It could look like what you say. Or we could see more open source games, or more online ones, or free/ad-supported, or any combination thereof, or things no one's even thought of yet. (Think how much different the world looks in 2011 than we imagined it would in 2001, let alone 1991!)
I can't tell you exactly what the new era will look like. If I were that good, I'd be awfully rich. I can tell you, however, that it will not look like the "pay per copy" model of the last century. That paradigm died the moment we developed and mass-marketed machines capable of making billions of copies at near-zero marginal cost.
What I seem to continually see here is the argument from consequences fallacy. "Well if this were true, then XYZ bad thing would happen..."! Even if it's correct that the death of the pay-per-copy model is bad (I'm not convinced it is, but for the sake of argument), that wouldn't change whether or not it's true. Even draconian laws and draconian technical measures haven't made the slightest dent, so I don't know what more proof of truth we'd need. Its death will be lingering, certainly, but the arrow's already through the heart.
Most likely, at least part of the new model will look like most everyone else's job-continued pay depends on continued work. If you want to make money as a musician, tour. If you want to make money as a programmer, develop custom software for people who want it or fix bugs for people who are willing to pay you to. I've got no problem with that-I'm not still getting paid for what I did yesterday, either.
There used to be a pretty decent trade in going up the side of a mountain, bringing down a block of ice, and selling chunks out of it. Then along came freezers, and everyone could make a "copy" of that ice chunk right in their own home. Now ice hauling is no longer a viable business model. Times change, technology disrupts, and sometimes something that was once lucrative becomes superfluous or worthless.
The selling copies model is dead, and it's only thrashing at all through enforced monopoly (an enforced monopoly over thoughts and numbers, no less). That's not going to work, with a machine designed to make copies in every living room. You are correct that asking nicely for a donation often does, and I often give one. But it's tough to demand money for something people can easily do themselves. If a chef develops a delicious recipe, but it's relatively easy to cook, a lot of people will cook it rather than going to the restaurant. Those who do go to the restaurant will see some benefit in paying that premium (added convenience, the atmosphere, what have you). And no, it makes no difference that in this case the cooking only takes a button press-if anything, that means less reason to go to the restaurant.
When you develop something that's not actually scarce, don't be surprised if you don't make a ton of money from it. Ideas spread easily, especially now that we've got a global network designed to do exactly that. We're well into a new paradigm here, and if the lumbering old giants want to ignore that-well, we all know what happens when you fail to adapt.
Sure is a good thing those nice Germans didn't target any civilians.
Oh, wait, we're back in the real world here! The sad part is, I'm not even entirely sure you're trolling. The Americans didn't have entirely clean hands in the whole affair. Very few countries have fought a major war without doing some things they've later come to regret, one good reason not to have the damn things. And the internment camps were a travesty, but they pale beside Auschwitz or Birkenau. The majority of Japanese-Americans who were put into internment camps did, at least, come out of them alive, and weren't sent there with the deliberate purpose of mass slaughter.
That doesn't by any means make it right. But it's nothing like the Holocaust.
You have a point regarding the definition of reasonable. But though that definition may have some flex, it's not unlimited. There comes a point at which the vast majority would agree you've crossed the line from "highly successful but reasonable" to "obscene and rapacious".
I think a company who designs its "products" to deliberately infect farmers' fields without their knowledge, and then proceeds to club them over the head with "patent infringement" if they don't agree to a perpetual "license fee" (and to not even being allowed to save their own seeds), is way over that line. If you think that type of behavior is reasonable, then I guess I wouldn't know what to say.
I don't care for the tactics used here, and of course many researchers in this area really are just legitimately working on ways to increase food yields.
On the other hand, there really are plenty of rapacious Monsantos and wannabes out there, who have quite legitimately given the whole thing a bad name. So I do understand the backlash.
Honestly, they'd do a lot better to try and get genetic patents eliminated. That's what causes a great deal of the harm here, whereas those interested in altruism or a reasonable profit don't need them. Unfortunately, those aren't so easy to uproot as a potato.
Given that effectively all of our energy (aside from a comparatively small amount of geothermal) is produced in a very, very large nuclear reactor, to which we have been exposed on a daily basis since life began, I guess you've just explained all disease! Good thing too-we had it long before we were "out of the trees", or "in the trees"-even single-celled organisms die.
What they don't die of is "subluxations", because there's no such thing. Honestly, I hope you're a troll. The alternative is far worse-that you're really one of the people who's out there selling this shit to people, and keeping them from getting real treatment in some cases. But whether you're personally a troll or not, there really are people who do that. It's not funny-they kill people and in the meantime make a fortune selling snake oil to the gullible and the desperate.
Of course, if you had any real interest in science, you'd know that coal power causes thousands upon thousands of deaths a year-not from "subluxations", but from the harmful chemicals it releases into the atmosphere. And we may see its death toll rise precipitously once the full effects of climate change begin to be felt, though I certainly hope that will not be the case. And right now, if you're not doing nuclear as your baseline, you're doing coal or natural gas. There isn't enough stable energy potential in solar or wind yet, and they're not cost-effective on a massive scale.
Right now, nuclear is our best option. It should be carefully regulated, and perhaps some older plants do need to be given the choice between mandatory upgrade and shutdown. What we shouldn't do is throw a technology out that can work properly because someone misused and failed to maintain it.
But, of course, you're a quack (or you're a troll playing one). So what do you care about reality, anyway, in either case?
On the other hand, let us say that the order is for all records of any items sold to "any person appearing to be of Arabic origin." You believe this request to be overbroad, it will be a tremendous burden on you to fulfill, and it also shows evidence of racially motivated profiling and a fishing expedition. In this case, it is the order itself that is worthy of protest and criticism-but you can't tell anyone. In fact, you can't even tell Bob where all the money is going (that you're spending to fulfill the request), and if he suspects you of embezzling it, neither you nor your lawyer can even bring that up in your own defense. You can't tell the news media that the government is engaging in this sort of behavior.
I have no problem with a subpoena, along with a temporary gag order, issued by a judge who has carefully reviewed the need for doing so. That's what judges are there for. I do have a problem that this power can be initiated solely at the discretion of a law enforcement officer, with no prior judicial review to ensure justifiable cause has been established to take such an extraordinary step. But even in your hypothetical case, the gag order should be lifted as soon as practical. In your hypothetical case, once Abu and his collaborators are arrested and the plot is foiled, the threat has now been neutralized. There is no longer any need for secrecy. But in your case, there also is presumably probable cause both to issue the warrant and to request a gag order while the threat is addressed (or until it is found not to be a threat after all).
I've a higher chance of death by drowning, lightning strike, or car accident in the next year than terrorism. I'm a lot more concerned about having a highly abusable power in the hands of government than I am about them terr'ists. I'm even more concerned that any abuses of that power could be concealed permanently. Government power and the way it uses it should always be subject to public scrutiny. There are sometimes legitimate reasons to temporarily delay such scrutiny. Whether or not that standard has been met should be decided by a judge who will weigh all sides, including constitutional rights. There is no legitimate reason, however, to permanently disallow scrutiny.
You apparently did not know about National Security Letters? Requires no judicial oversight (it took a tooth and nail fight to even get a grudging admission judges could review them -after- issue, until that was done they also blatantly violated separation of powers and the right to judicial review), and come with a permanent gag order prohibiting the recipient not only from disclosing the details of what was requested, but from even telling anyone they got one. (Again, it took a tooth-and-nail fight to get even a grudging admission that you had to at least be able to discuss it with an attorney. If that hadn't been done, they would also violate the right to counsel, and for a long time they did.)
For a far simpler look at issues with the First and Fourth Amendment, have a look at the PATRIOT Act. You can not only be sent a secret "subpoena" without issuance or proper review by a judge, but in many cases, you can't even tell anyone you were subpoenaed!
If it's not evident how that clearly infringes on the rights to free speech, free press, the right to petition for redress of grievances, the right to assemble like-minded citizens to peaceably protest a decision with which one agrees, and the right to be free from warrantless searches, I really don't know what else to tell you.
If you walk by two guys who are pounding the shit out of a kid, do you: A) Walk by, figuring the kid should "change that" if (s)he wants to quit getting beaten on-by vote, by force, you know, what have you. B) Call the police. C) Try to intervene yourself. If you would pick A, I would consider you an utter piece of shit, and I think you probably would too. But that's just what you're advocating here-refusing to help someone who is being hurt by someone more powerful and cannot defend themself.
There is nothing selfish about defending someone who cannot defend themself. Most people in dictatorships don't want the dictatorship to continue. But when you risk death at the hands of the secret police for even appearing to step slightly out of line, it's hard to make change from the inside. When you're a young child, it's hard to prevent yourself from being mutilated if that's what your entire society does. When you're being tortured and killed on the basis of a rumor that you might have thought the wrong thing, it's awfully hard to say "Hey, guys, wouldn't you mind stopping that?"
Maybe you're the type of person who can stand idly by while people are tortured and killed, as long as it's not happening to you or anyone you know, and can even sanctimoniously try to make it into some kind of noble act. I'm glad I'm not.
So, to start with, taxation is not theft. It's long since been accepted that one of the powers of a sovereign nation is to levy taxes. You have every right to say "The rate should be different", but a sovereign nation levying a tax is not theft.
Now, do keep in mind, my hypothetical 90% rate was for the sake of comparing two extremes-I'm not saying that's the rate we should set. I sure am saying, though, that I'd rather be ultrarich and paying a high tax rate.
I don't do badly myself. (I won't say exactly where, but I will say I sure don't get a refund anymore.) I don't stand to benefit here. But many years ago, I did need welfare. It helped me get back on my feet, and today I pay far more into the system than I ever took out. If I'd starved to death, that would have in the end been a net loss-even if one lays aside questions of ethics and considers only the economics.
I don't want to lay aside questions of ethics, though. There are both pragmatic issues (there's no quicker way to destabilize a society than to fill it with people who are starving and freezing), and moral questions (is it right for a society of plenty to let anyone starve or freeze?).
As to your superstars and Warren Buffett and what have you, you can argue they do a lot. But they also use a lot. Their mega-empires use resources, generate pollution, heavily utilize roads, air control, and other forms of infrastructure, are heavily dependent on police and fire protection and a stable society, and in many cases even get direct cash handouts from the government. In many cases, they even cynically abuse social resources, such as paying their employees so little that they cannot survive without welfare-but figure the presence of welfare will prevent the situation from becoming so bad that the employees will unionize and demand a living wage.
Michael Jordan would be nothing without the architects who design stadiums, the workers who build them, or even the janitor who sweeps the floors. I'm not advocating that all of those should make the same amount as he does. But I sure am advocating that all of them should make a living, decent wage that they can do more than scrape by on. Our major corporations are not hurting for cash, and they can afford that.
For that matter, consider the Internet. We use it without a second thought. But armies of workers laid cables across every remote, forgotten part of the country you can imagine, so that we can have this discussion at all. Engineers designed every part of the intricate infrastructure, programmers have written countless useful applications for it, and anymore, everyone relies on it. But it didn't come about by magic. And it didn't come about by a "free market" either-most of the major players have gotten tremendous sweetheart deals on the easements they've needed to put down the infrastructure, and some have even been insulated from competition by cooperatives by state or local laws forbidding them.
So don't tell me megabillionaires become so in a vacuum. They depend on social resources (even if they don't deliberately abuse them), and they make much heavier use of those resources than Joe Average does. Even just the fact that we have a stable society is dependent on us keeping the vast majority of the population fed and housed. You put a bunch of people in the streets to starve, I guarantee you those streets will soon be full of rioters, and if you don't fix it quick, revolutionaries.
So I guess I don't understand people like you, either. You seem to think these megabillionaires came to be through some kind of rags to riches, worked harder than anyone else story. Sometimes that's true. Usually it's not. It's often a case of having one or more of: an exceptional talent, a wealthy family backing, and/or being in exactly the right place at the right time (where countless others who were just a little off failed totally, even though they worked just as hard). Anyone who does even moderately well has to work hard, and sometimes people have to work hard just to barely scr
If it's true that "everyone needs to sacrifice", those who need it the least can sacrifice the most. Especially since they're the ones pushing these policies.
Let me give you two scenarios. The first is that you will make $30,000 a year. You will pay no taxes whatsoever. In fact, you will be offered a negative tax rate-a cash bonus of $2000 per year!
For your second option, you will make a hundred million dollars a year, and pay a 90% tax rate.
Which scenario do you want?
Now, maybe you want to make the 100 million, and still pay little or no taxes. And right now, you can. But it shouldn't work like that.
So eliminate all exemptions for those above a certain income. No overseas stashes, no lower capital gains rate, no nothing. Attempt to hide or underdeclare a significant amount of income, you pay triple and do time.
Oh, you'd prefer to have a "residence" in Bermuda, would you? Enjoy your trip! Just sure you keep paying every nickel of your taxes from there, too. Traveling abroad remains much more pleasant if your passport doesn't get revoked with a wanted felon watch on it.
Those who have benefited most greatly from society can damn well pay most greatly for its upkeep. If they try to evade, society has every right to turn on them. No more accepting this "They'll duck it anyway, who cares?" If that's the case, get them to quit ducking it. Multibillionaires are notorious for demanding government handouts, but I imagine they'll draw the line at getting a mandatory vacation at Uncle Sam's expense for a few years, and they'll pay their damned taxes. They'll screech, but they'll pay.
Bin Laden is a demagogue and an attention whore. All it would take is one verifiable "Nyah nyah nyah, you didn't catch me!" video (and plenty of organizations have the means to verify such a video's veracity and every motive to break such a huge story if it can be verified), and in one fell swoop, he has the attention of the entire world, utterly humiliates the US, and gives a tremendous morale boost to his followers. Do you really think he'd pass up that chance?
I'm all for being skeptical of the government, but the conspiracy concept here just doesn't add up. Al-Qaeda has even acknowledged his death, and that's a blow to them-they could just as easily cause the humiliation and get the attention by producing evidence that he's still alive.
You're absolutely right. Aside from complying with the principles and open government which the Obama administration specifically promised to be better at, providing important current-event and historical documentation, silencing a lot of potential conspiracy-theory circus a la the birthers, and not keeping secret information which is in no sense a secret at all, no good would come of it whatsoever.
Ten years ago, it would've been hardly conceivable that it would be possible to stream several seasons' worth of a TV show over a service like Netflix. Now, my wife does that routinely. And that's just one thing the net connection gets used for in a given month. I like to listen to streaming music. I download updates for console games via my Net connection. I periodically download a full distribution upgrade for one or more of my machines from it. I telecommute several days a month, and can pull some pretty impressive datasets in over the course of my work. I also use voice and screenshare videoconferencing for work. And those are just the main things, before you get to all the miscellaneous stuff one does on a net connection. I'm sure my usage easily approaches, if not exceeds, 250 GB/month.
Note two things about this. First, all of these activities are entirely legal. Second, several of them do indeed threaten the "unbundled services" model-a fast enough Net connection can quite easily be your one-stop shop for digital entertainment of all types, not to mention news, weather, and whatever else have you. It's even able to fully replace a landline phone, and to supplement a cell to the point that you can buy a lower-cost voice plan for it. Do you think telcos and TV providers like that idea?
I don't either. And that's why part of net neutrality has to be a strict no-capping rule. If you can't offer 20 Mbps, the solution is not "We'll advertise 20 Mbps and cap". The solution is "We'll advertise what we actually can support on a sustained, ongoing basis, and provide faster speed on a burst, as is available basis." If you're only offering me the ability to use my connection at full speed for a few hours or days, you're not selling me that speed. You're selling me something significantly less. A speed rating should be for continuous, not burst, use.
On the other hand, if someone is walking around outside naked, and you just happen to see them, you're not evil at all.
I'll be the first to condemn Google when they're in the wrong, believe me. But if you leave your wireless open, you are choosing that anyone within range of it can pick up any packets it's sending. Or you failed to learn even the basics of safely and securely operating a device that carries sensitive data. Either way, it is your fault, not the fault of everyone who steps into range.
Now, were someone to use the gathered data maliciously (posting it in public, for example), you might have a point. But to my knowledge, none of the gathered data here has ever been made public.
Ah, I misunderstood you then. You're talking about the original posting of the means whereby I can access my property. See, when you sell me something, it is mine. I have every right to take it apart, modify it, tinker with it, or do whatever the hell else I want with it. If you're the manufacturer of said device, you aren't required to make that easy, but you shouldn't be able to prohibit me if I do figure out how, nor should you be able to prohibit me sharing that knowledge.
Uh...if I posted my bank and credit card information on a public facing website, and someone else linked to it, I guess I'd have no one but myself to complain at. That's why I've never put my bank or credit card information on a public facing website.
You'll note that here, in contrast, all I did here was give links to information they did freely choose to make available to the public. Seeing the difference here?
I'm not giving out any Sooper Seekrit information, just stuff that's on a public website. If it's illegal to "incite" people to protest things by speaking to the parties responsible, then it's even worse than I thought.
Screw their "online assets." The link to the contact list of offices for the law firm responsible is right here. Sony's corporate contact numbers are here. I suggest that each of their offices should receive a good few calls Monday, letting them know what we think about free speech and about restraining it.
It takes a lot fewer calls to pull off a denial of service than it takes packets.
And if you go look at the source code, you can find plenty of these exploits, I presume? I'll look forward to hearing about them with interest.
The fact that bad guys can find a bug means good guys can find it too. Ultimately, that makes the whole platform more secure. Not perfectly secure, and there's no such thing, but awfully good.
But feel free to repeat that old canard about using open source all over. In the meantime, those of us who depend on real machines with real security will use *nix, unless given absolutely no choice.
Routers already have this ability, and mine to my knowledge will allow either black or whitelisting. Unless you have your router in a locked and guarded room, though, I'd reiterate the point of physical access. Most common home routers have a pretty simple way to reset to factory defaults by holding a button on them.
There are easy enough ways around that, too. It's almost impossible to lock down a machine someone has unrestricted physical access to, especially for those who don't have the technical skill to know all the various workarounds. Hell, it's difficult for those who do have extensive technical skill.
The solution here is lower tech. As long as you aren't ready to let your kid run free on the internet and see all there is to see, supervise them while they use it. And realize that's not even a perfect solution, as their friend might have a smartphone.
If you haven't taught your kids to be responsible and thoughtful, preferably by example, nothing else you do is going to work. If you have, then them seeing a naughty picture is not the end of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
It could look like what you say. Or we could see more open source games, or more online ones, or free/ad-supported, or any combination thereof, or things no one's even thought of yet. (Think how much different the world looks in 2011 than we imagined it would in 2001, let alone 1991!)
I can't tell you exactly what the new era will look like. If I were that good, I'd be awfully rich. I can tell you, however, that it will not look like the "pay per copy" model of the last century. That paradigm died the moment we developed and mass-marketed machines capable of making billions of copies at near-zero marginal cost.
What I seem to continually see here is the argument from consequences fallacy. "Well if this were true, then XYZ bad thing would happen..."! Even if it's correct that the death of the pay-per-copy model is bad (I'm not convinced it is, but for the sake of argument), that wouldn't change whether or not it's true. Even draconian laws and draconian technical measures haven't made the slightest dent, so I don't know what more proof of truth we'd need. Its death will be lingering, certainly, but the arrow's already through the heart.
Most likely, at least part of the new model will look like most everyone else's job-continued pay depends on continued work. If you want to make money as a musician, tour. If you want to make money as a programmer, develop custom software for people who want it or fix bugs for people who are willing to pay you to. I've got no problem with that-I'm not still getting paid for what I did yesterday, either.
No it's not.
There used to be a pretty decent trade in going up the side of a mountain, bringing down a block of ice, and selling chunks out of it. Then along came freezers, and everyone could make a "copy" of that ice chunk right in their own home. Now ice hauling is no longer a viable business model. Times change, technology disrupts, and sometimes something that was once lucrative becomes superfluous or worthless.
The selling copies model is dead, and it's only thrashing at all through enforced monopoly (an enforced monopoly over thoughts and numbers, no less). That's not going to work, with a machine designed to make copies in every living room. You are correct that asking nicely for a donation often does, and I often give one. But it's tough to demand money for something people can easily do themselves. If a chef develops a delicious recipe, but it's relatively easy to cook, a lot of people will cook it rather than going to the restaurant. Those who do go to the restaurant will see some benefit in paying that premium (added convenience, the atmosphere, what have you). And no, it makes no difference that in this case the cooking only takes a button press-if anything, that means less reason to go to the restaurant.
When you develop something that's not actually scarce, don't be surprised if you don't make a ton of money from it. Ideas spread easily, especially now that we've got a global network designed to do exactly that. We're well into a new paradigm here, and if the lumbering old giants want to ignore that-well, we all know what happens when you fail to adapt.
Sure is a good thing those nice Germans didn't target any civilians.
Oh, wait, we're back in the real world here! The sad part is, I'm not even entirely sure you're trolling. The Americans didn't have entirely clean hands in the whole affair. Very few countries have fought a major war without doing some things they've later come to regret, one good reason not to have the damn things. And the internment camps were a travesty, but they pale beside Auschwitz or Birkenau. The majority of Japanese-Americans who were put into internment camps did, at least, come out of them alive, and weren't sent there with the deliberate purpose of mass slaughter.
That doesn't by any means make it right. But it's nothing like the Holocaust.
Not while I'm drinking coffee, damn you! You owe me a keyboard!
You have a point regarding the definition of reasonable. But though that definition may have some flex, it's not unlimited. There comes a point at which the vast majority would agree you've crossed the line from "highly successful but reasonable" to "obscene and rapacious".
I think a company who designs its "products" to deliberately infect farmers' fields without their knowledge, and then proceeds to club them over the head with "patent infringement" if they don't agree to a perpetual "license fee" (and to not even being allowed to save their own seeds), is way over that line. If you think that type of behavior is reasonable, then I guess I wouldn't know what to say.
I don't care for the tactics used here, and of course many researchers in this area really are just legitimately working on ways to increase food yields.
On the other hand, there really are plenty of rapacious Monsantos and wannabes out there, who have quite legitimately given the whole thing a bad name. So I do understand the backlash.
Honestly, they'd do a lot better to try and get genetic patents eliminated. That's what causes a great deal of the harm here, whereas those interested in altruism or a reasonable profit don't need them. Unfortunately, those aren't so easy to uproot as a potato.
Given that effectively all of our energy (aside from a comparatively small amount of geothermal) is produced in a very, very large nuclear reactor, to which we have been exposed on a daily basis since life began, I guess you've just explained all disease! Good thing too-we had it long before we were "out of the trees", or "in the trees"-even single-celled organisms die.
What they don't die of is "subluxations", because there's no such thing. Honestly, I hope you're a troll. The alternative is far worse-that you're really one of the people who's out there selling this shit to people, and keeping them from getting real treatment in some cases. But whether you're personally a troll or not, there really are people who do that. It's not funny-they kill people and in the meantime make a fortune selling snake oil to the gullible and the desperate.
Of course, if you had any real interest in science, you'd know that coal power causes thousands upon thousands of deaths a year-not from "subluxations", but from the harmful chemicals it releases into the atmosphere. And we may see its death toll rise precipitously once the full effects of climate change begin to be felt, though I certainly hope that will not be the case. And right now, if you're not doing nuclear as your baseline, you're doing coal or natural gas. There isn't enough stable energy potential in solar or wind yet, and they're not cost-effective on a massive scale.
Right now, nuclear is our best option. It should be carefully regulated, and perhaps some older plants do need to be given the choice between mandatory upgrade and shutdown. What we shouldn't do is throw a technology out that can work properly because someone misused and failed to maintain it.
But, of course, you're a quack (or you're a troll playing one). So what do you care about reality, anyway, in either case?
On the other hand, let us say that the order is for all records of any items sold to "any person appearing to be of Arabic origin." You believe this request to be overbroad, it will be a tremendous burden on you to fulfill, and it also shows evidence of racially motivated profiling and a fishing expedition. In this case, it is the order itself that is worthy of protest and criticism-but you can't tell anyone. In fact, you can't even tell Bob where all the money is going (that you're spending to fulfill the request), and if he suspects you of embezzling it, neither you nor your lawyer can even bring that up in your own defense. You can't tell the news media that the government is engaging in this sort of behavior.
I have no problem with a subpoena, along with a temporary gag order, issued by a judge who has carefully reviewed the need for doing so. That's what judges are there for. I do have a problem that this power can be initiated solely at the discretion of a law enforcement officer, with no prior judicial review to ensure justifiable cause has been established to take such an extraordinary step. But even in your hypothetical case, the gag order should be lifted as soon as practical. In your hypothetical case, once Abu and his collaborators are arrested and the plot is foiled, the threat has now been neutralized. There is no longer any need for secrecy. But in your case, there also is presumably probable cause both to issue the warrant and to request a gag order while the threat is addressed (or until it is found not to be a threat after all).
I've a higher chance of death by drowning, lightning strike, or car accident in the next year than terrorism. I'm a lot more concerned about having a highly abusable power in the hands of government than I am about them terr'ists. I'm even more concerned that any abuses of that power could be concealed permanently. Government power and the way it uses it should always be subject to public scrutiny. There are sometimes legitimate reasons to temporarily delay such scrutiny. Whether or not that standard has been met should be decided by a judge who will weigh all sides, including constitutional rights. There is no legitimate reason, however, to permanently disallow scrutiny.
You apparently did not know about National Security Letters? Requires no judicial oversight (it took a tooth and nail fight to even get a grudging admission judges could review them -after- issue, until that was done they also blatantly violated separation of powers and the right to judicial review), and come with a permanent gag order prohibiting the recipient not only from disclosing the details of what was requested, but from even telling anyone they got one. (Again, it took a tooth-and-nail fight to get even a grudging admission that you had to at least be able to discuss it with an attorney. If that hadn't been done, they would also violate the right to counsel, and for a long time they did.)
For a far simpler look at issues with the First and Fourth Amendment, have a look at the PATRIOT Act. You can not only be sent a secret "subpoena" without issuance or proper review by a judge, but in many cases, you can't even tell anyone you were subpoenaed!
If it's not evident how that clearly infringes on the rights to free speech, free press, the right to petition for redress of grievances, the right to assemble like-minded citizens to peaceably protest a decision with which one agrees, and the right to be free from warrantless searches, I really don't know what else to tell you.
You are absolutely incorrect.
If you walk by two guys who are pounding the shit out of a kid, do you: A) Walk by, figuring the kid should "change that" if (s)he wants to quit getting beaten on-by vote, by force, you know, what have you. B) Call the police. C) Try to intervene yourself. If you would pick A, I would consider you an utter piece of shit, and I think you probably would too. But that's just what you're advocating here-refusing to help someone who is being hurt by someone more powerful and cannot defend themself.
There is nothing selfish about defending someone who cannot defend themself. Most people in dictatorships don't want the dictatorship to continue. But when you risk death at the hands of the secret police for even appearing to step slightly out of line, it's hard to make change from the inside. When you're a young child, it's hard to prevent yourself from being mutilated if that's what your entire society does. When you're being tortured and killed on the basis of a rumor that you might have thought the wrong thing, it's awfully hard to say "Hey, guys, wouldn't you mind stopping that?"
Maybe you're the type of person who can stand idly by while people are tortured and killed, as long as it's not happening to you or anyone you know, and can even sanctimoniously try to make it into some kind of noble act. I'm glad I'm not.
So, to start with, taxation is not theft. It's long since been accepted that one of the powers of a sovereign nation is to levy taxes. You have every right to say "The rate should be different", but a sovereign nation levying a tax is not theft.
Now, do keep in mind, my hypothetical 90% rate was for the sake of comparing two extremes-I'm not saying that's the rate we should set. I sure am saying, though, that I'd rather be ultrarich and paying a high tax rate.
I don't do badly myself. (I won't say exactly where, but I will say I sure don't get a refund anymore.) I don't stand to benefit here. But many years ago, I did need welfare. It helped me get back on my feet, and today I pay far more into the system than I ever took out. If I'd starved to death, that would have in the end been a net loss-even if one lays aside questions of ethics and considers only the economics.
I don't want to lay aside questions of ethics, though. There are both pragmatic issues (there's no quicker way to destabilize a society than to fill it with people who are starving and freezing), and moral questions (is it right for a society of plenty to let anyone starve or freeze?).
As to your superstars and Warren Buffett and what have you, you can argue they do a lot. But they also use a lot. Their mega-empires use resources, generate pollution, heavily utilize roads, air control, and other forms of infrastructure, are heavily dependent on police and fire protection and a stable society, and in many cases even get direct cash handouts from the government. In many cases, they even cynically abuse social resources, such as paying their employees so little that they cannot survive without welfare-but figure the presence of welfare will prevent the situation from becoming so bad that the employees will unionize and demand a living wage.
Michael Jordan would be nothing without the architects who design stadiums, the workers who build them, or even the janitor who sweeps the floors. I'm not advocating that all of those should make the same amount as he does. But I sure am advocating that all of them should make a living, decent wage that they can do more than scrape by on. Our major corporations are not hurting for cash, and they can afford that.
For that matter, consider the Internet. We use it without a second thought. But armies of workers laid cables across every remote, forgotten part of the country you can imagine, so that we can have this discussion at all. Engineers designed every part of the intricate infrastructure, programmers have written countless useful applications for it, and anymore, everyone relies on it. But it didn't come about by magic. And it didn't come about by a "free market" either-most of the major players have gotten tremendous sweetheart deals on the easements they've needed to put down the infrastructure, and some have even been insulated from competition by cooperatives by state or local laws forbidding them.
So don't tell me megabillionaires become so in a vacuum. They depend on social resources (even if they don't deliberately abuse them), and they make much heavier use of those resources than Joe Average does. Even just the fact that we have a stable society is dependent on us keeping the vast majority of the population fed and housed. You put a bunch of people in the streets to starve, I guarantee you those streets will soon be full of rioters, and if you don't fix it quick, revolutionaries.
So I guess I don't understand people like you, either. You seem to think these megabillionaires came to be through some kind of rags to riches, worked harder than anyone else story. Sometimes that's true. Usually it's not. It's often a case of having one or more of: an exceptional talent, a wealthy family backing, and/or being in exactly the right place at the right time (where countless others who were just a little off failed totally, even though they worked just as hard). Anyone who does even moderately well has to work hard, and sometimes people have to work hard just to barely scr
If it's true that "everyone needs to sacrifice", those who need it the least can sacrifice the most. Especially since they're the ones pushing these policies.
Let me give you two scenarios. The first is that you will make $30,000 a year. You will pay no taxes whatsoever. In fact, you will be offered a negative tax rate-a cash bonus of $2000 per year!
For your second option, you will make a hundred million dollars a year, and pay a 90% tax rate.
Which scenario do you want?
Now, maybe you want to make the 100 million, and still pay little or no taxes. And right now, you can. But it shouldn't work like that.
So eliminate all exemptions for those above a certain income. No overseas stashes, no lower capital gains rate, no nothing. Attempt to hide or underdeclare a significant amount of income, you pay triple and do time.
Oh, you'd prefer to have a "residence" in Bermuda, would you? Enjoy your trip! Just sure you keep paying every nickel of your taxes from there, too. Traveling abroad remains much more pleasant if your passport doesn't get revoked with a wanted felon watch on it.
Those who have benefited most greatly from society can damn well pay most greatly for its upkeep. If they try to evade, society has every right to turn on them. No more accepting this "They'll duck it anyway, who cares?" If that's the case, get them to quit ducking it. Multibillionaires are notorious for demanding government handouts, but I imagine they'll draw the line at getting a mandatory vacation at Uncle Sam's expense for a few years, and they'll pay their damned taxes. They'll screech, but they'll pay.
Really, are you serious?
Bin Laden is a demagogue and an attention whore. All it would take is one verifiable "Nyah nyah nyah, you didn't catch me!" video (and plenty of organizations have the means to verify such a video's veracity and every motive to break such a huge story if it can be verified), and in one fell swoop, he has the attention of the entire world, utterly humiliates the US, and gives a tremendous morale boost to his followers. Do you really think he'd pass up that chance?
I'm all for being skeptical of the government, but the conspiracy concept here just doesn't add up. Al-Qaeda has even acknowledged his death, and that's a blow to them-they could just as easily cause the humiliation and get the attention by producing evidence that he's still alive.
You're absolutely right. Aside from complying with the principles and open government which the Obama administration specifically promised to be better at, providing important current-event and historical documentation, silencing a lot of potential conspiracy-theory circus a la the birthers, and not keeping secret information which is in no sense a secret at all, no good would come of it whatsoever.
This, exactly.
Ten years ago, it would've been hardly conceivable that it would be possible to stream several seasons' worth of a TV show over a service like Netflix. Now, my wife does that routinely. And that's just one thing the net connection gets used for in a given month. I like to listen to streaming music. I download updates for console games via my Net connection. I periodically download a full distribution upgrade for one or more of my machines from it. I telecommute several days a month, and can pull some pretty impressive datasets in over the course of my work. I also use voice and screenshare videoconferencing for work. And those are just the main things, before you get to all the miscellaneous stuff one does on a net connection. I'm sure my usage easily approaches, if not exceeds, 250 GB/month.
Note two things about this. First, all of these activities are entirely legal. Second, several of them do indeed threaten the "unbundled services" model-a fast enough Net connection can quite easily be your one-stop shop for digital entertainment of all types, not to mention news, weather, and whatever else have you. It's even able to fully replace a landline phone, and to supplement a cell to the point that you can buy a lower-cost voice plan for it. Do you think telcos and TV providers like that idea?
I don't either. And that's why part of net neutrality has to be a strict no-capping rule. If you can't offer 20 Mbps, the solution is not "We'll advertise 20 Mbps and cap". The solution is "We'll advertise what we actually can support on a sustained, ongoing basis, and provide faster speed on a burst, as is available basis." If you're only offering me the ability to use my connection at full speed for a few hours or days, you're not selling me that speed. You're selling me something significantly less. A speed rating should be for continuous, not burst, use.
On the other hand, if someone is walking around outside naked, and you just happen to see them, you're not evil at all.
I'll be the first to condemn Google when they're in the wrong, believe me. But if you leave your wireless open, you are choosing that anyone within range of it can pick up any packets it's sending. Or you failed to learn even the basics of safely and securely operating a device that carries sensitive data. Either way, it is your fault, not the fault of everyone who steps into range.
Now, were someone to use the gathered data maliciously (posting it in public, for example), you might have a point. But to my knowledge, none of the gathered data here has ever been made public.
Ah, I misunderstood you then. You're talking about the original posting of the means whereby I can access my property. See, when you sell me something, it is mine. I have every right to take it apart, modify it, tinker with it, or do whatever the hell else I want with it. If you're the manufacturer of said device, you aren't required to make that easy, but you shouldn't be able to prohibit me if I do figure out how, nor should you be able to prohibit me sharing that knowledge.
Uh...if I posted my bank and credit card information on a public facing website, and someone else linked to it, I guess I'd have no one but myself to complain at. That's why I've never put my bank or credit card information on a public facing website.
You'll note that here, in contrast, all I did here was give links to information they did freely choose to make available to the public. Seeing the difference here?
I'm not giving out any Sooper Seekrit information, just stuff that's on a public website. If it's illegal to "incite" people to protest things by speaking to the parties responsible, then it's even worse than I thought.
Screw their "online assets." The link to the contact list of offices for the law firm responsible is right here. Sony's corporate contact numbers are here. I suggest that each of their offices should receive a good few calls Monday, letting them know what we think about free speech and about restraining it.
It takes a lot fewer calls to pull off a denial of service than it takes packets.
And if you go look at the source code, you can find plenty of these exploits, I presume? I'll look forward to hearing about them with interest.
The fact that bad guys can find a bug means good guys can find it too. Ultimately, that makes the whole platform more secure. Not perfectly secure, and there's no such thing, but awfully good.
But feel free to repeat that old canard about using open source all over. In the meantime, those of us who depend on real machines with real security will use *nix, unless given absolutely no choice.
Routers already have this ability, and mine to my knowledge will allow either black or whitelisting. Unless you have your router in a locked and guarded room, though, I'd reiterate the point of physical access. Most common home routers have a pretty simple way to reset to factory defaults by holding a button on them.
There are easy enough ways around that, too. It's almost impossible to lock down a machine someone has unrestricted physical access to, especially for those who don't have the technical skill to know all the various workarounds. Hell, it's difficult for those who do have extensive technical skill.
The solution here is lower tech. As long as you aren't ready to let your kid run free on the internet and see all there is to see, supervise them while they use it. And realize that's not even a perfect solution, as their friend might have a smartphone.
If you haven't taught your kids to be responsible and thoughtful, preferably by example, nothing else you do is going to work. If you have, then them seeing a naughty picture is not the end of the world.