Even if you are presented by a Man in the Middle's self signed cert and accept it, you're traffic's still encrypted and secure from eavesdropping. It's just that the receipient changed without you realizing it. So you now have one eavesdropper, while plain unencrypted HTTP would allow an arbitrary number of them without you knowing.
Wrong. Just like Middleman A intercepted your attempt to contact Site X, Middleman B will intercept Middleman A's attempt, C will intercept Middleman B's attempt, and so on.
Security would be broken either way, but encrypted, not authenticated traffic still is preferable to neither encrypted, nor authenticated traffic.
Encrypted, not authenticated traffic is almost exactly identical to plaintext traffic. The only thing it makes more difficult is stateless packet sniffing - that is, you have to intercept the whole connection from the start. Since we can assume that any potential attacker is watching either you or your target website, you gain absolutely no security whatsoever from encrypted but not authenticated traffic.
Encryption without authentication is the Information Technology equivalent of armour made of grey-painted cardboard.
Maybe you are, maybe you are not. We won't know until someone observes your post, thus collapsing the waveform...
But do waveforms truly collapse ? For anyone else, you and the post you observed are a single system, with a certain probability that you have observed a waveform collapsing into yes and a certain probability that you've observed it collapsing into no. They wouldn't observe any waveform collapse before you tell them of which way it went.
Since the only other alternatives are being either inanimate or a puppet on strings, I'd have to say that yes we are.
One could, of course, argue that if the laws of physics are deterministic, then our decisions were actually done when the universe began, rather than being done in our brains right now, but that's one nest of conceptual vipers I'm not getting into.
I think it is high time we stop trying to think our values apply to all people and allow them the freedoms required to run their own country.
There's a little problem here: if our values don't apply to all people, why should we give them the freedom to run their own country ? We might want that freedom, but our values don't apply to them.
If you need to do faster than 80 MPH to pass a truck, then the truck is probably going plenty fast, and you have no reason to pass it.
First, if the truck is going at 50 MPH, you don't have to go 80+ to pass it, it simply takes less time to do so at higher speed. Trucks are long, it takes time to pass them and safely return to your lane; I often see situations where someone avoids an accident by quickly speeding up when an obstacle appears when they're nearly passed.
Second, the whole premise of having restrictions in the vehicle in the first place is that it is being driven by someone who can't be trusted to make reasonable decisions. Thus it is unreasonable to assume that they won't try to pass the truck merely because they don't need to.
It is rational to suck and store/invest as much of it as possible, the same as you would with any other source of income.
No, it is convenient, not rational. Your survival is based on the forced acquisition of the fruit of other people's labor.
Yes, it is. What about it ? If I can take it, what rational reason do I have to not do so ? As I've already noted, being a parasite is not only a rational tactic in theory, but is actually a very successful and time-tested tactic in nature.
It would hardly be rational to not use convenient opportunities.
You only contribute to bringing the system down,
The increase of this likelihood from my actions alone is far less than the benefit I receive. It's a tragedy of the commons - which, after all, is caused by everyone acting in their rational self-interest.
Or, to put it in another way: the harm of my parasitic actions is divided between everyone, while the benefit is mine alone; consequently, the benefit to me outweighs the harm to me, and thus being a parasite is the rational thing for me to do.
reducing the likelihood of the fulfillment of your goals and furthering of your values,
Furthering my values is hardly a rational goal if I'm a parasite, now is it ? It would be much more rational for me to continue being a parasite while simultaneously condemning parasites, thus discouraging others from following my example.
Please understand that this hypocrisy does not constitute any breach of personal ethics or integrity either. In this hypothetical example, the only value I hold is my rational self-interest; since being a hypocrite is in my interests, that's what I am, stealing the fruits of other people's labour while preaching a morality which will stop them from doing the same to me, and laughing all the way to the bank.
Not very nice, not at all, but perfectly rational. Completely sociopathic too, of course, but that's simply another word for not caring about anything but what's best for yourself. That's why every workable ethical system must include altruism; otherwise you get the kind of behaviour I've outlined here, for reasons I've also outlined.
increasing the acceptability of government-backed rights violations.
All the more reason for a rational man like myself to acquire the resources to ensure that they happen against other people for my benefit, rather than against me.
Now consider: if you had to have heart surgery, would you go to a doctor whose specialty was "ethically responsible surgery"? No. You'd go to a surgeon and expect him to be socially responsible.
Ethically responsible doctor: "I must consider what's best for my patient, therefore I won't sell his kidneys on the black market, even if doing so would help younger and healthier people."
Socially responsible doctor: "I must consider what's best for the society. This guy is not very healthy, and could easily become a burden from now on. Furthermore, I know someone who could use a kidney transplant."
I'd say, why don't you give me $50,000 a year for every year you don't want me to compete? If at any time you feel that my non-competition isn't worth it, simply stop paying and I'll be free to get a job using my domain knowledge?
Since we are talking about a contract with unbound duration, it might be a good idea to include that this is adjusted for inflation, or tied to preferably several foreign currents.
Really? Is it rational to come to depend on public money?
It is rational to suck and store/invest as much of it as possible, the same as you would with any other source of income.
What happens if/when that money disappears, and you're left realizing you have no skills and cannot do anything but flip burgers at McDonald's.
Well, since you have the aforementioned savings, you don't have to do anything, but can live in luxury for the rest of your life. 700 billion dollars is a lot.
And naturally you'd use some of your ill-gained assets to ensure that the milk keeps on coming, in other words, bribe the Congress.
Suddenly all your values, all your goals go out the window, you can never hope to achieve them.
You already did, with the free time you had while living off other people's labour. And if you haven't, well, you have 700 billion dollars and the rest of your life as free time to do so.
There's nothing rational about that. It's as irrational as theft, because your future depends solely on your victim's willingness to play by your rules.
Your future depends on being able to keep on outsmarting your victims, the same as any other parasite. Look at the nature around you: parasites abound. It is an efficient strategy, so following it is very rational. Sure, it has risks, but so does everything. It is also horribly immoral, even evil, but that only matters if you take altruism into consideration along with your self-interest.
As soon as they start playing by their rules, wanting their money back, or wanting to cut you off, you're screwed.
Their will is irrelevant unless they have both the ability and the will to enforce it. Fighting off all parasites is a full-time job, taking time away from more important pursuits, such as finding food, which is why most organisms tolerate some amount of them. Besides, in a capitalistic society, money equals power, so a successful parasite is probably going to be stronger than his victims and can thus enforce his will over theirs.
This is the product of modern political and social pragmatism - a free-for-all, every man for himself. Lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes to maintain your grasp on the teat of the American public tax pool. The alternative is to make it on your own, using your rational mind to survive and fulfill your goals; but, reason is outdated, obsolete.
Actually, if you can suck on public teat, it is perfectly rational to do so and irrational to refuse. Imposing constraints on yourself isn't rational, especially when your competitors aren't imposing them on themselves. "Making it on your own" is a matter of pride, and pride is irrational; and in any case, you do depend on society and its tax-funded services for public order at the very least, so it is impossible to fulfil that particular point of pride.
If anything, these kinds of things keep on happening because people are coldly rational, only chasing their own self-interest with no care about how their actions affect other people. We need to make it socially unacceptable to be greedy and selfish and a matter of pride for businesspeople to be altruistic. How to do that is the question.
A fish giving off IR would be view able for about 2 inches.
Fishes, being cold-blooded animals, don't give significant amount of IR radiation. Mammals and birds are AFAIK the only things that could be detected easily with IR receptors, and since both are relative latecomers to the game of life, it seems likely that eyes simply haven't have time to evolve IR vision.
It should be noted, however, that several insects have ultraviolet vision.
This is what makes the "science" of Global Warming so frustrating. Criticism or scepticism is anathema, and we hear the constant chant that "the debate is over". Real science thrives on argument and experiments, and not on ad hominem attacks.
Global temperature can and is being constantly monitored by satellites, which measure the infrared radiation from Earth's surface; these measurement show that the global average temperature is increasing. Numerous indirect observations also support the same: the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are shrinking, the Golf stream is slowing down, permafrost is melting, methane is being released to the atmosphere deposits, it hasn't been a cold winter here where I live for almost a decade now...
At this point, being sceptical of Global Warming is basically equivalent to claiming that tens of thousands of people are active in a conspiracy. And even that isn't enough in here where you can simply look outside your window and see how there isn't snow on the ground for most of the winter anymore. There comes a point when the debate really is over; and at this point, denying global warming is pretty much the same as denying evolution: a downright delusional standpoint. Unfortunately, however, some people have vested interests in denying them, and so we have Intelligent Design on one matter and the International Conspiracy of Climate Scientists Against America on another.
At some point, as evidence keeps on piling up and is far beyond the point of reasonable doubt, saying "these people are nuts or lying" about those who keep on arguing against it stops being an ad hominem attack and becomes a statement of fact. The debate is over, unless a debate against a thermometer counts.
Your use of the word "delicious" doesn't counter the massive environmental damage moral degeneracy any more than saying "sweet tight pussy" would validate sex with minors.
Actually, as the age of consent is lower than the age of majority in most places, sex with minors is perfectly valid, at least in the legal sense and at least for some minors. Nice appeal to emotion, thought.
"I feel winter slowly coming, and it would be a shame if entire power grids could be taken offline with a few keystrokes, or if supply chains could be interrupted. I hear it gets awfully cold in Scandinavia. "
It does. That's why most houses have wood-burning stoves, and the rest have district heating. Winter storms typically knock out the power grid for weeks in outlying locations every winter, so it's pretty much a requirement. And of course many houses simply predate the electric grid, so they have to be so equipped.
In summary, it works by establishing tons and tons of connections using carefully-forged SYN cookies. The irony? "SYN Cookies are the key element of a technique used to guard against SYN flood attacks". ROFLMAO.
Calculate the SYN cookies by hashing IP + port + secret salt. Verify by recomputing on receiving a SYN cookie. If the hashes don't match, disregard the packet, for it was forged.
So, does this mean that I'm a genius, the people who reported this are really stupid, or something important is being left out ?
Contacting MI6 directly will get the data contained faster, with much better "customer service" than the police. MI6 screwed up, they will want to contain their mistake, and they should certainly recognize that by reporting this leak, you are helpful, not some criminal.
Yes... But if you are a criminal, then the MI6 through its extreme competence caught the vile villain who stole the data in the first place, while if you're honest, then the MI6 is a bunch of clumsy fools who let classified data leak through sheer stupidity and only recovered it through dumb luck. So it's in the MI6's best interests if you happen to be a criminal; for example, if something incriminating was found on your machine's hard drive, or a kilogram of crack behind your couch during the confiscation, it would be really good for them.
Intelligent Design cannot be taught in a scientific manner, unless it is to say "There was no Intelligent Design."
Can you think of any way in which we could, even in theory, show that any given event or any string of events is not part of some plan ? In other words, is it possible to prove that something was not planned beforehand ? Of course not. If you could, then Intelligent Design would be science, since it could be falsified, and would thus belong in a science classroom, even if falsified, the same as the phlogiston and aether theories; but it can't, so it isn't and doesn't.
If you can say "there was no X", and back that up with scientific evidence, then X is a scientific hypothesis or theory. That is the very definition of "scientific hypothesis": you can examine with science. And if you can't, then you can't make any scientific statements about it.
So no, Intelligent Design doesn't belong in a science classroom, not even as something to deny. True or false, it isn't science, so it can't be taught or debated in a scientific manner. The psychology and sociology behind it might, thought.
Public funded space exploration is wrong because it deprives tax payers of their liberty. It takes resoures from people without their consent that they earned with their own sweat and hard work.
You are wrong for two reasons.
First, even if we accept your premise that taxation is stealing, stealing doesn't violate your liberty. It violates your claim to ownership. And if you claim that being deprived of the exclusive rights to something - which ownership means - means that your liberty has been lessened, we must conclude that your claim diminished other people's liberty in the first place, and thus the way to maximum liberty is to abolish private property altogether, since anything else unfairly diminishes the liberty of everyone except the owner.
Secondly, the only reason why all that sweat earned you anything except calluses is that you live in an ordered society. If you didn't, your precious property - all of it, and not just a the taxman's portion - would belong to whoever could take it from you by force. Since an ordered society means one where everyone plays by certain rules, it follows that every member of this society had a part in your success; and as such, it is only fair that they should receive a portion of it. Taxes represent that portion.
In other words, quite complaining, pay your taxes, and be happy that you don't live in the proverbial jungle of the Libertarian dreamworld where you'd lose all rather than just a portion.
I don't care how valuable your pet project is to humankind -- if you fund it with the barrel of a gun it isn't worth it.
And that's another thing where you're wrong, and why I hope that Libertarians never gain power anywhere they can do real damage. Survival of the human species in the long run depends on colonizing space. As long as we live in a single planet, or even a single solar system, we're sitting ducks. Survival of mankind is far more important than whether you are forced to do something you don't want to or not.
Those who sacrifice liberty for safety don't deserve either, but neither do those who would sacrifice all of humanity rather than give up a tiny portion of their personal liberty.
Nah, without the "officer of the court" background, Jack is just another rabid loon.
"Our new commentator, former attorney Jack Thompson, who's years-long fight to hold the billion-dollar violent video game industry accountable saw him being dismissed from his job as an officer of a court,..."
Television appearances are based on credentials, and Jack just got his yanked.
"Um... er... because everybody needs a car! It's a basic right!" ----- In this hypothetical debate, I obviously did not change this democratic-socialist's mind. Due to cognitive dissonance he simply chose to not hear what I was saying to him. However I still achieved my goal: I convinced some of the audience that the idea is immoral (because theft is theft, whether it's done directly by a thief, or through the government acting as the thief's agent).
Actually, you failed utterly. You put an idiotic strawman into the mouth of your ideological opponent, then portrayed him as a stuttering simpleton who hasn't given any thought to his views and is unable to write a coherent reply - in fact, you describe him as hesitating and playing for time in a written message. And after beating this ridiculous scarecrow, you think that the audience - us - is somehow convinced that your ideology - which I presume is libertarian from your premise that taxation is stealing - is supreme to socialism.
Your post is a truly pathetic attempt at ideological indoctrination at both levels, and yet you think that you've accomplished something besides making yourself look like an idiot or a particularly inept demagogue. That is a clear example of cognitive dissonance, and one that seems quite common within libertarians.
But IMO the fundamental thing needed for life is an energy flow.
No. Computer viruses can be considered a form of life, and they don't need an energy flow. While current crop of computers does, it is is AFAIK possible to build a computer which doesn't. The fundamental things life needs are information structures and rules which govern their transformations in time (and time too, obviously).
The dancing girls were a lot more interesting after applying the "Better Bodies" mod. It really improved the, uh, realism of the, uh, storytelling and, uh, stuff.
Laugh all you want, but that's actually a pretty important point concerning Fallout. Fallout is about a dirty, post-apocalyptic world, and that means things like porn studios, prostitutes, and so on. However, what we'll almost certainly get is nothing more than shooting some monsters - and goodness forbid that Han shoot first. In other words, it'll be a castrated game wich'll try to make up for it with lame, pointless violence, and corny "Lookie I'm eeeevil" dialogue options. Modding tools would allow us to stich those balls back on, but...
Of course, it could be that this is the whole reason not to release them. Bethesda probably doesn't want to get Hot Coffee on its lap. Especially since someone is bound to figure out the logical way those junkie women are paying their junk, with the kind assistance of their children...
And yes, I realize that I'm talking about a game which hasn't been even released yet; but can you see someone releasing a mainstream game with sex in it nowadays ? Except Sims 2... Hmm. Maybe Maxis should had made SimFallout instead; or maybe they could release it as an extension to Sims 2, set in Vault City of course ?-)
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong. Just like Middleman A intercepted your attempt to contact Site X, Middleman B will intercept Middleman A's attempt, C will intercept Middleman B's attempt, and so on.
Encrypted, not authenticated traffic is almost exactly identical to plaintext traffic. The only thing it makes more difficult is stateless packet sniffing - that is, you have to intercept the whole connection from the start. Since we can assume that any potential attacker is watching either you or your target website, you gain absolutely no security whatsoever from encrypted but not authenticated traffic.
Encryption without authentication is the Information Technology equivalent of armour made of grey-painted cardboard.
But do waveforms truly collapse ? For anyone else, you and the post you observed are a single system, with a certain probability that you have observed a waveform collapsing into yes and a certain probability that you've observed it collapsing into no. They wouldn't observe any waveform collapse before you tell them of which way it went.
Since the only other alternatives are being either inanimate or a puppet on strings, I'd have to say that yes we are.
One could, of course, argue that if the laws of physics are deterministic, then our decisions were actually done when the universe began, rather than being done in our brains right now, but that's one nest of conceptual vipers I'm not getting into.
There's a little problem here: if our values don't apply to all people, why should we give them the freedom to run their own country ? We might want that freedom, but our values don't apply to them.
First, if the truck is going at 50 MPH, you don't have to go 80+ to pass it, it simply takes less time to do so at higher speed. Trucks are long, it takes time to pass them and safely return to your lane; I often see situations where someone avoids an accident by quickly speeding up when an obstacle appears when they're nearly passed.
Second, the whole premise of having restrictions in the vehicle in the first place is that it is being driven by someone who can't be trusted to make reasonable decisions. Thus it is unreasonable to assume that they won't try to pass the truck merely because they don't need to.
Yes, it is. What about it ? If I can take it, what rational reason do I have to not do so ? As I've already noted, being a parasite is not only a rational tactic in theory, but is actually a very successful and time-tested tactic in nature.
It would hardly be rational to not use convenient opportunities.
The increase of this likelihood from my actions alone is far less than the benefit I receive. It's a tragedy of the commons - which, after all, is caused by everyone acting in their rational self-interest.
Or, to put it in another way: the harm of my parasitic actions is divided between everyone, while the benefit is mine alone; consequently, the benefit to me outweighs the harm to me, and thus being a parasite is the rational thing for me to do.
Furthering my values is hardly a rational goal if I'm a parasite, now is it ? It would be much more rational for me to continue being a parasite while simultaneously condemning parasites, thus discouraging others from following my example.
Please understand that this hypocrisy does not constitute any breach of personal ethics or integrity either. In this hypothetical example, the only value I hold is my rational self-interest; since being a hypocrite is in my interests, that's what I am, stealing the fruits of other people's labour while preaching a morality which will stop them from doing the same to me, and laughing all the way to the bank.
Not very nice, not at all, but perfectly rational. Completely sociopathic too, of course, but that's simply another word for not caring about anything but what's best for yourself. That's why every workable ethical system must include altruism; otherwise you get the kind of behaviour I've outlined here, for reasons I've also outlined.
All the more reason for a rational man like myself to acquire the resources to ensure that they happen against other people for my benefit, rather than against me.
Only a pirate terrorist would deny a corporate citizen its inalienable right to profit. Why do you hate freedom so much ?
Ethically responsible doctor: "I must consider what's best for my patient, therefore I won't sell his kidneys on the black market, even if doing so would help younger and healthier people."
Socially responsible doctor: "I must consider what's best for the society. This guy is not very healthy, and could easily become a burden from now on. Furthermore, I know someone who could use a kidney transplant."
The ethical doctor, please :).
Since we are talking about a contract with unbound duration, it might be a good idea to include that this is adjusted for inflation, or tied to preferably several foreign currents.
It is rational to suck and store/invest as much of it as possible, the same as you would with any other source of income.
Well, since you have the aforementioned savings, you don't have to do anything, but can live in luxury for the rest of your life. 700 billion dollars is a lot.
And naturally you'd use some of your ill-gained assets to ensure that the milk keeps on coming, in other words, bribe the Congress.
You already did, with the free time you had while living off other people's labour. And if you haven't, well, you have 700 billion dollars and the rest of your life as free time to do so.
Your future depends on being able to keep on outsmarting your victims, the same as any other parasite. Look at the nature around you: parasites abound. It is an efficient strategy, so following it is very rational. Sure, it has risks, but so does everything. It is also horribly immoral, even evil, but that only matters if you take altruism into consideration along with your self-interest.
Their will is irrelevant unless they have both the ability and the will to enforce it. Fighting off all parasites is a full-time job, taking time away from more important pursuits, such as finding food, which is why most organisms tolerate some amount of them. Besides, in a capitalistic society, money equals power, so a successful parasite is probably going to be stronger than his victims and can thus enforce his will over theirs.
Actually, if you can suck on public teat, it is perfectly rational to do so and irrational to refuse. Imposing constraints on yourself isn't rational, especially when your competitors aren't imposing them on themselves. "Making it on your own" is a matter of pride, and pride is irrational; and in any case, you do depend on society and its tax-funded services for public order at the very least, so it is impossible to fulfil that particular point of pride.
If anything, these kinds of things keep on happening because people are coldly rational, only chasing their own self-interest with no care about how their actions affect other people. We need to make it socially unacceptable to be greedy and selfish and a matter of pride for businesspeople to be altruistic. How to do that is the question.
Fishes, being cold-blooded animals, don't give significant amount of IR radiation. Mammals and birds are AFAIK the only things that could be detected easily with IR receptors, and since both are relative latecomers to the game of life, it seems likely that eyes simply haven't have time to evolve IR vision.
It should be noted, however, that several insects have ultraviolet vision.
Global temperature can and is being constantly monitored by satellites, which measure the infrared radiation from Earth's surface; these measurement show that the global average temperature is increasing. Numerous indirect observations also support the same: the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are shrinking, the Golf stream is slowing down, permafrost is melting, methane is being released to the atmosphere deposits, it hasn't been a cold winter here where I live for almost a decade now...
At this point, being sceptical of Global Warming is basically equivalent to claiming that tens of thousands of people are active in a conspiracy. And even that isn't enough in here where you can simply look outside your window and see how there isn't snow on the ground for most of the winter anymore. There comes a point when the debate really is over; and at this point, denying global warming is pretty much the same as denying evolution: a downright delusional standpoint. Unfortunately, however, some people have vested interests in denying them, and so we have Intelligent Design on one matter and the International Conspiracy of Climate Scientists Against America on another.
At some point, as evidence keeps on piling up and is far beyond the point of reasonable doubt, saying "these people are nuts or lying" about those who keep on arguing against it stops being an ad hominem attack and becomes a statement of fact. The debate is over, unless a debate against a thermometer counts.
Actually, as the age of consent is lower than the age of majority in most places, sex with minors is perfectly valid, at least in the legal sense and at least for some minors. Nice appeal to emotion, thought.
It does. That's why most houses have wood-burning stoves, and the rest have district heating. Winter storms typically knock out the power grid for weeks in outlying locations every winter, so it's pretty much a requirement. And of course many houses simply predate the electric grid, so they have to be so equipped.
Because that way various evildoers can bid hackers for control over them. Free market in action, y'know ?-)
Calculate the SYN cookies by hashing IP + port + secret salt. Verify by recomputing on receiving a SYN cookie. If the hashes don't match, disregard the packet, for it was forged.
So, does this mean that I'm a genius, the people who reported this are really stupid, or something important is being left out ?
Yes... But if you are a criminal, then the MI6 through its extreme competence caught the vile villain who stole the data in the first place, while if you're honest, then the MI6 is a bunch of clumsy fools who let classified data leak through sheer stupidity and only recovered it through dumb luck. So it's in the MI6's best interests if you happen to be a criminal; for example, if something incriminating was found on your machine's hard drive, or a kilogram of crack behind your couch during the confiscation, it would be really good for them.
Just saying.
Well, since the computer was likely connected to the Internet, we're having a pandemic by now.
Can you think of any way in which we could, even in theory, show that any given event or any string of events is not part of some plan ? In other words, is it possible to prove that something was not planned beforehand ? Of course not. If you could, then Intelligent Design would be science, since it could be falsified, and would thus belong in a science classroom, even if falsified, the same as the phlogiston and aether theories; but it can't, so it isn't and doesn't.
If you can say "there was no X", and back that up with scientific evidence, then X is a scientific hypothesis or theory. That is the very definition of "scientific hypothesis": you can examine with science. And if you can't, then you can't make any scientific statements about it.
So no, Intelligent Design doesn't belong in a science classroom, not even as something to deny. True or false, it isn't science, so it can't be taught or debated in a scientific manner. The psychology and sociology behind it might, thought.
You are wrong for two reasons.
First, even if we accept your premise that taxation is stealing, stealing doesn't violate your liberty. It violates your claim to ownership. And if you claim that being deprived of the exclusive rights to something - which ownership means - means that your liberty has been lessened, we must conclude that your claim diminished other people's liberty in the first place, and thus the way to maximum liberty is to abolish private property altogether, since anything else unfairly diminishes the liberty of everyone except the owner.
Secondly, the only reason why all that sweat earned you anything except calluses is that you live in an ordered society. If you didn't, your precious property - all of it, and not just a the taxman's portion - would belong to whoever could take it from you by force. Since an ordered society means one where everyone plays by certain rules, it follows that every member of this society had a part in your success; and as such, it is only fair that they should receive a portion of it. Taxes represent that portion.
In other words, quite complaining, pay your taxes, and be happy that you don't live in the proverbial jungle of the Libertarian dreamworld where you'd lose all rather than just a portion.
And that's another thing where you're wrong, and why I hope that Libertarians never gain power anywhere they can do real damage. Survival of the human species in the long run depends on colonizing space. As long as we live in a single planet, or even a single solar system, we're sitting ducks. Survival of mankind is far more important than whether you are forced to do something you don't want to or not.
Those who sacrifice liberty for safety don't deserve either, but neither do those who would sacrifice all of humanity rather than give up a tiny portion of their personal liberty.
"Our new commentator, former attorney Jack Thompson, who's years-long fight to hold the billion-dollar violent video game industry accountable saw him being dismissed from his job as an officer of a court, ..."
On the contrary, he just gained martyrdom.
Actually, you failed utterly. You put an idiotic strawman into the mouth of your ideological opponent, then portrayed him as a stuttering simpleton who hasn't given any thought to his views and is unable to write a coherent reply - in fact, you describe him as hesitating and playing for time in a written message. And after beating this ridiculous scarecrow, you think that the audience - us - is somehow convinced that your ideology - which I presume is libertarian from your premise that taxation is stealing - is supreme to socialism.
Your post is a truly pathetic attempt at ideological indoctrination at both levels, and yet you think that you've accomplished something besides making yourself look like an idiot or a particularly inept demagogue. That is a clear example of cognitive dissonance, and one that seems quite common within libertarians.
Or have I just been trolled ?
No. Computer viruses can be considered a form of life, and they don't need an energy flow. While current crop of computers does, it is is AFAIK possible to build a computer which doesn't. The fundamental things life needs are information structures and rules which govern their transformations in time (and time too, obviously).
Laugh all you want, but that's actually a pretty important point concerning Fallout. Fallout is about a dirty, post-apocalyptic world, and that means things like porn studios, prostitutes, and so on. However, what we'll almost certainly get is nothing more than shooting some monsters - and goodness forbid that Han shoot first. In other words, it'll be a castrated game wich'll try to make up for it with lame, pointless violence, and corny "Lookie I'm eeeevil" dialogue options. Modding tools would allow us to stich those balls back on, but...
Of course, it could be that this is the whole reason not to release them. Bethesda probably doesn't want to get Hot Coffee on its lap. Especially since someone is bound to figure out the logical way those junkie women are paying their junk, with the kind assistance of their children...
And yes, I realize that I'm talking about a game which hasn't been even released yet; but can you see someone releasing a mainstream game with sex in it nowadays ? Except Sims 2... Hmm. Maybe Maxis should had made SimFallout instead; or maybe they could release it as an extension to Sims 2, set in Vault City of course ?-)