Since when is IT work "brain work"? Sure, maybe sysadmins, or the guys designing fiber networks for the internet backbone are highly skilled, but those are not the ones losing their jobs.
But the average "IT" guy, the guy who installs software on the office computer, or the guy who troubleshoots your workstation when your net connection isn't working, or who reboots a server once in a while, isn't a "brain job". The average IT guy is the modern day equivalent to the guy who unclogged the machines at the old school factory. The average IT guy doesn't have a degree in engineering, or mathmatics, or computer science. The average IT guy is a guy who is a bit handy with computers, and somewhat decent enough dealing with people to go on service calls.
Around 1997, when the tech boom was happening, I worked for a company that contracted IT services out to other companies. One of their recruiting techniques was to go find kids at coffee shops and such, and offer them a job... the theory being that the "kids got it". There was a lot of people who were coming directly from the fast-food industry into doing IT work. A six week training program, and they were now "IT support specialist".
When the only difference between an "IT support specialist", and the manager at Hardees, is a 6 week training program, you understand that IT jobs are not an example of "brains becoming a cheap commodity". In many cases, "blue collar" jobs such as mechanic, or metal-smith, or whatever, require far more education time than becoming an IT person.
I would like to know what kind of computer you own that has more metal than an automobile? I mean, do you have a bunch of mainframes in your basement or something?
But that kind of pollution is not like CO2 emmissions, which effect the whole planet. If China and the Chinese are willing to deal with the problem, and we don't want the waste here, why is it a bad solution to ship it off to a dump in China? If we respect Chinese soverienty, and respect the Chinese people as self-determined equals, shouldn't we respect their decisions about the enviornment?
Sure, poor people are picking the stuff over, but the problem is people being poor, not that they are picking over this stuff. If these people are picking over old computers in a garbage dump, it means that it is the best option available to them at this time. Taking away that option, without replacing it with a better option, doesn't do them any favors. If you are trying to force people to abandon their main source of income and economic resource, and you don't have some other economic activity that is equally or more profitable, then you don't really care about those people... it is just arrogant eco-paternalism.
The cyberpunk authors were ahead of their time in many ways... they understood that in the era of global telecommunications, trans-national corporations, and very fast travel (anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours), that governments how we understand them would be outdated.
The U.N. is simply a nationalist concept that is extended to the world. We have taken the model of social organization that was really a product of 19th century imperialism, and are constantly trying to re-adopt it to the modern world, when in fact we probably need new institutions that are not "governments" as we understand them.
The trouble is, there is a lot of emotional baggage around nationalism (or super-nationalism, which is what the U.N. is). People have an emotional attachment to their nation-state, and sometimes they expand that feeling of nationalism to a world government. The attachment to government and nationality is a lot like attachment to religion. It seems disturbing or unthinkable to abandon the idea of government, but there isn't nessiciarily anything crazy about it.
While it is true, the debate has been between ICANN being under UN authority or US authority... there is no reason why we shouldn't consider making ICANN totally autonomous. It sounds totally sensible to me. Why can't the Internet be a stateless corporation outside the authority of any government? What is so reassuring and reasonable about governments? Given the history of mass-murder, genocide, warfare, oppression, and extreme incompetence on behalf of governments, why is having an institution that isn't linked to the police/military power structure of a geographic area so unthinkable? What is so frightening or outlandish about it?
So, by your Libertarian logic we should let the number of food poisoning cases a meat packer has drive customer selection
What does food poisioning have to do with trans-fats, fast-food, or cartoon characters on Kraft Dinner? If someone produces a product that causes food poisioning, no-one has a problem with punishing that person or company. What we have a problem is food facists trying to ban trans-fats (like in New York city), or trying to ban cartoon characters on packaged foods (like Hillary Clinton is suggesting)... or cities banning all smoking, even in your own home (like Calabasis California). We also have a problem with the government telling us we are not allowed to do things like purchase unpasterized cheese or milk (which tastes WAY better than the pasturized crap), because they MIGHT cause food poisoning (but probably won't).
Food poisioning is a straw man when what you really want is to manage people's diets and lifestyle choices!
As for abortion, its a very safe procedure for surgery and far more safe than back in the days when street alley hanger jobs were killing women. You might as well make an argument against plastic surgery.
God, why do I have to constantly explain this to you idiots? I am pro-choice! I feel there should be absolutly no restriction on abortion. I think that any women, of any age, should have the absolute right to demand an abortion for any reason she wants. Libertarians are MORE pro-choice about abortion than most Democrats! Democrats aren't the only political party that is pro-choice! Can you get this into your thick skull? The Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Natural Law Party, are all pro-choice (more so than Democrats)! In fact, a good chunk of Democrats actually want to criminalize abortion!
But I think that if a woman is intelligent enough to decide on what sort of medical procedure she wants to recieve, she is also intelligent enough to decide if she wants to eat french fries cooked in hydrogenated vegetable oil. If she is intelligent enough to decide on what sort of medical procudure she wants to recieve, she is intelligent enough to decide she wants to smoke a cigarattee at a night club or bar. You believe in choice ONLY for abortion, and in every other aspect a woman's body should be under strict paternalistic government control.
Tucker Carlson (who calls himself Libertarian).
Tucker Carlson may call himself a Libertarian. But then, so does Noam Chomsky. Neither one is a real libertarian. The fact that people on the right or left are too embarassed to call themselves Republicans or Democrats should show you just how pitiful your partisan political bickering is!
If you think universal health care, worker rights, and social services are just rhetorically different from the dismantling of our Constitutional rights, I don't think you truly understand what's been happening over the last 5 years.
"Universal Health Care", "Workers Rights" and "Social Services" are loaded terms. They are meaningless. I live in a country with "Universal Health Care" written into the constitution, but some people are inelgible for "Universal" care, and others never recieve the health care they need because of shortages. The people for "Workers Rights" apparently don't believe those workers have the right to place political advertisments a week before an election. And the Republicans can tell you that CIA survalience is a "Social Service". Claiming that people are against "Universal Health Care", or "Workers Rights", or "Social Services", because they don't share your political views on how to achieve those things, is like claiming that you are not patriotic because you don't support the "Patriot Act". You are playing political word games that have nothing to do with reality.
My constitutional rights have been dismantled by Republicans AND Democrats. Republicans and Democrats are dismantling the first amendment protection of political speech with their "Campaign Finance Laws", which strictly contr
I am sure there are younger Democrat/liberal leaders that would be against warrentless wiretapping. The trouble is those people don't have a healthy sceptism about government authority. Democrats and Liberals can be very tolerant of bad government programs when you wrap them in some politically correct ideology or some sort of moral idealism.
For example, Democrats and Liberals are against political censorship and for more democratic elections (at least they say). Yet they support capaign finance regulations that ban political advertising before or during an election. I know they are telling themselves "I support this because I want to make sure politicians with lots of money from corporations or special interests don't dominate political discourse"... Of course, the net effect of those kinds of laws is that incumbant politicians (the ones who probably get the most support from special interest and corporations), have a huge advantage over challengers who don't hold office and desperatly need advertising to get their message out. It also cripples small parties like the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Natural Law Party, who absolutly depend on national advertising for people to know they even exist.
So young Democrats and Liberals support a law that takes away freedom of speech, and supports intrenched political power and those with the most corporate or special interest backing.
Those young liberals are the least likely to understand the concept of unintended consequences - that a law for one purpose can have the completly opposite effect. There might be a law that gives the government de-facto warrentless wiretaps, and so long as it is presented as being for some vaugly politically correct reason, they will most likely support it. Young Liberals believe the institution of government is inherently trustworthy, effective, and rightious, and it is only those who are "corrupt", or "evil", or are "politically incorrect" who sabatoge the perfection of government. Young liberals are usually completly unable to grasp the concept that even if all the laws were written by young liberals, the end result could be authoritarian and oppressive in a way they didn't quite anticipate.
I don't listen to Rush, that kind of 70s prog rock thing is a little before my time... although I am not sure what that has to do with this discussion. (especially since they are Canadian, so don't have a lot of relevence to American politics).
While the Democrats might never come out and literally say "we are for big government and against liberty"... they are not trying to hide the fact that they are for more government social programs, more taxes, and also for vastly more centralized regulation and control by the federal government. The Democrats never try to hide the fact that they are for vastly more government control. We all know what Democrats are about, regardless of the actual words that they use.
Where as, some misguided fools might actually support the Republicans believing that the Republicans are going to reduce the size of government or give them more liberty.
It isn't a tough choice. I don't have the luxury of having a seperate "gaming PC", which means that the rare occasions I install a game on my laptop, I take copy protection somewhat seriously. If the game requires any sort of installation that may compromise the functionality or security of my computer, I cannot install the game, for any price! I have a PC first and foremost for non-gaming, and so if a company wants to sell a product to casual gamers such as myself, they must forgoe any sort of copy protection or DRM that messes with the primary functions of my computer.
I have heard all sorts of horror stories about Steam, and other game protection systems, and I am not going to take a risk for a $5 savings. Either I have 100% control over my computer, or they don't have a sale.
How the hell can you compare regulations that prevent corporations from producing foods that will kill you to Big Brother?
What foods will kill me? As far as I know, there are no foods in the U.S. that contain poisionous substances. And don't I have the right to decide what I want to eat? This is a perfect example of your left-wing authoritarianism! While at the same time that you claim to be pro-choice, you want to destroy people's right to choose what and where they can eat! You feel a woman has "the right to do whatever she wants with her body", but somehow that right doesn't include the right to put cheeseburgers into her body. Totaly hippocracy!
You Republicans are in some weird form of denial if you think that a Democratically controlled government would be pulling this same crap.
I am not a Republican, moron! It may be hard for peabrained partisians like you to understand, but it is possible to be against BOTH the Democrats, AND the Republicans! There are more than two political parties, and certainly more than two ideologies, in the United States. The fact that you assume that anyone who would complain about Democrats must be Republicans is the perfect example of your brainwashed monomania.
I guarantee you that if the Dems take over the Presidency and Congress this authoritarian idiocy will end pronto.
Clinton pushed for the same power back in in the 1990s (when it was leftist who were paranoid of right-wing Waco Texas or OK City style terrorists)... Of course, in that case, the Republicans stood up to the president, and Clinton wasn't able push into law his anti-terrorism agenda. Unfortunatly, the spineless Democrats refuse to do the same thing now and stand up to Bush! Democrats supported the war in Iraq, they supported the Partiot Act, and they support warrentless wiretaps! Democrats are virtually indistinguishable from Republicans when it comes to the "War on Terror".
Your comment that we on the left want government "to protect them from percieved exploitation, unpleasant speech, or personal responsibility" pretty much says that you've never held a political conversation with someone on the left.
No, it is from having very long political conversations with people on the left that made me turn from being neutral to the left, to understanding that they are authoritarian reactionaries, and the only thing different between the left and the far-right is some superficial politically correct rhetoric. The far-left and the far-right become almost indistinguishable at a certain point.
Is there a non-steam, non-DRM version? The site is slashdotted, so I cannot find out from the site. I would love to purchase this game, but I refuse to install Steam!
Do you feel that the publisher of the Turner diaries has no moral responsibility for the acts that book might inspire? Not legal but moral responsibility?
I feel that neither the publisher of the Turner Diaries nor GTA bear any legal responsibility whatsoever, let me fist get that straight.
In terms of moral responsibility, the Turner Diaries bears more moral responsiblity because it is designed as indoctrination to racist ideology. The Turner diaries were created with the explicit purpose of inspiring hatred. If the Turner Diaries were designed to simply be escapist fiction, and were inadvertantly racist, I would be much more forgiving. There are things that could be considered racist in Gone With The Wind, or Tom Sawyer, yet those things are not in the same category as the Turner Diaries because they were not explicitly designed to inspire racism.
Where as even Jack Thomson doesn't accuse Rockstar games of intentionally trying to create something that will inspire murders.
Protest is one of the most ineffectual things you can do about it. Protesting used to be significant back in the day before mass-media, polling, etc., when a literal "show of heads" could convince a politician that it was something the electorial supported. But the years and years of constant, professional protesting (there is a protest every single day in Washington DC for the last 30 years, at least), and mass communication for mobiling protest, means that protest turnout has no real corelation to public opinion.
The way to solve the problem would be to:
1. Stop voting for Democrats or Republicans. 2. Civil disobedience (for example, refusing to pay taxes... or flooding the wiretapping system with false positives as to make it useless) 3. Ways to stop enforcement (Develop easy to access encryption that essentially makes wiretapping pointless). 4. Spread Information against this Government (paid advertising, fliering, blogs, etc.)
But please, don't stage another stupid protest where you burn flags, trash a Starbucks, yell real loud, smoke weed, and most likely alienate people who would otherwise support your cause.
does the smaller Government, individual liberty-touting Republican Congress NOT understand?
The Republicans are in many ways worse than the Democrats when it comes to small-government. At least the Democrats openly admit they are in love with big government and are against liberty. The Republicans are so very dangerous, because while they are as big government and anti-liberty as Democrats (maybe even more), they manage to get enough small-government pro-liberty people to vote for them that they essentially neutralize the small-government pro-liberty political block.
Only the Republicans can create a political situation, where if you are against the police state you are accused of being "anti-Freedom"... and if you claim to be FOR freedom, people assume that you want to throw people in prison without trial.
While I am disgusted with Bush and the Republicans, and definitly think they are utter facists who are intent destroying the constitution... I don't think many other people are outraged for the same reasons.
When a Democrat is elected, and he wants warrentless wiretapping in order to crack down on "Corporate Criminals", or "Child Molesters", or "Hate Groups", you will hear most of the people who are "outraged" now rally behind the program and accuse those who are against the wiretapping as being "pro-corporate-crime", or "pro-hate", the same way you now have Republicans calling people against warrentless wiretapping now as being "pro-terrorist".
What you must understand is that there has been a pro-authoritarian shift in society across the political spectrum. Virtually all mainstream political positions have become completly totalitarian. I mean we have cities banning fatty foods, we have laws that make it illegal to say bad things about some protected group of people, we are passing laws that ban cartoon artwork on food packaging... Hell, it is even illegal to place political advertisments during elections!!! The solution to all problems, as seen by both the left and the right, is government crackdown! The left and the right might disagree on what exactly the social goals they want to achieve, but both are in 100% agreement that the state's need to promote those social goals takes precidence over privacy, free-expression, the right to make a living, etc.. The left and the right may have different goals, but they both 100% agree that total government control over society is fundamental to achieving the goals.
So a lot of this outrage people have is pretty non-sensical. If you support the Democrats, or the Republicans, you are fully responsible for this. When you bash Bush and the Republicans (which in itself would be OK, they are pretty evil), you are trying to imply that voting for Democrats will somehow result in a less authoritarian society, which is entirely false.
With the exception of a handful of Anarchists, Libertarians, or other fringe groups on Slashdot, nearly everyone here has completly bought into the ideology of Big Brother. Leftists of course want Big Brother to protect them from percieved exploitation, unpleasant speech, or personal responsibility... Rightists, of course, want Big Brother to protect them from a percived threat of terrorism, or foriegn enemies, or sexual immorality. But the mainstream of people on Slashdot are in love with Big Brother - They only have an ideological disagreement with those in power, not with the type of police-state they are creating.
If people don't stop and say "This is MY fault! I am responsible for this! This isn't the fault of some other party, or group, or belief system! I have been supporting authoritarianism!", then nothing is ever going to change.
The question isn't if violent videogames cause violence (doubtful, since violent crime has been on a steady decline in the U.S. since these kinds of video games have been around... but lets assume it is true and these games might cause some people to commit acts of violence)...
The question is do you think the government has any reason to get involved. Should it be the job of the government to regulate speech. Is the danger of media "desensitizing" people to violence so great that we are willing to eliminate free speech to stop it?
I mean, no one has a problem if you don't want to purchase these videogames... or you want to boycott the games or the stores who sell them... or you want to speak out against the games. But what is incredably dangerous is the idea that the government needs to regulate fiction... or that people are somehow liable for the things that happen in fiction. You should be able to understand that while there is virtually no evidence that video games cause violence (like I said, violent crime in the U.S. has been going down for the last 20 years)... there is plenty of historical evidence of the disasterous effects that can happen when the government starts cracking down on free expression.
Except, if you ever played any of the GTA series, you would know it is a PARODY of the ganster/criminal genre movies. It is a SILLY game. It is like an Airplane! or Scary Movie style parody of violence. To claim that it is some moving masterpiece that would spiritually move people into commiting acts of violence is not credible. The only people who would suggest that GTA inspires violence are people who are not familiar with the game.
Regardless, in a free society we expect people to be able to handle negative messages. We don't ban or sue the publishers of the Turner Diaries if someone becomes a racist killer. We don't ban gansta rap music, or sue record companies, if someone decides they want to emulate the thug life. While we may accept that free speech might have unwanted effects on society, we realize it is not the job of the courts, or the government, to regulate or punish that speech.
It doesn't matter if there is no chance of success. The defendants will have to pay MILLIONS in legal fees, or lose. Sony and Rockstar might win, but you wouldn't if someone sued you. This kind of law suit effectivly eliminates the first amendment for people who don't have millions to spend on defense lawyers. (That is virtually everyone, except for a handful of large corporations)
The trouble is that scarcity of oil is not artificial scarcity produced by oil company oligarchy. There REALLY IS a scarcity of oil! The stuff is dead dinosaur, and there is only so much of it.
Peak oil has already been reached. The amount of oil we are able to pump out of the ground will continue to diminish over time. At the same time, energy demands are growing faster than ever. Europe, China, Japan, are all hungry for that oil. The U.S. is even involved in wars for future control of oil. Oil is the lifeblood of the world economy. Every country without a sufficient domestic supply is literally buying all they can afford.
In this case, the oil companies will have no problem not selling in the California market... it is a sellers market, and there is no end to the demand that people all over the world have for oil. If California isn't going to pay a lot for oil (or they are going to demand a cut of oil profits, which is essentially the same thing), there are no shortage of other people quite happy to pay. America and California are no longer the center of the universe - there are plenty of other economicly succesful countries now that demand oil. Arrogant bullying by legislators is not going to have the power that it once did.
But don't get me wrong, oil companies will not move out of California. Consumers WILL pay more at the pump, and the legislators know that. They know that a new gas tax would be very very unpopular with the voters, so they have to figure out a way to hide the tax from the consumers. This way, it looks llke oil companies are responsible for rising prices when those tax costs are passed down to the consumer.
Faith in the free-market is fashionable? That is just not true. The free market is EXTREMLY unfashionable with everyone except economists. Even if absolute blind faith in the free market is misplaced, there is nothing to be lost from moving the discussion from the current statist extremism to one that is more tolerant of the free market... The current popular culture is at the opposite extreme of absolute blind faith in government. We are so far away from anything resembling a free market, discussing the dangers of the free market is like discussing the dangers of space tourism - there is no space-tourism yet, and no free-market, so worrying about the dangers of either is entirely academic.
Using gasoline is like shooting in the air. It pollutes the environment causing health and likely climate problems for all of society, not just those using it. It is not practical to ban it. It is not practical to tax everyone who uses gasoline, except by taxing gasoline itself. Right now if a person rides a bike every day, they are still forced to deal with the problems to their health and environment people using gasoline have caused. In effect, they are subsiding those who use it.
Except the claim of this bill is that they are NOT taxing gasoline. It would be one thing for them to say "We are adding a $0.50 per gallon tax on all gasoline to discourage consumption and pay for alternative fuels"... but more gas taxes would outrage the voters. Another gas tax is not politically viable.
What they are claiming they are doing is "taxing the oil companies, not gasoline". Of course, since the oil companies get paid by selling gasoline, the cost of the taxes will be paid at the pump. After all, it is a sellers market, and if Californians don't want to pay more for gasoline, there are plenty of people in Europe, Asia, and other U.S. states that will be happy to pay extra. Consumers WILL pay. However, since it won't be an official gas tax, it will look like it is the oil companies charging more instead of a tax on consumers.
This bill is a sneaky way for politicians to add another gas tax and hide the fact from consumers. Even if you do support a gas tax to fund alternative energy sources, how effective and honest do you think this program is going to be when the whole system is based on a giant lie to the electoriate? How much faith do you put into government supervision when the legislation itself is designed to fool the voters?
Nope. The law forbids them from raising the prices in California to make up for said cost, so in reality the cost will be borne by oil users in all the US, not just CA. This actually subsidizes the cost for CA residents at the expense of everyone else, a smart move on their part.
The law forbids them from raising prices specific to California, but not from raising prices for the entire U.S. (constitutionally, California doesn't have the power to regulate interstate trade). They can raise prices across the board in the United States, and it will cost everyone in the U.S. more. In fact, that is what they will have to do, because if California tries to pass the cost on to other states, it won't be long until other states come up with similiar legislation.
Consumers WILL PAY MORE. The legislators know consumers will pay more. The oil companies know that consumers will pay more. It is a done deal. The "protection" for consumers in the legislation is just so that lawmakers can pretend they are not responsible when gas prices go up.
You CAN NOT keep the costs from being passed on to consumers!!! Thinking that the government can change economic laws is like thinking the government can change pi, or change gravity. All the language on all the peices of paper in the world cannot change fundamental properties of economics.
filled with high definition pre-rendered cutscenes
Just a side note... I think pre-rendered cut scenes are rare nowadays. Most cutscenes are done realtime in engine. I can't think of a game that I played on a console in the last 2 years that used pre-rendered cutscenes. And I think most people prefer it that way.
Textures and models take a lot of space, no doubt, but nothing like pre-rendered footage.
Slashdot Mirror
Since when is IT work "brain work"? Sure, maybe sysadmins, or the guys designing fiber networks for the internet backbone are highly skilled, but those are not the ones losing their jobs.
But the average "IT" guy, the guy who installs software on the office computer, or the guy who troubleshoots your workstation when your net connection isn't working, or who reboots a server once in a while, isn't a "brain job". The average IT guy is the modern day equivalent to the guy who unclogged the machines at the old school factory. The average IT guy doesn't have a degree in engineering, or mathmatics, or computer science. The average IT guy is a guy who is a bit handy with computers, and somewhat decent enough dealing with people to go on service calls.
Around 1997, when the tech boom was happening, I worked for a company that contracted IT services out to other companies. One of their recruiting techniques was to go find kids at coffee shops and such, and offer them a job... the theory being that the "kids got it". There was a lot of people who were coming directly from the fast-food industry into doing IT work. A six week training program, and they were now "IT support specialist".
When the only difference between an "IT support specialist", and the manager at Hardees, is a 6 week training program, you understand that IT jobs are not an example of "brains becoming a cheap commodity". In many cases, "blue collar" jobs such as mechanic, or metal-smith, or whatever, require far more education time than becoming an IT person.
I would like to know what kind of computer you own that has more metal than an automobile? I mean, do you have a bunch of mainframes in your basement or something?
But that kind of pollution is not like CO2 emmissions, which effect the whole planet. If China and the Chinese are willing to deal with the problem, and we don't want the waste here, why is it a bad solution to ship it off to a dump in China? If we respect Chinese soverienty, and respect the Chinese people as self-determined equals, shouldn't we respect their decisions about the enviornment?
Sure, poor people are picking the stuff over, but the problem is people being poor, not that they are picking over this stuff. If these people are picking over old computers in a garbage dump, it means that it is the best option available to them at this time. Taking away that option, without replacing it with a better option, doesn't do them any favors. If you are trying to force people to abandon their main source of income and economic resource, and you don't have some other economic activity that is equally or more profitable, then you don't really care about those people... it is just arrogant eco-paternalism.
The cyberpunk authors were ahead of their time in many ways... they understood that in the era of global telecommunications, trans-national corporations, and very fast travel (anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours), that governments how we understand them would be outdated.
The U.N. is simply a nationalist concept that is extended to the world. We have taken the model of social organization that was really a product of 19th century imperialism, and are constantly trying to re-adopt it to the modern world, when in fact we probably need new institutions that are not "governments" as we understand them.
The trouble is, there is a lot of emotional baggage around nationalism (or super-nationalism, which is what the U.N. is). People have an emotional attachment to their nation-state, and sometimes they expand that feeling of nationalism to a world government. The attachment to government and nationality is a lot like attachment to religion. It seems disturbing or unthinkable to abandon the idea of government, but there isn't nessiciarily anything crazy about it.
While it is true, the debate has been between ICANN being under UN authority or US authority... there is no reason why we shouldn't consider making ICANN totally autonomous. It sounds totally sensible to me. Why can't the Internet be a stateless corporation outside the authority of any government? What is so reassuring and reasonable about governments? Given the history of mass-murder, genocide, warfare, oppression, and extreme incompetence on behalf of governments, why is having an institution that isn't linked to the police/military power structure of a geographic area so unthinkable? What is so frightening or outlandish about it?
So, by your Libertarian logic we should let the number of food poisoning cases a meat packer has drive customer selection
What does food poisioning have to do with trans-fats, fast-food, or cartoon characters on Kraft Dinner? If someone produces a product that causes food poisioning, no-one has a problem with punishing that person or company. What we have a problem is food facists trying to ban trans-fats (like in New York city), or trying to ban cartoon characters on packaged foods (like Hillary Clinton is suggesting)... or cities banning all smoking, even in your own home (like Calabasis California). We also have a problem with the government telling us we are not allowed to do things like purchase unpasterized cheese or milk (which tastes WAY better than the pasturized crap), because they MIGHT cause food poisoning (but probably won't).
Food poisioning is a straw man when what you really want is to manage people's diets and lifestyle choices!
As for abortion, its a very safe procedure for surgery and far more safe than back in the days when street alley hanger jobs were killing women. You might as well make an argument against plastic surgery.
God, why do I have to constantly explain this to you idiots? I am pro-choice! I feel there should be absolutly no restriction on abortion. I think that any women, of any age, should have the absolute right to demand an abortion for any reason she wants. Libertarians are MORE pro-choice about abortion than most Democrats! Democrats aren't the only political party that is pro-choice! Can you get this into your thick skull? The Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Natural Law Party, are all pro-choice (more so than Democrats)! In fact, a good chunk of Democrats actually want to criminalize abortion!
But I think that if a woman is intelligent enough to decide on what sort of medical procedure she wants to recieve, she is also intelligent enough to decide if she wants to eat french fries cooked in hydrogenated vegetable oil. If she is intelligent enough to decide on what sort of medical procudure she wants to recieve, she is intelligent enough to decide she wants to smoke a cigarattee at a night club or bar. You believe in choice ONLY for abortion, and in every other aspect a woman's body should be under strict paternalistic government control.
Tucker Carlson (who calls himself Libertarian).
Tucker Carlson may call himself a Libertarian. But then, so does Noam Chomsky. Neither one is a real libertarian. The fact that people on the right or left are too embarassed to call themselves Republicans or Democrats should show you just how pitiful your partisan political bickering is!
If you think universal health care, worker rights, and social services are just rhetorically different from the dismantling of our Constitutional rights, I don't think you truly understand what's been happening over the last 5 years.
"Universal Health Care", "Workers Rights" and "Social Services" are loaded terms. They are meaningless. I live in a country with "Universal Health Care" written into the constitution, but some people are inelgible for "Universal" care, and others never recieve the health care they need because of shortages. The people for "Workers Rights" apparently don't believe those workers have the right to place political advertisments a week before an election. And the Republicans can tell you that CIA survalience is a "Social Service". Claiming that people are against "Universal Health Care", or "Workers Rights", or "Social Services", because they don't share your political views on how to achieve those things, is like claiming that you are not patriotic because you don't support the "Patriot Act". You are playing political word games that have nothing to do with reality.
My constitutional rights have been dismantled by Republicans AND Democrats. Republicans and Democrats are dismantling the first amendment protection of political speech with their "Campaign Finance Laws", which strictly contr
I am sure there are younger Democrat/liberal leaders that would be against warrentless wiretapping. The trouble is those people don't have a healthy sceptism about government authority. Democrats and Liberals can be very tolerant of bad government programs when you wrap them in some politically correct ideology or some sort of moral idealism.
For example, Democrats and Liberals are against political censorship and for more democratic elections (at least they say). Yet they support capaign finance regulations that ban political advertising before or during an election. I know they are telling themselves "I support this because I want to make sure politicians with lots of money from corporations or special interests don't dominate political discourse"... Of course, the net effect of those kinds of laws is that incumbant politicians (the ones who probably get the most support from special interest and corporations), have a huge advantage over challengers who don't hold office and desperatly need advertising to get their message out. It also cripples small parties like the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Natural Law Party, who absolutly depend on national advertising for people to know they even exist.
So young Democrats and Liberals support a law that takes away freedom of speech, and supports intrenched political power and those with the most corporate or special interest backing.
Those young liberals are the least likely to understand the concept of unintended consequences - that a law for one purpose can have the completly opposite effect. There might be a law that gives the government de-facto warrentless wiretaps, and so long as it is presented as being for some vaugly politically correct reason, they will most likely support it. Young Liberals believe the institution of government is inherently trustworthy, effective, and rightious, and it is only those who are "corrupt", or "evil", or are "politically incorrect" who sabatoge the perfection of government. Young liberals are usually completly unable to grasp the concept that even if all the laws were written by young liberals, the end result could be authoritarian and oppressive in a way they didn't quite anticipate.
I don't listen to Rush, that kind of 70s prog rock thing is a little before my time... although I am not sure what that has to do with this discussion. (especially since they are Canadian, so don't have a lot of relevence to American politics).
While the Democrats might never come out and literally say "we are for big government and against liberty"... they are not trying to hide the fact that they are for more government social programs, more taxes, and also for vastly more centralized regulation and control by the federal government. The Democrats never try to hide the fact that they are for vastly more government control. We all know what Democrats are about, regardless of the actual words that they use.
Where as, some misguided fools might actually support the Republicans believing that the Republicans are going to reduce the size of government or give them more liberty.
It isn't a tough choice. I don't have the luxury of having a seperate "gaming PC", which means that the rare occasions I install a game on my laptop, I take copy protection somewhat seriously. If the game requires any sort of installation that may compromise the functionality or security of my computer, I cannot install the game, for any price! I have a PC first and foremost for non-gaming, and so if a company wants to sell a product to casual gamers such as myself, they must forgoe any sort of copy protection or DRM that messes with the primary functions of my computer.
I have heard all sorts of horror stories about Steam, and other game protection systems, and I am not going to take a risk for a $5 savings. Either I have 100% control over my computer, or they don't have a sale.
How the hell can you compare regulations that prevent corporations from producing foods that will kill you to Big Brother?
What foods will kill me? As far as I know, there are no foods in the U.S. that contain poisionous substances. And don't I have the right to decide what I want to eat? This is a perfect example of your left-wing authoritarianism! While at the same time that you claim to be pro-choice, you want to destroy people's right to choose what and where they can eat! You feel a woman has "the right to do whatever she wants with her body", but somehow that right doesn't include the right to put cheeseburgers into her body. Totaly hippocracy!
You Republicans are in some weird form of denial if you think that a Democratically controlled government would be pulling this same crap.
I am not a Republican, moron! It may be hard for peabrained partisians like you to understand, but it is possible to be against BOTH the Democrats, AND the Republicans! There are more than two political parties, and certainly more than two ideologies, in the United States. The fact that you assume that anyone who would complain about Democrats must be Republicans is the perfect example of your brainwashed monomania.
I guarantee you that if the Dems take over the Presidency and Congress this authoritarian idiocy will end pronto.
Clinton pushed for the same power back in in the 1990s (when it was leftist who were paranoid of right-wing Waco Texas or OK City style terrorists)... Of course, in that case, the Republicans stood up to the president, and Clinton wasn't able push into law his anti-terrorism agenda. Unfortunatly, the spineless Democrats refuse to do the same thing now and stand up to Bush! Democrats supported the war in Iraq, they supported the Partiot Act, and they support warrentless wiretaps! Democrats are virtually indistinguishable from Republicans when it comes to the "War on Terror".
Your comment that we on the left want government "to protect them from percieved exploitation, unpleasant speech, or personal responsibility" pretty much says that you've never held a political conversation with someone on the left.
No, it is from having very long political conversations with people on the left that made me turn from being neutral to the left, to understanding that they are authoritarian reactionaries, and the only thing different between the left and the far-right is some superficial politically correct rhetoric. The far-left and the far-right become almost indistinguishable at a certain point.
Is there a non-steam, non-DRM version? The site is slashdotted, so I cannot find out from the site. I would love to purchase this game, but I refuse to install Steam!
Do you feel that the publisher of the Turner diaries has no moral responsibility for the acts that book might inspire?
Not legal but moral responsibility?
I feel that neither the publisher of the Turner Diaries nor GTA bear any legal responsibility whatsoever, let me fist get that straight.
In terms of moral responsibility, the Turner Diaries bears more moral responsiblity because it is designed as indoctrination to racist ideology. The Turner diaries were created with the explicit purpose of inspiring hatred. If the Turner Diaries were designed to simply be escapist fiction, and were inadvertantly racist, I would be much more forgiving. There are things that could be considered racist in Gone With The Wind, or Tom Sawyer, yet those things are not in the same category as the Turner Diaries because they were not explicitly designed to inspire racism.
Where as even Jack Thomson doesn't accuse Rockstar games of intentionally trying to create something that will inspire murders.
Protest is one of the most ineffectual things you can do about it. Protesting used to be significant back in the day before mass-media, polling, etc., when a literal "show of heads" could convince a politician that it was something the electorial supported. But the years and years of constant, professional protesting (there is a protest every single day in Washington DC for the last 30 years, at least), and mass communication for mobiling protest, means that protest turnout has no real corelation to public opinion.
The way to solve the problem would be to:
1. Stop voting for Democrats or Republicans.
2. Civil disobedience (for example, refusing to pay taxes... or flooding the wiretapping system with false positives as to make it useless)
3. Ways to stop enforcement (Develop easy to access encryption that essentially makes wiretapping pointless).
4. Spread Information against this Government (paid advertising, fliering, blogs, etc.)
But please, don't stage another stupid protest where you burn flags, trash a Starbucks, yell real loud, smoke weed, and most likely alienate people who would otherwise support your cause.
does the smaller Government, individual liberty-touting Republican Congress NOT understand?
The Republicans are in many ways worse than the Democrats when it comes to small-government. At least the Democrats openly admit they are in love with big government and are against liberty. The Republicans are so very dangerous, because while they are as big government and anti-liberty as Democrats (maybe even more), they manage to get enough small-government pro-liberty people to vote for them that they essentially neutralize the small-government pro-liberty political block.
Only the Republicans can create a political situation, where if you are against the police state you are accused of being "anti-Freedom"... and if you claim to be FOR freedom, people assume that you want to throw people in prison without trial.
While I am disgusted with Bush and the Republicans, and definitly think they are utter facists who are intent destroying the constitution... I don't think many other people are outraged for the same reasons.
When a Democrat is elected, and he wants warrentless wiretapping in order to crack down on "Corporate Criminals", or "Child Molesters", or "Hate Groups", you will hear most of the people who are "outraged" now rally behind the program and accuse those who are against the wiretapping as being "pro-corporate-crime", or "pro-hate", the same way you now have Republicans calling people against warrentless wiretapping now as being "pro-terrorist".
What you must understand is that there has been a pro-authoritarian shift in society across the political spectrum. Virtually all mainstream political positions have become completly totalitarian. I mean we have cities banning fatty foods, we have laws that make it illegal to say bad things about some protected group of people, we are passing laws that ban cartoon artwork on food packaging... Hell, it is even illegal to place political advertisments during elections!!! The solution to all problems, as seen by both the left and the right, is government crackdown! The left and the right might disagree on what exactly the social goals they want to achieve, but both are in 100% agreement that the state's need to promote those social goals takes precidence over privacy, free-expression, the right to make a living, etc.. The left and the right may have different goals, but they both 100% agree that total government control over society is fundamental to achieving the goals.
So a lot of this outrage people have is pretty non-sensical. If you support the Democrats, or the Republicans, you are fully responsible for this. When you bash Bush and the Republicans (which in itself would be OK, they are pretty evil), you are trying to imply that voting for Democrats will somehow result in a less authoritarian society, which is entirely false.
With the exception of a handful of Anarchists, Libertarians, or other fringe groups on Slashdot, nearly everyone here has completly bought into the ideology of Big Brother. Leftists of course want Big Brother to protect them from percieved exploitation, unpleasant speech, or personal responsibility... Rightists, of course, want Big Brother to protect them from a percived threat of terrorism, or foriegn enemies, or sexual immorality. But the mainstream of people on Slashdot are in love with Big Brother - They only have an ideological disagreement with those in power, not with the type of police-state they are creating.
If people don't stop and say "This is MY fault! I am responsible for this! This isn't the fault of some other party, or group, or belief system! I have been supporting authoritarianism!", then nothing is ever going to change.
The question isn't if violent videogames cause violence (doubtful, since violent crime has been on a steady decline in the U.S. since these kinds of video games have been around... but lets assume it is true and these games might cause some people to commit acts of violence)...
The question is do you think the government has any reason to get involved. Should it be the job of the government to regulate speech. Is the danger of media "desensitizing" people to violence so great that we are willing to eliminate free speech to stop it?
I mean, no one has a problem if you don't want to purchase these videogames... or you want to boycott the games or the stores who sell them... or you want to speak out against the games. But what is incredably dangerous is the idea that the government needs to regulate fiction... or that people are somehow liable for the things that happen in fiction. You should be able to understand that while there is virtually no evidence that video games cause violence (like I said, violent crime in the U.S. has been going down for the last 20 years)... there is plenty of historical evidence of the disasterous effects that can happen when the government starts cracking down on free expression.
Except, if you ever played any of the GTA series, you would know it is a PARODY of the ganster/criminal genre movies. It is a SILLY game. It is like an Airplane! or Scary Movie style parody of violence. To claim that it is some moving masterpiece that would spiritually move people into commiting acts of violence is not credible. The only people who would suggest that GTA inspires violence are people who are not familiar with the game.
Regardless, in a free society we expect people to be able to handle negative messages. We don't ban or sue the publishers of the Turner Diaries if someone becomes a racist killer. We don't ban gansta rap music, or sue record companies, if someone decides they want to emulate the thug life. While we may accept that free speech might have unwanted effects on society, we realize it is not the job of the courts, or the government, to regulate or punish that speech.
It doesn't matter if there is no chance of success. The defendants will have to pay MILLIONS in legal fees, or lose. Sony and Rockstar might win, but you wouldn't if someone sued you. This kind of law suit effectivly eliminates the first amendment for people who don't have millions to spend on defense lawyers. (That is virtually everyone, except for a handful of large corporations)
You may joke... But Hugo Chavez says the same thing seriously.
The trouble is that scarcity of oil is not artificial scarcity produced by oil company oligarchy. There REALLY IS a scarcity of oil! The stuff is dead dinosaur, and there is only so much of it.
Peak oil has already been reached. The amount of oil we are able to pump out of the ground will continue to diminish over time. At the same time, energy demands are growing faster than ever. Europe, China, Japan, are all hungry for that oil. The U.S. is even involved in wars for future control of oil. Oil is the lifeblood of the world economy. Every country without a sufficient domestic supply is literally buying all they can afford.
In this case, the oil companies will have no problem not selling in the California market... it is a sellers market, and there is no end to the demand that people all over the world have for oil. If California isn't going to pay a lot for oil (or they are going to demand a cut of oil profits, which is essentially the same thing), there are no shortage of other people quite happy to pay. America and California are no longer the center of the universe - there are plenty of other economicly succesful countries now that demand oil. Arrogant bullying by legislators is not going to have the power that it once did.
But don't get me wrong, oil companies will not move out of California. Consumers WILL pay more at the pump, and the legislators know that. They know that a new gas tax would be very very unpopular with the voters, so they have to figure out a way to hide the tax from the consumers. This way, it looks llke oil companies are responsible for rising prices when those tax costs are passed down to the consumer.
Faith in the free-market is fashionable? That is just not true. The free market is EXTREMLY unfashionable with everyone except economists. Even if absolute blind faith in the free market is misplaced, there is nothing to be lost from moving the discussion from the current statist extremism to one that is more tolerant of the free market... The current popular culture is at the opposite extreme of absolute blind faith in government. We are so far away from anything resembling a free market, discussing the dangers of the free market is like discussing the dangers of space tourism - there is no space-tourism yet, and no free-market, so worrying about the dangers of either is entirely academic.
Using gasoline is like shooting in the air. It pollutes the environment causing health and likely climate problems for all of society, not just those using it. It is not practical to ban it. It is not practical to tax everyone who uses gasoline, except by taxing gasoline itself. Right now if a person rides a bike every day, they are still forced to deal with the problems to their health and environment people using gasoline have caused. In effect, they are subsiding those who use it.
Except the claim of this bill is that they are NOT taxing gasoline. It would be one thing for them to say "We are adding a $0.50 per gallon tax on all gasoline to discourage consumption and pay for alternative fuels"... but more gas taxes would outrage the voters. Another gas tax is not politically viable.
What they are claiming they are doing is "taxing the oil companies, not gasoline". Of course, since the oil companies get paid by selling gasoline, the cost of the taxes will be paid at the pump. After all, it is a sellers market, and if Californians don't want to pay more for gasoline, there are plenty of people in Europe, Asia, and other U.S. states that will be happy to pay extra. Consumers WILL pay. However, since it won't be an official gas tax, it will look like it is the oil companies charging more instead of a tax on consumers.
This bill is a sneaky way for politicians to add another gas tax and hide the fact from consumers. Even if you do support a gas tax to fund alternative energy sources, how effective and honest do you think this program is going to be when the whole system is based on a giant lie to the electoriate? How much faith do you put into government supervision when the legislation itself is designed to fool the voters?
Nope. The law forbids them from raising the prices in California to make up for said cost, so in reality the cost will be borne by oil users in all the US, not just CA. This actually subsidizes the cost for CA residents at the expense of everyone else, a smart move on their part.
The law forbids them from raising prices specific to California, but not from raising prices for the entire U.S. (constitutionally, California doesn't have the power to regulate interstate trade). They can raise prices across the board in the United States, and it will cost everyone in the U.S. more. In fact, that is what they will have to do, because if California tries to pass the cost on to other states, it won't be long until other states come up with similiar legislation.
Consumers WILL PAY MORE. The legislators know consumers will pay more. The oil companies know that consumers will pay more. It is a done deal. The "protection" for consumers in the legislation is just so that lawmakers can pretend they are not responsible when gas prices go up.
You CAN NOT keep the costs from being passed on to consumers!!! Thinking that the government can change economic laws is like thinking the government can change pi, or change gravity. All the language on all the peices of paper in the world cannot change fundamental properties of economics.
I would support a single subject law, but only if they tacked on the space funding legislation I want.
filled with high definition pre-rendered cutscenes
Just a side note... I think pre-rendered cut scenes are rare nowadays. Most cutscenes are done realtime in engine. I can't think of a game that I played on a console in the last 2 years that used pre-rendered cutscenes. And I think most people prefer it that way.
Textures and models take a lot of space, no doubt, but nothing like pre-rendered footage.