He advocated trade restrictions with China in the name of human rights, and free trade with Cuba in the name of human rights. Millions of people voted for him the first time he ran. And hundreds of thousands voted for him in the last election.
Also, the search isn't working properly on the website, but I have personally spoken with a representative of International Answer, and they support lifting all sactions against Cuba, and restricting trade with China due to human rights concerns. Here is there website: http://www.internationalanswer.org/ International Answer recently got a group of 300,000 to protest at the White House, so I can only assume many hundreds of thousands, if not millions who support their policies.
Also read the articles on http://www.socialismtoday.org/... Trade with China is only covered as something that is bad, or at least should be done with great caution. Any restrictions with Cuba are presented as absolutly evil.
Plus, I have first hand knowledge. About half the people I know who want to end trade restrictions with Cuba, want to put trade restrictions on China.
I can say with absolute certainly, that millions of people think that U.S. shouldn't trade with China, but should trade with Cuba. In fact, that is pretty much the typical belief amoung self proclaimed progressives in the U.S.. Look at the posts on Slashdot.
But enough of this arguement... You still haven't answered my question. Why do "politically correct" people believe that free trade with China is bad, but that free trade with Cuba is good. I can see being against both (which I suspect is your position, but you seem to be avoiding saying your positon). And I can see being for both (which I am for).
All drug development is for profit. All institutions need to bring in more resources than they consume (or the institution collapses). The difference between the value of the services they provide and the value of the resources they consume is profit. Natural selection applies to everything, so institutions that make a profit survive and thrive, institutions that don't fail and go away... natural selection leads to profit making organizations, no matter if they choose to call themselves profit-making or not. You are not arguing against a profit system, but that we should change the profit model of drug development from a competitive market system in favor of a government controlled monopoly system.
While I agree, information about the human genome should be free to be used by everyone without cost (the patent system wasn't supposed to help the patent holder make a larger profit, but just enough to cover the cost of development of the patented technology), I fail to see how a monopoly system is more efficent than a more decentralized system? There are historical cases we can compare for a market profit model vs. monopoly profit model on the effect of health care. For example, if the monopoly profit model is the best, we would expect the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the cold war to have better health care, higher life expectency, etc., than in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States (drug development in the U.S., Western Europe, and Canada were not really a true market system, the governments of all spent billions on research, but they were far more free-market than the Soviet system). But I am afraid you will find that health care in the West was better than in the East.
It is going to take more than just showing us that the market isn't producing some drugs that people need (because clearly Cuba and North Korea aren't producing those drugs either, which they should be if a government controlled monopoly on drug development was the be-all end-all solution to drug development)... why don't you show us how your profit model for drug development is better for consumers that the current profit model?
Show us why one big heirarchical drug development system is better than a decentralized network of drug development.
How does it provide protections to people who give their goods over for sale? Please explain it to me.
Just because the state charges a $35 dollar fee and requires some classes (from the same people who are lobbying for the class requirements), doesn't mean that there is any infrastructure in place to protect consumers. All it means is that people have paid $35 and took a class.
And why are states so concerned about "protecting" people who gives things on consignment for auction (which there isn't a whole lot of), but refuse to get involved when ebay sellers are involved in all out scamming? It seems to me if this was about protecting people, they would go after the biggest and most desctructive criminals first. This just seems like a way to charge a new tax, and to protect the market of established auctioneers.
It is not a staw man falacy. I am making a sarcastic but 100% accurate description of how millions of people feel.
You will find that millions of people who think it is wrong that American companies are selling technology to China, or Burma, will also find it wrong that the U.S. isn't selling the same technology to Cuba, or North Korea.
You haven't address my point. Why is it "politically incorrect" to trade with China, but "pollically incorrect" to have sanctions on Cuba? And why does capitalism provoke outrage for selling products to oppressive self-proclaimed Communist and Socialist governments, but Communist and Socialism doesn't provoke outrage when it's regimes oppress people and murder in the name of Socialism? Even if you do not feel the way I describe, you must admit that there are millions of people who do feel this way!
But why do you blame capitalism and America for selling to Communists, but not Communists themselves? I understand your statement is supposed to be humorous, but the humor behind it clearly critical of the United States.
For example, an oppressive government mentioned in the article, is instituting the "Burmese Way to Socialism", based on Marxist ideology. The government rounds up people it suspects of being "capitalist counter-revolutionaries", and often tortures them and kills them. It censors it's internet to "protect" it's people from "American imperialistic capitalism".
So when a Marxist government carries out murder, torture, censorship, and oppression on a national scale in the name of "socialism", you don't blame Marxism, or Socialism. Why isn't mass-murder and mass-oppression in the name of Marxism and socialism reflect badly on Marxism and socialism, but if a capitalist company sells filtering software (which physically harm no-one) to Marxist mass-murderers, that reflects badly on capitalism?
The trouble is, the minute western countries begin to put sanctions on those countries, the same people who were complaining about companies selling to those countries, will now claim that the west is launching "economic warefare" on those states. They will claim that the sanctions are impoverishing those people, and are an example of western agression against third world states. They will say "who made us the moral authority of the world"?
If you sell to those countries, or you don't sell to those countries, the same people are going to be pissed off with either way. However, if we sell to China and Saudi Arabia, at least China and Saudi Arabia won't be pissed off at us. So I say that we piss off the least amount of people and sell to those "oppressive" countries.
I mean, yes, Casto doesn't allow his people to access the internet except with government permission, and even then content is filtered, but that is a reasonable man simply trying to protect his people from harmful ideas... BUT DAMN THOSE EVIL CAPITALIST FOR OPPRESSING THE CUBAN PEOPLE BY SELLING CASTRO FILTERING SOFTWARE!!!
Oh, wait a minute? The United States doesn't allow companies to sell to Cuba? Those egotistical, arrogant, imperialist bastards! Cuba should be free to buy and sell whatever it wants from the U.S.. How dare those evil capitalists try to force their views on Cuba by refusing to sell them stuff!
Geez... why can't people just admit that they are reactionary whankers with no real ideology... just some vauge dislike of "capitalism" (without any real consistant definition of what capitalism is... they call Stalin "capitalist" for god sakes, and in the next sentence call Western Europe "socialist")...
I mean, when the U.S. doesn't trade with Cuba, or England doesn't trade with Zimbabwe, this is considered "imperialism" (whatever that means, they don't have any consistent definition of that either)... but if U.S. or European companies trade with China or Saudi Arabia, they are guilty for "supporting oppressive regimes" (somehow it is not "arrogant" to call China or Saudi Arabia "oppressive regimes", but call Cuba or North Korea an "oppressive regime" and it is not only "arrogance", but "imperialist hate speech").
I can understand and respect people with different ideologies than me... we don't all have to agree. But please, GET AN IDEOLOGY before you start your self-rightous preaching! Enough of the self-contradictory, reactionary drivel that passes as "political correctness" nowadays!
Why does there always need to be a justification.
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Space Tourism?
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What does this stuff always need some justification or "higher purpose". Some people say that space tourism is good because it helps fund the space program science... well, that is a good reason too. But, what is wrong with people going to space just for fun? Even if, in the long run, it did absolutly nothing for science or humanity?
I mean, I understand it is kind of lame that only multimillioniares can go into space for fun... it would be much better if everyone could afford space travel... I can understand people having a problem with the cost. I can also understand the concern that maybe it is costing the taxpayers money (although from what I understand, the tourists pay their own way so that is not a concern) But why is going into space for no other reason than the thrill of it wrong? What is with this anti-fun neo-puritanical attitude people have? Why the need to pretend there is some grand purpose, or grand goal to everything? Why not do things just for the joy of it?
It is your crappy graphics card. Log on to tigerdirect.com for great deals on graphics cards, and much much more! Tell them AFFILIATE_2984274 sent you!
No, there isn't state control of the Internet. Right now, the U.S. does not have the technical ability to track all packet transmittions. Right now, the U.S. doesn't have the technical ability to block certain sites from the U.S. or any other country. There is no way the U.S. can licence web servers. Right now the U.S. has virtually no control over any significant aspect of the Internet. Whatever the current aims of the U.S. government, there is no technical way the U.S. government can control the Internet, by the very nature of how it operates.
The Internet, right now, is essentially anarchy. ICANN (which isn't the U.S. government), does coordinate certain technical aspects, but it does it through voluntary compliance. ICANN has absolutly no enforcement powers. ICANN is the equivalent to ANSI or ISO, or maybe the IOC.
What the U.N. is promising, is direct state control of all aspects the Internet. They want to drasticly change the technology from what it is now, to make it a centralized system like the telephone system, or cable TV. Your government and/or other governments through the U.N. will be able to block websites, the U.N. or other governments will have to licence all servers in order for you to be allowed to serve information. The U.N. or other government will be able to track all web traffic (to see, at any time, exaactly when, who, and what you are reading online... surfing a website that is critical of the government? Your government WILL know about it. Surf a website critical of the U.S., the U.S. will know about it!). The U.N. promises to eliminate anonynimity from the Internet. This is all what the U.N., and the people who are pushing for U.N. control (China, North Korea, etc... The E.U. by the way isn't actually pushing for U.N. control, they are pushing for a powerless U.N. "advisment board", that could make "suggestions" to ICANN. It is really more of a face-saving compromise to let the system continue how it is now). This isn't speculation. Most governments around the world don't like the idea of the free flow of information outside government control (arguably all governments), so the things I mentioned above are considered great benifits... they are the things that the U.N. is BRAGGING it will bring to the Internet! They are accusing the current system of being part of a "freedom obsessed" American "cowboy mentality", and think it is crazy that the Internet is an anarchy like it is now. None of what I mentioned above is anything the U.N., or the government of North Korea, China, Cuba, Russia, deny or are trying to hide. In most countries, all the things above are considered DESIRABLE, at least by their governments!).
If anything, U.N. will give the U.S. vast more control over the Internet... because it is far easier for it to get the U.N. to agree to it's wishes, than to get a decentralized unregulated network of hundreds of millions of individual users to agree to it's wishes. The U.N. will put in the machinary for centralized control that the U.S. doesn't have now.
And screw Godwin's law. Godwin's law is just a big excuse for Nazi-like ideas. If something is Nazi-like (i.e. the hatred of a culture to the point of self destructive behavior), one should point out the simularities.
Except that the trade balance is in the E.U. favor. The E.U. has far more U.S. customers to lose, than the U.S. has E.U. customers to lose. In the short one, it would probably be a windfall for U.S. companies.
But this shows some of the desperatness of your attitude and the self destructivness of your hatred.
You are trying to protest U.S. policy in Iraq, or U.S. economic strength, or one of the other issues you have with the United States, by taking the side of people who want to turn the internet into an authoritarian nightmare.
Look at your arguement. Nowhere in the arguement do you mention anything about the Internet, how it is organized, the technology behind it, or the current plan for U.N. control of the Internet. It is all about nukes, economics, the 1970s, and a bunch of issues that have absolutly nothing to do with the Internet.
The U.N. and the people behind this push for U.N. control have open said that their goal is state control of the Internet. That right now, the flow of information cannot be controlled, tracked, or stopped by any nation and that there needs to be licencing, tracking, and survalience infrastructure in place to make the Internet like television, telephones, and radio. Even many of the E.U. leaders who you seem to think are "taking a stand" against the U.S. have spoken out with grave concerns that the E.U. agenda is being hijacked by China and Iran and nations that want to use U.N. control for censorship (if you would have RTFA, you can see that for yourself).
The fact that you are willing to give up this wonderful free exchange of information called the internet, and turn it into some highly controlled and censored bullshit like television, all to make some symbolic gesture of "defiance" against the U.S. (because the U.S. doesn't really control the internet anyway, if you understand the technology... this is completly symbolic), shows how irrational and desperate you really are.
Puting your all-consuming hatred of one nation above your own common sense and self-interest is a dangerous thing. Look at how popular hatred against the Jews was used to manipulate the German people into accepting oppression and tyranny like they had never know. They too were willing to give up their freedom of expression in order to attack those they hated, although their attacks where far less pitiful and desperate that this whole issue with the Internet. People like you are willing to give up your own freedom of expression in this medium, all to make some sort of empty gesture that really has no effect on the U.S. in the long run whatsoever. It is truly something to be pitied.
If China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, are all going to turn the internet into a vast state-controlled beurocratic top-down information chain (which is the inevitable result of a U.N. controled internet), then I have no interest in the Internet any more. I will stop using the Internet and find some other information network (maybe packet radio, which doesn't need any centralized resources).
Politicians in the United States like to make grand public statements posturing over pornography around election time, but in reality pornography is virtually unrestricted by state and federal governments in the United States.
Most Euro nations have far more censorship and state control over pornography than the U.S., because most restrictions on pornography in the last 10 years have not come from the religious right, but from the feminist left. They just don't have the political posturing and fake outrage of American politicians.
Except that, once again, a party with a billion dollars, charge them half, and they still have half a billion dollars. A party that has a million dollars, which MAYBE is enough to run 1 or 2 prime time national commercials (provided it is not too popular a TV show), gets charged half and now they can't purchase a national TV commercial. Once again you are screwing the little guy.
And, the government having more money from this tax just means that the political elite can use that money giving out handouts and contracts for votes, once again helping the political elite and screwing the little guy.
The government, by the nature of what it is, is a heirarchical top-down power structure. It is a contradiction of it's very nature that it will somehow help the people at the bottom against the people at the top, because it is controlled by the people at the top who will follow their own self interest.
The best thing for the little guy is for the government to follow the constitution, and not try to regulate, tax, or control political speech.
Is there small companies or individuals developing consumer automobiles? Is there small companies or individuals developing medicines, treatments, and medical equipment? Where are the people making a living from setting up micro power stations? How many legal FM radio stations or TV stations or cable TV stations are run by individuals or small companies?
Liability and regulation have drove countless industries into the hands of a few large corporations and/or the government. What makes you think your freedom is any more important to the public or the government than anyone elses?
It is sad to think that soon one will not be able to sit down and develope a shareware application, or start a small company that writes custom software for other small companies... that programing and development will be a highly controlled and licenced occupation more like a doctor than a writer or artist. But obviously, given the political choices people make, people want safety over freedom (you have probably have the same attitude toward other industries that you are not involved in). The times we were living in for the past 25 years were the "wild west" days of personal computing... and those days cant last forever.
I realize that most Slashdotters don't like the concept of free unregulated speech in America. But there is a constitutional process that one needs to go through to eliminate it legally. Constitutional amendements can be repealed through the democratic process.
Please, if you are going to support the McCain-Fiengold bill, and campaign finance reform, first go through the democratic process and have the first amemndment repealled. Then the government will have the legit power to regulate political speech. But until you do such, anti-free speech laws will always be a bit questionable.
And if you don't want the first amendment repealed, THEN WHAT PART OF "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW" DONT YOU FUCKERS UNDERSTAND?!?!?!?
Slashdotters are for regulating blogs... of people who disagree with themselves! They don't want free speech, they just don't want their own speech impeded.
But, by definition, the "level playing field" as you call it will be decided and enforced by the political elite. So essentially, you are putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Have you ever looked at the disasterous effect campaign finance reform has had on small political parties in the U.S.? It has nearly destroyed them. Small political parties depend on few people giving larger donations. Large political parties depend on more people giving smaller donations. Why do you think the two major parties, and all the mainstream politicians are clammering for campaign finance reform, and the small parties hate it? Because it eliminates anybody but the Republicans and Democrats from the game.
One thing that is hard for most people (like you) to understand nowadays, since the most prevalent religion is state-worship... that the government is not omnipotent and benevolent. If the government says "We are going to regulate campaign finance to level the playing field", that doesn't mean that the government intends to level the playing field, nor that the government is capable of that if it wanted to. What "campaign finance reform" is, is the absolute control over all forms of political speech by the political elite. THAT is what people like you support, even if you don't want to admit it.
You could upsample the audio, by interpolating values between the samples (in which case the higher sampling rate would have some effect on the sound), and you could run some high quality filters and such, maybe split the frequencies better for sending to your subwoofer, tweeter, etc... Maybe with the higher sampling rate you can run a better algorithm for removing certain mp3 artifacts. I have also heard that due to the properties of some speakers, it is possible to get frequencies higher than the nyquist frequency by using the right set of frequencies together (I don't think it is true, but I have heard people who know about sound say it is true, so who knows)... maybe having the higher frequencies helps that!
While a professional sound engineer, or some audiophiles might balk at the idea, there ARE things you can do to make the audio "sound better" to a decent slice of people. Think about FM radio stations: The sound is compressed and EQed in such a way that many audophiles think it sucks... but the larger segment of radio listeners love their music sounding like 1980s television.
It might not be YOUR cup of tea, but don't discount the idea outright. There may be something to it. Only your ears will tell the difference.
Governments hate the internet... the free, virtually anonymous, uncensorable, decentralized and global communication amoung people is not desirable for the power elite. They prefer easily trackable and controllable traditional forms of communication. It is the goal of every government to turn the internet into something like television, radio, and telephone that can be easily controlled and monitored.
So the issued to be considered are:
1. China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuala, and the other nations that have been pushing for U.N. governance of the internet, have openly said that the reason to do so is to better control it. This is not conspiracy theory, this is easily verifiable fact. They have openly said that the current way the internet works makes it too hard to fight spam, track criminals, protect people from pornography and hate speech, etc, and that the U.N. should take control so that the Internet can be better policed, taxed, and servers can be licenced. The explicit and open goals of U.N. control of the Internet is so that governments can completly control it.
2. With ICANN (which isn't the U.S. government by the way) "controlling" the Internet (which they don't really do), it is pretty clear that the Internet is still largely anarchy.
So, you have a choice. Turn over control of the Internet to the U.N., and absolutly, certainly, without question turn the internet into a government controlled medium like TV or radio. (remember, this is not speculation, this is the whole reason why countries are saying they want the U.N. to control the internet. This is what the U.N. is promising as the main benifit of the U.N. controlling the Internet).
Or, we can leave it how it is for now, and have the small chance that the U.S. government might do something disruptive (which it hasn't done yet, and currently legally does not have the power to do... and if it did, it could easily be worked around by nearly every other country). And we will have the option open to form some better system later in the future.
Inevitable Extreme Authoritarianism vs. the slight possibility of slight Authoritarianism which can then be easily corrected - I am going to choose the latter.
Perhaps it IS dangerous for any one organization (ICANN which is based in the United States) to have too much power over the internet. That is fine. That is a legit point. There are many ways to handle it other than giving absolute power to a different political body (The UN which is based in the United States). The internet could be made completly decentralized. Or perhaps the U.N. could be given control with a set of restrictions that makes sure the Internet always stays free. But none of these are being discussed, because the people advocating U.N. control find those ideas undesirable.
I think it is sad that the majority of people on Slashdot are willing to see the Internet becoming a controlled Authoritarian medium (as the U.N. openly and proudly promises to make it), in order to pursue their knee-jerk anti-American agenda.
That is being a bit sensationalistic and innacruate. IBM Polish subsidiaries supplied equipment to the Nazis, who then used it to track Jews (amoung other things... the equipment could have been used to track anything). And lets remember that the people working for the subsidiaries in Poland were given "an offer they couldn't refuse". (i.e. there is no question that they and their families would have been tortured and killed if they refused to supply the Nazis with what they wanted).
To illustrate the double standard, China uses Linux based equipment to run it's police state. No-one is saying that Linus Torvolds is responsible for China oppression. (and yes, Linus Torvolds has the power to explicitly forbid the use by specific governments by changing the licence... which he has chosen not to do. And he most certainly knows that China uses Linux to facilitate oppressive policies.) The only difference is that no open-source geeks and their families are going to be tortured and killed if Linus forbid the use of Linux by China... which makes Linus far more responsible than IBM.
Once again, people blaming someone else for the oppressive policies of governments. No-one will dare blame genocide or oppression commited by governments ON GOVERNMENTS... because most people are in love with big oppressive governments in some form or another.
Slashdot Mirror
Ralph Nadar:
. htm
... Trade with China is only covered as something that is bad, or at least should be done with great caution. Any restrictions with Cuba are presented as absolutly evil.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2002/501/501p13b
http://www.issues2000.org/Ralph_Nader_China.htm
He advocated trade restrictions with China in the name of human rights, and free trade with Cuba in the name of human rights. Millions of people voted for him the first time he ran. And hundreds of thousands voted for him in the last election.
Also, the search isn't working properly on the website, but I have personally spoken with a representative of International Answer, and they support lifting all sactions against Cuba, and restricting trade with China due to human rights concerns. Here is there website:
http://www.internationalanswer.org/
International Answer recently got a group of 300,000 to protest at the White House, so I can only assume many hundreds of thousands, if not millions who support their policies.
Also read the articles on http://www.socialismtoday.org/
Plus, I have first hand knowledge. About half the people I know who want to end trade restrictions with Cuba, want to put trade restrictions on China.
I can say with absolute certainly, that millions of people think that U.S. shouldn't trade with China, but should trade with Cuba. In fact, that is pretty much the typical belief amoung self proclaimed progressives in the U.S.. Look at the posts on Slashdot.
But enough of this arguement... You still haven't answered my question. Why do "politically correct" people believe that free trade with China is bad, but that free trade with Cuba is good. I can see being against both (which I suspect is your position, but you seem to be avoiding saying your positon). And I can see being for both (which I am for).
All drug development is for profit. All institutions need to bring in more resources than they consume (or the institution collapses). The difference between the value of the services they provide and the value of the resources they consume is profit. Natural selection applies to everything, so institutions that make a profit survive and thrive, institutions that don't fail and go away... natural selection leads to profit making organizations, no matter if they choose to call themselves profit-making or not. You are not arguing against a profit system, but that we should change the profit model of drug development from a competitive market system in favor of a government controlled monopoly system.
While I agree, information about the human genome should be free to be used by everyone without cost (the patent system wasn't supposed to help the patent holder make a larger profit, but just enough to cover the cost of development of the patented technology), I fail to see how a monopoly system is more efficent than a more decentralized system? There are historical cases we can compare for a market profit model vs. monopoly profit model on the effect of health care. For example, if the monopoly profit model is the best, we would expect the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the cold war to have better health care, higher life expectency, etc., than in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States (drug development in the U.S., Western Europe, and Canada were not really a true market system, the governments of all spent billions on research, but they were far more free-market than the Soviet system). But I am afraid you will find that health care in the West was better than in the East.
It is going to take more than just showing us that the market isn't producing some drugs that people need (because clearly Cuba and North Korea aren't producing those drugs either, which they should be if a government controlled monopoly on drug development was the be-all end-all solution to drug development)... why don't you show us how your profit model for drug development is better for consumers that the current profit model?
Show us why one big heirarchical drug development system is better than a decentralized network of drug development.
How does it provide protections to people who give their goods over for sale? Please explain it to me.
Just because the state charges a $35 dollar fee and requires some classes (from the same people who are lobbying for the class requirements), doesn't mean that there is any infrastructure in place to protect consumers. All it means is that people have paid $35 and took a class.
And why are states so concerned about "protecting" people who gives things on consignment for auction (which there isn't a whole lot of), but refuse to get involved when ebay sellers are involved in all out scamming? It seems to me if this was about protecting people, they would go after the biggest and most desctructive criminals first. This just seems like a way to charge a new tax, and to protect the market of established auctioneers.
It is not a staw man falacy. I am making a sarcastic but 100% accurate description of how millions of people feel.
You will find that millions of people who think it is wrong that American companies are selling technology to China, or Burma, will also find it wrong that the U.S. isn't selling the same technology to Cuba, or North Korea.
You haven't address my point. Why is it "politically incorrect" to trade with China, but "pollically incorrect" to have sanctions on Cuba? And why does capitalism provoke outrage for selling products to oppressive self-proclaimed Communist and Socialist governments, but Communist and Socialism doesn't provoke outrage when it's regimes oppress people and murder in the name of Socialism? Even if you do not feel the way I describe, you must admit that there are millions of people who do feel this way!
But why do you blame capitalism and America for selling to Communists, but not Communists themselves? I understand your statement is supposed to be humorous, but the humor behind it clearly critical of the United States.
For example, an oppressive government mentioned in the article, is instituting the "Burmese Way to Socialism", based on Marxist ideology. The government rounds up people it suspects of being "capitalist counter-revolutionaries", and often tortures them and kills them. It censors it's internet to "protect" it's people from "American imperialistic capitalism".
So when a Marxist government carries out murder, torture, censorship, and oppression on a national scale in the name of "socialism", you don't blame Marxism, or Socialism. Why isn't mass-murder and mass-oppression in the name of Marxism and socialism reflect badly on Marxism and socialism, but if a capitalist company sells filtering software (which physically harm no-one) to Marxist mass-murderers, that reflects badly on capitalism?
The trouble is, the minute western countries begin to put sanctions on those countries, the same people who were complaining about companies selling to those countries, will now claim that the west is launching "economic warefare" on those states. They will claim that the sanctions are impoverishing those people, and are an example of western agression against third world states. They will say "who made us the moral authority of the world"?
If you sell to those countries, or you don't sell to those countries, the same people are going to be pissed off with either way. However, if we sell to China and Saudi Arabia, at least China and Saudi Arabia won't be pissed off at us. So I say that we piss off the least amount of people and sell to those "oppressive" countries.
I mean, yes, Casto doesn't allow his people to access the internet except with government permission, and even then content is filtered, but that is a reasonable man simply trying to protect his people from harmful ideas... BUT DAMN THOSE EVIL CAPITALIST FOR OPPRESSING THE CUBAN PEOPLE BY SELLING CASTRO FILTERING SOFTWARE!!!
Oh, wait a minute? The United States doesn't allow companies to sell to Cuba? Those egotistical, arrogant, imperialist bastards! Cuba should be free to buy and sell whatever it wants from the U.S.. How dare those evil capitalists try to force their views on Cuba by refusing to sell them stuff!
Geez... why can't people just admit that they are reactionary whankers with no real ideology... just some vauge dislike of "capitalism" (without any real consistant definition of what capitalism is... they call Stalin "capitalist" for god sakes, and in the next sentence call Western Europe "socialist")...
I mean, when the U.S. doesn't trade with Cuba, or England doesn't trade with Zimbabwe, this is considered "imperialism" (whatever that means, they don't have any consistent definition of that either)... but if U.S. or European companies trade with China or Saudi Arabia, they are guilty for "supporting oppressive regimes" (somehow it is not "arrogant" to call China or Saudi Arabia "oppressive regimes", but call Cuba or North Korea an "oppressive regime" and it is not only "arrogance", but "imperialist hate speech").
I can understand and respect people with different ideologies than me... we don't all have to agree. But please, GET AN IDEOLOGY before you start your self-rightous preaching! Enough of the self-contradictory, reactionary drivel that passes as "political correctness" nowadays!
What does this stuff always need some justification or "higher purpose". Some people say that space tourism is good because it helps fund the space program science... well, that is a good reason too. But, what is wrong with people going to space just for fun? Even if, in the long run, it did absolutly nothing for science or humanity?
I mean, I understand it is kind of lame that only multimillioniares can go into space for fun... it would be much better if everyone could afford space travel... I can understand people having a problem with the cost. I can also understand the concern that maybe it is costing the taxpayers money (although from what I understand, the tourists pay their own way so that is not a concern) But why is going into space for no other reason than the thrill of it wrong? What is with this anti-fun neo-puritanical attitude people have? Why the need to pretend there is some grand purpose, or grand goal to everything? Why not do things just for the joy of it?
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No, there isn't state control of the Internet. Right now, the U.S. does not have the technical ability to track all packet transmittions. Right now, the U.S. doesn't have the technical ability to block certain sites from the U.S. or any other country. There is no way the U.S. can licence web servers. Right now the U.S. has virtually no control over any significant aspect of the Internet. Whatever the current aims of the U.S. government, there is no technical way the U.S. government can control the Internet, by the very nature of how it operates.
The Internet, right now, is essentially anarchy. ICANN (which isn't the U.S. government), does coordinate certain technical aspects, but it does it through voluntary compliance. ICANN has absolutly no enforcement powers. ICANN is the equivalent to ANSI or ISO, or maybe the IOC.
What the U.N. is promising, is direct state control of all aspects the Internet. They want to drasticly change the technology from what it is now, to make it a centralized system like the telephone system, or cable TV. Your government and/or other governments through the U.N. will be able to block websites, the U.N. or other governments will have to licence all servers in order for you to be allowed to serve information. The U.N. or other government will be able to track all web traffic (to see, at any time, exaactly when, who, and what you are reading online... surfing a website that is critical of the government? Your government WILL know about it. Surf a website critical of the U.S., the U.S. will know about it!). The U.N. promises to eliminate anonynimity from the Internet. This is all what the U.N., and the people who are pushing for U.N. control (China, North Korea, etc... The E.U. by the way isn't actually pushing for U.N. control, they are pushing for a powerless U.N. "advisment board", that could make "suggestions" to ICANN. It is really more of a face-saving compromise to let the system continue how it is now). This isn't speculation. Most governments around the world don't like the idea of the free flow of information outside government control (arguably all governments), so the things I mentioned above are considered great benifits... they are the things that the U.N. is BRAGGING it will bring to the Internet! They are accusing the current system of being part of a "freedom obsessed" American "cowboy mentality", and think it is crazy that the Internet is an anarchy like it is now. None of what I mentioned above is anything the U.N., or the government of North Korea, China, Cuba, Russia, deny or are trying to hide. In most countries, all the things above are considered DESIRABLE, at least by their governments!).
If anything, U.N. will give the U.S. vast more control over the Internet... because it is far easier for it to get the U.N. to agree to it's wishes, than to get a decentralized unregulated network of hundreds of millions of individual users to agree to it's wishes. The U.N. will put in the machinary for centralized control that the U.S. doesn't have now.
And screw Godwin's law. Godwin's law is just a big excuse for Nazi-like ideas. If something is Nazi-like (i.e. the hatred of a culture to the point of self destructive behavior), one should point out the simularities.
Except that the trade balance is in the E.U. favor. The E.U. has far more U.S. customers to lose, than the U.S. has E.U. customers to lose. In the short one, it would probably be a windfall for U.S. companies.
But this shows some of the desperatness of your attitude and the self destructivness of your hatred.
You are trying to protest U.S. policy in Iraq, or U.S. economic strength, or one of the other issues you have with the United States, by taking the side of people who want to turn the internet into an authoritarian nightmare.
Look at your arguement. Nowhere in the arguement do you mention anything about the Internet, how it is organized, the technology behind it, or the current plan for U.N. control of the Internet. It is all about nukes, economics, the 1970s, and a bunch of issues that have absolutly nothing to do with the Internet.
The U.N. and the people behind this push for U.N. control have open said that their goal is state control of the Internet. That right now, the flow of information cannot be controlled, tracked, or stopped by any nation and that there needs to be licencing, tracking, and survalience infrastructure in place to make the Internet like television, telephones, and radio. Even many of the E.U. leaders who you seem to think are "taking a stand" against the U.S. have spoken out with grave concerns that the E.U. agenda is being hijacked by China and Iran and nations that want to use U.N. control for censorship (if you would have RTFA, you can see that for yourself).
The fact that you are willing to give up this wonderful free exchange of information called the internet, and turn it into some highly controlled and censored bullshit like television, all to make some symbolic gesture of "defiance" against the U.S. (because the U.S. doesn't really control the internet anyway, if you understand the technology... this is completly symbolic), shows how irrational and desperate you really are.
Puting your all-consuming hatred of one nation above your own common sense and self-interest is a dangerous thing. Look at how popular hatred against the Jews was used to manipulate the German people into accepting oppression and tyranny like they had never know. They too were willing to give up their freedom of expression in order to attack those they hated, although their attacks where far less pitiful and desperate that this whole issue with the Internet. People like you are willing to give up your own freedom of expression in this medium, all to make some sort of empty gesture that really has no effect on the U.S. in the long run whatsoever. It is truly something to be pitied.
If China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, are all going to turn the internet into a vast state-controlled beurocratic top-down information chain (which is the inevitable result of a U.N. controled internet), then I have no interest in the Internet any more. I will stop using the Internet and find some other information network (maybe packet radio, which doesn't need any centralized resources).
Politicians in the United States like to make grand public statements posturing over pornography around election time, but in reality pornography is virtually unrestricted by state and federal governments in the United States.
Most Euro nations have far more censorship and state control over pornography than the U.S., because most restrictions on pornography in the last 10 years have not come from the religious right, but from the feminist left. They just don't have the political posturing and fake outrage of American politicians.
Except that, once again, a party with a billion dollars, charge them half, and they still have half a billion dollars. A party that has a million dollars, which MAYBE is enough to run 1 or 2 prime time national commercials (provided it is not too popular a TV show), gets charged half and now they can't purchase a national TV commercial. Once again you are screwing the little guy.
And, the government having more money from this tax just means that the political elite can use that money giving out handouts and contracts for votes, once again helping the political elite and screwing the little guy.
The government, by the nature of what it is, is a heirarchical top-down power structure. It is a contradiction of it's very nature that it will somehow help the people at the bottom against the people at the top, because it is controlled by the people at the top who will follow their own self interest.
The best thing for the little guy is for the government to follow the constitution, and not try to regulate, tax, or control political speech.
You, my friend, are going to become a dinosaur.
Is there small companies or individuals developing consumer automobiles? Is there small companies or individuals developing medicines, treatments, and medical equipment? Where are the people making a living from setting up micro power stations? How many legal FM radio stations or TV stations or cable TV stations are run by individuals or small companies?
Liability and regulation have drove countless industries into the hands of a few large corporations and/or the government. What makes you think your freedom is any more important to the public or the government than anyone elses?
It is sad to think that soon one will not be able to sit down and develope a shareware application, or start a small company that writes custom software for other small companies... that programing and development will be a highly controlled and licenced occupation more like a doctor than a writer or artist. But obviously, given the political choices people make, people want safety over freedom (you have probably have the same attitude toward other industries that you are not involved in). The times we were living in for the past 25 years were the "wild west" days of personal computing... and those days cant last forever.
I realize that most Slashdotters don't like the concept of free unregulated speech in America. But there is a constitutional process that one needs to go through to eliminate it legally. Constitutional amendements can be repealed through the democratic process.
Please, if you are going to support the McCain-Fiengold bill, and campaign finance reform, first go through the democratic process and have the first amemndment repealled. Then the government will have the legit power to regulate political speech. But until you do such, anti-free speech laws will always be a bit questionable.
And if you don't want the first amendment repealed, THEN WHAT PART OF "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW" DONT YOU FUCKERS UNDERSTAND?!?!?!?
You don't understand Slashdot!
Slashdotters are for regulating blogs... of people who disagree with themselves! They don't want free speech, they just don't want their own speech impeded.
But, by definition, the "level playing field" as you call it will be decided and enforced by the political elite. So essentially, you are putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Have you ever looked at the disasterous effect campaign finance reform has had on small political parties in the U.S.? It has nearly destroyed them. Small political parties depend on few people giving larger donations. Large political parties depend on more people giving smaller donations. Why do you think the two major parties, and all the mainstream politicians are clammering for campaign finance reform, and the small parties hate it? Because it eliminates anybody but the Republicans and Democrats from the game.
One thing that is hard for most people (like you) to understand nowadays, since the most prevalent religion is state-worship... that the government is not omnipotent and benevolent. If the government says "We are going to regulate campaign finance to level the playing field", that doesn't mean that the government intends to level the playing field, nor that the government is capable of that if it wanted to. What "campaign finance reform" is, is the absolute control over all forms of political speech by the political elite. THAT is what people like you support, even if you don't want to admit it.
"Sounding better" is subjective.
You could upsample the audio, by interpolating values between the samples (in which case the higher sampling rate would have some effect on the sound), and you could run some high quality filters and such, maybe split the frequencies better for sending to your subwoofer, tweeter, etc... Maybe with the higher sampling rate you can run a better algorithm for removing certain mp3 artifacts. I have also heard that due to the properties of some speakers, it is possible to get frequencies higher than the nyquist frequency by using the right set of frequencies together (I don't think it is true, but I have heard people who know about sound say it is true, so who knows)... maybe having the higher frequencies helps that!
While a professional sound engineer, or some audiophiles might balk at the idea, there ARE things you can do to make the audio "sound better" to a decent slice of people. Think about FM radio stations: The sound is compressed and EQed in such a way that many audophiles think it sucks... but the larger segment of radio listeners love their music sounding like 1980s television.
It might not be YOUR cup of tea, but don't discount the idea outright. There may be something to it. Only your ears will tell the difference.
Governments hate the internet... the free, virtually anonymous, uncensorable, decentralized and global communication amoung people is not desirable for the power elite. They prefer easily trackable and controllable traditional forms of communication. It is the goal of every government to turn the internet into something like television, radio, and telephone that can be easily controlled and monitored.
So the issued to be considered are:
1. China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuala, and the other nations that have been pushing for U.N. governance of the internet, have openly said that the reason to do so is to better control it. This is not conspiracy theory, this is easily verifiable fact. They have openly said that the current way the internet works makes it too hard to fight spam, track criminals, protect people from pornography and hate speech, etc, and that the U.N. should take control so that the Internet can be better policed, taxed, and servers can be licenced. The explicit and open goals of U.N. control of the Internet is so that governments can completly control it.
2. With ICANN (which isn't the U.S. government by the way) "controlling" the Internet (which they don't really do), it is pretty clear that the Internet is still largely anarchy.
So, you have a choice. Turn over control of the Internet to the U.N., and absolutly, certainly, without question turn the internet into a government controlled medium like TV or radio. (remember, this is not speculation, this is the whole reason why countries are saying they want the U.N. to control the internet. This is what the U.N. is promising as the main benifit of the U.N. controlling the Internet).
Or, we can leave it how it is for now, and have the small chance that the U.S. government might do something disruptive (which it hasn't done yet, and currently legally does not have the power to do... and if it did, it could easily be worked around by nearly every other country). And we will have the option open to form some better system later in the future.
Inevitable Extreme Authoritarianism vs. the slight possibility of slight Authoritarianism which can then be easily corrected - I am going to choose the latter.
Perhaps it IS dangerous for any one organization (ICANN which is based in the United States) to have too much power over the internet. That is fine. That is a legit point. There are many ways to handle it other than giving absolute power to a different political body (The UN which is based in the United States). The internet could be made completly decentralized. Or perhaps the U.N. could be given control with a set of restrictions that makes sure the Internet always stays free. But none of these are being discussed, because the people advocating U.N. control find those ideas undesirable.
I think it is sad that the majority of people on Slashdot are willing to see the Internet becoming a controlled Authoritarian medium (as the U.N. openly and proudly promises to make it), in order to pursue their knee-jerk anti-American agenda.
The U.S. has adopted the metric system. Several times in fact!
Yes, those nasty pulses of noise are sure to disrupt the ecosystem!
Which is why the navy should do the ecologically sound thing, and let their submarines be exploded spreading nuclear material all over the ocean!
That is being a bit sensationalistic and innacruate. IBM Polish subsidiaries supplied equipment to the Nazis, who then used it to track Jews (amoung other things... the equipment could have been used to track anything). And lets remember that the people working for the subsidiaries in Poland were given "an offer they couldn't refuse". (i.e. there is no question that they and their families would have been tortured and killed if they refused to supply the Nazis with what they wanted).
To illustrate the double standard, China uses Linux based equipment to run it's police state. No-one is saying that Linus Torvolds is responsible for China oppression. (and yes, Linus Torvolds has the power to explicitly forbid the use by specific governments by changing the licence... which he has chosen not to do. And he most certainly knows that China uses Linux to facilitate oppressive policies.) The only difference is that no open-source geeks and their families are going to be tortured and killed if Linus forbid the use of Linux by China... which makes Linus far more responsible than IBM.
Once again, people blaming someone else for the oppressive policies of governments. No-one will dare blame genocide or oppression commited by governments ON GOVERNMENTS... because most people are in love with big oppressive governments in some form or another.
It depends if you stay at large chain hotels, or independent hotels.