I know dozens of independent bands and musicians that make truly excellent music outside the traditional music business. They hire or create studios to do their recording work, they have the CDs mastered, and then they duplicate the masters. At least that's what I understand of it. And the music sounds great.
The music industry brings nothing to the table except their machine - which is not about good music. The machine is about advertising and selling an image to the kids most likely to spend gobs of money on music. The kids don't have descriminating tastes - they're kids! They will acquire good taste in time, but probably not until their 20s at the earliest. BTW, I am not saying that any particular kind of music is better than another - but I would say that it takes time to learn the difference between pap and something solid.
Coming back to my point again, once you have good taste the music machine produced music doesn't appeal - it's crap. They know it's crap. It's supposed to be crap - designed to appeal until the next hit record takes its place. But no, it's not music for the ages. And sure, every now and again, some great music emerges from the machine system and gives it validation.
When you have good taste you will listen to only the best stuff, and then spend your time seeking independent alternatives - because your ears can't take the crap. And while not all independent produced music is great, you are more often than not at least dealing with people of extraordinary talent who are willing to put their own money into projects they deem worthwhile. I'd have to say the amount of good music produced independently is far greater than that produced by the music industry's machine.
More than amazing. It was one of the best films I have seen recently. Playing off the aesthetic concerns of people like Philip Dick, Hans Bellmer and the post-modern themes of the music of Die Form and Clock DVA - GITS 2 was just incredible.
And the TV series "Stand Alone Complex" is far more than meets the eye in most episodes. The Laughing Man shit is unbelievable in terms of its savage attack on modern Cyber culture.
And I hate most Anime - I am not even a big fan of animation per se. I just like anything good: Warner Bros., Akira, GITS, The Running Man, Aeon Flux, etc.
In terms of genre material, I liked "Earth X" a lot. But I am all ears for good recommendations in any category of comics. Please don't drag out the tired "Ghost World" or what have you, something in the last 1-2 years would be nicer to know about.
Right, but millions of copies of a regular monthly title hasn't happened since nearly the "golden age." And that's when the comic served dual purpose as handy paper to put on the floor for your dog or with which to line the bird cage. Oh sure, there is the occasional book that sells really well, but as you say - a book regularly selling 100,000 is a big deal now.
Sadly, most of the books published aren't worth reading anyway.
Turn people into brand name zombies and they will do everything in their power to shut you down. They are worse than religious fanatics because they don't even see what they are doing as motivated by a kind of insane zealotry.
I'm not going to skewer you on this point, but you only have the proper use of music you paid for via iTunes or ripped yourself because you own the original CD disks. Your continued use of that music is predicated on your continued ownership of the disks in question. You don't ideally have the right to backups for which you have no originals.
If you are going to drink the corporate kool-aid, play by the corporate rules.
Yes, exactly. My first thoughts on reading the article.
This is proof that corporations aren't really interested in capitalism, free market forces, or any of that empty rhetoric (the nonsense rethugs, and rethugs-lite::cough:: libertarians swallow like Jonestown Kool-aid). What they want is a locked down market that they can manipulate at will. This is just like Enron, except for the music biz.
Laws are very different nation to nation. Most of the states in the United States have as their foundation, the common law - which is a bit of a mish mash between a few things, but where the government is predicated upon the sole political authority of the people. Louisiana might actually be considered an exception as much of their state law derives from French equity law - the law between merchants.
Don't fall into the rhetorical trap people (although some of you have made very excellent points dancing around the issue slightly).
Corporations are not only not individuals, they are also not even groups! Corporations are legally created entities to themselves that are given certain fictional legal rights to operate AS IF they were a person. Yes, coincidently, most corporations are run by groups of people - none of whom are the corporation itself. In fact, that's the point of it for most people: limited liability through a fictitious front called a corporation.
You see, individuals have rights to free speech. Individuals even have the right to lie - not to perjury, but common lying is perfectly reasonable and protected behavior.
Corporations by contrast can be regulated even to the point of destruction because they are legal fictions in the first place. They have no such right to free speech. They have no right to lie. They don't even have a right to exist unless we as a people allow them to exist.
Let's get that all down before we start talking nonsense.
The problem is that there is very little flexibility in the system and we are practically stuck within an economic class from birth - that's for the overwhelming majority of the people in a culture that refuses to even talk about classes because we are all supposedly part of an enormous middle-class (itself often broken up into lower, middle, and upper classes!).
There is no real middle-class, not in the way most people mean it.
What you have to confront is that labor is always made cheap through a series of techniques at the disposal of the wealthy. They love to claim that workers are underqualified - what a great bargaining chip when it comes time to negotiate the value of labor.
By opening up other markets, we haven't discovered a new trade partner for OUR goods, we have discovered another way to utterly devalue the labor we perform in this country, as governed by our economy.
Money is dead people. Overpopulation and automation will force the end of all economic theories as we know them. Star Trek Deep Space Nine was probably one of the dumbest shows ever, but one day they had a time travel episode that I watched and boy did the idea of class warfare and riots strike a chord in me. The approx. date on the show for these riots was about 2020 IIRC. I don't remember any other thing about that show except that I kept thinking to myself that the date seemed fairly accurate.
People cannot keep pointing at the past and say: "All technological advancement has created industries and jobs." Well, that's only half the equation. What about overpopulation? What about when there are 100 candidates for every open position? Or 1,000? Or even 10,000?
So you readily admit your "free market" nonsense term means that you get yours and some poor asshole in China gets barely tolerable wage slavery?
Good to know.
Let me ask you something: why do "free markets" always mean that labor has almost no value? Yet, interestingly - labor must surely carry the force of democracy, there simply being more laborers than owners.
So why aren't laborers more in charge of the world as we know it?
Maybe there's a wealth and power factor I'm just not considering...
-------------------
I repeat: show me one free market anywhere on earth. Just one. Pretty please?
That's all you've got? Wow, what a terrifically cogent argument!
When technology puts power into the hands of individuals I don't see a problem; when it takes away their means of making even a meager living, then I see a problem.
Hey, I do it too - march passed all those wacky homeless people in the big cities. They can't all just be crazy and lazy. How about those kids in the projects? After they stab you to death for your ATM and CCs, maybe you will have wished you had a different political outlook. This cheap labor shit has blowback. Or didn't you realize that obvious fact?
As members of a CIVILIZED SOCIETY we have to take care of one another and make sure we establish a culture that takes care of its own. Where's the revolution in my words - except where I won't pretend it's someone else's job, or the responsibility of the local church? That's a plan that assures nothing will ever be accomplished. I think it is my responsibility. I think it is your responsibility. It is a political imperative. We build civilization together
You know, I have no children and still think its okay that some of my money goes to educate the adults of tomorrow.
Yeah, call me crazy...or a Luddite.
You just want yours and fuck everybody else. Nice.
You know, there really are members of the any community for whom that kind of job is a necessity. They really can't do much more than that. Do they now deserve to starve and die because automation is making the jobs they are able to obtain obsolete?
I am not saying that these people are the best and brightest, I am saying they EXIST. They have rights and should be treated with fairness and dignity.
For those of you about to jump all over my shit with capitalist dogma, libertarian claptrap, and pointless mantras about how the "freedom to succeed also contains within it the freedom to fail" - try obtaining a soul before replying.
This is the death of mom and pop type operations all over again, except at a much more personal level - at the level of the individual unable to compete with a machine and automation.
Where is John Henry when we need him to do some machine ass whooping? Yeah, I know he died in the attempt. The point of the story was to make one empathize with someone of amazing abilities that was still less valuable than a machine.
And yet, is the success of the automated machine worth the death of even one person?
You really have to ask yourselves this question because it is at the heart of what we as techs do - we program and engineer tools of automation for our corporate masters in what is the moral equivalent of what Oppenheimer did with the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was bold enough to have no illusions as to what he unleashed onto the unsuspecting world, he said: "I am become death." But if he had no illusions as to what he was doing, shouldn't he have stopped himself on moral grounds?
We techs have become economic death for many. And all of it so our corporate masters can better regulate us, better force us to consume, and better shorten our life spans unless we can afford very levels of conspicuous consumption.
You are neither at the top of the economic pyramid, nor at the bottom of it. You are placed well into the middle of it so as to forever tease you with the riches at the top - all while you are statistically most likely to never change your status in life at all. This has the consequence of making you think of things as if you were at the top - one of the masters yourself - because maybe, just maybe someday you will have arrived at your goal and finally reach the top. So you align yourselves with the goals of the masters while rejecting the economic and political realities of the under-classes from which you originate.
That's not smart. You are living in a dreamland of false hopes.
These tools of automation are in many ways paid for in blood.
"Besides, the whole "I pirate to get back at them," argument is silly."
Actually, it's not. It's a band-aid solution for a band-aid kind of world and legal system. IP law is wildly out of control because they are deep pocketed interests greasing the legislators and practically no one to defend the commons against that kind of corruption.
What you are seeing is perfectly reasonable disrespect for "the law" because laws aren't really worth anything until we all generally agree to them - and many of us don't agree any more.
Anyway, laws about IP rights are pretty absurd if you ask me - in the main they serve no one but the protected few. They are a creation of law, a completely unnatural arrangement to benefit creators of useful things. Had the laws remained reasonable people wouldn't be so inclined to flout the law. After the most recent extensions of copyright (i.e. sucking Disney corp cock) most people well understood that IP laws had become completely insane.
Patent law now threatens the same thing. One cannot turn around without considering whose fucking "idea" one may be treading upon.
To be honest, that's a not a world I want to live in, but live in it I do. I have my own fixes for things that bother me.
For the record, I consider myself a deeply moral person. I also refuse to equate morality with what may or may not be "against the law" - laws change all the time to suit the needs of the few, and basically I don't give a shit any longer. We live under the "Golden Rule" where those that have the gold make the rules. It's an old joke, and its funny because its sadly so true.
What you are really worried about is that you are used to a society where the shots are called from the top down. Well, you might have to get used to a society where the street morality you so fear is agreed upon from the bottom up. Because the street, my friend, has its own uses for things.
Who modded this "shite" insightful? It's practically drooling idiocy in line with the article about how school kids don't understand the 1st Amendment.
To believe this administration's justifications for the war in Iraq you have to also believe that it's possible that they can change their story every few days and that each new story is true. But I guess if you can believe that then you can also believe that a man originally appointed President and who then barely scraped by in winning an election has a mandate for all kinds of nonsense and has "political capital" to spend.
These jerks never had political capital - that's why the needed Powell to play front man/whipping boy for them. And Powell took it like a man until even he tired of the bullshit. Now Powell and son are both out - and for good I imagine. They won't play ball so this administration has told them to take their gear, shove it up their asses, and clear out. "Thanks for giving us a modicum of cred, niggermen! Now get the fuck out before we salt your asses with our shotguns."
Here's the problem: 2 + 2 = 4 and not whatever the Ministry of Love says it does. Not today. Not the day our Mission was Accomplished. Not fucking ever.
We are in Iraq so that an elite few can gain control of Iraqi oil fields. All those other justifications you seem to hold dear are for the chumps and plebs. You seem to hold a poor opinion of hardcore neocon bible thumber types, but you are yourself just another color of "mark." It's my opinion that you psychologically prefer to believe the lies because you sleep better at night because of them, not becuase you actually believe these lies to be true.
And I am trying to wise up the marks. People like myself are asking you to believe harsh truths - as cold as the most severe, darkest night of midwinter. But yes, you have agreed to murder, mayhem, and the unequal application of the laws of the U.S.
There's nothing wrong with you that a good solid reading of "The Prince," "1984" and "Animal Farm" wouldn't hopefully cure. In the main, I'd say we were living the "Animal Farm" world led by people that use "The Prince" as a road map with all of us of the lower classes hoping it doesn't really become "1984." Don't make the mistake of reading those important texts and thinking they are just fiction.
WTF? Are you nuts or what? Fisting is just getting your whole hand inside of someone. Inside a man's rectum you could massage his prostate gland, inside a woman you could manipulate her G-spot. Sure, it's a little intense, but I fail to see why anyone would say it was "wrong, wrong, wrong". It's best to think of it as very intense "fingering."
Don't like it, don't do it.
That whole thing about someone cramming a closed fist into another person's body is more myth than reality. Yes, some people can manage it - but most can't. And yes, those that can are probably pretty hardcore into their activities.
Still, if it's none of your business, don't worry about it.
How can your ego be so bloated that you actually think you can find everything that might be wrong with a computer manually? I get the idea you enjoy your share of call backs.
Sometimes the best solution is to do a clean install and set up a proper backup and recovery protocol - but yes, doing so ultimately makes the services you provide obsolete (or very nearly so).
Slashdot Mirror
I know dozens of independent bands and musicians that make truly excellent music outside the traditional music business. They hire or create studios to do their recording work, they have the CDs mastered, and then they duplicate the masters. At least that's what I understand of it. And the music sounds great.
The music industry brings nothing to the table except their machine - which is not about good music. The machine is about advertising and selling an image to the kids most likely to spend gobs of money on music. The kids don't have descriminating tastes - they're kids! They will acquire good taste in time, but probably not until their 20s at the earliest. BTW, I am not saying that any particular kind of music is better than another - but I would say that it takes time to learn the difference between pap and something solid.
Coming back to my point again, once you have good taste the music machine produced music doesn't appeal - it's crap. They know it's crap. It's supposed to be crap - designed to appeal until the next hit record takes its place. But no, it's not music for the ages. And sure, every now and again, some great music emerges from the machine system and gives it validation.
When you have good taste you will listen to only the best stuff, and then spend your time seeking independent alternatives - because your ears can't take the crap. And while not all independent produced music is great, you are more often than not at least dealing with people of extraordinary talent who are willing to put their own money into projects they deem worthwhile. I'd have to say the amount of good music produced independently is far greater than that produced by the music industry's machine.
More than amazing. It was one of the best films I have seen recently. Playing off the aesthetic concerns of people like Philip Dick, Hans Bellmer and the post-modern themes of the music of Die Form and Clock DVA - GITS 2 was just incredible.
And the TV series "Stand Alone Complex" is far more than meets the eye in most episodes. The Laughing Man shit is unbelievable in terms of its savage attack on modern Cyber culture.
And I hate most Anime - I am not even a big fan of animation per se. I just like anything good: Warner Bros., Akira, GITS, The Running Man, Aeon Flux, etc.
I guess we veer wildly off-topic now...
In terms of genre material, I liked "Earth X" a lot. But I am all ears for good recommendations in any category of comics. Please don't drag out the tired "Ghost World" or what have you, something in the last 1-2 years would be nicer to know about.
Right, but millions of copies of a regular monthly title hasn't happened since nearly the "golden age." And that's when the comic served dual purpose as handy paper to put on the floor for your dog or with which to line the bird cage. Oh sure, there is the occasional book that sells really well, but as you say - a book regularly selling 100,000 is a big deal now.
Sadly, most of the books published aren't worth reading anyway.
The first two statements are far more than insightful.
For those not knowing, some cities in Utah can claim the highest per capita consumption of pornography in the U.S.
The more something is denied, the more likely it is to come out in socially awkward ways.
Neat means undiluted, moron.
That's the genius of Guy Kawasaki...
Turn people into brand name zombies and they will do everything in their power to shut you down. They are worse than religious fanatics because they don't even see what they are doing as motivated by a kind of insane zealotry.
I'm not going to skewer you on this point, but you only have the proper use of music you paid for via iTunes or ripped yourself because you own the original CD disks. Your continued use of that music is predicated on your continued ownership of the disks in question. You don't ideally have the right to backups for which you have no originals.
If you are going to drink the corporate kool-aid, play by the corporate rules.
You first.
Yes, exactly. My first thoughts on reading the article.
::cough:: libertarians swallow like Jonestown Kool-aid). What they want is a locked down market that they can manipulate at will. This is just like Enron, except for the music biz.
This is proof that corporations aren't really interested in capitalism, free market forces, or any of that empty rhetoric (the nonsense rethugs, and rethugs-lite
Mod parent up please.
Not to my knowledge.
Laws are very different nation to nation. Most of the states in the United States have as their foundation, the common law - which is a bit of a mish mash between a few things, but where the government is predicated upon the sole political authority of the people. Louisiana might actually be considered an exception as much of their state law derives from French equity law - the law between merchants.
We don't know why? We know precisely why. And so do you.
BTW, a one-man corporation doesn't exist. There is the corporate entity, and there is the individual that runs it. It really is a huge difference.
The one man uses the corporate entity as dodge for personal liability.
Read some Jefferson, it will do you a world of good and rectify some of this sloppy thinking on your part.
Don't fall into the rhetorical trap people (although some of you have made very excellent points dancing around the issue slightly).
Corporations are not only not individuals, they are also not even groups! Corporations are legally created entities to themselves that are given certain fictional legal rights to operate AS IF they were a person. Yes, coincidently, most corporations are run by groups of people - none of whom are the corporation itself. In fact, that's the point of it for most people: limited liability through a fictitious front called a corporation.
You see, individuals have rights to free speech. Individuals even have the right to lie - not to perjury, but common lying is perfectly reasonable and protected behavior.
Corporations by contrast can be regulated even to the point of destruction because they are legal fictions in the first place. They have no such right to free speech. They have no right to lie. They don't even have a right to exist unless we as a people allow them to exist.
Let's get that all down before we start talking nonsense.
Mod parent up - please someone. The usual "libertarian" (actually just ::cough:: "rethug") group is in overdrive again.
The problem is that there is very little flexibility in the system and we are practically stuck within an economic class from birth - that's for the overwhelming majority of the people in a culture that refuses to even talk about classes because we are all supposedly part of an enormous middle-class (itself often broken up into lower, middle, and upper classes!).
There is no real middle-class, not in the way most people mean it.
What you have to confront is that labor is always made cheap through a series of techniques at the disposal of the wealthy. They love to claim that workers are underqualified - what a great bargaining chip when it comes time to negotiate the value of labor.
By opening up other markets, we haven't discovered a new trade partner for OUR goods, we have discovered another way to utterly devalue the labor we perform in this country, as governed by our economy.
Money is dead people. Overpopulation and automation will force the end of all economic theories as we know them. Star Trek Deep Space Nine was probably one of the dumbest shows ever, but one day they had a time travel episode that I watched and boy did the idea of class warfare and riots strike a chord in me. The approx. date on the show for these riots was about 2020 IIRC. I don't remember any other thing about that show except that I kept thinking to myself that the date seemed fairly accurate.
People cannot keep pointing at the past and say: "All technological advancement has created industries and jobs." Well, that's only half the equation. What about overpopulation? What about when there are 100 candidates for every open position? Or 1,000? Or even 10,000?
Wait for it.
I *SO* said the exact same thing about three weeks ago: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=138394&cid=115 84450
Oh, you're not paying attention...
The violation of commercial property rights is the worst possible crime imaginable. Taking a human life merely decreases the surplus population.
Corporations are eternal. People come and go.
So you readily admit your "free market" nonsense term means that you get yours and some poor asshole in China gets barely tolerable wage slavery?
Good to know.
Let me ask you something: why do "free markets" always mean that labor has almost no value? Yet, interestingly - labor must surely carry the force of democracy, there simply being more laborers than owners.
So why aren't laborers more in charge of the world as we know it?
Maybe there's a wealth and power factor I'm just not considering...
-------------------
I repeat: show me one free market anywhere on earth. Just one. Pretty please?
One example, that's all I ask. One example of a true free trade culture anywhere on earth.
Oh right, there are none!
Next...?
That's all you've got? Wow, what a terrifically cogent argument!
When technology puts power into the hands of individuals I don't see a problem; when it takes away their means of making even a meager living, then I see a problem.
Hey, I do it too - march passed all those wacky homeless people in the big cities. They can't all just be crazy and lazy. How about those kids in the projects? After they stab you to death for your ATM and CCs, maybe you will have wished you had a different political outlook. This cheap labor shit has blowback. Or didn't you realize that obvious fact?
As members of a CIVILIZED SOCIETY we have to take care of one another and make sure we establish a culture that takes care of its own. Where's the revolution in my words - except where I won't pretend it's someone else's job, or the responsibility of the local church? That's a plan that assures nothing will ever be accomplished. I think it is my responsibility. I think it is your responsibility. It is a political imperative. We build civilization together
You know, I have no children and still think its okay that some of my money goes to educate the adults of tomorrow.
Yeah, call me crazy...or a Luddite.
You just want yours and fuck everybody else. Nice.
"My life sucks, so your life should suck too. Everyone has to pay their 'fair share'."
Who wants this guy on the jury at their trial? Show of hands...
You know, there really are members of the any community for whom that kind of job is a necessity. They really can't do much more than that. Do they now deserve to starve and die because automation is making the jobs they are able to obtain obsolete?
I am not saying that these people are the best and brightest, I am saying they EXIST. They have rights and should be treated with fairness and dignity.
For those of you about to jump all over my shit with capitalist dogma, libertarian claptrap, and pointless mantras about how the "freedom to succeed also contains within it the freedom to fail" - try obtaining a soul before replying.
This is the death of mom and pop type operations all over again, except at a much more personal level - at the level of the individual unable to compete with a machine and automation.
Where is John Henry when we need him to do some machine ass whooping? Yeah, I know he died in the attempt. The point of the story was to make one empathize with someone of amazing abilities that was still less valuable than a machine.
And yet, is the success of the automated machine worth the death of even one person?
You really have to ask yourselves this question because it is at the heart of what we as techs do - we program and engineer tools of automation for our corporate masters in what is the moral equivalent of what Oppenheimer did with the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was bold enough to have no illusions as to what he unleashed onto the unsuspecting world, he said: "I am become death." But if he had no illusions as to what he was doing, shouldn't he have stopped himself on moral grounds?
We techs have become economic death for many. And all of it so our corporate masters can better regulate us, better force us to consume, and better shorten our life spans unless we can afford very levels of conspicuous consumption.
You are neither at the top of the economic pyramid, nor at the bottom of it. You are placed well into the middle of it so as to forever tease you with the riches at the top - all while you are statistically most likely to never change your status in life at all. This has the consequence of making you think of things as if you were at the top - one of the masters yourself - because maybe, just maybe someday you will have arrived at your goal and finally reach the top. So you align yourselves with the goals of the masters while rejecting the economic and political realities of the under-classes from which you originate.
That's not smart. You are living in a dreamland of false hopes.
These tools of automation are in many ways paid for in blood.
"Besides, the whole "I pirate to get back at them," argument is silly."
Actually, it's not. It's a band-aid solution for a band-aid kind of world and legal system. IP law is wildly out of control because they are deep pocketed interests greasing the legislators and practically no one to defend the commons against that kind of corruption.
What you are seeing is perfectly reasonable disrespect for "the law" because laws aren't really worth anything until we all generally agree to them - and many of us don't agree any more.
Anyway, laws about IP rights are pretty absurd if you ask me - in the main they serve no one but the protected few. They are a creation of law, a completely unnatural arrangement to benefit creators of useful things. Had the laws remained reasonable people wouldn't be so inclined to flout the law. After the most recent extensions of copyright (i.e. sucking Disney corp cock) most people well understood that IP laws had become completely insane.
Patent law now threatens the same thing. One cannot turn around without considering whose fucking "idea" one may be treading upon.
To be honest, that's a not a world I want to live in, but live in it I do. I have my own fixes for things that bother me.
For the record, I consider myself a deeply moral person. I also refuse to equate morality with what may or may not be "against the law" - laws change all the time to suit the needs of the few, and basically I don't give a shit any longer. We live under the "Golden Rule" where those that have the gold make the rules. It's an old joke, and its funny because its sadly so true.
What you are really worried about is that you are used to a society where the shots are called from the top down. Well, you might have to get used to a society where the street morality you so fear is agreed upon from the bottom up. Because the street, my friend, has its own uses for things.
Who modded this "shite" insightful? It's practically drooling idiocy in line with the article about how school kids don't understand the 1st Amendment.
To believe this administration's justifications for the war in Iraq you have to also believe that it's possible that they can change their story every few days and that each new story is true. But I guess if you can believe that then you can also believe that a man originally appointed President and who then barely scraped by in winning an election has a mandate for all kinds of nonsense and has "political capital" to spend.
These jerks never had political capital - that's why the needed Powell to play front man/whipping boy for them. And Powell took it like a man until even he tired of the bullshit. Now Powell and son are both out - and for good I imagine. They won't play ball so this administration has told them to take their gear, shove it up their asses, and clear out. "Thanks for giving us a modicum of cred, niggermen! Now get the fuck out before we salt your asses with our shotguns."
Here's the problem: 2 + 2 = 4 and not whatever the Ministry of Love says it does. Not today. Not the day our Mission was Accomplished. Not fucking ever.
We are in Iraq so that an elite few can gain control of Iraqi oil fields. All those other justifications you seem to hold dear are for the chumps and plebs. You seem to hold a poor opinion of hardcore neocon bible thumber types, but you are yourself just another color of "mark." It's my opinion that you psychologically prefer to believe the lies because you sleep better at night because of them, not becuase you actually believe these lies to be true.
And I am trying to wise up the marks. People like myself are asking you to believe harsh truths - as cold as the most severe, darkest night of midwinter. But yes, you have agreed to murder, mayhem, and the unequal application of the laws of the U.S.
There's nothing wrong with you that a good solid reading of "The Prince," "1984" and "Animal Farm" wouldn't hopefully cure. In the main, I'd say we were living the "Animal Farm" world led by people that use "The Prince" as a road map with all of us of the lower classes hoping it doesn't really become "1984." Don't make the mistake of reading those important texts and thinking they are just fiction.
WTF? Are you nuts or what? Fisting is just getting your whole hand inside of someone. Inside a man's rectum you could massage his prostate gland, inside a woman you could manipulate her G-spot. Sure, it's a little intense, but I fail to see why anyone would say it was "wrong, wrong, wrong". It's best to think of it as very intense "fingering."
Don't like it, don't do it.
That whole thing about someone cramming a closed fist into another person's body is more myth than reality. Yes, some people can manage it - but most can't. And yes, those that can are probably pretty hardcore into their activities.
Still, if it's none of your business, don't worry about it.
How can your ego be so bloated that you actually think you can find everything that might be wrong with a computer manually? I get the idea you enjoy your share of call backs.
Sometimes the best solution is to do a clean install and set up a proper backup and recovery protocol - but yes, doing so ultimately makes the services you provide obsolete (or very nearly so).