This is getting closer to a novel by Greg Egan called Quarantine, in which a girl escapes from a mental institution. How she escaped, nobody knows. Cameras show nothing. Security doors show no logs. The plastic sheet used for the window shows no anomalies of breaking and fixing.
Turns out her brain was "broken" in a most unusual sense: she cannot collapse her own view. Instead, her multiple worlds (from the MWI) combine and create a non-collapsed lifeform. All this comes about in finding a created device that selectively prevents the collapse, but allows the user to change it at will.
Lemee see. Ill go and create a FUSE driver that utilizes this service. Now, Ill point this service at GPG files.
Gee golly Whillikers! You cant read anything I have. Nice though. Encrypted storage dump you can share. Just trade keys out of band, say thorough Gmail.
The 35% assumes the yearly cut (well, quarterly in big business).
You are not counting regulatory decisions that force base cost higher (indirect tax). You are not counting the goods that were sold TO the company (tax on incoming goods). You are not counting tariffs on goods that have them. You are not counting mandatory checks for compliance. You are not counting the bookkeeping to determine tax compliance.
From my sources that did work in upper management (mainly secretaries), tax burden was around 50%. Other economists have argued that tax burden is instead a stake of forced ownership from the government. Effectively, that means that the company is paying dividends of upwards of 50% to an owner who did not put stake in the company at birth. Or, this could be a seen as a stock dilution for all shareholders involved. Regardless, the govt gets its cut before anybody else.
---exactly the same as saying "why should I pay for the bus as it will ride with or without me ?"
NO, its not. You talk about public transportation, which is funded by the city and the state, with taxpayer contributions. And in some cases, riding the bus is "Free", as in you pay for it completely through taxes. We use a phrase, called a "Public Good" about these public lines of transportation.
---If artists are paid before they do anything, of course it's because it's known their CD will create revenue in the future.
Creators will always create. Manuscripts exist from almost every people from every age. They certainly didnt get "Paid for it". People will sing and create music even from skin-stretched drums. That's a fact, that people who yearn to create works will do so regardless of 'incentive'. In fact, incentive is a rather poor way to get people to do something. Accolades and other status raising events do just as much. Look at these hackers that end up on the front page of Slashdot. They wern't paid to break SSL... but something runs deep within them that they do so, and then release how to do it.
My issue is specially with the time limits and what considers "Fair compensation".
Do you believe that creators who rely on copyright will benefit after they are in the ground? I dont think so. Their heirs will, but they arent the creators. Do you believe that a song is worth 750$ to 35000$, when they are being sold for 1$ at the most? Even treble damages would indicate 3$. And the record companies argue that 10X is too excessive. Or perhaps when it comes to copyright limits, should it apply to companies that collect these copyrights? There is no 50 yrs+ death, in cases of MPAA and RIAA members because they never die.
And lets address another issue that you (or anybody else) discussed. What makes a creator so special that whatever they do is protected on everything they sell? Why doesnt that apply to laborers, or any other type? What makes musicians, lyricists, actors, painters, quilters, designers, inventors and other creat-y types so special?
Im sure you'll answer that (at least in the USA), it's in the Constitution. Fine. You know what else is in the Constitution? "For the progress of the sciences and arts..." Copyright especially, has been shown that longer term limits RETARD development because they encourage the artist to make until they have a blockbuster, then quit. Patents are a bit better, due to the maximum 17 year term. However patents leave out the crucial details that made them useful to begin with. They are now no more than sharp legal instruments to inflict harm on unsuspecting creators.
Well, whats my solution? We cant change our government from the inside, as the ones with the power are entrenched there by the monies from these companies. Our politicians arent ours, and they dont do our bidding. The only real way to effect change is to ignore these obsolete laws and hope we force their hands. It's already working in changing policy. It can do nothing but go further in our favor.
---The difference is that the examples that you give are physical objects that cannot be copied with nero-zero cost.
I knew somebody would highlight that distinction. For that, look at programmers. Programmers write code. That code, depending on how it is written, can be considered elegant, just like artwork or music. IOCCC can be used as an example, like the "Pig Latin Program", in the shape of a pig in proper obfuscated C. Programmers are paid to work on X piece and usually have no expectation on further royalties on said code.
That's a group (and a large group) that does work that could easily apply to the copyright sector, but by and large, does not.
---Also, the IP cost is built in the price of most if not all goods that you purchase, including cars. When you buy that car from the car companies you are not paying just the marginal cost to produce that car.
Is it now? All the major car companies have their share of patents that others infringe upon. Because of that, all the major players have a form of non-aggression pact to prevent being sued. Similar events are happening (and breaking down) between Intel and Nvidia. However, because of the car oligopoly, we do not know how much is actually being added as a "IP Tax", considering how the vehicle market is segmented. However, since these patent pressures are roughly equal on each player, market forces will drive prices down regardless of IP, since it's a common denominator.
---Also you would be crazy to think that if you could replicate that car for near-zero cost yourself, that the car companies would not sue for copyright infringement.
ALl more the point why Copyright has served its usefulness, considering how it has been perverted. At least patent law hasnt been screwed around too much (well, other than software patents and Chakrabarty).
Copyright and patents, in all its current forms, is a barrier to free trade. It claims that your hardware and physical stuff somehow has claim on it by someone else. hey also serve to segregate "Inside Country" from outside the country, as non-USA countries do not abide by US patent law.
---Why pirate stuff when you can support the artist by paying them for their work?
They already did the work. Why should be indebted to them after the fact? I dont pay the electrician for every time I turn on the lights. I dont pay the carpenters who made the framing in this house whenever I go inside. I dont pay the car companies whenever I drive to and fro. So, why should I pay for a download with a cost that approaches 0?
---What? You don't consider it to be good enough to pay for? Why are you wanting it then?
The cost is not reasonable to many people. If instead, the cost was $.10 per song, much more purchases would be made. DRM also makes these crippled music files very undesirable. Also, many songs are not online with a legal service, so convenience wise, Piratebay is the only option.
Copyright is one of the biggest monopoly abuses in this country, considering how it has been extended and perverted. It deserves to be ignored. The number of torrenters (on 'illegal torrents') have a mandate by sheer numbers.
It's been socialist for a hell of a long time. Why?
Lets look at taxes. If you're a public corporation, you pay roughly 40-50% taxes per year. Hmm.. Wouldnt the tax payout be similar to OWNERSHIP of a company in terms of 40-50%?
Definition Socialism: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods --According to Merriam-Webster
By that account, we're half-way to socialism, and little to show for it when compared to more socialistic countries in Europe.
---Well, in the real world fortunes are built by leaching off the hard work of others, but we'll pretend.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment, but I cant see how that's factually true in many contexts.
1. My dad was doing stuff (cant exactly detail what though) with miners. Those miners were getting paid up to 400K/yr because how good they were. They were creating base wealth - not screwing over people.
2. I know a guy who's in charge of foreman over a big pipe project from the midwest to Nevada(? somwehere in that direction). There's a big cost in installation, but that enables trade for cheaper good, because it was cheaper to install a pipe than shipping other means. And large amount sof personnel were required to make the pipeline spanning thousands of miles.
3. Anybody who's a farmer, except for those god-awful megafarmers, puts in base resource in the system which wasnt there prior to that (Well, hay is cheap compared to steak).
4. Nearly any computer programmer takes food, caffeine, and electricity to make code. That code wasnt there prior to that.
So yeah, there's jobs that one can own that add to the salable goods pool, and not take away from specific groups of people.
The news isnt some made-up "I hate your religion because Bush made me do it". It's corruption at its plainest. And this corruption was a "treatment center" paying for convictions and assignment at said area.
It has nothing to do with Bush, Atheists, religion, or Chinese death carts.
Judges and other governmental figures make a public oath that usually affirms to uphold the state or national constitution. Accidental violation is one thing, and possibly overlooked. However, when one uses State power to make money by harming, in this case, thousands, would indicate that there is an active treason going on. All we need now are 2 witnesses or confession in open court, according to the US Constitution.
The answer to being found guilty of treason in a federal court of law is death.
It's very likely a prison rape for most who enter, and murder for others. And the cop chose to do X and be found guilty by a group of his "peers", whoever that is.
During primaries lasty year, I had 2 votes: One in primaries and on in the jury box. And I consider my jury box vote so much more worthy than a primary vote.
We saw a case where a guy was charged with a DUI. Defendant took stand and said he was going to a Sundance festival which they hold around here. He was stockpiling alcohol for the parties. He parked and started to drink, cause it was too late for pitching the tent. Cop playing rent-a-cop was watching over the festival. He claimed that he saw defendant driving erratic.
Problem: 1. radioed for help to an on-duty cop. aww shucks. no logs 2. main cop said one thing in deposition. said something else in open court. lied. 3. log books not filled out. shucks. 4. timing on cops story didnt work out. there was an hour of unaccounted time. defendant explained what happened and made sense timewise and reasonwise. 5. main cop was just smarmy on stand. there was stuff he was hiding and the defense attorney found it.
Yeah, took us 5 minutes for a not guilty verdict. Took us longer to get the attorneys re-convened. However, considering the opinion in the jury room, we would have tried the cops for perjury. But thats not how our systems works:( Corrupted officials keep their jobs. hurray.
The death penalty should only be used in cases in which a public servant (who makes an oath swearing to uphold) destroys plunders the people.
If they're caught, fine. Have a real public trial. If found guilty, execution. Considering how many thousands of lives a public servant can affect, the crime would scale properly.
And he said nothing about death penalty applying to citizens. I dont think it should, or at least not ones that arent public servants.
52 kids/year 520 kids/10 years 5200 kids/100 years and minus a few.
Honestly, I'd drain them and their related family of all ill-gotten gains, drain every penny from them, and make them live on subsistence welfare and lead a poor life. May they never taste the fruits of success for the rest of their life.
'Pretty game runs'. While playing, it downloads say 10 pubkeys from GPG server. Then proceeds to encrypt ~ to those 10 keys whilst overwriting every file there.
Now, game shows nasty message: Your shit has been encrypted. Pay X or fcuk off.
---The right to own a gun is enshrined in your US constitution, which basically means you are stuck with the worlds highest gun crime rate.
So be it. But wait, what about places like Switzerland, who has the highest per capita ownership in the world? Why arent they proportionately as violent? In fact, every able bodied man must have a machine gun with ammo in their house at all times.
And about the "worlds highest gun crime rate"... I heard if you eliminate cars, you end up with a 0% car fatality rate!
---The best thing we ever did in this country (Australia) was remove all but the most essential firearms (Farmers and the like), and all semi automatic rifles from our society. Since then there have been NO gunrelated mass murders, unlike the US which has at least one a year. The proposition that more guns make anyone safer is ludicrous.
It would seem that being a break-apart from UK, you would understand that our old reason for enshrining gun rights in our Constitution is that it's the ultimate switch to stop a deranged government. Its not about safety from the robber, nor is it to protect against wild animals, or as a cool hip jewelery. It's there to serve as the forth branch of government, when our government has gone deranged and needs to be stopped.
Perhaps, that view is a long gone one, in which governments now serve the people: Look at your country today. Few guns available to select, internet nanny ISPs mandated by your federal government, government mandated monopolies that do not provide decent services, unjust and unfair taxation, and other issues. Perhaps the grand scheme of things was to disarm the populace to make them more malleable to "certain social changes".
Though, judging by your tone and level of arrogance and "trust in the system", you will always believe that guns are evil and only increase violence. That's your fallacy to believe. I've studied our US history and know how we won our freedom. I also know that to make sure we stay free, we need to remind everybody with the sacrifice of our patriots who serve us, and that patriot is the everyman. Not the police. Not the military, and most certainly not any politicians.
They each want their cut, and EZ-Piss doesnt want to give them as much as they want. And it's a monopoly, so they dont need to do anything else other than get paid in lucrative contracts for sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but Itunes per song is 1$ average.
They offer 4 cd's of content. Average of 10 songs per cd = 40 songs.
40$ with mp3's or 3$ with protections. That's not that bad of a deal, considering they make a "portal" of dates and other things.
Course, there is Piratebay if you want permanent copies of these songs. But this 3$ deal isnt that bad.
This is getting closer to a novel by Greg Egan called Quarantine, in which a girl escapes from a mental institution. How she escaped, nobody knows. Cameras show nothing. Security doors show no logs. The plastic sheet used for the window shows no anomalies of breaking and fixing.
Turns out her brain was "broken" in a most unusual sense: she cannot collapse her own view. Instead, her multiple worlds (from the MWI) combine and create a non-collapsed lifeform. All this comes about in finding a created device that selectively prevents the collapse, but allows the user to change it at will.
I could see what he means...
Enable guest. Set password to "dd if=/dev/urandom count=1".
That would work... Ugly, but works.
How abouts something like....
"We reserve the right to change this EULA at any time, without informing you."
So, thats the problem with sharing with anony on a XP install. I was wondering if I broke something.
Loads up VirtualBox OSE....
Yeah. That fixes the problem. Thanks.
Lemee see. Ill go and create a FUSE driver that utilizes this service. Now, Ill point this service at GPG files.
Gee golly Whillikers! You cant read anything I have. Nice though. Encrypted storage dump you can share. Just trade keys out of band, say thorough Gmail.
The 35% assumes the yearly cut (well, quarterly in big business).
You are not counting regulatory decisions that force base cost higher (indirect tax).
You are not counting the goods that were sold TO the company (tax on incoming goods).
You are not counting tariffs on goods that have them.
You are not counting mandatory checks for compliance.
You are not counting the bookkeeping to determine tax compliance.
From my sources that did work in upper management (mainly secretaries), tax burden was around 50%. Other economists have argued that tax burden is instead a stake of forced ownership from the government. Effectively, that means that the company is paying dividends of upwards of 50% to an owner who did not put stake in the company at birth. Or, this could be a seen as a stock dilution for all shareholders involved. Regardless, the govt gets its cut before anybody else.
That sounds like a variation of the old Chinese curse...
Those with interesting lives have the best stories.
---exactly the same as saying "why should I pay for the bus as it will ride with or without me ?"
NO, its not. You talk about public transportation, which is funded by the city and the state, with taxpayer contributions. And in some cases, riding the bus is "Free", as in you pay for it completely through taxes. We use a phrase, called a "Public Good" about these public lines of transportation.
---If artists are paid before they do anything, of course it's because it's known their CD will create revenue in the future.
Creators will always create. Manuscripts exist from almost every people from every age. They certainly didnt get "Paid for it". People will sing and create music even from skin-stretched drums. That's a fact, that people who yearn to create works will do so regardless of 'incentive'. In fact, incentive is a rather poor way to get people to do something. Accolades and other status raising events do just as much. Look at these hackers that end up on the front page of Slashdot. They wern't paid to break SSL... but something runs deep within them that they do so, and then release how to do it.
My issue is specially with the time limits and what considers "Fair compensation".
Do you believe that creators who rely on copyright will benefit after they are in the ground? I dont think so. Their heirs will, but they arent the creators.
Do you believe that a song is worth 750$ to 35000$, when they are being sold for 1$ at the most? Even treble damages would indicate 3$. And the record companies argue that 10X is too excessive.
Or perhaps when it comes to copyright limits, should it apply to companies that collect these copyrights? There is no 50 yrs+ death, in cases of MPAA and RIAA members because they never die.
And lets address another issue that you (or anybody else) discussed. What makes a creator so special that whatever they do is protected on everything they sell? Why doesnt that apply to laborers, or any other type? What makes musicians, lyricists, actors, painters, quilters, designers, inventors and other creat-y types so special?
Im sure you'll answer that (at least in the USA), it's in the Constitution. Fine. You know what else is in the Constitution? "For the progress of the sciences and arts..." Copyright especially, has been shown that longer term limits RETARD development because they encourage the artist to make until they have a blockbuster, then quit. Patents are a bit better, due to the maximum 17 year term. However patents leave out the crucial details that made them useful to begin with. They are now no more than sharp legal instruments to inflict harm on unsuspecting creators.
Well, whats my solution? We cant change our government from the inside, as the ones with the power are entrenched there by the monies from these companies. Our politicians arent ours, and they dont do our bidding. The only real way to effect change is to ignore these obsolete laws and hope we force their hands. It's already working in changing policy. It can do nothing but go further in our favor.
---The difference is that the examples that you give are physical objects that cannot be copied with nero-zero cost.
I knew somebody would highlight that distinction. For that, look at programmers. Programmers write code. That code, depending on how it is written, can be considered elegant, just like artwork or music. IOCCC can be used as an example, like the "Pig Latin Program", in the shape of a pig in proper obfuscated C. Programmers are paid to work on X piece and usually have no expectation on further royalties on said code.
That's a group (and a large group) that does work that could easily apply to the copyright sector, but by and large, does not.
---Also, the IP cost is built in the price of most if not all goods that you purchase, including cars. When you buy that car from the car companies you are not paying just the marginal cost to produce that car.
Is it now? All the major car companies have their share of patents that others infringe upon. Because of that, all the major players have a form of non-aggression pact to prevent being sued. Similar events are happening (and breaking down) between Intel and Nvidia. However, because of the car oligopoly, we do not know how much is actually being added as a "IP Tax", considering how the vehicle market is segmented. However, since these patent pressures are roughly equal on each player, market forces will drive prices down regardless of IP, since it's a common denominator.
---Also you would be crazy to think that if you could replicate that car for near-zero cost yourself, that the car companies would not sue for copyright infringement.
ALl more the point why Copyright has served its usefulness, considering how it has been perverted. At least patent law hasnt been screwed around too much (well, other than software patents and Chakrabarty).
Copyright and patents, in all its current forms, is a barrier to free trade. It claims that your hardware and physical stuff somehow has claim on it by someone else. hey also serve to segregate "Inside Country" from outside the country, as non-USA countries do not abide by US patent law.
---Why pirate stuff when you can support the artist by paying them for their work?
They already did the work. Why should be indebted to them after the fact? I dont pay the electrician for every time I turn on the lights. I dont pay the carpenters who made the framing in this house whenever I go inside. I dont pay the car companies whenever I drive to and fro. So, why should I pay for a download with a cost that approaches 0?
---What? You don't consider it to be good enough to pay for? Why are you wanting it then?
The cost is not reasonable to many people. If instead, the cost was $.10 per song, much more purchases would be made. DRM also makes these crippled music files very undesirable. Also, many songs are not online with a legal service, so convenience wise, Piratebay is the only option.
Copyright is one of the biggest monopoly abuses in this country, considering how it has been extended and perverted. It deserves to be ignored. The number of torrenters (on 'illegal torrents') have a mandate by sheer numbers.
It's been socialist for a hell of a long time. Why?
Lets look at taxes. If you're a public corporation, you pay roughly 40-50% taxes per year. Hmm.. Wouldnt the tax payout be similar to OWNERSHIP of a company in terms of 40-50%?
Definition Socialism: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods --According to Merriam-Webster
By that account, we're half-way to socialism, and little to show for it when compared to more socialistic countries in Europe.
---Well, in the real world fortunes are built by leaching off the hard work of others, but we'll pretend.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment, but I cant see how that's factually true in many contexts.
1. My dad was doing stuff (cant exactly detail what though) with miners. Those miners were getting paid up to 400K/yr because how good they were. They were creating base wealth - not screwing over people.
2. I know a guy who's in charge of foreman over a big pipe project from the midwest to Nevada(? somwehere in that direction). There's a big cost in installation, but that enables trade for cheaper good, because it was cheaper to install a pipe than shipping other means. And large amount sof personnel were required to make the pipeline spanning thousands of miles.
3. Anybody who's a farmer, except for those god-awful megafarmers, puts in base resource in the system which wasnt there prior to that (Well, hay is cheap compared to steak).
4. Nearly any computer programmer takes food, caffeine, and electricity to make code. That code wasnt there prior to that.
So yeah, there's jobs that one can own that add to the salable goods pool, and not take away from specific groups of people.
They are public officials, acting in the public capacity, severely harming thousands of citizens.
That may be criminal confinement. That may be bribery. That may be kidnapping.
But that is also treason. And treason carries one punishment for those found guilty.
Execution.
Sued is usually a response to a tort claim.
I believe you're looking at jailtime for criminal negligence. And that person who is responsible is the prison warden.
Talk about a load of hogwash.
The news isnt some made-up "I hate your religion because Bush made me do it". It's corruption at its plainest. And this corruption was a "treatment center" paying for convictions and assignment at said area.
It has nothing to do with Bush, Atheists, religion, or Chinese death carts.
Judges and other governmental figures make a public oath that usually affirms to uphold the state or national constitution. Accidental violation is one thing, and possibly overlooked. However, when one uses State power to make money by harming, in this case, thousands, would indicate that there is an active treason going on. All we need now are 2 witnesses or confession in open court, according to the US Constitution.
The answer to being found guilty of treason in a federal court of law is death.
Yes.
It's very likely a prison rape for most who enter, and murder for others. And the cop chose to do X and be found guilty by a group of his "peers", whoever that is.
Yeah, to General you go.
During primaries lasty year, I had 2 votes: One in primaries and on in the jury box. And I consider my jury box vote so much more worthy than a primary vote.
We saw a case where a guy was charged with a DUI. Defendant took stand and said he was going to a Sundance festival which they hold around here. He was stockpiling alcohol for the parties. He parked and started to drink, cause it was too late for pitching the tent. Cop playing rent-a-cop was watching over the festival. He claimed that he saw defendant driving erratic.
Problem:
1. radioed for help to an on-duty cop. aww shucks. no logs
2. main cop said one thing in deposition. said something else in open court. lied.
3. log books not filled out. shucks.
4. timing on cops story didnt work out. there was an hour of unaccounted time. defendant explained what happened and made sense timewise and reasonwise.
5. main cop was just smarmy on stand. there was stuff he was hiding and the defense attorney found it.
Yeah, took us 5 minutes for a not guilty verdict. Took us longer to get the attorneys re-convened. However, considering the opinion in the jury room, we would have tried the cops for perjury. But thats not how our systems works :( Corrupted officials keep their jobs. hurray.
The death penalty should only be used in cases in which a public servant (who makes an oath swearing to uphold) destroys plunders the people.
If they're caught, fine. Have a real public trial. If found guilty, execution. Considering how many thousands of lives a public servant can affect, the crime would scale properly.
And he said nothing about death penalty applying to citizens. I dont think it should, or at least not ones that arent public servants.
I'd settle for a week per kid.
52 kids/year
520 kids/10 years
5200 kids/100 years
and minus a few.
Honestly, I'd drain them and their related family of all ill-gotten gains, drain every penny from them, and make them live on subsistence welfare and lead a poor life. May they never taste the fruits of success for the rest of their life.
We linux gamers already do exactly that.
Gnome, KDE, and other environments take up too much resources, so we start a Xterm. Then we proceed to launch the game via Wine.
Games run smoother in Linux via Wine than they do on the same hardware with Windows.
I like the idea of ransomware.
'Pretty game runs'. While playing, it downloads say 10 pubkeys from GPG server. Then proceeds to encrypt ~ to those 10 keys whilst overwriting every file there.
Now, game shows nasty message: Your shit has been encrypted. Pay X or fcuk off.
---The right to own a gun is enshrined in your US constitution, which basically means you are stuck with the worlds highest gun crime rate.
So be it. But wait, what about places like Switzerland, who has the highest per capita ownership in the world? Why arent they proportionately as violent? In fact, every able bodied man must have a machine gun with ammo in their house at all times.
And about the "worlds highest gun crime rate"... I heard if you eliminate cars, you end up with a 0% car fatality rate!
---The best thing we ever did in this country (Australia) was remove all but the most essential firearms (Farmers and the like), and all semi automatic rifles from our society. Since then there have been NO gunrelated mass murders, unlike the US which has at least one a year.
The proposition that more guns make anyone safer is ludicrous.
It would seem that being a break-apart from UK, you would understand that our old reason for enshrining gun rights in our Constitution is that it's the ultimate switch to stop a deranged government. Its not about safety from the robber, nor is it to protect against wild animals, or as a cool hip jewelery. It's there to serve as the forth branch of government, when our government has gone deranged and needs to be stopped.
Perhaps, that view is a long gone one, in which governments now serve the people: Look at your country today. Few guns available to select, internet nanny ISPs mandated by your federal government, government mandated monopolies that do not provide decent services, unjust and unfair taxation, and other issues. Perhaps the grand scheme of things was to disarm the populace to make them more malleable to "certain social changes".
Though, judging by your tone and level of arrogance and "trust in the system", you will always believe that guns are evil and only increase violence. That's your fallacy to believe. I've studied our US history and know how we won our freedom. I also know that to make sure we stay free, we need to remind everybody with the sacrifice of our patriots who serve us, and that patriot is the everyman. Not the police. Not the military, and most certainly not any politicians.
Incorrect.
If a large group of "Us" each run Onion Router nodes, you cannot be sure who you are communicating with, other than by taking control of each node
Simple. Money.
They each want their cut, and EZ-Piss doesnt want to give them as much as they want. And it's a monopoly, so they dont need to do anything else other than get paid in lucrative contracts for sitting around twiddling their thumbs.