my work with hypercells -- what I am calling this new mathematical system -- is complete, I will then attempt to devise an alternative power system -- one, I hope, which will deliver the maximum amount of power back to the hands of individuals and out of the hands of powercrats. Power that is self-distributed according to *need*, not greed.
But I have spoken too soon on this and for fear of looking like an utter crank will hold off revealing more until my work is much more fully congealed.
My definition of "libertarianism" stands from a firm principle of "live and let live". That is, everyone is free to do what they want as long as they are not doing any direct harm to others against their will.
I put in the phrase "direct harm" because it is all to easy to declare anything you want as an "indirect harm" without any justification. When I say "direct harm", there has to be actual clearly identifiable victims of that harm, and also clear, identifiable harm. Alas, much of what in politics and the law today that is declared "harm" isn't really.
So, in essence, unless you see me actually doing something that is clearly harming someone else, you are to leave me alone. And I, of course, will do likewise.
I have lost count of how many times in my own life, for instance, someone has phoned the police on me simply because they *thought* I was dangerous, regardless of the fact that I had not done anything wrong nor had any intentions of doing so. And that has caused much damage -- much harm -- to me and my family, and yet no one learns from this. Police still encourages the public to phone everything in at the drop of a hat. Then they go out and harass innocent individuals, doing harm to them.
If I were libertarian-leaning before, such experiences have firmly pushed me into that camp.
While this may be a more or less accurate assessment, I do note a bit of bias in your discussion. In it you mention "...with a mind that is non-pragmatic but dedicated to finding the actual truth." Is that a bit self-contradictory? Is not finding the actual truth pragmatic? When one has the actual truth, one can then proceed to the pragmatic solution, no?
And as far as appeal to emotions, is one more likely to solve the complex problems of our world via emotional appeals and sound-bites? Or might one find better solutions rooted in sound rational analysis and observation than something that just "sounds good?"
I always thought that whole MBTI thing was just a convenient way to poo-poo rational thought as "just another way of thinking", as though solving problems though emotions could possibly be as successful as solving problems though sound rationality and careful observation. Indeed, I have heard quite a few "liberal-minded" individual say almost as much.
Really, as far as roads are concerned, there are more choices than just the two "government or none at all". Actually, I would prefer state-funded over federally-funded because there's a ton of gotchas that comes with federal funding that works to kill our freedoms.
As far as broadband Internet, there's always satellite, which is not as nice perhaps, but does have the advantages of not requiring infrastructure.
Personally, if I were to relocate somewhere, the very first thing I'd check is broadband availability. Today, there are many more choice than existed 10-odd years ago when I relocated to New Hampshire, myself. I did rent for a while a small office downtown for DSL services that was close enough to the CO to make it worthwhile. Now, I have Fios to my home and am a very happy camper.
That does not refer to the so-call Web 2.0 "bubble", but to the usual doomsday prognosticating crap that has been the bane of human existence.
Dvorak certainly benefits from all the attention he gets from his FUD, but he has no basis to declare this "Web 2.0 bubble."
Efforts to capitalize on the newest technology will always see an eventual shakeout, but to say this one will be worst than the last is blowing smoke, to say the least.
The last dot.com crash was pontificated by crazy boosts from Wall Street, where merely claiming you were "dot.com" attracted crazed investors. I was a day trader in those days, and have seen many shoot for the stars and drop into oblivion, sometimes in the space of a week or less.
That is truly NOT going on today.
So Dvorak wishes to be an alarmist. Fine. I think we can safely ignore his antics.
Really, it doesn't matter if it is found via "legal" or "illegal" methods -- a flaw is a flaw, and the vulnerability should be fixed. Especially when it involves private information such as your credit card numbers, social security numbers, and the like.
At least such a site will keep those holding our precious information on their toes to make sure any holes are plugged QUICKLY!
The problem with compulsory schools is just that -- it's compulsory. Compulsory attendance, compulsory compensation (taxes), compulsory curriculum.
The killer is not "gain", but the compulsory nature. If you are forced to do anything, even for "gain", you loose the creativity aspect.
On the other hand, if you are allowed freedom, your creativity is enhanced, even if your creativity is for "gain". Yes, personal accomplishment is its own reward, but it is not exclusive to making a profit as well!
And as always, most psychological studies tend to be overly simplistic. While there is some truth in Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator, in actuality, situations are much more complicated than what goes on in the classroom. But even this study hints at my point. It is coercion that kills creativity. It is not really the reward, but how the reward is perceived. If it is presented in a way that invokes fear and anxiety, it is the fear and anxiety that kills creativity. The study misses the true essence of the problem.
Anyone who have read The China Study would know, based on this study, that the biggest factor in our health is diet. According to Campbell, author of this book, a whole plant based diet is the most healthy ever. Animal protein is bad news and one should not consume more than 21 grams of it a day. You are better off not eating it at all.
The processed foods that many of us eat appears to be the culprit for many of our current ills, including obesity and diabetes. And overloading our bodies with too much protein is simply doing all kinds of damage in the long run. We simply do not need that much protein, and we get an adequate amount of it from plant-based foods.
Dairy is bad news as well, and should be avoided.
As a father of a vegetarian household, where we've been vegetarian for over 12 years, I must say my kids are healthy as oxes. And it just amazes me how misinformed most people are about diet and nutrition. One of my daughters keeps getting weird questions like, "so where do you get your protein?" Well, duh, every living thing has protein in it!!!!!
All I can say is read the book. This is not a fad book, but a serious scientific study. It does touch on the politics of meat as well, and I happen to agree with some of Campbell's conclusions. But seriously folks! The science is hard to deny.
A tortured argument on Olson's part. By that logic, it's ok for me to distribute child porn to people in other countries via CD. At that point, they're just inert electrons. Only when the recipient opens the file do the bits resolve themselves into an actual image. So the offender is not the person who sent the CD, because it the images weren't executable, but rather the person who received it and opened it for viewing. Staggering.
For that matter, it's not really "child porn" until it's actually rendered as an image on your viewing screen.
On the issue of child porn, I think the laws in this area are completely screwed up. Anyone can send a series of 1s and 0s to your computer from anywhere on the planet in the form of email, etc. If some unsolicited email happens to render as "child porn" on your computer, then you are now defined as "possessing child porn" and you could loose your computer, kids, have your reputation completely ruined, and all of this long before the court has a chance to determine your actual culpability in this instance. Trojanware could download lots of this crap to your computer and redistribute it without your knowledge -- and even rearrange the bits and bites to hide its tracks or make it look like you did it for real. Someone wants to frame you? They get this "frameware" on your computer and it emails the porn to the FBI from your computer along with personal information the "frameware" were able to glean from your personal files, after which it would remove all evidence of its existence. Anyone with half a brain could write a VB script to do this in just a few minutes, hour or two tops.
Am I paranoid? Pray that I am. But I've seen too much harm come to too many innocent people on the basis of screwy laws and crass ignorance in law enforcement.
The question of just what constitutes "software" can be seen as a subtext of the Supreme Court debate. Is "software" the source code? Is "software" the object code? It is "software" as just a stream of 1s and 0s, or does it only become "software" when that stream of 1s and 0s are executing on a computer?
As one who has a software patent to my name, this debate is intensely interesting to me. In my case, the patent is actually more an algorithm patent than a software patent, though the actual source code for the algorithm is listed in the patent itself. It represents one possible instantiation of the algorithm. And now I can see a debate immediately arising about the difference between "software" and "algorithm".:-)
Personally, I don't think software should be patentable despite the fact I have such a patent. It makes for a real mess and stymies the creative juices of developers who must worry over such things. Hell, if we all had to check every darn algorithm in our code to see if it might infringe a patent somewhere, we'd never get anything useful to market!
Personally, I hope the Supreme Court will lower the boom on all software patents, though I'd personally "loose" my patent (really owned by a Very Big Corporation). And actually, I am surprised to see law types have even a 10% clue about software, though I think their arguments rather specious and pointless. Software represent embodiments of ideas, and as far as I am concerned, ideas should be free. I think we all stand to benefit more from the free and open exploitation of ideas more so than a few holding monopolies and strangling the rest of the world.
What if I took a picture of myself when I was 16 and decided to distribute the picture once I became an adult? One cannot argue that it's to "protect me", since I am no longer a "child". The child is no more. Exploiting myself? I'm no longer a child. It's my body; am I not allowed to do with it whatever I want?
This is just hypothetical, of course, but it does illustrates many issues here. The teen case is similar to this scenario; and perhaps we'll need an actual case to make the laws sane again. Of course, anyone who does this will risk everything.
But then again, this old song of "protecting the children" is a wash, anyway, made worthless by those who have the power to judge and prosecute, but do not exercise sound judgement.
And the really sad fact? There are real children who are really being exploited, and these silly laws do nothing to help them. It's all a joke-- a wash, where the guilty goes free and the innocent are punished to make it appear as though the system "works".
So in order to protect these two kids you'd throw them both in jail? They took pictures of themselves, not other kids. They only distributed the pictures to each other, not to the world. Can you please explain to me how their acts constitutes "exploitation"? I'm missing something here.
This is yet another example of how insane the laws are. In reading the article, the opinions read like "could have sold them" or "could have caused trauma/harm to the 'minors'".
Of course, prosecuting the minors in this way for what was an innocent act on their parts, throwing them in jail for years, sticking them on sex offenders lists, and marring them for live will cause no harm to them at all.
This is just beyond crazy. A sheer sign that our country has gone way down hill. And you know what? These prosecutors will probably get a pat on the back, promotions, and the like. It's nothing to them to destroy the lives of these two teenagers just to forward their own careers.
While I respect Patrick Leahy and what he's generally been doing for privacy and rights of speech in the past, I consider it a wash to think that a bill will "protect" our security.
Raising criminal penalties for those commiting the breaches will not prevent them from happening (duh). Also, if the breacher is not within the jurisdiction of the US, it's pointless in any case.
It will give all false sense of security without addressing the real problems and issues regarding data security. The real issue is that our information is not secure, period. It is also an issue that creating really secure systems is a hard thing to do. But more important, "security" many times is an afterthought or has not been well throught through.
Any database on a machine connected to the Internet is a big security issue right up and front and center. And even if the database is not connected to the Internet, the weakness still lies with the employees and bureaucrats themselves and their approach to security.
Encryption of the data can solve many of these problems. Doesn't totally eliminate it, of course, but can at least put another roadblock in the way of breachers. A public key apprach, for instance, where the data is encrypted with one key before it hits the hard drive, but decrypted with another key only at the client computer requesting the information would go a long way to making breached data virtually useless. I used this approach in one system containing sensitive credit card information, and it worked quite well.
Ultimately, it is not bills and laws that will protect us, but well considered security policy and practices that will. And really, I'd actually like to see some penalties for those who are lax on the security front. We know that breaches will still occur even with the best laid plans of mice and men. Holding the implementors of these systems at least partially responsible, at least if it can be shown they were not diligent, would do much more to protect our privacy than some idle threat to lock the breacher away!
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I feel for that girl, and I had an incident at Logan a few months ago that could've potentially gone very bad. But you see, I had the good sense to "get the hell out of Dodge" before the other shoe fell. I will never use Logan again, though I may have to if I want to fly internationally. I'm not sure if we can trust any large airport in the US. They are all driven by the same inanities, though Logan may be extra-paranoid due to its connection with 9/11.
I fear to wear certain tee-shirts to airports for fear of this paranoia. I have one that says "Bomb Technician. If you see me running, try to keep up!" It's a joke of course, but I really don't need to be thrown to the ground at gunpoint over a lousy tee-shirt. I do recall the airport security types giving one gentleman hell for merely having a book with a picture of a bomb on the front cover. Sheesh.
Well, aside from a general description of my life, you could of course find out more about me at the link to my web site below.
See, if most of us are, then all of society does it at its own expense. Thus, this nullifies the assumption that it's a few gaining at the expense of many.
Ah, finally something that's a challenge! :-)
You must've been to my website then, where you will clearly see I have a patent to a GUI system I created some years back. Now, I have seen -- and been a part of -- many discussions against software patents, and their merits or lack of the same. However, you did not specify software patents, but patents in general, so let's talk about that.
The whole idea behind patents is to give a temporary monolopy to the inventor so that he'd be willing to invest the capital to produce a useful product out of that invention that *the many* may benefit from.
It is not a perfect solution, but in all honesty, would you be willing to invest the millions of dollars it would take to bring your idea to market if your competitors could copy your ideas willy-nilly and beat you to the punch? Probably not. You are given a reasonable amount of time to capitalize on your idea, then it becomes available for everyone to jump in on the bandwagon after you have made your mark. In this fashion, it is supposed to encourage inventors to come forward and put out the sweat to create new products that will improve the lives of us all. And certainly this has happened -- just look around your room. I'm sure you'll see many devices and what not that never would've seen the light of day were it not for patents. Thus, you yourself have benefited from this temporary monopoly that you now criticise, even as much as you are using the same technology to portray your dissent!!!!!!!!
So how can you sit there and declare that patents "cost the rest of us" when clearly you are demonstrating otherwise by your own daily use of the same technologies that were spurred by patents?
Now, like I said, patents are not perfect. Big Corporations are misusing them to beat up on each other to gain an edge in the marketplace, in ways patents were never intended to be used. That I do see as a problem, but more for big corporations, not so much for us little guys.
So, if you are so against patents, how else is a struggling inventor suppose to receive incentives to carry an idea to the market so that the rest of us may benefit?
The same can be said, of course, for copyright. Many would be less inclined to produce works if they thought others could just publish and benefit from without providing due and just compensation. And yes, there are many abuses in that arena as well.
Newsflash: We all act selfishly, and that actually is a good thing. What we need to be careful of, of course, is that our selfishness, as individuals, does not lead to the direct harm of others. And in many cases, our selfishness does lead to the benefit of others in many ways direct and indirect. If I go out and make a purchase to satisfy my selfish desires, have I not also benefited the one I made a purchase from? And would I not be far more inclined to make selfish purchases than to simply give my money away? And if everyone simply gave money away, where would be incentives to provide goods and services where we could all benefit in the long -- and short -- run?
I just knew someone would be silly enough to bring "social Darwinism" into what I've said. In actual fact, "social Darwinism" has nothing to do with how nature actually operates, but more the use of natural selection as an excuse by some to oppress by what they deem as "fit" or not. Quite a different thing from what I am talking about.
I do not take a "position", either. I just make observations, and reason from those observations, and leave as open what can be done based on the reasoning and observations.
Don't confuse basic principles in nature with those in the past who sought to pervert those principles for power, gain, and control. Quantum mechanics and nuclear science is not bad simply because our government decided to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents with technology based on those natural principles within an eyeblink.
Alas, I fear stiff resistance to some of my ideas based solely on that apparent confusion. But until we are able to see the truth past the knee-jerk reactions, we will never see any possible real solutions.
Do you indeed understand what the world really needs? I don't think so.
As far as "being educated", how do you know you actually have *education* and not indoctrination?
Those unable to distinguish the difference tends to fall into the latter camp.
No. Buffy's next Boyfriend!!!
Not to mention Dr. Who, Torchwood, Lexx, and Farscape to boot!
Of course there are those who want the world to be ordered and shaped for them. But the systems created to cater to their needs should not also curtail those of us who wish to be more self-directed!!!!
If you are a big oil tycoon, you would say that capitalism works. If you are some starving kid in Ethopia, you would say that capitalism fails. So, who is "right" and who is "wrong"?
The sad thing from a human perspective is that any complex adaptive system must have *components* that not only will fail, but must be allowed to fail. Evolution could not have happened without the elimination of those components "less fit". When we are talking about *humans* as those components from a *human* perspective, it sound cruel and evil. But look up and down the spectrum in nature, from the smallest of living cells to the largest of complex organisms, and you will see the same principles in practice.
Simply put, nature does not care one iota about human morality. And therein lies the true dilemma. We can harp all we want about how it's "unfair", but that will not change how nature operates.
I am not saying, of course, that we should ignore the starving kids in the world. But at the same time, we should understand something about the nature of the complex systems we are dealing with and what laws -- mathematical and scientific, not human-created -- drives them.
Only then will true, pragmatic, workable, long-term, sustainable solutions emerge, and not before!
The issues at hand will not be solved with simplistic political labels, sound-bites; nor will they be solved by religious adherence to ideologies. The problem must be understood for what it is, then action taken to remedy the problem and to give the maximum amount of autonomy and power back to the individual and the concentrated centers of uber-power must come to an end.
These things are not simple to solves, nor will they be solved overnight or even in our lifetimes. But if we are willing, we can begin to take the first meaningful steps towards the solution.
Please define in concrete terms what you mean by "expense of society:. It is so easy to kick such generalistic terms around without explaining exactly what you mean.
In particular, please explain, for example, the success I have had in the computer world over the past 30 years is "at the expense of society" as a whole. Do I not contribute back to that same society by making purchases, creating new businesses and opportunities for others, and even in sharing the knowledge I have gained with others to spur their own success?
Please explain to me how my success hurts others. I am all ears.
What we call "liberal" today is really *socialist*, what what used to be called "liberal" is now called "libertarian".
As far as capitalism goes, we don't have pure capitalism, either. And as far as capitalism "working" really depends on where you sit. I am sure the pan handlers I see everyday on the streets of Boston would say capitalism has failed. :-)
The real issue is power, and how power has distributed itself. In today's capitalist-driven world, politics is a joke, really. People are given the illusion of "democracy", as if their votes actually mattered. They are thrown bones daily to keep them from rioting whilst the powercrats rule and control to levels that would make any tyrant in our past green with envy!
A deeper issue of all this comes from understanding the entire system in terms of memetics, evolution, complex dynamical adaptive systems, and the like. I am currently working on a unifying mathematical system to tie all of this together, And so far the picture I am getting is truly frightening.
After my work with hypercells -- what I am calling this new mathematical system -- is complete, I will then attempt to devise an alternative power system -- one, I hope, which will deliver the maximum amount of power back to the hands of individuals and out of the hands of powercrats. Power that is self-distributed according to *need*, not greed.
But I have spoken too soon on this and for fear of looking like an utter crank will hold off revealing more until my work is much more fully congealed.
I put in the phrase "direct harm" because it is all to easy to declare anything you want as an "indirect harm" without any justification. When I say "direct harm", there has to be actual clearly identifiable victims of that harm, and also clear, identifiable harm. Alas, much of what in politics and the law today that is declared "harm" isn't really.
So, in essence, unless you see me actually doing something that is clearly harming someone else, you are to leave me alone. And I, of course, will do likewise.
I have lost count of how many times in my own life, for instance, someone has phoned the police on me simply because they *thought* I was dangerous, regardless of the fact that I had not done anything wrong nor had any intentions of doing so. And that has caused much damage -- much harm -- to me and my family, and yet no one learns from this. Police still encourages the public to phone everything in at the drop of a hat. Then they go out and harass innocent individuals, doing harm to them.
If I were libertarian-leaning before, such experiences have firmly pushed me into that camp.
And as far as appeal to emotions, is one more likely to solve the complex problems of our world via emotional appeals and sound-bites? Or might one find better solutions rooted in sound rational analysis and observation than something that just "sounds good?"
I always thought that whole MBTI thing was just a convenient way to poo-poo rational thought as "just another way of thinking", as though solving problems though emotions could possibly be as successful as solving problems though sound rationality and careful observation. Indeed, I have heard quite a few "liberal-minded" individual say almost as much.
As far as broadband Internet, there's always satellite, which is not as nice perhaps, but does have the advantages of not requiring infrastructure.
Personally, if I were to relocate somewhere, the very first thing I'd check is broadband availability. Today, there are many more choice than existed 10-odd years ago when I relocated to New Hampshire, myself. I did rent for a while a small office downtown for DSL services that was close enough to the CO to make it worthwhile. Now, I have Fios to my home and am a very happy camper.
That does not refer to the so-call Web 2.0 "bubble", but to the usual doomsday prognosticating crap that has been the bane of human existence.
Dvorak certainly benefits from all the attention he gets from his FUD, but he has no basis to declare this "Web 2.0 bubble."
Efforts to capitalize on the newest technology will always see an eventual shakeout, but to say this one will be worst than the last is blowing smoke, to say the least.
The last dot.com crash was pontificated by crazy boosts from Wall Street, where merely claiming you were "dot.com" attracted crazed investors. I was a day trader in those days, and have seen many shoot for the stars and drop into oblivion, sometimes in the space of a week or less.
That is truly NOT going on today.
So Dvorak wishes to be an alarmist. Fine. I think we can safely ignore his antics.
At least such a site will keep those holding our precious information on their toes to make sure any holes are plugged QUICKLY!
The killer is not "gain", but the compulsory nature. If you are forced to do anything, even for "gain", you loose the creativity aspect. On the other hand, if you are allowed freedom, your creativity is enhanced, even if your creativity is for "gain". Yes, personal accomplishment is its own reward, but it is not exclusive to making a profit as well!
And as always, most psychological studies tend to be overly simplistic. While there is some truth in Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator, in actuality, situations are much more complicated than what goes on in the classroom. But even this study hints at my point. It is coercion that kills creativity. It is not really the reward, but how the reward is perceived. If it is presented in a way that invokes fear and anxiety, it is the fear and anxiety that kills creativity. The study misses the true essence of the problem.
The processed foods that many of us eat appears to be the culprit for many of our current ills, including obesity and diabetes. And overloading our bodies with too much protein is simply doing all kinds of damage in the long run. We simply do not need that much protein, and we get an adequate amount of it from plant-based foods.
Dairy is bad news as well, and should be avoided.
As a father of a vegetarian household, where we've been vegetarian for over 12 years, I must say my kids are healthy as oxes. And it just amazes me how misinformed most people are about diet and nutrition. One of my daughters keeps getting weird questions like, "so where do you get your protein?" Well, duh, every living thing has protein in it!!!!!
All I can say is read the book. This is not a fad book, but a serious scientific study. It does touch on the politics of meat as well, and I happen to agree with some of Campbell's conclusions. But seriously folks! The science is hard to deny.
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A tortured argument on Olson's part. By that logic, it's ok for me to distribute child porn to people in other countries via CD. At that point, they're just inert electrons. Only when the recipient opens the file do the bits resolve themselves into an actual image. So the offender is not the person who sent the CD, because it the images weren't executable, but rather the person who received it and opened it for viewing. Staggering.
For that matter, it's not really "child porn" until it's actually rendered as an image on your viewing screen.On the issue of child porn, I think the laws in this area are completely screwed up. Anyone can send a series of 1s and 0s to your computer from anywhere on the planet in the form of email, etc. If some unsolicited email happens to render as "child porn" on your computer, then you are now defined as "possessing child porn" and you could loose your computer, kids, have your reputation completely ruined, and all of this long before the court has a chance to determine your actual culpability in this instance. Trojanware could download lots of this crap to your computer and redistribute it without your knowledge -- and even rearrange the bits and bites to hide its tracks or make it look like you did it for real. Someone wants to frame you? They get this "frameware" on your computer and it emails the porn to the FBI from your computer along with personal information the "frameware" were able to glean from your personal files, after which it would remove all evidence of its existence. Anyone with half a brain could write a VB script to do this in just a few minutes, hour or two tops.
Am I paranoid? Pray that I am. But I've seen too much harm come to too many innocent people on the basis of screwy laws and crass ignorance in law enforcement.
As one who has a software patent to my name, this debate is intensely interesting to me. In my case, the patent is actually more an algorithm patent than a software patent, though the actual source code for the algorithm is listed in the patent itself. It represents one possible instantiation of the algorithm. And now I can see a debate immediately arising about the difference between "software" and "algorithm". :-)
Personally, I don't think software should be patentable despite the fact I have such a patent. It makes for a real mess and stymies the creative juices of developers who must worry over such things. Hell, if we all had to check every darn algorithm in our code to see if it might infringe a patent somewhere, we'd never get anything useful to market!
Personally, I hope the Supreme Court will lower the boom on all software patents, though I'd personally "loose" my patent (really owned by a Very Big Corporation). And actually, I am surprised to see law types have even a 10% clue about software, though I think their arguments rather specious and pointless. Software represent embodiments of ideas, and as far as I am concerned, ideas should be free. I think we all stand to benefit more from the free and open exploitation of ideas more so than a few holding monopolies and strangling the rest of the world.
Of course, they will be on their best behavior while a civilian is along. And a friend, at that. Duh.
This is just hypothetical, of course, but it does illustrates many issues here. The teen case is similar to this scenario; and perhaps we'll need an actual case to make the laws sane again. Of course, anyone who does this will risk everything.
But then again, this old song of "protecting the children" is a wash, anyway, made worthless by those who have the power to judge and prosecute, but do not exercise sound judgement.
And the really sad fact? There are real children who are really being exploited, and these silly laws do nothing to help them. It's all a joke-- a wash, where the guilty goes free and the innocent are punished to make it appear as though the system "works".
Gotta love the USA.
Of course, prosecuting the minors in this way for what was an innocent act on their parts, throwing them in jail for years, sticking them on sex offenders lists, and marring them for live will cause no harm to them at all.
This is just beyond crazy. A sheer sign that our country has gone way down hill. And you know what? These prosecutors will probably get a pat on the back, promotions, and the like. It's nothing to them to destroy the lives of these two teenagers just to forward their own careers.
Raising criminal penalties for those commiting the breaches will not prevent them from happening (duh). Also, if the breacher is not within the jurisdiction of the US, it's pointless in any case.
It will give all false sense of security without addressing the real problems and issues regarding data security. The real issue is that our information is not secure, period. It is also an issue that creating really secure systems is a hard thing to do. But more important, "security" many times is an afterthought or has not been well throught through.
Any database on a machine connected to the Internet is a big security issue right up and front and center. And even if the database is not connected to the Internet, the weakness still lies with the employees and bureaucrats themselves and their approach to security.
Encryption of the data can solve many of these problems. Doesn't totally eliminate it, of course, but can at least put another roadblock in the way of breachers. A public key apprach, for instance, where the data is encrypted with one key before it hits the hard drive, but decrypted with another key only at the client computer requesting the information would go a long way to making breached data virtually useless. I used this approach in one system containing sensitive credit card information, and it worked quite well.
Ultimately, it is not bills and laws that will protect us, but well considered security policy and practices that will. And really, I'd actually like to see some penalties for those who are lax on the security front. We know that breaches will still occur even with the best laid plans of mice and men. Holding the implementors of these systems at least partially responsible, at least if it can be shown they were not diligent, would do much more to protect our privacy than some idle threat to lock the breacher away!