Exactly what the difference between 1500 and 2200 nukes is?
700 nukes.
What has that really accomplished?
It distracted attention away from Honduras, the fact that what happened there was not a coup but actually the application of the rule of law (the removal by force of a wannabe dictator who illegally refused to leave office when his legal term limit had been reached), and the fact that the US president publically supported this wannabe dictator who tried, unsuccessfully and quite obviously, to illegally stay in power (that is, what he did was clearly against the laws/constitution of Honduras). A US president speaking out against the rule of law. Now you'd think that would really be newsworthy and certainly more interesting. Instead we get endless coverage about Michael Jackson and this difference between 1500 and 2200 nukes.
I bet some of them....most in fact, think they're doing a useful if thankless job of protecting society. Most of the ones I've known were pretty good people. The exceptions tend to stand out because of how much power they can wield abusively. They are, however, exceptions. To vilify an entire group of people because of the handful that are rotten is ridiculous.
No, there is one good reason why they are all painted with such a very broad brush.
A minority of them, probably a very small minority, are corrupt and do wield their power abusively. Then all of the rest pretend like they don't know that this goes on and refuse to do anything about it. I think they call that the "blue wall of silence." Those who don't stand up and try to do something about their corrupt coworkers are also part of the problem, in fact I don't know which is worse.
Considering that police officers will fearlessly engage in high-speed chases, deal with armed attackers, and otherwise bravely face many dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations, I have a hard time believing that the "blue wall of silence" goes on because they don't have the courage. They're just not cowardly people. No, I think it's more like tacit approval.
When members of the public see this going on, what are they supposed to think? Is anyone really surprised that this makes all of them look bad? You combine that with the fact that lately it's becoming trendy for officers to intimidate people who have cameras and use them out in public (I refer to countries/places where doing so is legal) and they start looking like a bunch of thugs who have something to hide. It's really a shame, because their job, their duty, is actually a noble and respectable enterprise when it's done correctly.
Don't make the mistake of assuming that textbook authors get much money from the sales. They don't. If your professors are assigning you their own books, they may be getting a bit of an ego boost, but they're not doing it for financial reasons. (And more likely, it's for the good and sufficient reason that they know the textbook will be in accord with their lesson plans.) The publishers are the ones who make almost all the money from textbook sales, and they're the ones who are constantly pushing new editions for that reason.
That's not unlike the situation with recording artists and the average record label. Still, I've yet to hear of a band that said "nah, don't promote our music, we want to be unknown and unheard-of." Also, you say "bit of ego boost" as though it were a footnote when it was the very point of what I was saying. What do you think the money represents for a lot of these folks? There are some notable exceptions but speaking generally, professors are not known for their meekness.
What you say about the publishers tells me that the order of things is backwards there. The professors and the students are their customers. When things are properly ordered, you do not dictate to your customers what they should buy, nor would they stand for it if you tried. Companies and governments have one thing in common: they exist for one and only one purpose, and that is to be our servants. That many of them have forgotten this and that we have collectively failed to (legally, reasonably) remind them does not make this less true.
When I was in school it was "Here are the homework assignments, they're only in the new version of the textbook". I'm not saying it's in any remote way logical, just that's what they do.
I assume you're talking about the college level.
It's logical alright, it's just ugly. Much of the time, that professor is the person who wrote the textbook. The one they make mandatory for their class. The one they will sell to you, for the low, low price of several times the production costs.
Sometimes what they teach is quite different from what they claim to teach. Yeah the syllabus might talk about physics, or English. The subject taught might be more like "Ok class, for today's lesson I will demonstrate what corruption is and will also touch on the incorrect use of authority. See, it's ugly isn't it? Here's what not to do."
We will look back to the beginning of the 21st Century and laugh at this Information Prohibition.
You mean just like we look now at drug/substance prohibition? The way we learned our lesson that it's never going to work no matter how hard we try because the very idea represents a total failure to comprehend the situation? The way it's a hypocritical position which has done a great deal of harm in the name of justice? I'm glad nothing like that goes on today... Oh.
It is also that the reports each build on one another, creating the false impression of growing momentum and consensus...
So it's pretty much like Global Warming Theology, then?
yea, don't you just hate it how the rising global temperatures, rising CO2 in the air and water, shrining ice caps, disappearing glaciers, increase in natural disasters, and Al Gore are all conspiring together to make us believe in global warming.
it's so frustrating...today is 21 degrees, while yesterday was 23 degrees. obviously, global warming is wrong.
I won't comment on whether global warming is caused by mankind or not. I have my opinions but I don't consider it something that I can unambiguously prove or anything like that, so to make such a statement here would be needlessly controversial and would take away from the real point I want to make. It would be about as useful as taking a position on abortion. So, I will stick to what I have no doubts about.
The politics of this issue are increasingly leading towards the taxation of carbon, typically in the form of CO2. Make no mistake about one thing: a tax on carbon is a tax on life. Whether that is the best way to handle the issue of global warming or whether alternatives are being ignored is probably the subject of much lively debate. There is one thing of which I am certain, however. That is, based on their track record with lesser powers, I do not trust the governments of the world to handle such a sweeping power that directly or indirectly affects so many things in any way that is actually in our best interests.
If the average person suddenly became aware of how much deception goes on and how many underhanded tactics are routinely and daily used to manipulate mass media, let's just say that the outrage and protesting would make the Vietnam War look like a a small uncontroversial subject.
Is that an understatement or what? Once you realize it, then watch the news after a current event, you see the media in an entirely different light. If I had mod points I would be assigning one right now.
I suspect that more and more people are increasingly waking up to this reality. It's just that if the different companies and groups who make up the mass media all have one thing in common, it's that they reinforce each other. For that reason, even if lots of people are starting to wake up, you are most definitely not going to see this fact on the prime time news.
The point of Mr. Geist' article isn't that it is a new tactic, what he has done is expose all the links between the groups and their citations. Not that any politician gives a damn but maybe he can teach a few more "citizens" about how politics works.
I don't really understand replies like this. I never claimed that there was anything new about this so you appear to be rebutting a statement that I did not make. Not trying to be rude or anything like that, just that the purpose of this reply is a genuine mystery to me.
Well of course. You don't put the time/effort/money into forming a group like that unless you have some kind of agenda. That agenda isn't necessarily nefarious or evil, but there has to be something that you're trying to investigate or achieve, and so you're probably going to favor ideas that help you toward your agenda. It's not strange to think that someone looking at the issues with a different agenda in mind will favor different ideas.
I agree with what you are saying there. There's one difference that I consider to be of the utmost importance, however. I would be fine with such groups if they openly stated "We are created and sponsored by the RIAA (or whomever) for the sole purpose of representing their interests." That's not what happened here. They wanted to maintain the illusion of some kind of neutral, dispassionate, unbiased consensus based on facts. That's something that a lot of people want to see badly enough that they are a bit too eager to believe it.
This really should be a crime. It should be a crime, the laws against which are vigorously enforced. I do not exaggerate in the slightest when I say that this is the very sort of thing that, left unchecked, can eventually destroy the freedom and well-being that we currently enjoy. Our governments and legal systems are greatly threatened when they can be gamed like this. Because of that, I personally consider this to be not unlike treason.
Slashdot is not a lobby group or think tank. It is a news aggregator. The blurbs it posts do not claim to be original work.
Not to mention that Slashdot has one very important advantage. If something is posted that is demonstrably false, anyone can post their own follow-up right there in the same forum and successfully call bullshit. The mods around here may be too trigger-happy when it comes to down-modding but they are quite good at recognizing the value of such dissent and making sure that it becomes prominent and noticable. The one-to-many, "spotlight" nature of most mass media means that there is no such ability, causing even easily debunked BS to quickly be repeated over and over again until the average person considers it something "that everybody knows."
I think that we'll need to look closer at copyright ``movements'' in other parts too. But do take a moment to savour the delicious irony. It really is quite sublime, and telling in its own right.
This is really a very small demonstration. In reality, a great deal of this goes on in many different industries. It's not unlike what you will see if you do a little research on the seemingly-unrelted topic of legally binding arbitration in that the ruling overwhelmingly favors the party paying for it in all cases where this cost is not shared equally. Anytime you ever see "a new study supports X" for any sort of remotely political or controversial topic, keep in mind two tools of free minds: "qui bono?" ("who benefits?") and "follow-the-money." Look very closely at who sponsored the study, the methodology, and what the conclusion would mean for the sponsor. Also keep in mind that many "independent groups of concerned citizens" are actually front groups for various industry lobbies, particularly those which are able to launch national media campaigns.
If the average person suddenly became aware of how much deception goes on and how many underhanded tactics are routinely and daily used to manipulate mass media, let's just say that the outrage and protesting would make the Vietnam War look like a a small uncontroversial subject.
Many people are wondering wtf would anyone use this for... and interestingly enough I was just watching a news report that was describing why ranchers out in the middle of nowhere were against the US government's upcoming law that may require them to tag and track every beef cattle during its travel from the birth canal to the slaughter house. Most ranchers said they have no way of uploading tagging and tracking data when out in the middle of their 1000 acre land, and would cause most small beef producers to go out of business because they couldn't be compliant with the law.
Their arguments were all straw-man arguments. For the one you cite, they could have scanned, then uploaded the data when they returned to the homestead. Onoe of their other arguments was that they couldn't get the cattle into a truck with one hand and hold the scanner with the other - also a straw man - you can just hang the RFID tag reader on the truck's ramp and let it read the tags as the cattle enter the truck - but a 5-cent zip tie or a strip of duct-tape is unthinkable.
Or maybe they realize that not forcing the cattle to cannibalize each other would accomplish a great deal more towards food safety (or whatever this law was supposed to accomplish) than yet another centralized database tracking system?
Incidentally, there's a reason that there's such a high cap on punitive damages in infringement cases. If that weren't the case, large companies could attempt for-profit infringement, and even if they did get caught and had to pay damages based on actual damage, those fines would be largely covered by the profit made infringing!
True, though that's why this is unjust. It's unjust because there is a staggering difference between commercial for-profit infringement and what Thomas has done. Measures intended to deter the former should never be used against the latter. It is my belief that it would be better for the RIAA and all of its member companies to go bankrupt than for our legal system to be perverted and used as a tool of revenge in this way.
Incidentally, since when did our justice system start caring about making sure that commercial lawbreaking is not profitable? They certainly don't seem to care about this for antitrust cases...
I'll put that an other way. One cannot work towards rejecting the influences of advertising. One can only work towards the acceptance of self. After which, rejecting advertising is like the steam that rises from the Yogis bodies.
Sometimes eloquence comes easily for me, and sometimes I have to really work for that, though it is a joyful work. The key to understanding why you and I are giving two different descriptions of the same thing is when I wrote this: "To see with clarity it is to reject it."
Anyone who is on a path of personal growth and advancement must necessarily learn, understand, and accept the self. What they will find is something really quite amazing, which is that "self" is far greater than they ever dared to imagine it was and that this is true for every human being. What I consider to be the true path means that truly seeing this gives you the power to have love and compassion for all human beings.
What I really intended to convey was that advertising works because of ignorance, or as you (equally accurately) seem to put it, because of personal shortcomings. What I meant to describe was not merely a conscious act of choosing to reject. It was more like the realization that you don't want the influence of the manipulators any more than you would want to drink poison. I'm not making a conscious choice not to drink poison, as though it were something I had to consider. Rather, drinking poison does not remotely appeal to me because I can clearly understand what would happen and why this would be wrong. I am consciously aware of this, but that does not mean that it was a real decision between two equally viable options.
A person who did not know that skull-and-crossbones means "deadly poison" might mistake the liquid in the bottle for a refreshing beverage. Likewise, the average person can probably rattle off a decent intellectual definition of "manipulation" and I do not doubt it would not be far from what the dictionary says. That, unfortunately, does not mean that they really understand what it is or how it works. If they had real understanding, they would perceive advertising as catering to weaknesses that they do not possess and would have no doubt that it was an attempt to control.
You and I are very much alike in the spirit of this discussion. I admit I may have made a poor choice of semantics, and I value your willingness to point this out. I'm not merely saying that -- this is how I learn to do a better job of sharing what I have been blessed with. The problem is that the concept itself is childishly simple but explaining it to someone who lacks the foundation of understanding is decidedly non-trivial.
I would say that rejecting it "wholly and properly" does mean becoming aware of the pushed intent, but it also means that that pushed energy finds no purchase, not that you resist the grip it finds.
That's what I really meant by "to see it clearly is to reject it." That is, anyone who could see it clearly would have no footholds that could let that pushed energy find purchase.
I want you to know one other thing. I am so grateful that I am hearing more and more from people like you who understand that this is about energy and consciousness. This is a true delight for me and I do not doubt that you know how ineffably valuable that higher awareness is. I regret having to so often explain this in mundane terms of technique and application as I find it quite unsatisfying, though it is often necessary because of what the Buddhists call "skillful means." In the face of that, you sir have provided a breath of fresh air.
These days, "conspiracy-theory" means "acknowledge that there is such a thing as long-term strategy." It can also be synonymous with "acknowledge that large organizations always act to further their own interests."
This has far more visibility than I think the RIAA wanted. They may claim to be all about 'educating the public', but we know that's not the case:
When a monied interests talks about "educating" anyone, you can be sure of one thing: they are using the definition of "educated" where "you are 'educated' if you agree with me."
Can we say bad analogy? I see no parallel between those two cases except that Exxon and Thomas are both being defendants.
I don't know for sure what the GP was saying. However, rather than balk at this, I will apply just a tiny bit of common sense and see where that takes me.
Assuming that punitive damages were awarded agains Exxon and that Exxon argued that those damages were excessive and therefore unconstitutional, perhaps Thomas could make a similar argument. I am "assuming" that because there is no other way that the GP's statement could make any sense, therefore it must obviously be what he meant.
Having established the strong likelihood of that, the question now is whether Thomas is some kind of special case that can't use those arguments.
Just remember "To see it partially or to fail to see it clearly is to be influenced by it", and if you believe that you can see everything clearly 100% of the time, you're really just fooling yourself.
So ah, who told you that? A marketer? I say this with no intention of causing offense: I think your confusion on this is great, and so if you will please have some patience with me, I will explain the same thing a few different ways and hope that one of them is readily accessible to you.
You don't need to see everything clearly. You just need to see yourself clearly (that's only one thing; let "everything" take care of itself). When you can do that, then instead of feeling that something affected you, you feel that something is TRYING to affect you. You can then look at how it is trying to affect you and whether this differs from its stated purpose. You cannot possibly be tempted by these attempts at emotional manipulation when you can see them for what they are. You might be disgusted that someone really believed they could toy with you like that, or that they don't see anything wrong with what they are doing, or that it works so well on so many artificially dull people, but no one who can see this process is actually tempted by it. All of this occurs in a split second, and there's no magic here and no impossibly high standard. It's really quite a natural thing.
The ability I am talking about is a natural brightness. I believe each person is born with it and that most people lose it at a young age because this culture neither appreciates it nor finds it convenient, preferring instead to snuff it out with emotional trauma or socialize it away with indoctrination of some form or another. That's a shame, because a culture built on it would be much happier. You have to understand that most would find this natural brightness quite inconvenient because it would want to point out the many hypocrisies and control games that are the foundation of much of our culture. It would want to do that rather than be "socialized by" them and "well-adjusted to" them. I personally believe that the purpose of public schooling is to remove this natural brightness so that the individuals in question become good obedient little citizens with a strong group identity who don't question too much and don't cause trouble, and that any education received is entirely secondary. If you think that's absurd or unthinkable merely because it is so horrible, then let us agree to disagree.
I'll say this another way that doesn't require explaining something that is so difficult to explain. The techniques of advertisers, as well as anyone else who wants to manipulate you, do not occur in isolation. They are part of a system of manipulation. If you yourself enjoy having undue influence and power over others, then you are going to believe deep down that this system of manipulation is valid. You are going to believe in it. That means you yourself are also going to be vulnerable to it, especially if that person is more skilled at playing this game than you are. If, however, you recognize that there is something gravely wrong with this, that such undue power and influence over others is corrupting and is not good for you to have, then you can no longer believe that this system is valid. When you no longer believe in this system, you realize that your participation in it was voluntary. You also realize that when you no longer participate in it, its techniques are no longer effective on you. That is, you don't believe in them. Rather than go along with the other person and accept their influence at face value, as though being common made it normal, you instead see what they are trying to do. You see it directly and immediately, and seeing what they are doing takes all of the effectiveness out of it.
So, again, I am not doing anything magical here. It is not some impossibly high standard that's unreasonable to expect others to meet. The standard "page out of the play
Or, because the advert passes into your brain at only a subconscious level, it's more powerful than it ever has been before.
Nah. I know it's radical and not terribly popular these days, but it's called "being your own person." There's this thing that goes along with that, known as "making your own decisions."
Does that sound like a bunch of sarcasm? I'm sure it does. It's still the truth. Maybe someone else would have put that in a more palatable way for you, but I was handy, so there you go. Most of advertising is so effective because people are willing to consult anything except for their own reasoning when it comes to making their purchasing decisions.
Really though. If you are that easily influenced by rather blatant attempts to tell you what you should do, how you should feel, what you should think, and what you should buy, then you most definitely are not your own person no matter how badly you would like to believe that you are in fact living your own life. Seriously. It's not difficult at all to see the manipulative nature of all advertisements. To see with clarity it is to reject it. To see it partially or to fail to see it clearly is to be influenced by it, mostly by allowing it to provoke an (intentional, pre-planned) emotional reaction. Rejecting it wholly and properly means that you become conscious of what would otherwise be subconscious influence.
I'll say this with no regard to the (entirely voluntary on the part of the offended) "offense" it may cause to those who don't measure up: the mark of a person who has any sort of personal advancement whatsoever is that these "subconscious" cues increasingly become conscious decisions. What, did you think the (advertising-driven) media was going to explain that to you?
I'll put that another way. If Yogis can go to extreme, sub-zero mountainous regions wearing minimal clothing, and consciously control their body heat output to the point that they can fully dry soaking wet, freezing-cold cloths multiple times a night (because their alternative is freezing to death), then you can be your own person and become aware of subconscious influences and reject them.
Slashdot Mirror
700 nukes.
It distracted attention away from Honduras, the fact that what happened there was not a coup but actually the application of the rule of law (the removal by force of a wannabe dictator who illegally refused to leave office when his legal term limit had been reached), and the fact that the US president publically supported this wannabe dictator who tried, unsuccessfully and quite obviously, to illegally stay in power (that is, what he did was clearly against the laws/constitution of Honduras). A US president speaking out against the rule of law. Now you'd think that would really be newsworthy and certainly more interesting. Instead we get endless coverage about Michael Jackson and this difference between 1500 and 2200 nukes.
What does he have to do with this?
I bet some of them....most in fact, think they're doing a useful if thankless job of protecting society. Most of the ones I've known were pretty good people. The exceptions tend to stand out because of how much power they can wield abusively. They are, however, exceptions. To vilify an entire group of people because of the handful that are rotten is ridiculous.
No, there is one good reason why they are all painted with such a very broad brush.
A minority of them, probably a very small minority, are corrupt and do wield their power abusively. Then all of the rest pretend like they don't know that this goes on and refuse to do anything about it. I think they call that the "blue wall of silence." Those who don't stand up and try to do something about their corrupt coworkers are also part of the problem, in fact I don't know which is worse.
Considering that police officers will fearlessly engage in high-speed chases, deal with armed attackers, and otherwise bravely face many dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations, I have a hard time believing that the "blue wall of silence" goes on because they don't have the courage. They're just not cowardly people. No, I think it's more like tacit approval.
When members of the public see this going on, what are they supposed to think? Is anyone really surprised that this makes all of them look bad? You combine that with the fact that lately it's becoming trendy for officers to intimidate people who have cameras and use them out in public (I refer to countries/places where doing so is legal) and they start looking like a bunch of thugs who have something to hide. It's really a shame, because their job, their duty, is actually a noble and respectable enterprise when it's done correctly.
You had an array hooked up to what? So, do irate, urinating government agents make good RAID controllers?
Don't make the mistake of assuming that textbook authors get much money from the sales. They don't. If your professors are assigning you their own books, they may be getting a bit of an ego boost, but they're not doing it for financial reasons. (And more likely, it's for the good and sufficient reason that they know the textbook will be in accord with their lesson plans.) The publishers are the ones who make almost all the money from textbook sales, and they're the ones who are constantly pushing new editions for that reason.
That's not unlike the situation with recording artists and the average record label. Still, I've yet to hear of a band that said "nah, don't promote our music, we want to be unknown and unheard-of." Also, you say "bit of ego boost" as though it were a footnote when it was the very point of what I was saying. What do you think the money represents for a lot of these folks? There are some notable exceptions but speaking generally, professors are not known for their meekness.
What you say about the publishers tells me that the order of things is backwards there. The professors and the students are their customers. When things are properly ordered, you do not dictate to your customers what they should buy, nor would they stand for it if you tried. Companies and governments have one thing in common: they exist for one and only one purpose, and that is to be our servants. That many of them have forgotten this and that we have collectively failed to (legally, reasonably) remind them does not make this less true.
When I was in school it was "Here are the homework assignments, they're only in the new version of the textbook". I'm not saying it's in any remote way logical, just that's what they do.
I assume you're talking about the college level.
It's logical alright, it's just ugly. Much of the time, that professor is the person who wrote the textbook. The one they make mandatory for their class. The one they will sell to you, for the low, low price of several times the production costs.
Sometimes what they teach is quite different from what they claim to teach. Yeah the syllabus might talk about physics, or English. The subject taught might be more like "Ok class, for today's lesson I will demonstrate what corruption is and will also touch on the incorrect use of authority. See, it's ugly isn't it? Here's what not to do."
You mean just like we look now at drug/substance prohibition? The way we learned our lesson that it's never going to work no matter how hard we try because the very idea represents a total failure to comprehend the situation? The way it's a hypocritical position which has done a great deal of harm in the name of justice? I'm glad nothing like that goes on today... Oh.
Wow...almost nothing but offtopic and redundant posts so far.
Well, this is /. What do you expect?
Natalie Portman and hot grits.
It is also that the reports each build on one another, creating the false impression of growing momentum and consensus...
So it's pretty much like Global Warming Theology, then?
yea, don't you just hate it how the rising global temperatures, rising CO2 in the air and water, shrining ice caps, disappearing glaciers, increase in natural disasters, and Al Gore are all conspiring together to make us believe in global warming.
it's so frustrating...today is 21 degrees, while yesterday was 23 degrees. obviously, global warming is wrong.
I won't comment on whether global warming is caused by mankind or not. I have my opinions but I don't consider it something that I can unambiguously prove or anything like that, so to make such a statement here would be needlessly controversial and would take away from the real point I want to make. It would be about as useful as taking a position on abortion. So, I will stick to what I have no doubts about.
The politics of this issue are increasingly leading towards the taxation of carbon, typically in the form of CO2. Make no mistake about one thing: a tax on carbon is a tax on life. Whether that is the best way to handle the issue of global warming or whether alternatives are being ignored is probably the subject of much lively debate. There is one thing of which I am certain, however. That is, based on their track record with lesser powers, I do not trust the governments of the world to handle such a sweeping power that directly or indirectly affects so many things in any way that is actually in our best interests.
If the average person suddenly became aware of how much deception goes on and how many underhanded tactics are routinely and daily used to manipulate mass media, let's just say that the outrage and protesting would make the Vietnam War look like a a small uncontroversial subject.
Is that an understatement or what? Once you realize it, then watch the news after a current event, you see the media in an entirely different light. If I had mod points I would be assigning one right now.
I suspect that more and more people are increasingly waking up to this reality. It's just that if the different companies and groups who make up the mass media all have one thing in common, it's that they reinforce each other. For that reason, even if lots of people are starting to wake up, you are most definitely not going to see this fact on the prime time news.
The point of Mr. Geist' article isn't that it is a new tactic, what he has done is expose all the links between the groups and their citations. Not that any politician gives a damn but maybe he can teach a few more "citizens" about how politics works.
I don't really understand replies like this. I never claimed that there was anything new about this so you appear to be rebutting a statement that I did not make. Not trying to be rude or anything like that, just that the purpose of this reply is a genuine mystery to me.
I agree with what you are saying there. There's one difference that I consider to be of the utmost importance, however. I would be fine with such groups if they openly stated "We are created and sponsored by the RIAA (or whomever) for the sole purpose of representing their interests." That's not what happened here. They wanted to maintain the illusion of some kind of neutral, dispassionate, unbiased consensus based on facts. That's something that a lot of people want to see badly enough that they are a bit too eager to believe it.
This really should be a crime. It should be a crime, the laws against which are vigorously enforced. I do not exaggerate in the slightest when I say that this is the very sort of thing that, left unchecked, can eventually destroy the freedom and well-being that we currently enjoy. Our governments and legal systems are greatly threatened when they can be gamed like this. Because of that, I personally consider this to be not unlike treason.
Not to mention that Slashdot has one very important advantage. If something is posted that is demonstrably false, anyone can post their own follow-up right there in the same forum and successfully call bullshit. The mods around here may be too trigger-happy when it comes to down-modding but they are quite good at recognizing the value of such dissent and making sure that it becomes prominent and noticable. The one-to-many, "spotlight" nature of most mass media means that there is no such ability, causing even easily debunked BS to quickly be repeated over and over again until the average person considers it something "that everybody knows."
I think that we'll need to look closer at copyright ``movements'' in other parts too. But do take a moment to savour the delicious irony. It really is quite sublime, and telling in its own right.
This is really a very small demonstration. In reality, a great deal of this goes on in many different industries. It's not unlike what you will see if you do a little research on the seemingly-unrelted topic of legally binding arbitration in that the ruling overwhelmingly favors the party paying for it in all cases where this cost is not shared equally. Anytime you ever see "a new study supports X" for any sort of remotely political or controversial topic, keep in mind two tools of free minds: "qui bono?" ("who benefits?") and "follow-the-money." Look very closely at who sponsored the study, the methodology, and what the conclusion would mean for the sponsor. Also keep in mind that many "independent groups of concerned citizens" are actually front groups for various industry lobbies, particularly those which are able to launch national media campaigns.
If the average person suddenly became aware of how much deception goes on and how many underhanded tactics are routinely and daily used to manipulate mass media, let's just say that the outrage and protesting would make the Vietnam War look like a a small uncontroversial subject.
Their arguments were all straw-man arguments. For the one you cite, they could have scanned, then uploaded the data when they returned to the homestead. Onoe of their other arguments was that they couldn't get the cattle into a truck with one hand and hold the scanner with the other - also a straw man - you can just hang the RFID tag reader on the truck's ramp and let it read the tags as the cattle enter the truck - but a 5-cent zip tie or a strip of duct-tape is unthinkable.
Or maybe they realize that not forcing the cattle to cannibalize each other would accomplish a great deal more towards food safety (or whatever this law was supposed to accomplish) than yet another centralized database tracking system?
True, though that's why this is unjust. It's unjust because there is a staggering difference between commercial for-profit infringement and what Thomas has done. Measures intended to deter the former should never be used against the latter. It is my belief that it would be better for the RIAA and all of its member companies to go bankrupt than for our legal system to be perverted and used as a tool of revenge in this way.
Incidentally, since when did our justice system start caring about making sure that commercial lawbreaking is not profitable? They certainly don't seem to care about this for antitrust cases...
Sometimes eloquence comes easily for me, and sometimes I have to really work for that, though it is a joyful work. The key to understanding why you and I are giving two different descriptions of the same thing is when I wrote this: "To see with clarity it is to reject it."
Anyone who is on a path of personal growth and advancement must necessarily learn, understand, and accept the self. What they will find is something really quite amazing, which is that "self" is far greater than they ever dared to imagine it was and that this is true for every human being. What I consider to be the true path means that truly seeing this gives you the power to have love and compassion for all human beings.
What I really intended to convey was that advertising works because of ignorance, or as you (equally accurately) seem to put it, because of personal shortcomings. What I meant to describe was not merely a conscious act of choosing to reject. It was more like the realization that you don't want the influence of the manipulators any more than you would want to drink poison. I'm not making a conscious choice not to drink poison, as though it were something I had to consider. Rather, drinking poison does not remotely appeal to me because I can clearly understand what would happen and why this would be wrong. I am consciously aware of this, but that does not mean that it was a real decision between two equally viable options.
A person who did not know that skull-and-crossbones means "deadly poison" might mistake the liquid in the bottle for a refreshing beverage. Likewise, the average person can probably rattle off a decent intellectual definition of "manipulation" and I do not doubt it would not be far from what the dictionary says. That, unfortunately, does not mean that they really understand what it is or how it works. If they had real understanding, they would perceive advertising as catering to weaknesses that they do not possess and would have no doubt that it was an attempt to control.
You and I are very much alike in the spirit of this discussion. I admit I may have made a poor choice of semantics, and I value your willingness to point this out. I'm not merely saying that -- this is how I learn to do a better job of sharing what I have been blessed with. The problem is that the concept itself is childishly simple but explaining it to someone who lacks the foundation of understanding is decidedly non-trivial.
That's what I really meant by "to see it clearly is to reject it." That is, anyone who could see it clearly would have no footholds that could let that pushed energy find purchase.
I want you to know one other thing. I am so grateful that I am hearing more and more from people like you who understand that this is about energy and consciousness. This is a true delight for me and I do not doubt that you know how ineffably valuable that higher awareness is. I regret having to so often explain this in mundane terms of technique and application as I find it quite unsatisfying, though it is often necessary because of what the Buddhists call "skillful means." In the face of that, you sir have provided a breath of fresh air.
These days, "conspiracy-theory" means "acknowledge that there is such a thing as long-term strategy." It can also be synonymous with "acknowledge that large organizations always act to further their own interests."
When a monied interests talks about "educating" anyone, you can be sure of one thing: they are using the definition of "educated" where "you are 'educated' if you agree with me."
Can we say bad analogy? I see no parallel between those two cases except that Exxon and Thomas are both being defendants.
I don't know for sure what the GP was saying. However, rather than balk at this, I will apply just a tiny bit of common sense and see where that takes me.
Assuming that punitive damages were awarded agains Exxon and that Exxon argued that those damages were excessive and therefore unconstitutional, perhaps Thomas could make a similar argument. I am "assuming" that because there is no other way that the GP's statement could make any sense, therefore it must obviously be what he meant.
Having established the strong likelihood of that, the question now is whether Thomas is some kind of special case that can't use those arguments.
How original! Just kiddin'.
Really though, the man was a fuckin' genius.
Just remember "To see it partially or to fail to see it clearly is to be influenced by it", and if you believe that you can see everything clearly 100% of the time, you're really just fooling yourself.
So ah, who told you that? A marketer? I say this with no intention of causing offense: I think your confusion on this is great, and so if you will please have some patience with me, I will explain the same thing a few different ways and hope that one of them is readily accessible to you.
You don't need to see everything clearly. You just need to see yourself clearly (that's only one thing; let "everything" take care of itself). When you can do that, then instead of feeling that something affected you, you feel that something is TRYING to affect you. You can then look at how it is trying to affect you and whether this differs from its stated purpose. You cannot possibly be tempted by these attempts at emotional manipulation when you can see them for what they are. You might be disgusted that someone really believed they could toy with you like that, or that they don't see anything wrong with what they are doing, or that it works so well on so many artificially dull people, but no one who can see this process is actually tempted by it. All of this occurs in a split second, and there's no magic here and no impossibly high standard. It's really quite a natural thing.
The ability I am talking about is a natural brightness. I believe each person is born with it and that most people lose it at a young age because this culture neither appreciates it nor finds it convenient, preferring instead to snuff it out with emotional trauma or socialize it away with indoctrination of some form or another. That's a shame, because a culture built on it would be much happier. You have to understand that most would find this natural brightness quite inconvenient because it would want to point out the many hypocrisies and control games that are the foundation of much of our culture. It would want to do that rather than be "socialized by" them and "well-adjusted to" them. I personally believe that the purpose of public schooling is to remove this natural brightness so that the individuals in question become good obedient little citizens with a strong group identity who don't question too much and don't cause trouble, and that any education received is entirely secondary. If you think that's absurd or unthinkable merely because it is so horrible, then let us agree to disagree.
I'll say this another way that doesn't require explaining something that is so difficult to explain. The techniques of advertisers, as well as anyone else who wants to manipulate you, do not occur in isolation. They are part of a system of manipulation. If you yourself enjoy having undue influence and power over others, then you are going to believe deep down that this system of manipulation is valid. You are going to believe in it. That means you yourself are also going to be vulnerable to it, especially if that person is more skilled at playing this game than you are. If, however, you recognize that there is something gravely wrong with this, that such undue power and influence over others is corrupting and is not good for you to have, then you can no longer believe that this system is valid. When you no longer believe in this system, you realize that your participation in it was voluntary. You also realize that when you no longer participate in it, its techniques are no longer effective on you. That is, you don't believe in them. Rather than go along with the other person and accept their influence at face value, as though being common made it normal, you instead see what they are trying to do. You see it directly and immediately, and seeing what they are doing takes all of the effectiveness out of it.
So, again, I am not doing anything magical here. It is not some impossibly high standard that's unreasonable to expect others to meet. The standard "page out of the play
Can I just patent "The use of a government system that was a good idea in planning until it got misconstrued by greed."
No, they can't let you personally own most of the world ...
Just like police testimony in general!
Nah, that tends to be made up ABOUT a substance.
Or, because the advert passes into your brain at only a subconscious level, it's more powerful than it ever has been before.
Nah. I know it's radical and not terribly popular these days, but it's called "being your own person." There's this thing that goes along with that, known as "making your own decisions."
Does that sound like a bunch of sarcasm? I'm sure it does. It's still the truth. Maybe someone else would have put that in a more palatable way for you, but I was handy, so there you go. Most of advertising is so effective because people are willing to consult anything except for their own reasoning when it comes to making their purchasing decisions.
Really though. If you are that easily influenced by rather blatant attempts to tell you what you should do, how you should feel, what you should think, and what you should buy, then you most definitely are not your own person no matter how badly you would like to believe that you are in fact living your own life. Seriously. It's not difficult at all to see the manipulative nature of all advertisements. To see with clarity it is to reject it. To see it partially or to fail to see it clearly is to be influenced by it, mostly by allowing it to provoke an (intentional, pre-planned) emotional reaction. Rejecting it wholly and properly means that you become conscious of what would otherwise be subconscious influence.
I'll say this with no regard to the (entirely voluntary on the part of the offended) "offense" it may cause to those who don't measure up: the mark of a person who has any sort of personal advancement whatsoever is that these "subconscious" cues increasingly become conscious decisions. What, did you think the (advertising-driven) media was going to explain that to you?
I'll put that another way. If Yogis can go to extreme, sub-zero mountainous regions wearing minimal clothing, and consciously control their body heat output to the point that they can fully dry soaking wet, freezing-cold cloths multiple times a night (because their alternative is freezing to death), then you can be your own person and become aware of subconscious influences and reject them.