Creating a tiered internet does not mean that users pay twice... It means that users pay more to the online content provider instead of paying more to their internet service provider. The economics of the article are not exactly correct.
Now, don't get me wrong, tiered internet is still bad, because it squeezes out smaller content providers who can't pay for extra bandwidth. But opposition to a tiered internet isn't about paying less, it is about making sure that Internet isn't like cable TV or radio, or other mediums where a handful of companies or the government control the whole thing. I, as a consumer, want to get the web site that I want, and I want to get it fast, and I don't care if that web site is google or something very obscure.
You might not want your child to see a porn site, another person might not want their kid to see a site on evolution (because obviously god created earth in 7 days), another person might not want kids to view sites on Isreal (after all, they ARE the devil oppressing Muslims), another person might not want their kids to access military recruitment sites... in fact, if we censored sites that every parent had a problem with, there would be very little that wasn't censored.
So implicit in your desire to censor the internet is the belief that 1) Your personal desires on censorship is the 1 true correct way to believe... and 2) That the schools will censor in a way that you approve of as a parent.
If you want your kid to have censored internet, send him to a private school. If you can't afford one, then home school. If you insist that the same people who run FEMA and collect your garbage must also babysit your kid, then accept that schools are a government institution, and that they don't have the right to censor any more than any other government organization.
Actually, a government funded school is legaly required to use a filter. Failure to do this can result in the loss of some of that government funding.
Actually, nowhere in the constitution is the Federal Government granted the right to mandate any sort of requirements on schools. And nowhere is there an exception to the bill of rights given to government schools.
Now, I understand we live in the day and age when U.S. citizens can be held indefinitly without trial as "enemy combatants", that the police can require law abiding citizens provide ID and papers at any time, and that a whole lot of authoritarian un-constitutional stuff goes on. I can't help that America is becoming a totalitarian dictatorship. But lets clearly catagorize this with the Gitmo style laws, and now with anything that a free and democratic society would find acceptable.
You are correct, if it is a private school. However, a public school is the government. The government does not have the right to censor internet content, period. Under any condition. ESPECIALLY when participation is manditory. The Bill of Rights is non-negotiable. It is worthless if we make exceptions.
....was unfiltered access to the internet a constitutional right? Wake up...it's not, however important the internet has become in our daily lives, it's not a right.
You wouldn't mind if your internet access is censored? Somehow I have a hunch that if the government decided to censor your internet connection, that you would be outraged.
The government has no right to censor the internet. A very good case could be made that internet access falls under the first amendment, but even so the 9th amendment means that we have the right. Public schools are the government, participation is manditory, and should be held to the same standards as the police, courts, lawmakers.
A private school has the right to censor the internet. A government funded school, with compulsary attendance, has a moral obligation to allow all constitutional rights to be exercised.
Teachers are paid employees of a school, so there is an expectation of privacy. If teachers don't like keeping things going on at the school secret, they don't have to be a teacher.
On the other hand, children are legally compelled to attend government run schools by the government. Students are compelled to attend by law. This makes school closer to a prison than a private workplace. Therefore, public schools should allow students to exercise all constitutional rights, both in school and out.
Because the project is based on socialist ideology. The idea that by selling these on the free market you can drive the costs down to make them more affordable is too "market oriented". When you purchase the thing for 3 times the cost, it is really more of a donation than a market transaction, and so hasn't been "tainted" with "capitalism".
It is not only nessicary that a law be "moral", or for there to be some sort of problem... but it is also nessicary that the law be practicle and protect the innocent.
What happens if a file sharer figures out how to spoof your IP to the software that is being used to detect "piracy"? When the police come to your house, take your computer and fine you, are you gonna say "well, it is all good - I don't want the record companies to lose money!". What happens when you file share free music, and they don't distinguish between pirated material and material that is licenced for free distribution, and they take your computer and fine you? What happens when someone figures out how to use your wireless hub to download pirated files, and they think it is you? What happens if the government "unofficially" decides to enforce the law only on those with a certain color skin, or those below a certain income level.
Every law contains danger to the average law abiding citizen. You have to balance out the danger of this kind of "enforcement" with the danger of people sharing music. Seeing as there is a terrible danger of a police state... and seeing as no-one has been able to show file sharing hurts the music industry... I would say that any reasonable, intelligent person has serious reason to be concerned about this kind of enforcement.
This is not cencorship. Google, as a private corporation, has the right to edit the information it presents. It has no obligation, whatsoever, to be balanced or fair. It can link to whatever it wants. Part of freedom of speech is exercising editorial control. Freedom of speech isn't just being able to say whatever you want, but to also not say what you don't want to say.
On the other hand, if it is true (I am not saying that it is true... I am not that familiar with Google News) that left wing bigotry and racism are tolerated while right wing bigotry and racism isn't, that would clearly be a double standard. While Google has the legal right to present any information they want, in any way they want, they do have an ethical obligation not to slant the news presented to be of any one viewpoint.
At the least, Google should publish an objective set of criteria that is used to evaluate if a news source is "acceptable" or "not", and keep the whole process transparent.
Performers aren't going to be very happy their fans are going to be treated on a two track system, which obviously further alienates the regular working class fanbase.
Ticketmaster takes a percentage of the gross, usually along with a small flat fee (negligable if you are a decent sized act). Performers might well be very happy with this, as a good chunk of the money goes to the performers (or the promoter who pays the performer). I don't know for sure, but I think that this might even be optional - so your performer or promoter could opt out of it. And it would not be a viable system for many shows (which just have general admission anyway). So this is not nessicarily something that is being "forced" on performers, but a new option for them to use.
Pay attention as arguments and policies designed for 'free'ing the market continue to wither those 80% who are labor-dependent. And by that I mean you without a portfolio that has you set for life. The era of the post-WWII/New Deal is over and the consequences for being you and your children will only grow harsher.
There has never been as many regulations, or taxation (excluding WWII), or government spending (including for social programs) in the U.S. as there is now. The idea that the U.S. is becoming more free-market as time goes on it absolutly false. Government in the U.S. consumes more than half of GDP - that is more than so-called "socialist" countries like Sweden. Per capita social spending in the U.S. is higher than Sweden, Canada, Finland, and all those supposedly "socialist" countries. You realize that G. W. Bush is more socialist than Hugo Chavez by any objective measure, right? (increases in percentage GDP for social spending, increases in per capita social spending, increases in social spending as a percentage of budget, etc.) Government in the U.S. has actually surpassed the Soviet Union in control/consumption of GDP.
So please don't blame the decreasing standard of living in the U.S. on a lack of government regulation or "New Deal" social programs, but regulation and social spending is at an all time high in every objectivly measurable way.
If anyone is looking for digital downloads of techno and electro music, check out http://www.detroitdigitalvinyl.com/... No DRM, 320kbs downloads (with uncompressed.wav files comming in the future), and it was started by Mad Mike of Underground Resistance and Submerge Records so it's got street cred.:)
I know they are trying to be all "down with the people" and all that... and that isn't a bad thing, really. But the whole idea of only accepting orders for tickets based on credit card zip codes isn't the way to do it. What ever happened to music fans line up for shows, pay cash at the door, and that was that. Only middle early 30s adults are gonna be paying a lot of money , via credit card, to see Pearl Jam. The whole buying $100 tickets 6 months in advanced is a whole stadium rock thing that is totally the opposite of "down with the people". What they are trying to do is OK, but how they are going about it is all wrong.
It doesn't matter. The guy isn't suing for whatever the service fee he was charged for during the period his account was frozen (although even that would be lame)... he is sueing for the "value" of completly fictional "real estate" and "property".
It would be like if I sued you for the value of property in Monopoly if you destroyed my Monopoly board. MAYBE I could sue you for the value I paid for the board game at Toys-R-Us. But I cannot sue you for the fictional value of the pretend real-estate and property in the game. Even if I put hours and hours in "developing" the real estate in the game, it is pretend! It is a game! It is fictional!
The fact is, you and I will pay for this kind of insanity. We pay for it in higher prices for consumer products, because everything we buy has to factor in the cost of frivilous lawsuits... We pay for it in higher taxes, because it cost money to run the courts.
If you support laws to protect us from contaminated food, or air polution, why don't you support laws to protect us from terrorists?:)
Why are you able to believe that an anti-terror law may not do much to protect us from terrorism, and may have outcomes that are worse than the terrorism itself... but you are unable to see that the same situation could exist for other laws?
To the layman, this law seems as reasonable and justifyable to them as air polution laws seem to you. The only reason why you question it, is because you have specialized knowledge that gives you a better understanding of the law than the average person. So why is it not safe to assume that laws on other things, such as air pollution, or food purity, or whatever, maybe have some very destructive side effect that you don't have the specialized knowledge to understand?
You are willing to condemn a factory owner who opposes an "enviornmental" law, and to attribute some sinister motive to them being against a law... even though you have very little knowledge of the specific manufacturing process and of the specific law he is opposing. But you wouldn't want someone to accuse you of having a terroristic or pedophilic motive if you don't support laws designed to fight terrorism or pedophilia.
Statist indoctrination trumps. There may be disagreement about how a state is run, but my guess is that everyplace you were educated, the absolute nessicity of a strong central state was a given. One country might justify the need for a state in order to protect itself from foriegn enemies, another might justify the state in order to provide social services, another might justify the state for other reasons. But they all agree on the supremecy of the modern centralized state. They disagree on the way a state should be run, the principles the state should abide by... but they all see the state as an institution that is intrinsicly "good". I very highly doubt that anywhere in the world, you were taught to question the government itself as an institution (and I don't mean to question the current political regime, or the current party in power... but I mean to question the state in itself).
Under pure anarchy, people would naturally take care of each other and no-one would go without care, or
Under pure anarchy, people COULD take care of each other and no-one would go without care. How successful they are is up in the air - Most anarchists or minarchists are not utopians, so just because we have anarchy doesn't mean our problems are all solved. In the same way that we support science, but we don't expect science to solve all our problems.
Here are some examples of ways everyone could have universal and equal health care without being provided by the state:
1. We could have such a wealthy society that healthcare would be so cheap and plentiful as to be essentially free and universal. Take, for example, television. Go to the poorest neighborhoods in the U.S., and all homes will have a television set. The vast majority will even have cable or satalite. In fact, people living in poverty are more likely to see a television as an "essential" item than rich people (who can afford other types of entertainment). There is no government run television program that provides it to everyone... it is just that our society is so wealthy that TV has become so cheap that it is universal. It is possible that we could have such a thriving economy that paying for health care is just not an issue.
2. We could have private, self-organized, voluntary organizations that provide health care to everyone. Churches aren't funded by the government, they rely totally on voluntary participation and funding, and yet churches exist everywhere. There is no reason why any service couldn't be provided equally to all people, based on voluntary contribution.
3. There could be some sort of technological advancement that renders conventional medicine irrelevant.
4. Labor could form unions, and demand health care as a standard part of all employment. Employeers would be forced to pay for medical care, or face a highly organized nationwide strike.
4. There could be any combination of the above. Or any number of other possible situations that I cannot even begin to list. Use your imagination.
Universal health care is impossible and there's no point in striving for it? Universal Health care seems to be a failure as it has currently been implemented by governments. One could argue that by relying on the state to give universal health care, that we have given up on health care.
I'm just not sure what you'd call any entity that provided universal health care other than "the state".
The state is enforced on all who exist in a geographic location based on the threat of violence through the police and military. Any entity that does not use violence, and does not force participation in the system, would not be a state system. You may thing "the present system is not violent", but it is. The violence may be hidden under layers of beurocracy, but try refusing to pay your tax, or try opening a health clinic without government permission, and the government is going to send some armed individuals to deal with you pretty quickly.
But on a deeper level, the fact that you have to ask me how we could provide universal health care without a state, is a symptom of the bias and indoctrination. You should be able to think up a few methods for solving the problem without the use of the state yourself. Even if you think the state is still the best way to solve the problem, the fact that the average person cannot even comprehend there could be other solutions besides the government... the fact that virtually no-one gives the other solutions any thought should be warning signs that there is a serious problem. The fact that to be anti-government in our society means to be anti-equality, or anti-prosperity, means that any non-government solutions are going to be supressed. After all, who wants to be anti-equality or anti-prosperity.
I'm a political scientist by education. Where does that put me in your example?
It means that you have been fully indoctrinated to accept the political and social assumptions of your society, and you now indoctrinate others into those assumptions... in such a way that it perpetuates the current political system. You are to the modern state what a priest is in Catholisism.
An example of a political assumption in a society would be something like the debate over government's role in health care in Europe. There are those who argue that equality of care (everyone is entitled to equal care) is why health care should be provided and controled by the government... and those that disagree. There are those who argue that no-one should be without health care, and therefore the state should provide it to everyone... and there are those that disagree. BUT, no one questions the idea that the government can or will provide truly equal care, or that the government can or will provide the care to everyone. The political assumption is that government never fails to provide people with services, and that government always provides those services in a manner that is equal to everyone. Even the people who are against the state's intervention into health care don't question that government will provide health care, and they don't question that the government will do it with absolute equality.
In a reasonable debate, you would hear people argue that states have engaged in terrible acts of inequality... in fact the worst acts of inequality, such as mass genocide, have been commited by the state. In a reasonable debate one would argue that states have often commited horrible failures in providing services to it's citizens, in some cases resulting in millions of deaths. Yet, in modern mainstream political debate, it is unheard of and inconceivable that someone could support universal and equal health care for everyone, and also not support state control of health care. In mainstream politics, if you support equal and universal health care, YOU MUST SUPPORT STATE RUN HEALTHCARE. Through political "scientists" such as yourself, and many years of indoctrination and government controlled education, you have been able to control people's thoughs as such that THE STATE = EQUALITY, and THE STATE = PROVIDING FOR THE NEEDS OF SOCIETY... and to be against the state is to be against equality and providing for the needs of everyone. As a "scientist", you should be able to step out of your views for a second and see that is a very powerful form of brainwashing!
Your job, as a political scientist, is to maintain a faith in the state and political process. You may question a specific government policy (but that is like questioning what type of sandwich I should eat for dinner... there is a big assumption that I should be eating dinner, and that my dinner should be a sandwich), but your job is to make sure all debate about the political sytem preserves the political system.
Now, I will admit I am stereotyping political science people. I suppose there are few token anarchists or libertarians or classical liberals in the political science field. But I think that you would probably agree, that anarchists or libertarians or classical liberals are probably few and far between in the field of political science. You wouldn't expect a political scientists to be against the political system, any more than you would expect a carpenter to be against wood.
The real question is not why you think these encryption laws are idiotic... of course they are idiotic. The real question is why you think the laws on education, civil planning, economy, enviornment, health care, or anything else are more reasonable that these laws on encryption.
You are probably an expert on computers/encryption, being a part of the Slashdot crowd, that you can understand how messed up these rules are. But if you were a doctor, you would probably think these rules are reasonable, and instead would think that the laws on health care are messed up. You are critical of these laws, because you have the knowledge to understand what is wrong with them... and you are probably don't really question the laws on subjects which you might not understand.
So you must understand, the vast majority of the population who doesn't understand encryption, will think these laws are reasonable and nessicary, the same way you probably think the laws on education, or enviornment, or whatever are reasonable and nessicary. The average person is not going to take you any more seriously complaining about this, than you take the complaints from factory owners about enviornmental laws.
At some point you are going to have to realize it isn't "idiotic" leaders who are making "idiotic" policies that are the problem... that our leaders are very very smart and competent... but that it is the idiotic concept that a handful of experts and technocrats can manage virtually every aspect of a huge diverse society. It is the concept that society can be centrally planned / regulated / and managed by lawmakers that is the problem, not with the specific "central planning".
I agree with you 100%! I keep telling those poor starving people in Africa, "Hey, why don't you guys just go to the damn grocery store and buy some food"! It worked for my grandmother, after all! I say that we just need to buy the people of the third world Walgreens Gift Cards, and that way they can just go down to the drug store and buy some Pepto Bismal!
There is no need for food created by 19th century mad-scientists, in a dank old castle.
It has to use children in Peru (or elsewhere in the third world) to test for the cure to diarrhea, because there is no diarrhea epidemic in the United States or any other developed nation. Duh!
How much do you want to make a bet that if millions of rich white children in North America and Europe were dying of diarrhea, that there wouldn't be any sort of controversy or "ethical debate" about this technology? Not only would it be widely accepted, we would probably have government regulation that would REQUIRE it!!!
It is so nice to be part of the richest 1/5 of the worlds population that can make some decision on some knee-jerk hippie bullshit, force it on the rest of the world, and then claim the moral high-ground as a "progressive" or "bio-ethicist" when millions of people could be saved.
"organic" food is all the rage in the first world, because in a consumer society when luxury goods can be mass-produced for the common man, labor intensive and and supply-volatile goods are the last remaining form of conspicuous consumption. Avoiding "GM" foods, or buying "Fair Trade" coffee, or whatever, is now the way to show your higher social class. Bougiouse class posturing is pretending to be some sort of "progressive" "globally conscious" movement, when we are really just telling the third world "eat cake"!
If DARPA hadn't developed the Internet, and CERN hadn't developed the World Wide Web, then China would not be censoring the Internet!!! It is time that we blame those who are REALLY responsible for this: the U.S. and Europe!!! You facist bastards!
Slashdot Mirror
Does this mean the Spanish-American war is finally over? Did we win?
Creating a tiered internet does not mean that users pay twice... It means that users pay more to the online content provider instead of paying more to their internet service provider. The economics of the article are not exactly correct.
Now, don't get me wrong, tiered internet is still bad, because it squeezes out smaller content providers who can't pay for extra bandwidth. But opposition to a tiered internet isn't about paying less, it is about making sure that Internet isn't like cable TV or radio, or other mediums where a handful of companies or the government control the whole thing. I, as a consumer, want to get the web site that I want, and I want to get it fast, and I don't care if that web site is google or something very obscure.
You might not want your child to see a porn site, another person might not want their kid to see a site on evolution (because obviously god created earth in 7 days), another person might not want kids to view sites on Isreal (after all, they ARE the devil oppressing Muslims), another person might not want their kids to access military recruitment sites... in fact, if we censored sites that every parent had a problem with, there would be very little that wasn't censored.
So implicit in your desire to censor the internet is the belief that 1) Your personal desires on censorship is the 1 true correct way to believe... and 2) That the schools will censor in a way that you approve of as a parent.
If you want your kid to have censored internet, send him to a private school. If you can't afford one, then home school. If you insist that the same people who run FEMA and collect your garbage must also babysit your kid, then accept that schools are a government institution, and that they don't have the right to censor any more than any other government organization.
Actually, a government funded school is legaly required to use a filter. Failure to do this can result in the loss of some of that government funding.
Actually, nowhere in the constitution is the Federal Government granted the right to mandate any sort of requirements on schools. And nowhere is there an exception to the bill of rights given to government schools.
Now, I understand we live in the day and age when U.S. citizens can be held indefinitly without trial as "enemy combatants", that the police can require law abiding citizens provide ID and papers at any time, and that a whole lot of authoritarian un-constitutional stuff goes on. I can't help that America is becoming a totalitarian dictatorship. But lets clearly catagorize this with the Gitmo style laws, and now with anything that a free and democratic society would find acceptable.
You are correct, if it is a private school. However, a public school is the government. The government does not have the right to censor internet content, period. Under any condition. ESPECIALLY when participation is manditory. The Bill of Rights is non-negotiable. It is worthless if we make exceptions.
....was unfiltered access to the internet a constitutional right? Wake up...it's not, however important the internet has become in our daily lives, it's not a right.
You wouldn't mind if your internet access is censored? Somehow I have a hunch that if the government decided to censor your internet connection, that you would be outraged.
The government has no right to censor the internet. A very good case could be made that internet access falls under the first amendment, but even so the 9th amendment means that we have the right. Public schools are the government, participation is manditory, and should be held to the same standards as the police, courts, lawmakers.
A private school has the right to censor the internet. A government funded school, with compulsary attendance, has a moral obligation to allow all constitutional rights to be exercised.
Teachers are paid employees of a school, so there is an expectation of privacy. If teachers don't like keeping things going on at the school secret, they don't have to be a teacher.
On the other hand, children are legally compelled to attend government run schools by the government. Students are compelled to attend by law. This makes school closer to a prison than a private workplace. Therefore, public schools should allow students to exercise all constitutional rights, both in school and out.
Because the project is based on socialist ideology. The idea that by selling these on the free market you can drive the costs down to make them more affordable is too "market oriented". When you purchase the thing for 3 times the cost, it is really more of a donation than a market transaction, and so hasn't been "tainted" with "capitalism".
It is not only nessicary that a law be "moral", or for there to be some sort of problem... but it is also nessicary that the law be practicle and protect the innocent.
What happens if a file sharer figures out how to spoof your IP to the software that is being used to detect "piracy"? When the police come to your house, take your computer and fine you, are you gonna say "well, it is all good - I don't want the record companies to lose money!". What happens when you file share free music, and they don't distinguish between pirated material and material that is licenced for free distribution, and they take your computer and fine you? What happens when someone figures out how to use your wireless hub to download pirated files, and they think it is you? What happens if the government "unofficially" decides to enforce the law only on those with a certain color skin, or those below a certain income level.
Every law contains danger to the average law abiding citizen. You have to balance out the danger of this kind of "enforcement" with the danger of people sharing music. Seeing as there is a terrible danger of a police state... and seeing as no-one has been able to show file sharing hurts the music industry... I would say that any reasonable, intelligent person has serious reason to be concerned about this kind of enforcement.
This is not cencorship. Google, as a private corporation, has the right to edit the information it presents. It has no obligation, whatsoever, to be balanced or fair. It can link to whatever it wants. Part of freedom of speech is exercising editorial control. Freedom of speech isn't just being able to say whatever you want, but to also not say what you don't want to say.
On the other hand, if it is true (I am not saying that it is true... I am not that familiar with Google News) that left wing bigotry and racism are tolerated while right wing bigotry and racism isn't, that would clearly be a double standard. While Google has the legal right to present any information they want, in any way they want, they do have an ethical obligation not to slant the news presented to be of any one viewpoint.
At the least, Google should publish an objective set of criteria that is used to evaluate if a news source is "acceptable" or "not", and keep the whole process transparent.
Performers aren't going to be very happy their fans are going to be treated on a two track system, which obviously further alienates the regular working class fanbase.
Ticketmaster takes a percentage of the gross, usually along with a small flat fee (negligable if you are a decent sized act). Performers might well be very happy with this, as a good chunk of the money goes to the performers (or the promoter who pays the performer). I don't know for sure, but I think that this might even be optional - so your performer or promoter could opt out of it. And it would not be a viable system for many shows (which just have general admission anyway). So this is not nessicarily something that is being "forced" on performers, but a new option for them to use.
Pay attention as arguments and policies designed for 'free'ing the market continue to wither those 80% who are labor-dependent. And by that I mean you without a portfolio that has you set for life. The era of the post-WWII/New Deal is over and the consequences for being you and your children will only grow harsher.
There has never been as many regulations, or taxation (excluding WWII), or government spending (including for social programs) in the U.S. as there is now. The idea that the U.S. is becoming more free-market as time goes on it absolutly false. Government in the U.S. consumes more than half of GDP - that is more than so-called "socialist" countries like Sweden. Per capita social spending in the U.S. is higher than Sweden, Canada, Finland, and all those supposedly "socialist" countries. You realize that G. W. Bush is more socialist than Hugo Chavez by any objective measure, right? (increases in percentage GDP for social spending, increases in per capita social spending, increases in social spending as a percentage of budget, etc.) Government in the U.S. has actually surpassed the Soviet Union in control/consumption of GDP.
So please don't blame the decreasing standard of living in the U.S. on a lack of government regulation or "New Deal" social programs, but regulation and social spending is at an all time high in every objectivly measurable way.
If anyone is looking for digital downloads of techno and electro music, check out http://www.detroitdigitalvinyl.com/ ... No DRM, 320kbs downloads (with uncompressed .wav files comming in the future), and it was started by Mad Mike of Underground Resistance and Submerge Records so it's got street cred. :)
I know they are trying to be all "down with the people" and all that... and that isn't a bad thing, really. But the whole idea of only accepting orders for tickets based on credit card zip codes isn't the way to do it. What ever happened to music fans line up for shows, pay cash at the door, and that was that. Only middle early 30s adults are gonna be paying a lot of money , via credit card, to see Pearl Jam. The whole buying $100 tickets 6 months in advanced is a whole stadium rock thing that is totally the opposite of "down with the people". What they are trying to do is OK, but how they are going about it is all wrong.
It doesn't matter. The guy isn't suing for whatever the service fee he was charged for during the period his account was frozen (although even that would be lame)... he is sueing for the "value" of completly fictional "real estate" and "property".
It would be like if I sued you for the value of property in Monopoly if you destroyed my Monopoly board. MAYBE I could sue you for the value I paid for the board game at Toys-R-Us. But I cannot sue you for the fictional value of the pretend real-estate and property in the game. Even if I put hours and hours in "developing" the real estate in the game, it is pretend! It is a game! It is fictional!
The fact is, you and I will pay for this kind of insanity. We pay for it in higher prices for consumer products, because everything we buy has to factor in the cost of frivilous lawsuits... We pay for it in higher taxes, because it cost money to run the courts.
If you support laws to protect us from contaminated food, or air polution, why don't you support laws to protect us from terrorists? :)
Why are you able to believe that an anti-terror law may not do much to protect us from terrorism, and may have outcomes that are worse than the terrorism itself... but you are unable to see that the same situation could exist for other laws?
To the layman, this law seems as reasonable and justifyable to them as air polution laws seem to you. The only reason why you question it, is because you have specialized knowledge that gives you a better understanding of the law than the average person. So why is it not safe to assume that laws on other things, such as air pollution, or food purity, or whatever, maybe have some very destructive side effect that you don't have the specialized knowledge to understand?
You are willing to condemn a factory owner who opposes an "enviornmental" law, and to attribute some sinister motive to them being against a law... even though you have very little knowledge of the specific manufacturing process and of the specific law he is opposing. But you wouldn't want someone to accuse you of having a terroristic or pedophilic motive if you don't support laws designed to fight terrorism or pedophilia.
Statist indoctrination trumps. There may be disagreement about how a state is run, but my guess is that everyplace you were educated, the absolute nessicity of a strong central state was a given. One country might justify the need for a state in order to protect itself from foriegn enemies, another might justify the state in order to provide social services, another might justify the state for other reasons. But they all agree on the supremecy of the modern centralized state. They disagree on the way a state should be run, the principles the state should abide by... but they all see the state as an institution that is intrinsicly "good". I very highly doubt that anywhere in the world, you were taught to question the government itself as an institution (and I don't mean to question the current political regime, or the current party in power... but I mean to question the state in itself).
Under pure anarchy, people would naturally take care of each other and no-one would go without care, or
Under pure anarchy, people COULD take care of each other and no-one would go without care. How successful they are is up in the air - Most anarchists or minarchists are not utopians, so just because we have anarchy doesn't mean our problems are all solved. In the same way that we support science, but we don't expect science to solve all our problems.
Here are some examples of ways everyone could have universal and equal health care without being provided by the state:
1. We could have such a wealthy society that healthcare would be so cheap and plentiful as to be essentially free and universal. Take, for example, television. Go to the poorest neighborhoods in the U.S., and all homes will have a television set. The vast majority will even have cable or satalite. In fact, people living in poverty are more likely to see a television as an "essential" item than rich people (who can afford other types of entertainment). There is no government run television program that provides it to everyone... it is just that our society is so wealthy that TV has become so cheap that it is universal. It is possible that we could have such a thriving economy that paying for health care is just not an issue.
2. We could have private, self-organized, voluntary organizations that provide health care to everyone. Churches aren't funded by the government, they rely totally on voluntary participation and funding, and yet churches exist everywhere. There is no reason why any service couldn't be provided equally to all people, based on voluntary contribution.
3. There could be some sort of technological advancement that renders conventional medicine irrelevant.
4. Labor could form unions, and demand health care as a standard part of all employment. Employeers would be forced to pay for medical care, or face a highly organized nationwide strike.
4. There could be any combination of the above. Or any number of other possible situations that I cannot even begin to list. Use your imagination.
Universal health care is impossible and there's no point in striving for it?
Universal Health care seems to be a failure as it has currently been implemented by governments. One could argue that by relying on the state to give universal health care, that we have given up on health care.
I'm just not sure what you'd call any entity that provided universal health care other than "the state".
The state is enforced on all who exist in a geographic location based on the threat of violence through the police and military. Any entity that does not use violence, and does not force participation in the system, would not be a state system. You may thing "the present system is not violent", but it is. The violence may be hidden under layers of beurocracy, but try refusing to pay your tax, or try opening a health clinic without government permission, and the government is going to send some armed individuals to deal with you pretty quickly.
But on a deeper level, the fact that you have to ask me how we could provide universal health care without a state, is a symptom of the bias and indoctrination. You should be able to think up a few methods for solving the problem without the use of the state yourself. Even if you think the state is still the best way to solve the problem, the fact that the average person cannot even comprehend there could be other solutions besides the government... the fact that virtually no-one gives the other solutions any thought should be warning signs that there is a serious problem. The fact that to be anti-government in our society means to be anti-equality, or anti-prosperity, means that any non-government solutions are going to be supressed. After all, who wants to be anti-equality or anti-prosperity.
I'm a political scientist by education. Where does that put me in your example?
It means that you have been fully indoctrinated to accept the political and social assumptions of your society, and you now indoctrinate others into those assumptions... in such a way that it perpetuates the current political system. You are to the modern state what a priest is in Catholisism.
An example of a political assumption in a society would be something like the debate over government's role in health care in Europe. There are those who argue that equality of care (everyone is entitled to equal care) is why health care should be provided and controled by the government... and those that disagree. There are those who argue that no-one should be without health care, and therefore the state should provide it to everyone... and there are those that disagree. BUT, no one questions the idea that the government can or will provide truly equal care, or that the government can or will provide the care to everyone. The political assumption is that government never fails to provide people with services, and that government always provides those services in a manner that is equal to everyone. Even the people who are against the state's intervention into health care don't question that government will provide health care, and they don't question that the government will do it with absolute equality.
In a reasonable debate, you would hear people argue that states have engaged in terrible acts of inequality... in fact the worst acts of inequality, such as mass genocide, have been commited by the state. In a reasonable debate one would argue that states have often commited horrible failures in providing services to it's citizens, in some cases resulting in millions of deaths. Yet, in modern mainstream political debate, it is unheard of and inconceivable that someone could support universal and equal health care for everyone, and also not support state control of health care. In mainstream politics, if you support equal and universal health care, YOU MUST SUPPORT STATE RUN HEALTHCARE. Through political "scientists" such as yourself, and many years of indoctrination and government controlled education, you have been able to control people's thoughs as such that THE STATE = EQUALITY, and THE STATE = PROVIDING FOR THE NEEDS OF SOCIETY... and to be against the state is to be against equality and providing for the needs of everyone. As a "scientist", you should be able to step out of your views for a second and see that is a very powerful form of brainwashing!
Your job, as a political scientist, is to maintain a faith in the state and political process. You may question a specific government policy (but that is like questioning what type of sandwich I should eat for dinner... there is a big assumption that I should be eating dinner, and that my dinner should be a sandwich), but your job is to make sure all debate about the political sytem preserves the political system.
Now, I will admit I am stereotyping political science people. I suppose there are few token anarchists or libertarians or classical liberals in the political science field. But I think that you would probably agree, that anarchists or libertarians or classical liberals are probably few and far between in the field of political science. You wouldn't expect a political scientists to be against the political system, any more than you would expect a carpenter to be against wood.
The real question is not why you think these encryption laws are idiotic... of course they are idiotic. The real question is why you think the laws on education, civil planning, economy, enviornment, health care, or anything else are more reasonable that these laws on encryption.
You are probably an expert on computers/encryption, being a part of the Slashdot crowd, that you can understand how messed up these rules are. But if you were a doctor, you would probably think these rules are reasonable, and instead would think that the laws on health care are messed up. You are critical of these laws, because you have the knowledge to understand what is wrong with them... and you are probably don't really question the laws on subjects which you might not understand.
So you must understand, the vast majority of the population who doesn't understand encryption, will think these laws are reasonable and nessicary, the same way you probably think the laws on education, or enviornment, or whatever are reasonable and nessicary. The average person is not going to take you any more seriously complaining about this, than you take the complaints from factory owners about enviornmental laws.
At some point you are going to have to realize it isn't "idiotic" leaders who are making "idiotic" policies that are the problem... that our leaders are very very smart and competent... but that it is the idiotic concept that a handful of experts and technocrats can manage virtually every aspect of a huge diverse society. It is the concept that society can be centrally planned / regulated / and managed by lawmakers that is the problem, not with the specific "central planning".
I agree with you 100%! I keep telling those poor starving people in Africa, "Hey, why don't you guys just go to the damn grocery store and buy some food"! It worked for my grandmother, after all! I say that we just need to buy the people of the third world Walgreens Gift Cards, and that way they can just go down to the drug store and buy some Pepto Bismal!
There is no need for food created by 19th century mad-scientists, in a dank old castle.
It has to use children in Peru (or elsewhere in the third world) to test for the cure to diarrhea, because there is no diarrhea epidemic in the United States or any other developed nation. Duh!
How much do you want to make a bet that if millions of rich white children in North America and Europe were dying of diarrhea, that there wouldn't be any sort of controversy or "ethical debate" about this technology? Not only would it be widely accepted, we would probably have government regulation that would REQUIRE it!!!
It is so nice to be part of the richest 1/5 of the worlds population that can make some decision on some knee-jerk hippie bullshit, force it on the rest of the world, and then claim the moral high-ground as a "progressive" or "bio-ethicist" when millions of people could be saved.
"organic" food is all the rage in the first world, because in a consumer society when luxury goods can be mass-produced for the common man, labor intensive and and supply-volatile goods are the last remaining form of conspicuous consumption. Avoiding "GM" foods, or buying "Fair Trade" coffee, or whatever, is now the way to show your higher social class. Bougiouse class posturing is pretending to be some sort of "progressive" "globally conscious" movement, when we are really just telling the third world "eat cake"!
If DARPA hadn't developed the Internet, and CERN hadn't developed the World Wide Web, then China would not be censoring the Internet!!! It is time that we blame those who are REALLY responsible for this: the U.S. and Europe!!! You facist bastards!
Ummm... You know that Hillary Clinton and her buddy Leiberman are to the far right of most Republicans on many social issues, right?