Pretty much what you state, but I'll go a bit further. Making this type of claim is akin to claiming that fish evolved jaws to avoid lures. It's not even worthwhile mental masturbation in my opinion, because the theory has no rational basis that I can find.
If Zog and Ug were fighting over a woman back in the day, do you think they would act out a great bar scene and brawl each other with fists? It's much more likely that disagreements over resources would have been resolved using other means. I.E. Club to the head.
Resource contention does not mean that they could not have group hunts and other communal activities, but that there is no reason to claim that fist fights were common or even part of life. It honestly makes no sense to use fisticuffs in a survival situation.
If we look at the history of Ancient Greece they did not fist fight either. I'm sure you know the history of Greco Roman Wresting, or can find out so I won't extrapolate past the mention.
In other words, fist fighting is not something historically documented except in relatively recent times.
So is it likely that facial evolution was to protect from damage? Sure, many of our physical features seem to be developed for exactly that reason. Protection from "fists" seems to be stretching things to a creative limit. From TFA I agree with He says that debate about the role of violence in human evolution is not new. but we have to make the debate something rational and reasonable. I have no reason to believe that fist fights were part of cultures predating civilizations, especially considering that they were not documented as parts of our earliest civilizations.
You didn't read the Wiki, references are in the complete article. No, I'm not going to fish through the article and find all the references because you are being lazy in order to support your ignorance. I will provide you this one, which again telling you to read the complete article if you are really interested in finding something more than nonsense.
^ a b c d Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 page 339 states of baptism and crucifixion that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent".
Personally I have studied it and came to the same conclusion the Wiki article states "the majority of historians" have. Roman court records are there, as are letters and text from both Christian and non Christian sources. You should probably pay more attention to your straw man arguments than my citation from a link provided article which has all of it's references in the same article.
As a guess, your confession of "TLDR" indicates your level of study on the subject. Again, events and actions can be disputed because there is not much in the way of corroborative documentation. If you wish to argue existence based on your opinion and ignoring history, then the measure needs to be held universally. Therefor your opinion should be that all people in history "probably" did not exist (which is a really idiotic assumption).
Practically speaking, there's no way to get rid of all the loopholes without a One World Government(tm), which most people are against (especially the existing governments of nations which would be superseded by such a thing).
If you are going to make such a blanket statement then you need to qualify it. As written, there appears to be an incorrect claim that it's just a matter of people wanting to hold local control.
Governments are against a the "one world government" because their people are against the NWO. The people are against the NWO that has been forcing itself into society for decades, because it's been doing so to the detriment of the "people" under the umbrella. What has been put in place, such as World Bank and WTO is completely unaccountable to the people that have to live with the rules (and those are just 2 examples, there are many such organizations). The same people pushing the NWO, such as GW Bush, have no qualms about killing well over a million people to further their ideology. The people shaping EU monetary policy have destroyed numerous economies without conscience to further their "one world government" agenda.
The above is not necessarily secret, but it does require study. Media monopolies in the US, UK, and EU are not going to talk about it, they are owned by people also trying to further that agenda. Enough can be found that we see elections like we just saw in the UK, where the platform for many winners is anti-EU.
People do realize that if the NWO Government gets into power by nefarious means, the NWO will be inherently nefarious. History has proven this again and again, and there are many people that understand it and have been pushing back against the NWO for just that reason.
Right, because the two acts that are agreed upon by historians give absolutely no indication that it's the same Jesus and could have been anyone. *That is sarcasm in case you missed it*
You must be the same anonymous person above that claimed Jesus didn't exist, am I right? Are you trying to claim that the British just handed India over and let them run themselves? Read a history book, and see how wrong you are on all accounts. Most of this information does not take in depth study, just a cursory glance at a Wiki page is all you need to know you are wrong.
It takes a special kind of ignorance to deny history, you should have read the Wiki page before posting. And no, you are not smarter than the the majority of reputable historians who have satisfactory proof that Jesus was a real person. (Be cautions with demanding absolute proof, because there are no historical persons that can be proven absolutely).
What people do debate are the acts performed by Jesus, because there are a limited number corroborating written records of many events recorded in books added to the Christian Bible. The same historians who agree that Jesus exists will give you those events as well. You should really learn to study history, it's fascinating stuff and will make you look less foolish when posting.
Not quite, try reading the definition again. Philosophy largely deals with non-material things and therefor can be difficult to measure, but we can surely measure things and determine probably outcomes with only Philosophical means (logic and reason).
Why should I prefer Molyneaux to Marx, Bellamy, More, Plato, and the rest in a very long list? Personally, I'm tired of reading utopian philosophy and fiction, and have no interest in reading another one unless it has something serious to recommend it.
Two part answer since it's a two part question and statement. First, If you don't read the work and attempt to understand them how can you measure? Well obviously you can't. Second, if you really read Marx and Socrates and don't know why you should prefer one over the other, you could not have made much of an attempt to understand their works.
What I want to see in utopias is some demonstration that they actually work with this particular species.
If _you_ believe that utopias are possible be my guest, I stated pretty clearly that they don't work. That does not leave the only possible alternative as an authoritarian system.
You've sketched out some scenarios that fail basic logistic and historical practice.
You have this very backward on both accounts. The Government has not always had a monopoly on regulation of home building, or well digging, or running electrical wires, or even making safe drinking water. Those things are not new phenomenons, because through history many governments tried to monopolize everything. This is just one of many reasons we have a Constitution limiting Federal powers.
Further, if you are continuing to rationalize based on the false dilemma I pointed out previously you can't possibly speak from a position of reason. I'm happy to read and understand your points, but if that same courtesy is not extended then there is no point in dialogue.
This makes me think that your utopian ideal is less realistic than usual.
That is an absolutely false statement on every level. Go back to my first post and you will see I stated that I don't agree Molyneux's work can happen because of human nature. I also stated that some Government functions are essential. In the second post, I repeated the same statement again. How can you debate my points if you only read the parts you want to read and ignore whole paragraphs? Simply put, you can't.
Obama isn't trying to reduce the deficit, and as I said previously, read some different economists regarding Clinton. Clinton did do a couple good things, don't get me wrong, but was as bad as others in most regards. People do tend to ignore their preferred parties wrong doing, as appear to be doing with both Clinton and Obama.
As much as I enjoy reading books about Utopia and Utopian systems, those can never mature because humans are not all good guys looking out for societies interests, but their own.
As for Science, NASA has brought about a great many scientific wonders for every day life. At the same time, it helped increase our ability to kill each other. Broadcast Media is used for much less than altruistic purposes every day, yet could be of enormous benefit to society. The Internet is an awesome tool, yet used for nefarious plotting and illegal purposes all the time.
Why would AI be any different than other systems or organizatoins that were originally envisioned as great benefits to society? The NSA and CIA are agencies of good motives originally, that have gone at least a bit haywire because humans have abused their power for personal gain. Nuclear weapons were supposed to end wars, at least that was the sales pitch.
If AI could be programmed for truly altruistic purposes it would be beneficial for finding the nefarious characters and rooting out corruption. Because of that exact reason, the people funding and granting money to developing AI are not going to allow that to happen.
Imagine what would happen, for example, if AI looked at wealth disparity and started transferring money from (lets say) JD Rockefeller to people with less means. While potentially a great benefit to the rest of society, do you believe that same person would fund programs that allowed that to happen? Good luck with that.
In fairness, there were some protests. As with OWS protesters were treated with hostility and protests were ignored by US Media. In fact the quote from the head of the Republican Caucus stated on public radio "We don't care what the people say, Ron Paul will not win the Iowa primary". National media refused to pick this up, there were no investigations into corruption (and yes there were several lawsuits and petitions requesting such), and the majority of Americans are simply blinded to the problem. These people have gotten very good at using media to manipulate the public.
Since you are in Australia, I don't know what you saw but I'll explain what Americans saw. Ron Paul was referred to by all US media as "that crazy congressmen", and his positions were all labelled "whacky". TV clips were edited down to a sentence that would demonstrate that he was just that. During televised debates he was not shown giving answers after he won the first televised debate, he was simply cut from viewing or edited with commercial interruptions. The number one question he was asked by media in the last campaign was "How do you feel about being Xs running mate?" where X was any of the other candidates including the worst of them. His answer became laughing at the interviewer because they refused to let him talk about being the front candidate.
As an outsider I am guessing it's easy to see the corruption because your sources are different, and it probably helps that the celebrity status of a politician means much less to you than it does a US citizen. My son was taught to ignore celebrity status as anything of value, so he saw through the game easily. Celebrity worship to an average American is quite a powerful tool to the "insiders".
Mostly true, except for the false claims regarding Clinton. I think you need to look at what was really done economically under that administration. NAFTA for example has been devastating since Clinton signed the law. Some of the biggest deregulation to banks happened under his watch as well, as were extensions to Reagan and Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy.
Part of the problem with evaluating impact is that economics law rarely has large immediate impact. Laws like NAFTA take years to have a measurable impact. I'm not going to break down everything here, just enough to give the example.
After NAFTA was passed the short term economy did not change. In fact it may have seen a slight growth. Companies have to pay people to pack up a factory and pay for the shipping to move a plant to Mexico, demolish old buildings (in some cases that did not happen, see Flint and Detroit Michigan). Then after moving the plant you have to pay people to set up the plant and train a new workforce. Everything appears to be fine in the economy, but then after the initial work is completed the economy begins to drop. Since this can take years, the guy that passed NAFTA falsely claims "It can't be from my law, we had no problems until today and my law passed back then".
Many economists have written about how bad NAFTA really was, yet Clinton is touted as a great economic success for America by some. The majority of Americans were harmed by NAFTA (and many are today).
Exactly a selective reading problem, in addition to denial of that fact.
such as the CIA and FBI, do have jobs that do not require a clearance, but depending on the job classification can (and often do) restrict convicted felons from filling those positions.
The use of the word "can" is not obscure. "able to", "permitted to" are easily found in a dictionary. Notice that "CIA and FBI" are explicitly listed in that sentence stating that felons "can" be restricted from holding certain jobs "and often do" get excluded..
What I stated a felon _can not_ have is a security clearance.
I'm only going to address one of your points because the other works similarly. Why not read the Philosophy and debate after that? I really can't type out days of lecture on the subject or cover that much material in writing in a Slashdot post. The Philosopher is named, as the work, so you can read or listen to the work at your leisure.
Oh great, so all yoor stuff got trashed and you and your family literally risked death, but hey the market corrected it everyone ELSE is OK. I'd rather have a more expensive house that doesn't destroy all my stuff, turn my life upside down and possibly kill me, thanks.
False dilemma. This could happen today if a person has no insurance just as easily as without any government regulation. Regulation is not what saves people here, it's insurance. With or without regulation, a person can sue someone for wrong doing and recoup losses. Courts will be no faster either way.
As I stated in my closing paragraph, I don't agree with everything in the Philosophy. That said, over regulation and government corruption are certainly problems today and that does not take studying Philosophical works to figure that out. I live in California where regulation is at least occasionally compared to a "racket" and "shake down", and law suits against the government for this are not too uncommon. There are at least two very large legal funds for helping small businesses with these issues, and it's been a political topic since I have been in California.
Have you never been taught that alternatives exist in society to the Government? Almost all of the same exact safeguards, and usually much more economical ones, can be found in a "Free Market" society. If you are truly ignorant to other methods a good source of information, and very interesting Philosophical insight, can be found by listening to or reading Stefan Molynoux. Namely his theories regarding anarchism, which may sound like something you think you know but is actually not the same.
For example: 6:38 you pour some water into your coffeemaker. You were able to get a great price for the water because the market has ensured that there are several companies competing for both price and quality in water. In fact additional companies may spring up from time to time to enhance competition. If Company B ever had a problem with water quality or quantity, people would switch over to Company A or Company C, and since there is competition, the companies evaluate each others water because they need to prove that they are better, worse, or the same.
As demonstrated recently in West Virgina, those people were up shit's creek (actually drinking and showing in it) because the Government has a monopoly on water treatment and distribution. There is no competition, and when their water was contaminated they had to wait for bottled water in addition to waiting for a court case to get reimbursed for damages (which I can not state has been resolved yet, or fairly, largely due to corruption in the courts by.. you guessed it.. corrupt Government personal.)
At 6:39 you flip the switch and your house does not catch on fire. There was a fire due to shoddy work about a decade ago, but the company that did that work went out of business because people stopped purchasing their homes. Competition and Free Market strikes AGAIN! No need for Government supervision of house building is needed. In fact the companies doing electrical and plumbing work ensure that their people are certified without Government intervention. They do this because society expects this and Free Market demands it.
And before you say "but they hired a handy man who did a hack job" that happens today WITH all kinds of regulations. In fact it's very common in buildings and trades to hire unskilled labor to perform many tasks that _should_ be done by skilled labor. Most cities have illegal immigrant pools waiting around somewhere for the pick up every morning. And why are those illegal immigrant pools there? Once again Government Agencies are failing to perform _their_ jobs. And when citizens tried to step in and help on their own, they were declared a threat to the US Government and many were arrested. (If you don't see the trend you are not looking very hard)
We have gone so far with Government craziness that we have the GAO "Government Accountability Office". And what does this agency do? Well, it throws a lavish party costing a million dollars of tax payer money for 33 people. The executive that planned the party flew on tax payer money 6 times ahead of the party to plan it and have "dry runs" (I believe dry humps would be closer to the truth myself, but still not correct). So the agency supposedly accountable for government spending, is wasting your tax money and not doing their jobs either. Do you think that is the only time they peed away your money, or is it more likely that they have just been careful not to get caught?
Personally I'm not an anarchist like Mr. Molynoux. I have studied hist work and think he brings up very similar issues as Ron Paul did regarding why US policy has become absolutely horrendous. Unlike Mr. Molynoux, I believe that Government is needed for some things, such as providing a military to defend the citizens of the country and defending our borders.
Seriously think about it. How can we pay for the NSA to spy on everyone, our Military to bomb anyone, our CIA to fund terrorist groups in the Middle East (and everywhere else for that matter), pay for Welfare instead of actually doing something to fix the economy, continue to let the top.01% live tax free lives of luxury (and allow them to offshore most of their money), provide strike force military equipment to local police and sheriff departments so that they can enforce "Free Speech Zones", pay for expansions in DHS and TSA so that they can frisk little children and search colostomy bags for explosives, have the Federal Reserve give hundreds of billions of dollars to whatever country they feel like propping up today, and give your tax money to countries like the Ukraine so that they can revolt and join NATO if we are spending money on bettering mankind?
I really and truly wish that something in my list was a joke, but sadly it's actually a very short list of how the US is being mismanaged by corrupted people holding offices.
This has actually been happening for a very long time, but I'm glad to see that more and more people are waking up to the game. I also think that things are escalating in terms of corruption so it's getting easier for people to see.
If anyone has doubts (not you per say), look at how many people were arrested for the blackmail campaign against Ross Perot, in fact be amazed at how much media coverage it received. Look at the Iowa primary issues with Ron Paul, and be amazed at how he was treated by media (my kid at 11 years old figured that out on his own, I was proud). The Franklin Cover Up is another great piece to study, and lets not forget about Operation Mockingbird, COINTELPRO, The Clinton Chronicles, and wholly fuck I could really make a long list so will stop by stating this: There are plenty of investigative books and articles on the corruption in the US going back to the 50s at least.
It takes public awareness to incite change, so start waking people up to what's going on any way you can.
A fight between 2 anonymous people. While entertaining for a while, we are always left wondering if the person is schizophrenic and is it crowded in your head? Worse than that however, is that we never have a clear winner. Well, I say "HIT HIM WITH YOUR PURSE YOU CRAZY BASTARD(S)!"
I agree with your points, but will add that there were a few other motives. One I believe is a bigger target than Brazil.
1. Anonymous was a pain in the ass to corrupt US corporations and Government agencies. If you remember, US sites were being hacked and defaced for the same exact reasons claimed for defacing Brazilian sites. Anonymous was leaking classified documents implicating US agencies of war crimes and corruption, civil rights violations against OWS and other activist groups. In other words, a primary motive was attacking anonymous members to slow down their campaign in the US. IMHO "Sabu" is full of shit in his exit statement from the courts. Anonymous was the primary target because they are a threat to the corrupt insiders in the US.
2. Fuck with non-US aligned countries. Brazil was a target, but so was Syria, Pakistan, Iran, and Nigeria. Turkey and Pakistan are mentioned, but I'm guessing those were real targets of anonymous because they are corrupt and not a traditionally vocal allies of the US. Interestingly "US" is omitted from this information but was the reason they arrested Sabu to begin with. That they could fuck with so many countries was a huge side effect of number 1, but not the primary motive. Notice after all of these arrests, Anonymous greatly reduces the attacks against US companies and Government agencies. Notice too that the vocal allies of the US are omitted from these attacks (UK, Germany, France, Spain, etc...).
3. As someone else mentioned, including Sabu in his exit statement, this a case of the FBI trying to make themselves look good. I come to that conclusion because there are exactly 2 very brief mentions in TFA about the legality of the FBIs actions and neither are direct.
Well spoken. I was honestly about to type up very similar in a Car analogy (not joking) instead of an airplane. That people don't understand how this is worse than just simple "coercion" is baffling. This is much worse than coercion, because the FBI watched as real crimes occurred. Crimes that the US claimed were an act of war to be more precise.
The whole point of defending citizens and preventing crimes has been thrown out of the window for some reason, and very few seem to be paying attention.
As a secondary example, if the police arrest a drug dealer they _can_ legally allow them to turn over higher level players in exchange for pleas. They can not legally allow the suspect back on the streets and supervise their drug sales while they wait for a rival dealer to show up. The police in that case, and the FBI in TFA, are behaving criminally and should be charged as criminals.
Feel free to debate me regarding my opinion, but please save the fallacy responses (like the appeals to emotion I can already see coming).
Unfortunately this story will never see airtime so the majority of the public will never know what happened, let alone have a debate on why it's wrong.
I do understand your point, and appreciate the courteous dialogue and summary.
I do hope you understand my point as well, which is that a person does not have to be a "leader" to be influential. Further, I don't believe it's the citizens fault when their Governments make questionable decisions. It is our duty to incite change when those decisions are wrong, but this is extremely difficult to do when these decisions are hidden from the public.
Lord knows as a US citizen I would have a very hard time with coping with cognitive dissonance if I blamed myself for our Politicians wrong doing.
Selective reading problem, try reading the complete paragraph and trying again. Though I would recommend you read the complete post again instead of cherry picking something to debate from either the post or the paragraph.
Slashdot Mirror
Pretty much what you state, but I'll go a bit further. Making this type of claim is akin to claiming that fish evolved jaws to avoid lures. It's not even worthwhile mental masturbation in my opinion, because the theory has no rational basis that I can find.
If Zog and Ug were fighting over a woman back in the day, do you think they would act out a great bar scene and brawl each other with fists? It's much more likely that disagreements over resources would have been resolved using other means. I.E. Club to the head.
Resource contention does not mean that they could not have group hunts and other communal activities, but that there is no reason to claim that fist fights were common or even part of life. It honestly makes no sense to use fisticuffs in a survival situation.
If we look at the history of Ancient Greece they did not fist fight either. I'm sure you know the history of Greco Roman Wresting, or can find out so I won't extrapolate past the mention.
In other words, fist fighting is not something historically documented except in relatively recent times.
So is it likely that facial evolution was to protect from damage? Sure, many of our physical features seem to be developed for exactly that reason. Protection from "fists" seems to be stretching things to a creative limit. From TFA I agree with He says that debate about the role of violence in human evolution is not new. but we have to make the debate something rational and reasonable. I have no reason to believe that fist fights were part of cultures predating civilizations, especially considering that they were not documented as parts of our earliest civilizations.
You didn't read the Wiki, references are in the complete article. No, I'm not going to fish through the article and find all the references because you are being lazy in order to support your ignorance. I will provide you this one, which again telling you to read the complete article if you are really interested in finding something more than nonsense.
^ a b c d Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 page 339 states of baptism and crucifixion that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent".
Personally I have studied it and came to the same conclusion the Wiki article states "the majority of historians" have. Roman court records are there, as are letters and text from both Christian and non Christian sources. You should probably pay more attention to your straw man arguments than my citation from a link provided article which has all of it's references in the same article.
As a guess, your confession of "TLDR" indicates your level of study on the subject. Again, events and actions can be disputed because there is not much in the way of corroborative documentation. If you wish to argue existence based on your opinion and ignoring history, then the measure needs to be held universally. Therefor your opinion should be that all people in history "probably" did not exist (which is a really idiotic assumption).
Practically speaking, there's no way to get rid of all the loopholes without a One World Government(tm), which most people are against (especially the existing governments of nations which would be superseded by such a thing).
If you are going to make such a blanket statement then you need to qualify it. As written, there appears to be an incorrect claim that it's just a matter of people wanting to hold local control.
Governments are against a the "one world government" because their people are against the NWO. The people are against the NWO that has been forcing itself into society for decades, because it's been doing so to the detriment of the "people" under the umbrella. What has been put in place, such as World Bank and WTO is completely unaccountable to the people that have to live with the rules (and those are just 2 examples, there are many such organizations). The same people pushing the NWO, such as GW Bush, have no qualms about killing well over a million people to further their ideology. The people shaping EU monetary policy have destroyed numerous economies without conscience to further their "one world government" agenda.
The above is not necessarily secret, but it does require study. Media monopolies in the US, UK, and EU are not going to talk about it, they are owned by people also trying to further that agenda. Enough can be found that we see elections like we just saw in the UK, where the platform for many winners is anti-EU.
People do realize that if the NWO Government gets into power by nefarious means, the NWO will be inherently nefarious. History has proven this again and again, and there are many people that understand it and have been pushing back against the NWO for just that reason.
Right, because the two acts that are agreed upon by historians give absolutely no indication that it's the same Jesus and could have been anyone. *That is sarcasm in case you missed it*
You must be the same anonymous person above that claimed Jesus didn't exist, am I right? Are you trying to claim that the British just handed India over and let them run themselves? Read a history book, and see how wrong you are on all accounts. Most of this information does not take in depth study, just a cursory glance at a Wiki page is all you need to know you are wrong.
It takes a special kind of ignorance to deny history, you should have read the Wiki page before posting. And no, you are not smarter than the the majority of reputable historians who have satisfactory proof that Jesus was a real person. (Be cautions with demanding absolute proof, because there are no historical persons that can be proven absolutely).
What people do debate are the acts performed by Jesus, because there are a limited number corroborating written records of many events recorded in books added to the Christian Bible. The same historians who agree that Jesus exists will give you those events as well. You should really learn to study history, it's fascinating stuff and will make you look less foolish when posting.
Philosophy is theory.
Not quite, try reading the definition again. Philosophy largely deals with non-material things and therefor can be difficult to measure, but we can surely measure things and determine probably outcomes with only Philosophical means (logic and reason).
Why should I prefer Molyneaux to Marx, Bellamy, More, Plato, and the rest in a very long list? Personally, I'm tired of reading utopian philosophy and fiction, and have no interest in reading another one unless it has something serious to recommend it.
Two part answer since it's a two part question and statement. First, If you don't read the work and attempt to understand them how can you measure? Well obviously you can't. Second, if you really read Marx and Socrates and don't know why you should prefer one over the other, you could not have made much of an attempt to understand their works.
What I want to see in utopias is some demonstration that they actually work with this particular species.
If _you_ believe that utopias are possible be my guest, I stated pretty clearly that they don't work. That does not leave the only possible alternative as an authoritarian system.
You've sketched out some scenarios that fail basic logistic and historical practice.
You have this very backward on both accounts. The Government has not always had a monopoly on regulation of home building, or well digging, or running electrical wires, or even making safe drinking water. Those things are not new phenomenons, because through history many governments tried to monopolize everything. This is just one of many reasons we have a Constitution limiting Federal powers.
Further, if you are continuing to rationalize based on the false dilemma I pointed out previously you can't possibly speak from a position of reason. I'm happy to read and understand your points, but if that same courtesy is not extended then there is no point in dialogue.
This makes me think that your utopian ideal is less realistic than usual.
That is an absolutely false statement on every level. Go back to my first post and you will see I stated that I don't agree Molyneux's work can happen because of human nature. I also stated that some Government functions are essential. In the second post, I repeated the same statement again. How can you debate my points if you only read the parts you want to read and ignore whole paragraphs? Simply put, you can't.
Obama isn't trying to reduce the deficit, and as I said previously, read some different economists regarding Clinton. Clinton did do a couple good things, don't get me wrong, but was as bad as others in most regards. People do tend to ignore their preferred parties wrong doing, as appear to be doing with both Clinton and Obama.
As much as I enjoy reading books about Utopia and Utopian systems, those can never mature because humans are not all good guys looking out for societies interests, but their own.
As for Science, NASA has brought about a great many scientific wonders for every day life. At the same time, it helped increase our ability to kill each other. Broadcast Media is used for much less than altruistic purposes every day, yet could be of enormous benefit to society. The Internet is an awesome tool, yet used for nefarious plotting and illegal purposes all the time.
Why would AI be any different than other systems or organizatoins that were originally envisioned as great benefits to society? The NSA and CIA are agencies of good motives originally, that have gone at least a bit haywire because humans have abused their power for personal gain. Nuclear weapons were supposed to end wars, at least that was the sales pitch.
If AI could be programmed for truly altruistic purposes it would be beneficial for finding the nefarious characters and rooting out corruption. Because of that exact reason, the people funding and granting money to developing AI are not going to allow that to happen.
Imagine what would happen, for example, if AI looked at wealth disparity and started transferring money from (lets say) JD Rockefeller to people with less means. While potentially a great benefit to the rest of society, do you believe that same person would fund programs that allowed that to happen? Good luck with that.
In fairness, there were some protests. As with OWS protesters were treated with hostility and protests were ignored by US Media. In fact the quote from the head of the Republican Caucus stated on public radio "We don't care what the people say, Ron Paul will not win the Iowa primary". National media refused to pick this up, there were no investigations into corruption (and yes there were several lawsuits and petitions requesting such), and the majority of Americans are simply blinded to the problem. These people have gotten very good at using media to manipulate the public.
Since you are in Australia, I don't know what you saw but I'll explain what Americans saw. Ron Paul was referred to by all US media as "that crazy congressmen", and his positions were all labelled "whacky". TV clips were edited down to a sentence that would demonstrate that he was just that. During televised debates he was not shown giving answers after he won the first televised debate, he was simply cut from viewing or edited with commercial interruptions. The number one question he was asked by media in the last campaign was "How do you feel about being Xs running mate?" where X was any of the other candidates including the worst of them. His answer became laughing at the interviewer because they refused to let him talk about being the front candidate.
As an outsider I am guessing it's easy to see the corruption because your sources are different, and it probably helps that the celebrity status of a politician means much less to you than it does a US citizen. My son was taught to ignore celebrity status as anything of value, so he saw through the game easily. Celebrity worship to an average American is quite a powerful tool to the "insiders".
Mostly true, except for the false claims regarding Clinton. I think you need to look at what was really done economically under that administration. NAFTA for example has been devastating since Clinton signed the law. Some of the biggest deregulation to banks happened under his watch as well, as were extensions to Reagan and Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy.
Part of the problem with evaluating impact is that economics law rarely has large immediate impact. Laws like NAFTA take years to have a measurable impact. I'm not going to break down everything here, just enough to give the example.
After NAFTA was passed the short term economy did not change. In fact it may have seen a slight growth. Companies have to pay people to pack up a factory and pay for the shipping to move a plant to Mexico, demolish old buildings (in some cases that did not happen, see Flint and Detroit Michigan). Then after moving the plant you have to pay people to set up the plant and train a new workforce. Everything appears to be fine in the economy, but then after the initial work is completed the economy begins to drop. Since this can take years, the guy that passed NAFTA falsely claims "It can't be from my law, we had no problems until today and my law passed back then".
Many economists have written about how bad NAFTA really was, yet Clinton is touted as a great economic success for America by some. The majority of Americans were harmed by NAFTA (and many are today).
Exactly a selective reading problem, in addition to denial of that fact.
such as the CIA and FBI, do have jobs that do not require a clearance, but depending on the job classification can (and often do) restrict convicted felons from filling those positions.
The use of the word "can" is not obscure. "able to", "permitted to" are easily found in a dictionary. Notice that "CIA and FBI" are explicitly listed in that sentence stating that felons "can" be restricted from holding certain jobs "and often do" get excluded..
What I stated a felon _can not_ have is a security clearance.
I'm only going to address one of your points because the other works similarly. Why not read the Philosophy and debate after that? I really can't type out days of lecture on the subject or cover that much material in writing in a Slashdot post. The Philosopher is named, as the work, so you can read or listen to the work at your leisure.
Oh great, so all yoor stuff got trashed and you and your family literally risked death, but hey the market corrected it everyone ELSE is OK. I'd rather have a more expensive house that doesn't destroy all my stuff, turn my life upside down and possibly kill me, thanks.
False dilemma. This could happen today if a person has no insurance just as easily as without any government regulation. Regulation is not what saves people here, it's insurance. With or without regulation, a person can sue someone for wrong doing and recoup losses. Courts will be no faster either way.
As I stated in my closing paragraph, I don't agree with everything in the Philosophy. That said, over regulation and government corruption are certainly problems today and that does not take studying Philosophical works to figure that out. I live in California where regulation is at least occasionally compared to a "racket" and "shake down", and law suits against the government for this are not too uncommon. There are at least two very large legal funds for helping small businesses with these issues, and it's been a political topic since I have been in California.
Wake up Moderators, wholly crap.
Have you never been taught that alternatives exist in society to the Government? Almost all of the same exact safeguards, and usually much more economical ones, can be found in a "Free Market" society. If you are truly ignorant to other methods a good source of information, and very interesting Philosophical insight, can be found by listening to or reading Stefan Molynoux. Namely his theories regarding anarchism, which may sound like something you think you know but is actually not the same.
For example: 6:38 you pour some water into your coffeemaker. You were able to get a great price for the water because the market has ensured that there are several companies competing for both price and quality in water. In fact additional companies may spring up from time to time to enhance competition. If Company B ever had a problem with water quality or quantity, people would switch over to Company A or Company C, and since there is competition, the companies evaluate each others water because they need to prove that they are better, worse, or the same.
As demonstrated recently in West Virgina, those people were up shit's creek (actually drinking and showing in it) because the Government has a monopoly on water treatment and distribution. There is no competition, and when their water was contaminated they had to wait for bottled water in addition to waiting for a court case to get reimbursed for damages (which I can not state has been resolved yet, or fairly, largely due to corruption in the courts by.. you guessed it.. corrupt Government personal.)
At 6:39 you flip the switch and your house does not catch on fire. There was a fire due to shoddy work about a decade ago, but the company that did that work went out of business because people stopped purchasing their homes. Competition and Free Market strikes AGAIN! No need for Government supervision of house building is needed. In fact the companies doing electrical and plumbing work ensure that their people are certified without Government intervention. They do this because society expects this and Free Market demands it.
And before you say "but they hired a handy man who did a hack job" that happens today WITH all kinds of regulations. In fact it's very common in buildings and trades to hire unskilled labor to perform many tasks that _should_ be done by skilled labor. Most cities have illegal immigrant pools waiting around somewhere for the pick up every morning. And why are those illegal immigrant pools there? Once again Government Agencies are failing to perform _their_ jobs. And when citizens tried to step in and help on their own, they were declared a threat to the US Government and many were arrested. (If you don't see the trend you are not looking very hard)
We have gone so far with Government craziness that we have the GAO "Government Accountability Office". And what does this agency do? Well, it throws a lavish party costing a million dollars of tax payer money for 33 people. The executive that planned the party flew on tax payer money 6 times ahead of the party to plan it and have "dry runs" (I believe dry humps would be closer to the truth myself, but still not correct). So the agency supposedly accountable for government spending, is wasting your tax money and not doing their jobs either. Do you think that is the only time they peed away your money, or is it more likely that they have just been careful not to get caught?
Personally I'm not an anarchist like Mr. Molynoux. I have studied hist work and think he brings up very similar issues as Ron Paul did regarding why US policy has become absolutely horrendous. Unlike Mr. Molynoux, I believe that Government is needed for some things, such as providing a military to defend the citizens of the country and defending our borders.
Seriously think about it. How can we pay for the NSA to spy on everyone, our Military to bomb anyone, our CIA to fund terrorist groups in the Middle East (and everywhere else for that matter), pay for Welfare instead of actually doing something to fix the economy, continue to let the top .01% live tax free lives of luxury (and allow them to offshore most of their money), provide strike force military equipment to local police and sheriff departments so that they can enforce "Free Speech Zones", pay for expansions in DHS and TSA so that they can frisk little children and search colostomy bags for explosives, have the Federal Reserve give hundreds of billions of dollars to whatever country they feel like propping up today, and give your tax money to countries like the Ukraine so that they can revolt and join NATO if we are spending money on bettering mankind?
I really and truly wish that something in my list was a joke, but sadly it's actually a very short list of how the US is being mismanaged by corrupted people holding offices.
This has actually been happening for a very long time, but I'm glad to see that more and more people are waking up to the game. I also think that things are escalating in terms of corruption so it's getting easier for people to see.
If anyone has doubts (not you per say), look at how many people were arrested for the blackmail campaign against Ross Perot, in fact be amazed at how much media coverage it received. Look at the Iowa primary issues with Ron Paul, and be amazed at how he was treated by media (my kid at 11 years old figured that out on his own, I was proud). The Franklin Cover Up is another great piece to study, and lets not forget about Operation Mockingbird, COINTELPRO, The Clinton Chronicles, and wholly fuck I could really make a long list so will stop by stating this: There are plenty of investigative books and articles on the corruption in the US going back to the 50s at least.
It takes public awareness to incite change, so start waking people up to what's going on any way you can.
A fight between 2 anonymous people. While entertaining for a while, we are always left wondering if the person is schizophrenic and is it crowded in your head? Worse than that however, is that we never have a clear winner. Well, I say "HIT HIM WITH YOUR PURSE YOU CRAZY BASTARD(S)!"
I agree with your points, but will add that there were a few other motives. One I believe is a bigger target than Brazil.
1. Anonymous was a pain in the ass to corrupt US corporations and Government agencies. If you remember, US sites were being hacked and defaced for the same exact reasons claimed for defacing Brazilian sites. Anonymous was leaking classified documents implicating US agencies of war crimes and corruption, civil rights violations against OWS and other activist groups. In other words, a primary motive was attacking anonymous members to slow down their campaign in the US. IMHO "Sabu" is full of shit in his exit statement from the courts. Anonymous was the primary target because they are a threat to the corrupt insiders in the US.
2. Fuck with non-US aligned countries. Brazil was a target, but so was Syria, Pakistan, Iran, and Nigeria. Turkey and Pakistan are mentioned, but I'm guessing those were real targets of anonymous because they are corrupt and not a traditionally vocal allies of the US. Interestingly "US" is omitted from this information but was the reason they arrested Sabu to begin with. That they could fuck with so many countries was a huge side effect of number 1, but not the primary motive. Notice after all of these arrests, Anonymous greatly reduces the attacks against US companies and Government agencies. Notice too that the vocal allies of the US are omitted from these attacks (UK, Germany, France, Spain, etc...).
3. As someone else mentioned, including Sabu in his exit statement, this a case of the FBI trying to make themselves look good. I come to that conclusion because there are exactly 2 very brief mentions in TFA about the legality of the FBIs actions and neither are direct.
Well spoken. I was honestly about to type up very similar in a Car analogy (not joking) instead of an airplane. That people don't understand how this is worse than just simple "coercion" is baffling. This is much worse than coercion, because the FBI watched as real crimes occurred. Crimes that the US claimed were an act of war to be more precise.
The whole point of defending citizens and preventing crimes has been thrown out of the window for some reason, and very few seem to be paying attention.
As a secondary example, if the police arrest a drug dealer they _can_ legally allow them to turn over higher level players in exchange for pleas. They can not legally allow the suspect back on the streets and supervise their drug sales while they wait for a rival dealer to show up. The police in that case, and the FBI in TFA, are behaving criminally and should be charged as criminals.
Feel free to debate me regarding my opinion, but please save the fallacy responses (like the appeals to emotion I can already see coming).
It should piss off a lot more than that.
Unfortunately this story will never see airtime so the majority of the public will never know what happened, let alone have a debate on why it's wrong.
I do understand your point, and appreciate the courteous dialogue and summary.
I do hope you understand my point as well, which is that a person does not have to be a "leader" to be influential. Further, I don't believe it's the citizens fault when their Governments make questionable decisions. It is our duty to incite change when those decisions are wrong, but this is extremely difficult to do when these decisions are hidden from the public.
Lord knows as a US citizen I would have a very hard time with coping with cognitive dissonance if I blamed myself for our Politicians wrong doing.
Selective reading problem, try reading the complete paragraph and trying again. Though I would recommend you read the complete post again instead of cherry picking something to debate from either the post or the paragraph.
The US Secret Service did not detect this as snark! How did you get inside information into a foreign case exactly?
If you are confused see this topic from yesterday.