If so, will you be willing to pay the price should we ever come to the conclusion that paedophiles are just another natural part of human sexuality? Because that, my friend, is the very possible danger you are facing with that opinion.
Paedophiles are natural, since the only other option is that someone's creating them on purpose, which seems quite unlikely. Anything that exists in nature is natural, by definition; in fact, if you want to nitpick, then anything not created by direct intervention of supernatural is natural.
And, for the record, I really think that they should be left to jack off on pics of naked kids in peace, since that hurts no one and eases all manners of pressures that might the weaker of them to act out their desires in real life. The current hysteria over the issue is really, really, really stupid and will, in all likelihood, pass eventually.
That people attracted to 17 years old are nowadays sometimes called "paedophiles" even on this very forum is just icing on the cake.
Seeing as nobody responsible for those laws back then is still in power, how does it make sense to demand an apology of today's government and thus of today's society?
Does Britain still take credit for standing up to Nazi Germany? Does the British Government of today lay claim to the British Isles conquered hundreds of years ago by its ancestors? And does it accept "it was the previous government, not us" as a reply when trying to collect debts owned to it by other countries?
An apology penned by the persons who currently constitute government in the UK would be utterly meaningless since those are not persons who had anything to do with Turing's treatment.
Turing is dead so an apology couldn't be delivered anyway. That's not the point.
"The Government" is not some sentient, undying, collectively intelligent entity which can itself apologise for its behaviour. It is merely a label for a group of individuals currently fulfilling certain roles.
"The Government" is, however, a legal/fictitious entity that exerts influence in the real world. Furthermore, it is an entity that normally has continuity; for example, the British government is hundreds of years old and existed long before any of its current members were born; the same is true of Britain itself. As such, it is entirely appropriate for a member of said government apologize in behalf of the government for past misdeeds done under the name of the government.
Even when Microsoft does something good, some people here try to twist it into the most heinous acts.
Doing evil under the guise of good has been Microsoft's modus operandi for too long to give them the benefit of doubt. At this point, they'd need to prove their innocence for me to believe it, and even then I'd be extremely wary of trusting them.
And basically, we're all pretty tired of it.
Don't presume to talk for others.
This whole story is flamebait, and regardless of people's feelings about Microsoft, I think everyone is tired of being baited for the sake of Cowboy Neal's advertising revenues.
Apparently you aren't, since you bothered to open the discussion and write that comment.
The bacteria will not stop with garbage but will also eat your iPhone cover.
Seriously, that's the worst that could happen. The Grey Goo Disaster happened 3 billion years ago, and you can trace your origins to it. Stop with the fearmongering already.
I think anyone who's not a cold-hearted bastard like Saddam Hussein should realize that "oops I hit a tree" versus "oops I killed a person" deserve very different levels of punishment.
You won't be punished for hitting and killing a person (or a tree, for that matter). Accidents happen, and any action at all, including inaction, could result in someone getting killed; it's impossible to reduce the chances of hitting and killing someone when driving to zero. What's punishable is taking unnecessary risks; for example, you run over someone because you weren't paying attention because you were busy screwing around with your phone. And if it's risking others that's punished, why should you get off light just because everyone else got lucky and you hit a tree instead of a kid? That's the logic anyway, I'm not sure I agree with it.
But what the heck does Hussein has to do with any of this?
Taking your eye off the road for ONE SECOND, when you are driving safely, keeping good following distances etc in an area with low traffic, is EXTREMELY unlikely to result in a crazy ass accident.
True enough. Now subtract that extremely low chance from 1 and rise the resulting number into a power of however many times you do that per year and subtract the result from 1 again to get the accumulated per-year chance. Now take into account that there's hundred million people on the roads daily doing this, and it should be pretty obvious that people do, in fact, die due to texting.
Same thing goes for texting. For every one high profile dumb ass who causes an accident doing it, there are hundreds of others doing it safely.
Dumb-ass? Shouldn't that be "unlucky ass"? I mean, he's simply the one for whom the extremely low chance actually turned into an actuality. He's not dumber than you, he's not less skilled driver than you, he's simply unlucky.
Or would admitting that shatter your illusion that you can screw around with your phone while driving without significant risk?
Are you that conceited that you're going to pretend you are NOT taking the lives of others into your own hands when you do something as foolish as this?
News flash: driving is dangerous, always has been, and will always be. Get used to it. If you don't like to take risks, then your choice is simple: don't drive.
News flash: me not driving doesn't stop you from running over me with a car. Your solution doesn't work.
The second time, I remembered how nervous I was the first time, and typed the message at traffic lights. Thankfully, the road I spend most of my driving time on has poorly (for traffic flow) timed lights, which allow me to type a sentence, drive for 30sec, type another sentence, drive another 30sec... I can literally hold a conversation through text without having to type while moving or take my eyes off the road.
Yes, but that's still inconvenient. Maybe we could put a voice recognition software on the phone? That way, you could simply talk and have the phone turn your speech into a text message and send it to whoever you're having the conversation with. His return messages could be similarly be read aloud by a voice synthesizer. Perhaps you could even have it mimic his voice? And if we could get network latency down, and the other guy also used this software, it would almost be like the two of you were talking to each other.
Real-time voice conversation over the phone network - that's the kind of innovation we need to get the economy up again. Patent office, here I come!
Yes, you're right, destroying people's lives by throwing them in jail is not the sort of thing a nanny would do, but it is the side effect of the nanny state solutions. That doesn't mean it's not a nanny state, it just means nanny has multiple personality disorder.
So, would that make it a Wicked Stepmotherstate ?-)
Only if the laws are just and reasonable. For example, during the Prohibition, quite a few presumably sane people desired more criminal activity, as that helped drive down the price of alcohol. Similarly, a sane person might desire more abandonware sites, since they help preserve the history of our digital culture by breaking copyright and distributing otherwise unavailable material. And finally, to stop beating around the bush, I'd imagine that most sane people would be rooting for the horrible criminals who hid Jews in their homes in Nazi Germany.
Not to mention the rather famous British traitor George Washington, who's legacy of violent crime - indeed, even shooting at British officials - still casts its shadow on modern world.
If the poverty line is lowered so you're no longer classified as "poor", it makes no difference whatsoever to you. On the other hand, if something you'd like to do is decriminalized, it makes a difference to you, since you can now do it without risking prison.
Is this really such a difficult thing to understand?
Once everyone is on the same level of wealth companies can't move around or at least have less reason to. So that means either westerners need to start accepting less or ensure that poorer countries become less poor.
Or we could simply forbid companies from moving. Have 100% toll rate for every item not manufactured entirely in the first world, or outright forbid it from being imported in the first place, and watch industry grow back up like mushrooms after rain. While we're at it, hike the tax rate of capital gains that don't come from production (such as selling a house at a higher price than you paid for it, as opposed to selling a house you built) to 99%, to stop abuses and subsequent crashes of stock market: you could still make a profit from dividends, but not from buying and selling stock, so you'd have incentive to see the firms who's stock you own concentrate on long-term productivity.
Of course this won't happen, since it's not in the interests of the financial aristocracy. Still, we could overthrow them and get the good times back, if we could stop believing that economy and the corporations must be left alone, to do as they please. Just saying.
I'll be taking any such reports that are released during the "healthcare reform" legislative push with enough salt to raise my blood pressure to life-threatening levels. Until that frenzy is over I won't even be bothering to read such reports and check their methodology.
Emphasis mine. I think this pretty much sums up the right-wing argument. Hardly surprising, considering the well-known liberal bias of reality, but it is surprising to hear a right-winger admit it.
Let's see: Just shy of 72 years ago, my grandfather arrived in this country with $32 and unable to speak the language. He lived in a ghetto style apartment with a brother who had come over to America from Europe 18 months earlier. He spent a week learning enough English to get a job in a machine shop for about $1 an hour.
In short, he was just about as low as you can go on the totem pole in America.
So basically you're saying that a monthly rent of an apartment back then was equivalent to 32 hours of lowest-paid work? Assuming, of course, that your grandfather ate rats in his ghetto-style apartment. Getting a job with no education (you didn't forgot that, did you ?) and unable to speak more than a few words is a nice bonus too.
40 years later, he died, living in a house he had built and paid for, on 40 acres of land overlooking a river. He had married and had a daughter (my mom). He left a small, but not unsubstantial amount of money behind.
SNIP
My parents weren't given anything.
Try to make up your mind.
Their parents literally had *NOTHING* on coming to America. Nothing was given to them either.
They were given a job on ridiculously low qualifications. They were also given almost-free housing.
It takes one good decision to break the cycle, but you would rather claim that no one can make that decision, and that the "privileged few" are somehow so enlightened and empowered that they should make decisions for the poor.
No, it takes a good opportunity to break the cycle. Such as, for example, your grandfather landing a job.
I agree that people shouldn't make decisions for the poor, but providing opportunities - such as free college education - is a good idea.
The moment I turn to you, pull out a gun and demand that *YOU* pay for the poor people because I feel bad about it (even though I won't spend my own money) then I have crossed the line, just as our government will if it does the same.
Perhaps. But unfortunately experience shows that if the poor are left to the nonexistent mercy of voluntary charity, the end result is them dying in the streets. This, then, gives me a choice: either I turn on you with a gun and demand that you pay for social security - along with me, of course - or I watch them die. Most people apparently prefer the former choice, and vote politicians who then do the forcible wealth distribution on their behalf.
You sir, are the problem.
No, people like you are. You tell the story of your grandfather making it - mostly by luck, it seems - and think that this means that anyone can if they just try hard enough. It's a stupid fantasy, and sadly common with libertarian crowd.
You, sir, perpetuate the system that condemns these people to the life they are stuck in. You say, "There but for the grace of God..." but do not dare look into the real problem, for fear you might somehow dirty yourself. You are like the people who sleep in a tent one night and claim to understand the Homeless. You point at the poor and say you care, but you do not understand the system that has made them that way.
Well, not being able to get a job with no education like your grandfather did most likely has something to do with it. Oh, sorry: one man made it 72 years ago, so obviously they just aren't trying hard enough.
While you decry the "system" that keeps people down, I argue that it is the very government you are clearly implying should step in, that created that system.
Which is a pretty good argument for having said government change said system, actually.
In a libertarian system there'd be no need to sue them for defamation, the wronged party could just go round and kick their fucking heads in.
No, that's anarchy. Libertarianism would let them keep screwing you over, while still protecting them from your revenge. But don't worry, the Invisible Hand of the Free Market will magically set everything okay - but only if you have enough faith for it and don't ask for Government's intervention, thus condemning yourself to Socialist Hell where Big G will forever poke you in the rectum with a hammer and sickle while Red Army Chorus sings "International" in the background.
This is not a civilized society when thieves are protected while homeowners trying to protect their homes/cars/yards are jailed and later sued. A civilized society doesn't take the view that homeowners should just quietly hide, while the thief drives-off with the car or other personal possessions. That's an anarchist society.
Actually, one of the core concepts of civilization is that people only use force to protect themselves or others in an emergency (which means someone's about to get killed/raped/otherwise seriously hurt, not that your car's about to be stolen), and otherwise outsource it to professional law enforcers. Failure to stick to this principle tends to leave to blood feuds, if you kill the thief and his friends and/or family decide to take vengeance. It also leads to the law of the jungle, when those with powerful associates can act with impunity while those with weak ones are basically unprotected.
Civilization means that you don't club people, even if you think they deserve that. Your fellow citizen forgot that and was rightly arrested for taking law into his own hands without it being mandated by an emergency. In a civilized society, the thief receives punishment for stealing a car and the other guy receives punishment for assault.
You don't have to like this; however, if you don't, but would rather that people could use violence to stop or punish criminals, then it's you who's pushing for anarchy.
But if the criteria was being able to understand the issues... wow. Imagine people on both sides able to say something other than 'Death Panels' and 'Criticizing Obama is racist'.
And by "being able to understand the issues", you mean agreeing with the tester on them? Holy sampling bias, Batman!
I was talking about small to medium sized groups of attackers in the event of widespread social unrest. If the economy goes south and we have people robbing and looting, how well can I defend this property?
Well, in that case, get a house that's in the middle of a thick forest, as far from any civilization as possible. You can't defend a house in urban areas, not only because there's too many attackers and widespread fires but also because there's no source of food or water in the case of social meltdown. Oh, and make sure that your neighbours like you.
Because there may be actual reasons for people to want to immediately cancel a domain? (Heck, enough people make typos in forms...)
Well then, perhaps the lack of such ability would provide these people with some incentive to learn to spell correctly, or at least proofread what they've typed. That's hardly a bad thing, based on the barely legible garbage they post on Slashdot.
Besides, we aren't talking about anyone's life savings here.
Not only has the promise of computer technology not reduced the working day but now medical science will probably end up extending it!
Computer technology has reduced the average working day, when you include the people made unemployed by it. Of course those lucky few who still have jobs are overworked, but hey, that's good for shareholders.
If you are in the US, I am pretty sure I could post a series of links to convince you that not only does the US government not censor the Intertubes, but that a man, a woman, a horse, a communist, and an anarchist can get freaky in kiddie pool of astro glide.
Didn't the US government just recently ask Google to blur maps of public buildings so "terrorists can't use them"? For that matter, communism has been discredited, so not censoring links to it proves nothing; the US government certainly performed a fine witch hunt crusade against "suspected communists" back when the Soviets were still around.
The US sucks in a lot of ways, fanatical defense of free speech isn't one of them. The US trounces the shit out of the rest of the world, EU included.
And you know this... how? If the US was, in fact, the most oppressive society on the planet, wouldn't you think it's the best anyway, since every instance of someone "disappearing" for their opinions would remain unknown to you?
That's why censorship is so insidious: one it creeps in, you can't trust anything.
It isn't perfect, but it is certainly the best, and I have the Nazi midget porn to prove it.
Having access to Nazi midget porn proves nothing. It doesn't threaten anyone's wealth or power. If anything, it's in the best interests of those in power to allow you access to it, simply so that they can tar your reputation later if need be.
Besides, you have those obscenity laws still on books, do you not? You know, the ones which override the First Amendment if a judge decides that something is "obscene", in his opinion? So perhaps you shouldn't count on that fanatical defence, but join projects like Tor today? I did, when Finnish police took a page from the Chinese.
ie. We want to reduce copyright to meaninglessness. It's abolishment in all but name.
Does anyone actually respect copyright laws anymore? Or, for that matter, any laws? I know I'm seeing them more and more as hindrances, rather than protections.
*that* is why they'll get nowhere.
Well, my local Pirate Party will sure get my vote in all future elections, simply because they're against surveillance. Getting rid of copyright, which is the biggest hindrance to preserving our increasingly electronic culture, is a nice plus.
I'm all in favour of changing the balance of power, but extremists like that should really just shut up.. they make things worse.
Worse for whom? Who suffers if surveillance is reduced? Who suffers if copyright is abolished or limited to a reasonable term? Why, the people who brought it upon themselves. They were warned:
"Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living." -Thomas Babington Macaulay, in a speech delivered in the house of commons on the 5th of February 1841
So I guess gold-plated bonuses of over one million dollars each to over a thousand employees are justified? I think not!
Why not? It only sums up to a billion dollars. Compare that to the trillions of dollars various financial institutions managed to lose in the latest example of the awesomeness of free market.
I'm not missing or dodging anything. Life is what you make of it, not what the government hands you.
Which conflicts with your claim that "the best job you can get is flipping burgers at some drive through joint" if GM's executives are forced to pay for the mess they have made, causing top scamming talent to flee the country.
Extra overhead from carrying information about the array's size in addition to its data address
Ironically enough, if C or C++ had language-level support for getting the size of a given array, it would take no overhead to implement: arrays are memory blobs as is, and each such blob must have its size recorded somewhere, because otherwise it couldn't be freed properly. The stack-allocated arrays are the only exception, but even that only means a single extra local variable on the function that uses one.
Slashdot Mirror
Paedophiles are natural, since the only other option is that someone's creating them on purpose, which seems quite unlikely. Anything that exists in nature is natural, by definition; in fact, if you want to nitpick, then anything not created by direct intervention of supernatural is natural.
And, for the record, I really think that they should be left to jack off on pics of naked kids in peace, since that hurts no one and eases all manners of pressures that might the weaker of them to act out their desires in real life. The current hysteria over the issue is really, really, really stupid and will, in all likelihood, pass eventually.
That people attracted to 17 years old are nowadays sometimes called "paedophiles" even on this very forum is just icing on the cake.
Does Britain still take credit for standing up to Nazi Germany? Does the British Government of today lay claim to the British Isles conquered hundreds of years ago by its ancestors? And does it accept "it was the previous government, not us" as a reply when trying to collect debts owned to it by other countries?
History matters.
Turing is dead so an apology couldn't be delivered anyway. That's not the point.
"The Government" is, however, a legal/fictitious entity that exerts influence in the real world. Furthermore, it is an entity that normally has continuity; for example, the British government is hundreds of years old and existed long before any of its current members were born; the same is true of Britain itself. As such, it is entirely appropriate for a member of said government apologize in behalf of the government for past misdeeds done under the name of the government.
Doing evil under the guise of good has been Microsoft's modus operandi for too long to give them the benefit of doubt. At this point, they'd need to prove their innocence for me to believe it, and even then I'd be extremely wary of trusting them.
Don't presume to talk for others.
Apparently you aren't, since you bothered to open the discussion and write that comment.
The bacteria will not stop with garbage but will also eat your iPhone cover.
Seriously, that's the worst that could happen. The Grey Goo Disaster happened 3 billion years ago, and you can trace your origins to it. Stop with the fearmongering already.
You won't be punished for hitting and killing a person (or a tree, for that matter). Accidents happen, and any action at all, including inaction, could result in someone getting killed; it's impossible to reduce the chances of hitting and killing someone when driving to zero. What's punishable is taking unnecessary risks; for example, you run over someone because you weren't paying attention because you were busy screwing around with your phone. And if it's risking others that's punished, why should you get off light just because everyone else got lucky and you hit a tree instead of a kid? That's the logic anyway, I'm not sure I agree with it.
But what the heck does Hussein has to do with any of this?
True enough. Now subtract that extremely low chance from 1 and rise the resulting number into a power of however many times you do that per year and subtract the result from 1 again to get the accumulated per-year chance. Now take into account that there's hundred million people on the roads daily doing this, and it should be pretty obvious that people do, in fact, die due to texting.
Dumb-ass? Shouldn't that be "unlucky ass"? I mean, he's simply the one for whom the extremely low chance actually turned into an actuality. He's not dumber than you, he's not less skilled driver than you, he's simply unlucky.
Or would admitting that shatter your illusion that you can screw around with your phone while driving without significant risk?
News flash: me not driving doesn't stop you from running over me with a car. Your solution doesn't work.
That's nothing, I once saw a truck driver who was reading a newspaper over the wheel while driving.
Yes, but that's still inconvenient. Maybe we could put a voice recognition software on the phone? That way, you could simply talk and have the phone turn your speech into a text message and send it to whoever you're having the conversation with. His return messages could be similarly be read aloud by a voice synthesizer. Perhaps you could even have it mimic his voice? And if we could get network latency down, and the other guy also used this software, it would almost be like the two of you were talking to each other.
Real-time voice conversation over the phone network - that's the kind of innovation we need to get the economy up again. Patent office, here I come!
So, would that make it a Wicked Stepmotherstate ?-)
Only if the laws are just and reasonable. For example, during the Prohibition, quite a few presumably sane people desired more criminal activity, as that helped drive down the price of alcohol. Similarly, a sane person might desire more abandonware sites, since they help preserve the history of our digital culture by breaking copyright and distributing otherwise unavailable material. And finally, to stop beating around the bush, I'd imagine that most sane people would be rooting for the horrible criminals who hid Jews in their homes in Nazi Germany.
Not to mention the rather famous British traitor George Washington, who's legacy of violent crime - indeed, even shooting at British officials - still casts its shadow on modern world.
If the poverty line is lowered so you're no longer classified as "poor", it makes no difference whatsoever to you. On the other hand, if something you'd like to do is decriminalized, it makes a difference to you, since you can now do it without risking prison.
Is this really such a difficult thing to understand?
Or we could simply forbid companies from moving. Have 100% toll rate for every item not manufactured entirely in the first world, or outright forbid it from being imported in the first place, and watch industry grow back up like mushrooms after rain. While we're at it, hike the tax rate of capital gains that don't come from production (such as selling a house at a higher price than you paid for it, as opposed to selling a house you built) to 99%, to stop abuses and subsequent crashes of stock market: you could still make a profit from dividends, but not from buying and selling stock, so you'd have incentive to see the firms who's stock you own concentrate on long-term productivity.
Of course this won't happen, since it's not in the interests of the financial aristocracy. Still, we could overthrow them and get the good times back, if we could stop believing that economy and the corporations must be left alone, to do as they please. Just saying.
Emphasis mine. I think this pretty much sums up the right-wing argument. Hardly surprising, considering the well-known liberal bias of reality, but it is surprising to hear a right-winger admit it.
So basically you're saying that a monthly rent of an apartment back then was equivalent to 32 hours of lowest-paid work? Assuming, of course, that your grandfather ate rats in his ghetto-style apartment. Getting a job with no education (you didn't forgot that, did you ?) and unable to speak more than a few words is a nice bonus too.
Try to make up your mind.
They were given a job on ridiculously low qualifications. They were also given almost-free housing.
No, it takes a good opportunity to break the cycle. Such as, for example, your grandfather landing a job.
I agree that people shouldn't make decisions for the poor, but providing opportunities - such as free college education - is a good idea.
Perhaps. But unfortunately experience shows that if the poor are left to the nonexistent mercy of voluntary charity, the end result is them dying in the streets. This, then, gives me a choice: either I turn on you with a gun and demand that you pay for social security - along with me, of course - or I watch them die. Most people apparently prefer the former choice, and vote politicians who then do the forcible wealth distribution on their behalf.
No, people like you are. You tell the story of your grandfather making it - mostly by luck, it seems - and think that this means that anyone can if they just try hard enough. It's a stupid fantasy, and sadly common with libertarian crowd.
Well, not being able to get a job with no education like your grandfather did most likely has something to do with it. Oh, sorry: one man made it 72 years ago, so obviously they just aren't trying hard enough.
Which is a pretty good argument for having said government change said system, actually.
No, that's anarchy. Libertarianism would let them keep screwing you over, while still protecting them from your revenge. But don't worry, the Invisible Hand of the Free Market will magically set everything okay - but only if you have enough faith for it and don't ask for Government's intervention, thus condemning yourself to Socialist Hell where Big G will forever poke you in the rectum with a hammer and sickle while Red Army Chorus sings "International" in the background.
Actually, one of the core concepts of civilization is that people only use force to protect themselves or others in an emergency (which means someone's about to get killed/raped/otherwise seriously hurt, not that your car's about to be stolen), and otherwise outsource it to professional law enforcers. Failure to stick to this principle tends to leave to blood feuds, if you kill the thief and his friends and/or family decide to take vengeance. It also leads to the law of the jungle, when those with powerful associates can act with impunity while those with weak ones are basically unprotected.
Civilization means that you don't club people, even if you think they deserve that. Your fellow citizen forgot that and was rightly arrested for taking law into his own hands without it being mandated by an emergency. In a civilized society, the thief receives punishment for stealing a car and the other guy receives punishment for assault.
You don't have to like this; however, if you don't, but would rather that people could use violence to stop or punish criminals, then it's you who's pushing for anarchy.
And by "being able to understand the issues", you mean agreeing with the tester on them? Holy sampling bias, Batman!
Well, in that case, get a house that's in the middle of a thick forest, as far from any civilization as possible. You can't defend a house in urban areas, not only because there's too many attackers and widespread fires but also because there's no source of food or water in the case of social meltdown. Oh, and make sure that your neighbours like you.
Well then, perhaps the lack of such ability would provide these people with some incentive to learn to spell correctly, or at least proofread what they've typed. That's hardly a bad thing, based on the barely legible garbage they post on Slashdot.
Besides, we aren't talking about anyone's life savings here.
Computer technology has reduced the average working day, when you include the people made unemployed by it. Of course those lucky few who still have jobs are overworked, but hey, that's good for shareholders.
Didn't the US government just recently ask Google to blur maps of public buildings so "terrorists can't use them"? For that matter, communism has been discredited, so not censoring links to it proves nothing; the US government certainly performed a fine witch hunt crusade against "suspected communists" back when the Soviets were still around.
And you know this... how? If the US was, in fact, the most oppressive society on the planet, wouldn't you think it's the best anyway, since every instance of someone "disappearing" for their opinions would remain unknown to you?
That's why censorship is so insidious: one it creeps in, you can't trust anything.
Having access to Nazi midget porn proves nothing. It doesn't threaten anyone's wealth or power. If anything, it's in the best interests of those in power to allow you access to it, simply so that they can tar your reputation later if need be.
Besides, you have those obscenity laws still on books, do you not? You know, the ones which override the First Amendment if a judge decides that something is "obscene", in his opinion? So perhaps you shouldn't count on that fanatical defence, but join projects like Tor today? I did, when Finnish police took a page from the Chinese.
Does anyone actually respect copyright laws anymore? Or, for that matter, any laws? I know I'm seeing them more and more as hindrances, rather than protections.
Well, my local Pirate Party will sure get my vote in all future elections, simply because they're against surveillance. Getting rid of copyright, which is the biggest hindrance to preserving our increasingly electronic culture, is a nice plus.
Worse for whom? Who suffers if surveillance is reduced? Who suffers if copyright is abolished or limited to a reasonable term? Why, the people who brought it upon themselves. They were warned:
"Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living." -Thomas Babington Macaulay, in a speech delivered in the house of commons on the 5th of February 1841
Why not? It only sums up to a billion dollars. Compare that to the trillions of dollars various financial institutions managed to lose in the latest example of the awesomeness of free market.
Which conflicts with your claim that "the best job you can get is flipping burgers at some drive through joint" if GM's executives are forced to pay for the mess they have made, causing top scamming talent to flee the country.
Ironically enough, if C or C++ had language-level support for getting the size of a given array, it would take no overhead to implement: arrays are memory blobs as is, and each such blob must have its size recorded somewhere, because otherwise it couldn't be freed properly. The stack-allocated arrays are the only exception, but even that only means a single extra local variable on the function that uses one.