I've never understood if there is one political ideology based on anarchy or two. One where people think it's good to smash windows and one where they do not (and, presumably, a lot of other stuff).
The same can be applied to Capitalism, Christianity and just about any other group you care to name that doesn't have strict membership control.
I'll speak first as someone who has participated in some very large protests (mainly anti-war) which have attracted a large number of people who describe themselves as anarchist. The vast majority were very peacable, even one time in the face of police aggression in Bristol, UK. Nor did they support property damage. They pretty much denounced such people as not being proper anarchists in the same way that hackers denounce script kiddies, muslims denounce Al Quaeda and Americans denounce Bush (at least on/. ).
However, I would say that the most fundamental definition of anarchy is that mankind is better off living without central control than with and this does not comment on violence one way or another. Nevertheless, few anarchists have such a low-level definition of anarchy. You can find anarcho-captialist factions, anarcho-socialist factions, and others, but most (all?) of these begin to denounce violence. Once you begin to use violence to get your way then whatever your intentions were, you'll find it very hard to stop using violence.
The non-window smashing anarchy that you are interested in consists of finding ways of returning people's repsonsibility for their lives to them, taking it back from the government. The example I usually use is local currencies. See here, but as I'm on/. the best example would probably be Linux. There is organization, but authority is not imposed, it merely arises through the consensus view.
In this sense Anarchy seems very much like a more humane capitalism; humane because anarchists are usually very community orientated. They have to be community orientated because the intention is to replace Government force with self-governance. However, likening anarchy to enlightened capitalism is only my view. Others will draw closer parallels to Socialism. In reality it is neither - it is simply the belief that mankind functions better working together willingly and co-operatively, than he does through force and the threat of force (which is what government is based on.) If you find your belief falls under this then it is in accord with anarchism.
There are few hard and fast definitions, but like hacking, it is only outsiders who think anarchism==criminal. More depth can be found here. Whether you agree with anarchism or not, if you find a group of them, you can usually be sure of some lively political debate.;)
the idea that everyone will just rise up and wipe out the nation-state system and then live in h4rm0ny with no government just comes off a tad naive
It always was. Not necessarily because it was impossible (it's happened repeatedly throughout histroy), but because revolutions always go 360 degrees with the new faction merely becoming like the old faction - they aren't called revolutions for nothing. A lot of modern anarchists feel that the best approach is not to overthrow the government but to supplant it. An example would be starting local currencies. Anarchism believes that responsibility lies with the individual rather than the state, and that may be the fundamental difference between it and marxism.
I once had a long, blazing (but good natured) argument on the subject with a busload of Marxists on the way back from a Stop the War march. Connected to socialism, but definitely not the same.
And on the subject, the level of debate on that bus was just as informed as on/. but with much added arm-waving, shouting and fun. Brilliant!
Well, no actually, although I see how you read my post. Getting past our corruption is a pre-requisite for a successful anarchist society, hence the dream of such a society holds the implicit faith in mankind's ability to achieve such a state.
1) abolish the state
2) ????
3) utopia!
I think it's worth taking a little longer to consider anarchist theory in depth before dismissing it - there is a great deal out there. One thing worth mentioning is that anarchism is not 'abolish' the state but more a case of make it redundant. For anarchy in action consider local currencies such as Ithaca Hours or more impressive (to my mind), Calgary dollars and these
I believe there is some grounds to consider our current system of government (I'm in the UK) as promoting corruption, by placing excessive power in the hands of small numbers of people, instead of distributing that responsibility to a wider number, and also by concealing information and the decision making process from the public.
Anyway, I now have work to do. Any answers to questions and objections in reply to this post can probably be found in the links in my original post. Kropotkin will put the case better than I can.;) You may or may not agree, and the anarchist ideals may or may not be right, but there is definitely a great deal of thought put into it by a lot of very smart people and it's worth at least knowing about it before dismissing it.
At it's core, Anarchy has a faith in mankind. The general reasoning is that any form of government can become corrupt because the people it is comprised of can become corrupt. The only revolution that will really change things is a social one, one that deals with people. If that can be achieved, then the question of what system of government to use comes down to one of efficiency, which is anarchy. Anarchy is more efficient because it is willing and unrestricted co-operation.
Anarchy is a faith in people's ability to work together without coercian. It is most definitely not disorganisation - just lack of control.
It's rather cruel to post a geocities site on/. but for the lucky first hundred or so, you can find some interesting information on Anarchy here. And more is here
Hey, just saying thanks for introducing me to this group. I've downloaded a couple of their songs from their site and I'm definitely buying the album soon as I can.
Exactly. The trick is to be sweet, loving and tender toward your girlfriend, while being insane, intimidating and twisted toward everyone else. The best of both worlds. She'll love you for it.
Hmmm, there's a teeny-weeny bit of exageration in there, but yes, sounds good. Now how do you find a man who's like that but is also popular and also not insanely possessive?
You see, women don't give a shit about personality, or looks even, women judge a man by his job and based on rumors spread by other womens and other bullshit.
You have a dark dark view of women. Do you really think women are so evil and heartless? And how much respect do you think a woman gets if she marries a guy she doesn't like (your 'no personality, no looks') because of his job. We have a words for women like that, gold-digger is the politest of them. You don't seem to realize that this sort of behaviour is as hated by women as by men (more, actually).
Anyway, I've written this reply more for the benefit of anyone else out there who might read this thread and pick up your bitter view of women. You really need to spend some more time just being friends with a few girls so that you can learn how women really think. I think your view has been twisted by being unable to find a girl who'll give you what you want.
Hard to believe, but men and women are not seperate species and we all have a lot of the same needs and wants.
Being friends with a girl will not help you get into bed with her and maybe you thought that it would, but it wont do you any harm either. You don't want a boyfriend who's a puppy-dog but you do want to be treated right.
Anyway, if this sounds a little harsher than I normally am, your comment sounds pretty unpleasant to me:
Do I feel sorry for a girl who gets her ass beat up by the thug who beats people up all the time? No.
I repeat to any lonely men reading this, Strong good, Bully bad. And I don't mean muscles, I mean a bit of integrity and some personal pride. Nice does not mean weak, and not all (very few) women are impressed by a loud mouth and a mid-life-crisis-mobile. Sure a fat wallet (with accompanying presents) is nice, who said everyone's a saint? But if a man thinks that's the first thing a woman wants then he's got a sad sad view on the world.
And with Arnold as Governor, we have a green light for unlimited violence in the entertainment industry. So there.
The inference I draw from this is that those who are violent condone violence in others. However, in my experience, those who are violent are just as quick to condemn others and even quicker to punish them. People are normally violent because they selfishly think it serves their needs. Selfishness is not a trait that likes to see itself in others.
Admitedly, in this case Arnie was only acting violent (as far as I know), but this is the same principle.
I just had a mental image of a marketing guy explaining to the board that he's not interested in making lots of money right now, but instead, building a more profitable and long-term customer base with a good reputation.
It's kind of a shame that I find the idea so funny.
Women prefer the "thug" men over the nice guy weak men.
Ah, no no no!
Don't ever think that! I'll leave aside the issue of generalising what three billion women want (makes about as much sense as me saying that all men want 'x'). But nice does not mean weak. Yes, weakness is rarely a trait that turns a woman on, but 'niceness' which I take to mean consideration for others is not the same.
If someone is only nice because they are afraid to upset someone, then are they really nice? I wouldn't think so. But a man who will stand up for you, protect you? Now that would be nice.
Some women will go for the badguys, but not many. Badguys in real-life are not like bad-guys in the movies. Do you really think most women want a life filled with violence and aggression? I promise you they don't.
Of course a certain amount of unpredictability is exciting. Everyone is attracted to someone who does the things that we wish we could do but can't. But I think that's really different to what you mean.
And in case you think all this has been meant in a physical sense, well yes it sort of was, but women can want a trophy boyfriend (the car, the clothes, the muscles) just like men want trophy girlfriends. But don't forget that not all men want that. (Relationships like this rarely last.) The other side of the gender-divide is not that different.
find me a woman who will go on a date with a homeless man with no job. Better yet find me woman period.
You're probably limited to other homeless women at the moment. It's not that a woman would or would not like you, but is she willing to make the sacrifices for you that dating a homeless man would involve (housing you, feeding you, driving you places)? When you're back on your feet then a woman is no longer having to make big lifestyle changes to accomodate you and you'll be a better prospect.
But it has nothing to do with you not being a "thug."
It should be noted that Tik-Tok was the name of a robot who was a character in L. Frank Baum's "Oz" books.
From the novel:
"Anyway, where do you get such a corny name like Tik-Tok?"
"The Studebaker kids read Oz books a lot," I said.
Also, the book is dedicated to
"Tik-Tok of Oz, Talos of Crete, the Golem of Prague, Olympia of Nuremburg, Electro of Westinghouse, Robby of Altair, Talbot Yancy of America and to all decent law-abiding robots everywhere."
Actually, now that I have the book in front of me, there is another passage that is more relevant to what we're actually discussing here (the implementation of the Three Laws).
"We were licenced and tested to guarentee harmlessness. Of course as robots became more complex, more human, the testing might not be quite so certain. "
And later
"I haven't violated any fundamental law, have I? That's impossible. Humans might have their moral rules - which they go around breaking - but what are the rules for robots? Whatever is built in. If a law is not in my circuits, it's not my law, my inborn law."
anyone intelligent enough to make a robot would build some failsafe in its programming,
There is a wonderful book (pure satire) set in such a world. It's called Tik-Tok by John Sladek. However, the central character is a robot that has something go very wrong with his "asimov circuits." The result is a tendancy to murder people and yet no-one in society believes he's capable of it (especially other robots), because they assume he's governed by the three laws.
The book is also one of the funniest and most absurd things I've ever read. If you like your humour black then it might be the perfect antidote to Hollywood's attempt to impart angular momentum to Isac Asimovs mortal remains.
That's the real problem with a buyout -- you may trust the current owners, but you agreed to trust them *and anyone the company or any portion of its assets is ever sold to*.
It's funny, but I feel exactly the same way about expanding government powers in the PATRIOT mold.
Well, not that I exactly trust the current government, but I'm just drawing the parallel, eh?
Bobby Fisher is an awe-inspiring person. He may be considered mentally ill in some terms, for example his irrational anti-semitism, perhaps even more unusual in a Jewish person.
However, only a small proportion of the world's population even have the ability to really comprehend how good he is, let alone rival him.
The scary thing is that in the modern US (and increasingly in the UK), if a child like him emerged he would probably be treated with drugs and counseling to make him 'normal.'
I wouldn't recommend listening to his views on politics, but I'm glad nothing was done to deprive of us him as he is.
He's on the losing side, but he still knows how to fight. Notice his sales pitch to the asian governments:
FTA:
In the case of software piracy, Gates said Microsoft is having "good dialogues" with Asian governments, one area being their loss of tax revenue "when people don't pay for software".
The obvious corollary to this is that if you're using free (as in beer) open source software then you aren't paying taxes either. The technological solution to both of this problem and the piracy one is the same: trusted (by Them not You) Computing.
This comes up again and again. The basis of it is the idea that if people write their own software then there will be no market for others to sell it to them.
This seems true in general, but there are three important points.
There will still be a market for customising this software. It is likely to be smaller though.
There will be a market for supporting this software. Due to it being cheaper and thus more widespread, and due to it being less homogenous. This market, and the education needed to work in it, is likely to grow.
Without having to spend their money on propritary closed source software, people will have more money to spend on other things - resulting in a net gain for any society that uses Free software. Note this effect is even more greatly enhanced by the fact that the free software will not be taxed unlike proprietary software.
The software industry has to face up to the fact that programming is no longer such a specialist skill. A good parallel to this might be writing. It was once quite mystical to the majority of the population. But I think we can all see that our world has benefited from the skill not remaining the part of a small guild or group.
And yes, I have read the article already (I'm a subscriber). Billy Gates seems to be falling back to his old tactics of targeting schools with US$20 million in cash grants in Asia. Can't see it working myself.
I hate to do a 'me too' post, but short of a/. poll on the subject, how else are we to voice how strongly we feel about this?
I like my applications to be as discrete as possible. Sure, make them interoperable, but don't turn a sharp little application like Firefox into a clumsy swiss army knife.
The obvious compromise would be to make these advanced features an extension that can be plugged in, but, although I'm not familiar with the Firefox source, I am an experienced programmer and I'd expect something this sophisticated not to be possible without impacting the rest of the application. Or else, if it didn't then you'd have a de facto branch which would have a bad effect on Firefox development.
In short, I like Firefox (using it now) because it is lean, it does exactly what it's supposed to and little more.
Also, when my computer tries to anticipate what I'm trying to do, I usually find this fairly irritating, the autocomplete of file names in *NIX shells being the only exception.;)
allow users to set up a white list of requirements an SMS must have in order for it to be delivered.
This is slightly off-topic but very closely related and I'm hoping someone here can answer this.
In the UK, it used to be that mobile users paid to recieve calls. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure that this is now gone completely. However, I do still see some similar lack of control issues with SMS. One definite one is where you can be charged a high amount just by txting a particular number (e.g. txt 5 to $CHARITY). Another is where you can be charged for recieving particular services, but with no real security over how you sign up for it.
As a general principle, I don't like leaving it up to other people to decide how much money I owe them, so does anyone know anything about what you have to do to set these things up and anything I can do to take the power back?
Or even better, we could start eliminating kids that are likely to code such appliations in the future!
That isn't a new idea. Frighteningly, it used to even be one that was explicitly stated. When a bill was proposed to introduce public libraries, there was massive opposition from the Tories (closest equivalent in the US being the Republicans). Favourite quote from one being:
"the people have too much knowledge already: it was much easier to manage them twenty years ago; the more education people get the more difficult they are to manage."
Education equates to being difficult to control. Always has, but it's necessary for the health of society - the eternal dilemma of the ruling classes.
This brings us to environment. Only by exposing one's kids to life in the real world... can those kids grow up strong and able to deal with life outside the Master Planned Community, lest they be killed in the waves of immigrations that overrun the MPCs
I only wish to add a little something to this, which is that children will not so much learn purely from exposure, but from watching their parents deal with the exposure. I guess most of what we're talking about with filtering is naked people. Well, a child seeing nudity may or may not learn anything, but watching whether his father pervs, looks away or just accepts will surely guide his future behaviour.
I can't understand why anyone should get upset by someone who states "I've got nothing to hide".
Well, I just explained why it bothers me, but I can elaborate.
I think encryption tools should be available to the public because people should be able to have private conversations if they wish. I think that this is healthy for society and provides a little protection against the abuses of big business, government corruption and private individuals who wish you harm (stalkers, jealous (ex-)boyfriends/girlfriends, and all the enemies that you acquire through living your life. Of the private individuals, well there are already plenty of examples of abuse through access to emails, SMS, credit card history, etc.
Due to some of the pressures against freely available and usable encryption, I feel that without it becoming commonplace, and without it becoming accepted in the minds of the general public as something they ought to have, then it could quite quickly be lost, e.g. through government legislation.
So, I see its use as something that is good for society. When people say 'I've got nothing to hide," it feels to me like a lack of foresight. Perhaps because it's less visible, people don't see it as an intrusion. However, it seems to me no different to strangers coming to my house and searching through my belongings. In this circumstance, I would not say to strangers, "Go ahead, I have nothing to hide." I would be very angry.
So as I say, it's a communtiy thing - I want to strengthen the community, others can't be bothered. That's the source of the irritation.
History shows us again and again that it is not a good thing to hand over power to another.
I want to address one other point you raise:
f I DID have a deep dark secret that I wanted to communicate to some specific person, I'd send them an encrypted file as an attachment. For most people, most of the time, encryption is an extra step usually not warranted by the contents of the message.
At present you would stand out like bishop at an orgy. The more people you can get at the party to dress like Bishops however, the harder you'll be to spot. So if you want to retain the option to use encryption, best to encourage its use by others.
Secondly, yes, it currently is an additional step. That's why I'm trying to integrate it into as many people's email clients as possible, as in my original post.
Hope that clarifies my position and I seem a little more rational now. I've got a fairly good knowledge of history, and our current state of (very localised) freedom has existed before and has been lost before. I intend to help in any way I can to make it last.
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I've never understood if there is one political ideology based on anarchy or two. One where people think it's good to smash windows and one where they do not (and, presumably, a lot of other stuff).
The same can be applied to Capitalism, Christianity and just about any other group you care to name that doesn't have strict membership control.
I'll speak first as someone who has participated in some very large protests (mainly anti-war) which have attracted a large number of people who describe themselves as anarchist. The vast majority were very peacable, even one time in the face of police aggression in Bristol, UK. Nor did they support property damage. They pretty much denounced such people as not being proper anarchists in the same way that hackers denounce script kiddies, muslims denounce Al Quaeda and Americans denounce Bush (at least on
However, I would say that the most fundamental definition of anarchy is that mankind is better off living without central control than with and this does not comment on violence one way or another. Nevertheless, few anarchists have such a low-level definition of anarchy. You can find anarcho-captialist factions, anarcho-socialist factions, and others, but most (all?) of these begin to denounce violence. Once you begin to use violence to get your way then whatever your intentions were, you'll find it very hard to stop using violence.
The non-window smashing anarchy that you are interested in consists of finding ways of returning people's repsonsibility for their lives to them, taking it back from the government. The example I usually use is local currencies. See here, but as I'm on
In this sense Anarchy seems very much like a more humane capitalism; humane because anarchists are usually very community orientated. They have to be community orientated because the intention is to replace Government force with self-governance. However, likening anarchy to enlightened capitalism is only my view. Others will draw closer parallels to Socialism. In reality it is neither - it is simply the belief that mankind functions better working together willingly and co-operatively, than he does through force and the threat of force (which is what government is based on.) If you find your belief falls under this then it is in accord with anarchism.
There are few hard and fast definitions, but like hacking, it is only outsiders who think anarchism==criminal. More depth can be found here. Whether you agree with anarchism or not, if you find a group of them, you can usually be sure of some lively political debate.
the idea that everyone will just rise up and wipe out the nation-state system and then live in h4rm0ny with no government just comes off a tad naive
It always was. Not necessarily because it was impossible (it's happened repeatedly throughout histroy), but because revolutions always go 360 degrees with the new faction merely becoming like the old faction - they aren't called revolutions for nothing. A lot of modern anarchists feel that the best approach is not to overthrow the government but to supplant it. An example would be starting local currencies. Anarchism believes that responsibility lies with the individual rather than the state, and that may be the fundamental difference between it and marxism.
I once had a long, blazing (but good natured) argument on the subject with a busload of Marxists on the way back from a Stop the War march. Connected to socialism, but definitely not the same.
And on the subject, the level of debate on that bus was just as informed as on
Tad of a contradiction, no?
Well, no actually, although I see how you read my post. Getting past our corruption is a pre-requisite for a successful anarchist society, hence the dream of such a society holds the implicit faith in mankind's ability to achieve such a state.
1) abolish the state 2) ???? 3) utopia!
I think it's worth taking a little longer to consider anarchist theory in depth before dismissing it - there is a great deal out there. One thing worth mentioning is that anarchism is not 'abolish' the state but more a case of make it redundant. For anarchy in action consider local currencies such as Ithaca Hours or more impressive (to my mind), Calgary dollars and these
I believe there is some grounds to consider our current system of government (I'm in the UK) as promoting corruption, by placing excessive power in the hands of small numbers of people, instead of distributing that responsibility to a wider number, and also by concealing information and the decision making process from the public.
Anyway, I now have work to do. Any answers to questions and objections in reply to this post can probably be found in the links in my original post. Kropotkin will put the case better than I can.
Power to the people!
At it's core, Anarchy has a faith in mankind. The general reasoning is that any form of government can become corrupt because the people it is comprised of can become corrupt. The only revolution that will really change things is a social one, one that deals with people. If that can be achieved, then the question of what system of government to use comes down to one of efficiency, which is anarchy. Anarchy is more efficient because it is willing and unrestricted co-operation.
Anarchy is a faith in people's ability to work together without coercian. It is most definitely not disorganisation - just lack of control.
It's rather cruel to post a geocities site on
Hey, just saying thanks for introducing me to this group. I've downloaded a couple of their songs from their site and I'm definitely buying the album soon as I can.
Okay, sometime's it is possible to generalise.
:)
And I think you just proved it.
Exactly. The trick is to be sweet, loving and tender toward your girlfriend, while being insane, intimidating and twisted toward everyone else. The best of both worlds. She'll love you for it.
Hmmm, there's a teeny-weeny bit of exageration in there, but yes, sounds good. Now how do you find a man who's like that but is also popular and also not insanely possessive?
You see, women don't give a shit about personality, or looks even, women judge a man by his job and based on rumors spread by other womens and other bullshit.
You have a dark dark view of women. Do you really think women are so evil and heartless? And how much respect do you think a woman gets if she marries a guy she doesn't like (your 'no personality, no looks') because of his job. We have a words for women like that, gold-digger is the politest of them. You don't seem to realize that this sort of behaviour is as hated by women as by men (more, actually).
Anyway, I've written this reply more for the benefit of anyone else out there who might read this thread and pick up your bitter view of women. You really need to spend some more time just being friends with a few girls so that you can learn how women really think. I think your view has been twisted by being unable to find a girl who'll give you what you want.
Hard to believe, but men and women are not seperate species and we all have a lot of the same needs and wants.
Being friends with a girl will not help you get into bed with her and maybe you thought that it would, but it wont do you any harm either. You don't want a boyfriend who's a puppy-dog but you do want to be treated right.
Anyway, if this sounds a little harsher than I normally am, your comment sounds pretty unpleasant to me:
Do I feel sorry for a girl who gets her ass beat up by the thug who beats people up all the time? No.
I repeat to any lonely men reading this, Strong good, Bully bad. And I don't mean muscles, I mean a bit of integrity and some personal pride. Nice does not mean weak, and not all (very few) women are impressed by a loud mouth and a mid-life-crisis-mobile. Sure a fat wallet (with accompanying presents) is nice, who said everyone's a saint? But if a man thinks that's the first thing a woman wants then he's got a sad sad view on the world.
And with Arnold as Governor, we have a green light for unlimited violence in the entertainment industry. So there.
The inference I draw from this is that those who are violent condone violence in others. However, in my experience, those who are violent are just as quick to condemn others and even quicker to punish them. People are normally violent because they selfishly think it serves their needs. Selfishness is not a trait that likes to see itself in others.
Admitedly, in this case Arnie was only acting violent (as far as I know), but this is the same principle.
I just had a mental image of a marketing guy explaining to the board that he's not interested in making lots of money right now, but instead, building a more profitable and long-term customer base with a good reputation.
It's kind of a shame that I find the idea so funny.
Women prefer the "thug" men over the nice guy weak men.
Ah, no no no!
Don't ever think that! I'll leave aside the issue of generalising what three billion women want (makes about as much sense as me saying that all men want 'x'). But nice does not mean weak. Yes, weakness is rarely a trait that turns a woman on, but 'niceness' which I take to mean consideration for others is not the same.
If someone is only nice because they are afraid to upset someone, then are they really nice? I wouldn't think so. But a man who will stand up for you, protect you? Now that would be nice.
Some women will go for the badguys, but not many. Badguys in real-life are not like bad-guys in the movies. Do you really think most women want a life filled with violence and aggression? I promise you they don't.
Of course a certain amount of unpredictability is exciting. Everyone is attracted to someone who does the things that we wish we could do but can't. But I think that's really different to what you mean.
And in case you think all this has been meant in a physical sense, well yes it sort of was, but women can want a trophy boyfriend (the car, the clothes, the muscles) just like men want trophy girlfriends. But don't forget that not all men want that. (Relationships like this rarely last.) The other side of the gender-divide is not that different.
find me a woman who will go on a date with a homeless man with no job. Better yet find me woman period.
You're probably limited to other homeless women at the moment. It's not that a woman would or would not like you, but is she willing to make the sacrifices for you that dating a homeless man would involve (housing you, feeding you, driving you places)? When you're back on your feet then a woman is no longer having to make big lifestyle changes to accomodate you and you'll be a better prospect.
But it has nothing to do with you not being a "thug."
From the novel:
"Anyway, where do you get such a corny name like Tik-Tok?"
"The Studebaker kids read Oz books a lot," I said.
Also, the book is dedicated to
Actually, now that I have the book in front of me, there is another passage that is more relevant to what we're actually discussing here (the implementation of the Three Laws).
And later
As I said, a great book.
anyone intelligent enough to make a robot would build some failsafe in its programming,
There is a wonderful book (pure satire) set in such a world. It's called Tik-Tok by John Sladek. However, the central character is a robot that has something go very wrong with his "asimov circuits." The result is a tendancy to murder people and yet no-one in society believes he's capable of it (especially other robots), because they assume he's governed by the three laws.
The book is also one of the funniest and most absurd things I've ever read. If you like your humour black then it might be the perfect antidote to Hollywood's attempt to impart angular momentum to Isac Asimovs mortal remains.
That's the real problem with a buyout -- you may trust the current owners, but you agreed to trust them *and anyone the company or any portion of its assets is ever sold to*.
It's funny, but I feel exactly the same way about expanding government powers in the PATRIOT mold.
Well, not that I exactly trust the current government, but I'm just drawing the parallel, eh?
Bobby Fisher is an awe-inspiring person. He may be considered mentally ill in some terms, for example his irrational anti-semitism, perhaps even more unusual in a Jewish person.
However, only a small proportion of the world's population even have the ability to really comprehend how good he is, let alone rival him.
The scary thing is that in the modern US (and increasingly in the UK), if a child like him emerged he would probably be treated with drugs and counseling to make him 'normal.'
I wouldn't recommend listening to his views on politics, but I'm glad nothing was done to deprive of us him as he is.
Then you've probably seen the next article -- "Software Written Cheaply In India! World Coming to End!"
Actually, from the end of the article we find this: "--Next week: Gates on seamless computing
Now, that's even funnier.
"volunteer work is causing unemployment for people who wish to do the same work for pay"
I have nothing worthwhile to add to what you said, but I just want to let you know I'm going to steal that analogy and use it every chance I get.
You've just shot down every argument against Open Source in a single sentance. Quite Beautiful.
More nonsense from Gates.
He's on the losing side, but he still knows how to fight. Notice his sales pitch to the asian governments:
FTA:
In the case of software piracy, Gates said Microsoft is having "good dialogues" with Asian governments, one area being their loss of tax revenue "when people don't pay for software".
The obvious corollary to this is that if you're using free (as in beer) open source software then you aren't paying taxes either. The technological solution to both of this problem and the piracy one is the same: trusted (by Them not You) Computing.
This comes up again and again. The basis of it is the idea that if people write their own software then there will be no market for others to sell it to them.
This seems true in general, but there are three important points.
The software industry has to face up to the fact that programming is no longer such a specialist skill. A good parallel to this might be writing. It was once quite mystical to the majority of the population. But I think we can all see that our world has benefited from the skill not remaining the part of a small guild or group.
And yes, I have read the article already (I'm a subscriber). Billy Gates seems to be falling back to his old tactics of targeting schools with US$20 million in cash grants in Asia. Can't see it working myself.
I hate to do a 'me too' post, but short of a
I like my applications to be as discrete as possible. Sure, make them interoperable, but don't turn a sharp little application like Firefox into a clumsy swiss army knife.
The obvious compromise would be to make these advanced features an extension that can be plugged in, but, although I'm not familiar with the Firefox source, I am an experienced programmer and I'd expect something this sophisticated not to be possible without impacting the rest of the application. Or else, if it didn't then you'd have a de facto branch which would have a bad effect on Firefox development.
In short, I like Firefox (using it now) because it is lean, it does exactly what it's supposed to and little more.
Also, when my computer tries to anticipate what I'm trying to do, I usually find this fairly irritating, the autocomplete of file names in *NIX shells being the only exception.
Please don't install Clippy into Firefox.
allow users to set up a white list of requirements an SMS must have in order for it to be delivered.
This is slightly off-topic but very closely related and I'm hoping someone here can answer this.
In the UK, it used to be that mobile users paid to recieve calls. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure that this is now gone completely. However, I do still see some similar lack of control issues with SMS. One definite one is where you can be charged a high amount just by txting a particular number (e.g. txt 5 to $CHARITY). Another is where you can be charged for recieving particular services, but with no real security over how you sign up for it.
As a general principle, I don't like leaving it up to other people to decide how much money I owe them, so does anyone know anything about what you have to do to set these things up and anything I can do to take the power back?
They could use a lead balloon.
BA-DA-BOOM!
*sigh* A year's worth of good karma gone in a single post...
Or even better, we could start eliminating kids that are likely to code such appliations in the future!
That isn't a new idea. Frighteningly, it used to even be one that was explicitly stated. When a bill was proposed to introduce public libraries, there was massive opposition from the Tories (closest equivalent in the US being the Republicans). Favourite quote from one being: "the people have too much knowledge already: it was much easier to manage them twenty years ago; the more education people get the more difficult they are to manage."
Education equates to being difficult to control. Always has, but it's necessary for the health of society - the eternal dilemma of the ruling classes.
This brings us to environment. Only by exposing one's kids to life in the real world
I only wish to add a little something to this, which is that children will not so much learn purely from exposure, but from watching their parents deal with the exposure. I guess most of what we're talking about with filtering is naked people. Well, a child seeing nudity may or may not learn anything, but watching whether his father pervs, looks away or just accepts will surely guide his future behaviour.
I can't understand why anyone should get upset by someone who states "I've got nothing to hide".
Well, I just explained why it bothers me, but I can elaborate.
I think encryption tools should be available to the public because people should be able to have private conversations if they wish. I think that this is healthy for society and provides a little protection against the abuses of big business, government corruption and private individuals who wish you harm (stalkers, jealous (ex-)boyfriends/girlfriends, and all the enemies that you acquire through living your life. Of the private individuals, well there are already plenty of examples of abuse through access to emails, SMS, credit card history, etc.
Due to some of the pressures against freely available and usable encryption, I feel that without it becoming commonplace, and without it becoming accepted in the minds of the general public as something they ought to have, then it could quite quickly be lost, e.g. through government legislation.
So, I see its use as something that is good for society. When people say 'I've got nothing to hide," it feels to me like a lack of foresight. Perhaps because it's less visible, people don't see it as an intrusion. However, it seems to me no different to strangers coming to my house and searching through my belongings. In this circumstance, I would not say to strangers, "Go ahead, I have nothing to hide." I would be very angry.
So as I say, it's a communtiy thing - I want to strengthen the community, others can't be bothered. That's the source of the irritation.
History shows us again and again that it is not a good thing to hand over power to another.
I want to address one other point you raise:
f I DID have a deep dark secret that I wanted to communicate to some specific person, I'd send them an encrypted file as an attachment. For most people, most of the time, encryption is an extra step usually not warranted by the contents of the message.
At present you would stand out like bishop at an orgy. The more people you can get at the party to dress like Bishops however, the harder you'll be to spot. So if you want to retain the option to use encryption, best to encourage its use by others.
Secondly, yes, it currently is an additional step. That's why I'm trying to integrate it into as many people's email clients as possible, as in my original post.
Hope that clarifies my position and I seem a little more rational now. I've got a fairly good knowledge of history, and our current state of (very localised) freedom has existed before and has been lost before. I intend to help in any way I can to make it last.