If you object to all DRM on principle - well, good luck with that.
If it worked I would consider the subject debatable. The piracy groups do love a challenge.
DRM simply punishes paying customers for what the pirates do and that's why it's fundamentally unjust. The failure to understand that is similar to the failure certain naive people have when it comes to understanding that criminals willing to commit murder don't obey gun control laws. I know what they want. They want to create a system or make a law and have everyone fall in line. That's the fantasy. But it is only a fantasy.
f you object to DRM in a specific product because you feel it's flawed in some way, that's a consumer decision and difference consumers will have difering values.
Yes, relativism is a handy tool to keep in your belt. It helps you avoid actually taking a position on something yourself. Personally I have no use for that, but it seems popular. I guess people think it's agreeable and easy-going and that appeals to their desire to avoid friction. The problem, of course, is simple: pointing out that different people have different preferences is useless. It's a given.
Rootkits cross the line, however, and should be flat-out illegal.
When most DRM systems are cracked within days (if not hours) of the game being released, rootkits and other methods of escalating the arms race are inevitable. If you think DRM is fine and good you have to accept that, like everything else in this world, it wants to grow and expand and become more so. DRM becoming more intrusive and invasive over time is as inevitable as government growing bigger and more dictatorial with time. The difference is, living without DRM is much easier.
DRM is all about assuming your own customers are acting in bad faith. It's all about assuming this whether or not there is evidence to support it -- they are guilty until proven innocent so you must lock down and exert control in an attempt to stop them. It is in the nature of DRM to become more draconian. The result is that paying customers often have more problems than the pirates. That's bass ackwards from how it should be.
Illegal or not, if enough people vote for it with their wallets they are sending the message, in the strongest possible terms, that companies should keep doing this. If average customers don't have enough of a spine to say "I don't care how great the game is, if you put this kind of DRM in it I will not buy it" then you wouldn't need to involve criminal laws. But you see, their shiny is more precious than not being abused. You just can't have that kind of character weakness and expect that no company will exploit it. It's like putting millions of dollars worth of diamonds in a vehicle, rolling down the windows and unlocking the doors, leaving it unattended for long periods of time, putting a huge illuminated sign saying "there is no camera and no alarm guarding this car!" and then acting shocked and amazed when someone steals the diamonds. Sure, theft is wrong, but you should have seen that one coming.
Getting the law involved is in fact dangerous -- these days, it's 50/50 whether it would be made illegal, or whether it would be specifically allowed as a natural extension to the DMCA and ACTA.
The Diablo3 DRM doesn't bother me because I just assume Blizzard bans people at random (but with low frequency), and evaluate the product on that basis. If a Blizzard game can't justify it's price within a couple weeks of gameplay, I'll give it a miss.
Unless you are among the pirates, then by the time you make that determination they have already received your money. Personally, I wouldn't patronize a company that bans innocent users at random, just like I wouldn't shop at a store that refused to serve black people. But like I said, I have principles.
So do you actually install it as a different user, or do you just feel warm and fuzzy that they can't modify your system, even though most of what you probably care about exists within your user account?
Even if you install it as a different user, you would need to log out of your main account every time (or, I suppose, run a secondary X server) as the rights required to display to your X server pretty much give full access to your account.
My own setup has a user account specifically dedicated to Wine. This user doesn't run anything else. That user has no network access at all because of iptables. There is a PAM module that gives this user access to draw on the X display when I switch to it (Gentoo does this by default; on most Debian-derived distros you have to configure PAM with a one-liner in/etc/pam.d/su -- add "session optional pam_xauth.so" to that text file).
I use a Gentoo Hardened system so I place extra restrictions on it. The Wine user cannot see processes of any other user and the permissions on anything outside of its home directory are quite restrictive. Back when I played WoW (and had to allow network access, but only just what it needed), it would scan the running processes as an anti-cheating measure; on this system it would see only itself and a couple of Wine processes. On a normal Linux system, any user can view every user's running processes. Also, Wine is compiled with SSP and has NX and other hardening features applied to it.
That's not an exhaustive list but it covers the main steps I took. You can probably gather that I don't trust binary Windows programs.
If they're happy, either we aren't doing a good job making our point, or it really doesn't matter to them.
It's like losing freedom or any other kind of proverbial "frog soup" situation. Restrictions are added and each one seems harmless enough. Eventually a tipping point is reached where the sum total of these incremental restrictions is much worse than you bargained for. The problem of course is that early on was the time to do something about it.
That's the problem with so many people valuing convenience more than principle. They won't take action until their backs are against the wall, but by that time they've lost most of their room to maneuver.
The big issue with many modern desktops including Gnome and Win8 is they are hell bent on chasing the "dumb it down! dumb it all down! moaarrr dumber!!" crowd. Ripping out power user functionality, removing configurability, and generally making it about as annoying to use for proficient users as possible.
For some reason stagnation is expected in computing, even when this is rare elsewhere. I call them "permanant noobs".
When you got your first bicycle and used it with training wheels, no one expected that you would still use those training wheels years later. When you got your learner's permit, it was expected that this was a stepping stone you would use to ultimatley gain enough skill to get your own proper driver's license. No one actually expected that these early learning stages would or should be permanent.
The "dumb it down" mentality with computing is the assumption that the early learning stages should be sanctified and made permanent, that they are some kind of perfect ideal, that it's not reasonable to ever expect a user's skill to grow with time. Sure, some users have more aptitude than others, some learn faster than others, but the "dumb it down" idea throws all of that out and assumes no one should ever learn anything.
It's like anything else. It grows if you feed it. It shrinks if you starve it. The constant feeding of it in mainstream thought has led to users who can operate a computer for 5+ years and still know nothing more about it than when they started. They get frustrated at the same problems that frustrated them five years ago because they have not learned anything. They demand overly-simplified interfaces and balk at the slightest investment of learning (and even then, nothing major, just paying attention and picking up facts here and there with experience would make a big difference).
It's standard penny-wise, dollar-stupid thinking. It's saving a slight effort in the short term in order to screw oneself in the long term. An intermediate user with an interface that presents the available options in an intelligent way has a much better experience than any user with an interface built on the assumption that you're an idiot. But the concept of making an investment is alien to this mentality. It's by no means limited to computing. You see it in corporations all the time, where everything is all about this quarter's earnings even when this leads to long-term sustainability problems.
should further clarify, harassment is bad, my personal belief is that for the most part this should be a business issue and not a legal issue, that being said, sexual harassment is out of control and you must walk on egg shells.
The problem is, it's one of the few areas of law where it seems that the accused is guilty until proven innocent. A mere allegation can cause untold amounts of grief even if there is little or no evidence. It's the kind of power that is easily abused.
So you work with a bunch of unprofessional animals?
No...sounds like a typical group of guys that have been working together for a long period of time, without having to artificially censor themselves, or walk on eggshells in how they naturally converse with each other within the group.
Pretty common to all male working groups....
I have no idea why you were modded Troll except that a lot of moderators reject the concept of objectivity.
What you're saying is generally true. I've been at places where it was mostly men, at least in my particular department. There, where you were determined what was permissible. If you're in a back room, with all men, with other co-workers you know well, with whom you have a strong rapport, then it was more relaxed environment and no one was sensitive about mere words. You could even make fun of others and they'd genuinely think it was funny if you were creative and witty about it. Nothing was taken too personally and no one acted with malice. It was just "guy talk". If anything, it helped us to have some fun and relieve some of the stress from deadlines and such.
In that same place, though, if we had clients, upper management visiting from out of town, or something like that, we were much more careful about what we said. When you don't personally know everyone involved then you fall back to something impersonal, like basic sterile professional conduct. It's not as fun and not as relaxed but at some point you have to look out for yourself. It's unwise to assume that someone you just met is going to have the same sense of humor as the people you know well, especially if they're a conservative ("uptight" if you like) bigwig who could fire you on the spot. That's just asking for trouble in today's environment.
It's the kind of thing that really should be common sense, but a lot of people seem to get into easily-preventable trouble.
This man's coworkers probably just think they're having good clean fun and that they're "keeping it real" in the face of what they feel to be phony soul-tarnishing political correctness.
Well to hell with their "realness" and their "feelings". Their attitude is pathetic.
However, it's hard to really walk in another's shoes sometimes.
Which is why the far easier route of adhering to a accepted standard of maturity and professionalism is the way to go. Don't harass people. Don't have your "fun" at the expense of someone else's ability to their job without unwanted and needless distraction.
I generally agree with you but I want to approach the other side of this coin. Honestly, if I got bent out of shape and wanted to punish or othewise harm (and let's be clear, destroying someone's career is definitely "harm") someone merely for saying something I didn't like, when I knew it was not a personal attack aimed at me, well, at that point I would stop considering myself a mature adult. That's partly because I truly do believe in free speech, as a principle and not just as a legal concept, and partly because I don't consider emotionally volatile, easily offended people to be actual adults.
Maturity works both ways. Hellfire, brimstone, and a ruthless vindictiveness for the slightest thing you don't like isn't terribly mature either. Now if you're talking about actual harassment with malicious intent, by all means, fire their ass. The key there is malice. But if I happen to overhear something R-rated that has nothing to do with me and isn't intended against me, I'm happy to let that go. That's what I would want them to do if the roles were ever reversed.
The one problem I've seen is that the person who feels like it it was over the line is afraid to say so.
Standing up for yourself in a constructive, useful manner has never been 100% free of effort. It has always required at least a little guts. That's why people with even a little decency will respect that you have standards.
If that person is afraid to be honest, he or she will find that it is more than worthwhile to work through that fear. It will positively impact almost all areas of life that relate to dealing with people, not just the workplace. Being a doormat is not healthy. It's bad for the doormat to get trampled and it's bad for the trampler to get used to having such behavior tolerated.
Because, like it or not, there are going to be more women in the IT workplace in the future, not less. Our society is becoming more integrated, which is a good thing! Step back for a minute, look at what you just said, only replace 'female' with 'black' or 'irish' or 'peasant' and 'male' with 'white' or 'British' or 'noble'.
"Why should the group have to change for one new incommer?" Because it's the right thing to do, even if it's inconvenient and doesn't go smoothly.
It's easy to advocate such changes when you personally do not have to bear their burden.
If you want more integration, there needs to be an atmosphere of tolerance and benefit of doubt on all sides. If the newcomer is going to scream about every little PG-rated comment, it's not likely to work. If the existing group is not going to be welcoming and inclusive of the newcomer, it's not likely to work. It's a give-and-take. That's what makes it go more smoothly.
Give-and-take breaks down when the newcomer says "I have $GROUP_IDENTITY so all of you will bow down and adapt to suit MY wishes, or else!" Honestly, I have been the new guy in several different work environments and I accepted that I was joining up with them, not the other way around. Once we got to know each other a little better it went quite well, partly because I did not insist that everyone else must be just like me. Likewise, they didn't insist I must be just like them. The result was trust and respect instead of a "walking on eggshells" environment that no one really wants.
Part of trust and respect means you can like the person even if you don't like every opinion they have or decision they make. The only really important component is that you can see the other person bears no malice, which is the difference between dissent and attack. It really can be this simple, at least when people are mature enough not to look for ways to control other people. Anyone who thinks they must fully agree with every opinion, belief, statement, and decision someone makes before they can treat them with respect and work as a team is simply not mature enough to be regarded as an adult.
"Diversity" should mean something more than people who cosmetically look different. How much of a tan you have and how permanent it is means nothing to me either way -- we're all just homo sapiens sapiens. That you might see something I don't see or think of something that didn't occur to me, now that's valuable.
And they don't trust you not to abuse the anonymity. Seems fair to me. Seriously.
Let's see. On the anonynimity side we have potential consequences like someone reading a comment and getting offended (oh noes!). A whole lot of this going on with no moderation system at all would harm the utility of the forum.
On the real-name side, we have potential consequences like facilitating identity theft, real-world harassment and intimidation, and lovely fun things like employers denying you a job for some throw-away comment you made and forgot about 15 years ago. Funny thing about that, if you knew every detail of their life you could most definitely find something nasty someone has said or done and use that to deny them almost anything. Humans are like that. Or there'd just be a constant chilling effect where you'd never say anything that could ever be twisted around in any possible way, by unknown parties at an unknown future time, which would also harm the utility of the forum.
Google is being selfish by choosing potential real-world harm to their users over the slight inconvenience of coming up with a moderation system. I find companies often make decisions like this, so long as it will not be they who bear the cost of it. If you're a fan of that kind of decision-making, then you'll have no problem paying my bills this month, right?
Go. Read a thread on YouTube. That is worth your time?
Its not about being offended. Its about wasting your time on noise without signal.
Get off my high horse? Get off yours. You didnt even listen to what I said. You had some holier than thou response all picked out that doesn't even address my point.
When I described the easily offended in the penultimate paragraph of my last post, I was describing the main reason so many people support some kind of censorship or moderation. I did not imagine that anything I said there applied to you. I was merely explaining my own preferences, just as you explained your preference for some kind of quality control (moderation or whatever system you think will work).
If you are in fact among the easily offended, well then you have cause to rejoice, for I just told you the truth of the matter. Now you can question the socially patterned, programmed response you've been taught to imitate. See for yourself that it makes no sense. Unless of course "random strangers controlling my emotional well-being" is something you consider a "feature".
I did in fact listen to what you said. I just don't value an ultra-high signal-to-noise ratio like you do. I mean, it sure does sound nice, but the price is too high. Maybe this is a big surprise to you, but some Youtube videos have intelligent comments. Many don't. I don't view Youtube for the comments. The videos are worth my time. The comments are just extra. In other words, Youtube is not Slashdot. It's not a comment-driven site. You know what would be a real waste of my time? That would be bitching about something I didn't have to view.
I did address your point. You just didn't like it, which is not my problem, you dense angry little man. I addressed your point by informing you that you can go to sites that provide the experience you claim to want. You're just upset that Youtube isn't one of them, suggesting a need for everything to conform to your wishes (or a failure to realize that viewing Youtube comments is not essential to life). Go. Where. You. Get. What. You. Want. It's amazing how little there is to complain about when you do it that way.
Is it possible that the whole move is more about music upload and "piracy"? Who will dare to upload copyrighted content if they have to use their real names.
Captcha "suspects"
Yes, because people who demonstrate a willingness to break the law are so well known for their strict adherence to rules and policies...
It's like the anti-gun nuts. They simply cannot (read: refuse to) understand that criminals who are willing to commit murder are not afraid of getting charged for a weapons violation.
YouTube is a smart vehicle to choose to make people more comfortable with using their real name online. This is likely an Internet-culture shift that Google wants, and it has the online presence needed to try and muscle it in.
That's part of the problem I have with this. It's not a response to overwhelming demand by the users. Rather, it's something they are trying to force on users who didn't ask for it and may not even want it. It's only possible because Google has a huge presence and they can use that as a form of leverage.
As I take a look at the world around me, I realize that in a couple of ways I must be a very strange individual. For one, I don't care to be where I am not wanted and appreciated. Also, I don't want to look for leverage to make people do things they don't want to do. Apparently that makes me a fucking weirdo.
People make racist, idiotic, hate-mongering, and otherwise disgusting posts on Facebook all the time, and did so on Myspace when it was still a going concern. Anonymity isn't the issue, it's the perception that the Internet gives them a safe distance to hurl insults and spam from.
Some people are just assholes. It's really that simple and doesn't warrant all the debate and analysis that's expended on it. There have always been assholes.
If you allow the actions of those assholes to alter in any way the experience for everyone else, you have given them far more power than they deserve, and more than they likely dreamed of. It's a form of caving in. I for one think a minority of dumbshits already ruin too many things for the rest of us.
"You're an adult, grow up, deal with it!" "Nothing happens when you're offended!"
Hah. I appreciated this vid. This man is actually an adult. He's not a member of the majority which are overgrown children who can't deal with their emotions and think everyone should conform to their personal tastes and preferences and act so shocked and hurt when this doesn't happen. God damn, am I ever tired of that.
What do do? Expect adult people to be able to handle speech they dislike. That means overlooking it, ignoring it, countering it with speech they consider better, or simply not viewing whatever it is they have a problem with.
And lets not forget the value to society of not letting future employers look at every stupid comment you posted when you were 15.
Some things are best not saved for posterity.
Besides, you really don't want a society where everybody has to be exactly like Ned Flanders. You would end up with a society of liars who are used to being phony and deceptive. It would select for people who are great at not getting caught and putting on a front. We already have enough of that going on.
because, as a look at youtube posts, or slashdot browsing at -1 proves, it destroys the forum
a communication channel will be abandoned by serious people if there is no signal and just a lot of useless noise. tragedy of the commons. so you need to police the commons
perhaps youtube could embrace moderation instead, but either way, you WANT to squelch, aka, censor, useless anonymous speech
i would be posting anonymously if i were in syria
but in the usa, if i post anonymously, my intentions are not in the interest of a good forum, but just abusing the forum for some antisocial problem of mine
there's always 4chan. for everything else serious, you need moderation or integrity of word and speaker with real life ids
If you haven't noticed, there are heavily-moderated forums if that's what you like. Most are not like Slashdot's moderation system, where posts go as low as -1. Most simply delete unwanted posts. In fact, there are forums where posts cannot be viewed until they are first approved by a moderator. These are not difficult to find.
If that's the experience you want, feel free to visit those forums.
I don't want that kind of "managed' experience. I'm an adult. While there are things I like and things I dislike, I'm basically impossible to offend. I think getting on your high horse and crying about how offended you are is childish, low-class, and a thinly veiled excuse to control other people. Because I feel that way, I'm not remotely tempted to do it. I see how those people are and I don't want to become like them. If some troll wants to make an ass of himself, that's not my problem. So for me, I'll take the uncensored experience. It doesn't "destroy" anything for me. In fact a lot of the -1 posts are downright amusing, though some aren't at all.
You know what's great about the current Internet? We can both have what we want. That's why I disagree with you. Perhaps I am misinterpreting what you wrote above, but it sounds to me like you don't want such an option to exist. It sounds like you want ALL forums to be moderated. That's equivalent to saying that people should not be allowed to decide for themselves. There's no way I can support that. I mean, how would you feel if I told you what you should read?
Have you considered that Google doesn't care if you use your real name or not? But chances are, if you use your real name you're not going to troll with racist, inane, idiotic, offensive, inflammatory, poorly spelled, quasi-literate trash which describes 99.9% of youtube posts.
You can still do it, but you have to be determined. If you care, and you want to remain anonymous and post, you can still do it. Chances are you are not one of those filling the place up with bullshit.
IANAL. Having said that, do you know that in many states, you can make up an alias on the spot and sign a contract, and it's legally valid? You're legit so long as you honestly answer questions like "is this your signature".
If you could do that to sign a mortgage, why wouldn't you do that to sign a throwaway Youtube post?
Whatever happened to the concept of "it's just not your business?".....
I mean sure, Google can do what they like with their properties.
You answered your own question.
I'm sorry but I hope you are not this shallow when it comes to anything significant. I really do, for your sake.
You see, the first statement is a matter of whether they *should*. The second is a matter of whether they *could*.
I mean, you could take a sledgehammer to your perfectly functioning computer. It's your property. You are both legally and morally entitled to do that. But why the hell should you do that? See the difference?
So no, to anyone who understands the distinction, I did not answer my own question. That was neither what I said nor was it my intended meaning. I left it open-ended quite deliberately.
The comments on YouTube videos are a plague of idiocy, racism, hate-mongering, astro-turfing...
Something has to be done, no?
What should be done is so easy, so simple, that its value is often overlooked.
What do do? Expect adult people to be able to handle speech they dislike. That means overlooking it, ignoring it, countering it with speech they consider better, or simply not viewing whatever it is they have a problem with.
I'm telling you, emphasizing that would make for a better world.
So between our two viewpoints, it comes down essentially to what your motivation is in posting. Any way you look at it, the only reason to wish to post anonymously is to avoid some form of repercussion (whether identity theft, stalking/harassment, or simply being outed as a douchetard.)
Whatever happened to the concept of "it's just not your business?" It's the idea of "if I wanted you to know or thought you were entitled to this information, I would provide it willingly without being prompted for it." Is that disappearing along with the idea of focusing on what is being said rather than making everything into a petty personal matter focused on who is saying it?
I mean sure, Google can do what they like with their properties. That doesn't make it a worthy or noble idea, though.
Just for kicks, I pulled out a floppy with some files on it from 1987 ( My resume was short back then! ). I had no problems reading the files. However, I could not run any 16 bit programs ( I found a copy of Norton SI -- I was wondering what the speed index on my Core i7 would be ).
Try using DosBox. It's an emulator so it'll work on modern hardware.
I wonder how they enforce that. All someone would have to do is not openly admit to being an atheist.
The sooner the world gets rid of religion, the better off we will be. Religion holds us back... for the first time ever in history, the combined knowledge of humanity is available in one place for those who care to look for it and yet these theocracies throw it away in favor of blind faith in primitive mythology. Sure, they're just blocking porn right now, but what stops them from blocking anything that undermines their power? It's absolutely sad that some 7th century Arab tribesman's scam to get money, power, and women has persisted all the way to the 21st century. Christianity is not much better, however I give it credit for not being in the "killing people" phase anymore.
Religion isn't the problem. Using the force of law (i.e. men with guns) to enforce your brand of morality on others is the problem.
Religion is only one excuse for doing this. "For your safety" or "for the children" are others. The process is the same. The excuse is just that -- an excuse. It's all about power, control, and trying to force everyone to be like yourself because you are too insecure to be an individual. These are people who derive security from being among the like-minded. Consequently they feel threatened by someone who does not agree.
These are petty, egotistical little tyrants. The thing to understand about ego is that in its own eyes, it is never wrong and never at fault. Therefore, if my insecurity causes me to feel threatened, I absolutely cannot attribute that to insecurity or any other fault within myself (even though that would lead to personal growth*). I must blame it on the person who makes me feel insecure by believing something I don't. It's a scapegoat. If I happen to have political power, then I can put the force of law behind this. If not, I can cry about how "offended" I am and try to shame the other person into submission.
Most people are like this, unfortunately. This is part of why the world is the way that it is. That's why when most people find a radio program or TV show offensive, simply not listening or watching isn't good enough for them. They have to try to take it off the air. That's why people who don't drink alcohol want to support "no alcohol sales on Sunday" and other stupid, easily circumvented laws (stock up Saturday). It's why people who don't do drugs support throwing people in jail and ruining their lives over possession of a plant, even though they weren't driving intoxicated or otherwise endangering anyone.
They're cowards who don't have the strength to be individuals. That's why they cannot allow others to be individuals and make their own personal choices. Deep down they know they're cowards, so they try to appear big and fearsome. State power certainly satisfies that requirement, so they ally themselves to it. They're compensating** for personal shortcomings instead of facing them. The hardest part to understand is that these are subconscious processes -- the people themselves believes they're sincere and would probably pass any polygraph test. It's basic denial that becomes "fact" when it goes on long enough. The only exception to that would be most of the politicians, who view these cowards as little more than useful idiots who can be exploited to advance state power.
* Avoiding the introspection and never developing the courage to face one's own faults and work to remedy them makes these things self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing.
** Compensation is not a deliberate, planned process. It's more like a form of energy. Being energy, it is neither created nor destroyed; it changes form. Their cowardice changes into the form of support for bad laws that deserve none. The fear and ignorance that makes "for the children" laws possible is also like this.
WalMart and FaceBook offer things that people seem willing to exchange money/information for. You can opt out anytime.
Actually you need friends with common sense (and actual respect for you, though why you'd be friends otherwise is a mystery...) and some technical skill. Otherwise it's quite difficult to prevent Facebook from ever knowing anything about you. If you had this idea that never personally visiting Facebook.com meant never being in Facebook's database, that's demonstrably false.
The average user of Facebook has little or no technical skill and thinks it is useful or valuable to collect superficial acquaintences. They tend not to realize that every "Like" button you see on a non-Facebook site is a tracking device even if it is not clicked. When you access a non-Facebook site with such a "Like" button, there is no opt-out form presented. You need tools like Adblock and NoScript (among others) to frustrate this form of tracking. You first need to be aware of what tracking is and how it works before you can defeat it, of course. For average users, this is hardly "opting out anytime". This is "they aren't even asking me, they're just taking the info they want while hoping I remain ignorant". This is inherently exploitative because it's done without informed consent.
Likewise, the effect Walmart tends to have on local businesses is difficult to opt out of. So is its impact on wages and benefits. Walmart knows how to play the retail game, that's for sure. They are in a stronger bargaining position than the localities they operate in and the workers they employ. They want to keep it that way, which is why they have so adamantly resisted unionization (unions have their own problems but actually would challenge this, and management knows it). Their overall effect tends to be the transfer of wealth out of local communities, rather than the creation of wealth within them. Maybe you're fine with that and maybe you'll make an apology for it, but in either case it's rather hard to simply opt out of.
which is essentially sows distrust of everything that comes from TV, Radio and the Internet.
That would be an improvement. Why, somthing like widespread critical thinking might emerge! The world is full of people who benefit by being dishonest.
in other words, you create in the other person the sentiment that IT'S ALL BULLSHIT.
All? No. Just most of it. Usually this is in the "bought and paid for" sense of advertisements. Half-truths are always a popular one as well, because on the surface they seem legitimate unless you scrutinize how they're being used. It tends to fool people who are otherwise smart except that they're naive.
then they're drawn to someone who strikes down that FUD, in person, face to face.
What would lead them to believe this person is any more truthful than what they read? At some point they'd have to learn to test the truth of information they are told to believe. Otherwise we're back again to the naive people, the ones who (no matter how high their IQs) get suckered by charm and charisma. Or they might get suckered by thinking those who look you in the eye are automatically more truthful than someone who writes a post online, even though meeting a single liar is enough to falsify that notion.
then you end up with exactly what you seeked to defuse in the first place
No the real problem here is that both government and corporations find it highly desirable to have malleable, docile populace who don't question too much or think too critically. Politicians think that's just great and so do advertisers. They'd really rather not rock that boat. That's why they want to counter one kind of propaganda with another kind of propaganda instead of teaching people how to recognize propaganda and identify ulterior agendas.
Besides, you frame this in terms of "distrust". I went along with that in order to respond to you more easily, but I don't view it that way at all. It's not about trust or distrust or mistrust. It's about skepticism. Healthy skepticism is a good thing. If you aren't willing to go wherever the evidence and reason leads, then we're moving away from skepticism and towards mistrust. That's the difference.
Slashdot Mirror
If you object to all DRM on principle - well, good luck with that.
If it worked I would consider the subject debatable. The piracy groups do love a challenge.
DRM simply punishes paying customers for what the pirates do and that's why it's fundamentally unjust. The failure to understand that is similar to the failure certain naive people have when it comes to understanding that criminals willing to commit murder don't obey gun control laws. I know what they want. They want to create a system or make a law and have everyone fall in line. That's the fantasy. But it is only a fantasy.
f you object to DRM in a specific product because you feel it's flawed in some way, that's a consumer decision and difference consumers will have difering values.
Yes, relativism is a handy tool to keep in your belt. It helps you avoid actually taking a position on something yourself. Personally I have no use for that, but it seems popular. I guess people think it's agreeable and easy-going and that appeals to their desire to avoid friction. The problem, of course, is simple: pointing out that different people have different preferences is useless. It's a given.
Rootkits cross the line, however, and should be flat-out illegal.
When most DRM systems are cracked within days (if not hours) of the game being released, rootkits and other methods of escalating the arms race are inevitable. If you think DRM is fine and good you have to accept that, like everything else in this world, it wants to grow and expand and become more so. DRM becoming more intrusive and invasive over time is as inevitable as government growing bigger and more dictatorial with time. The difference is, living without DRM is much easier.
DRM is all about assuming your own customers are acting in bad faith. It's all about assuming this whether or not there is evidence to support it -- they are guilty until proven innocent so you must lock down and exert control in an attempt to stop them. It is in the nature of DRM to become more draconian. The result is that paying customers often have more problems than the pirates. That's bass ackwards from how it should be.
Illegal or not, if enough people vote for it with their wallets they are sending the message, in the strongest possible terms, that companies should keep doing this. If average customers don't have enough of a spine to say "I don't care how great the game is, if you put this kind of DRM in it I will not buy it" then you wouldn't need to involve criminal laws. But you see, their shiny is more precious than not being abused. You just can't have that kind of character weakness and expect that no company will exploit it. It's like putting millions of dollars worth of diamonds in a vehicle, rolling down the windows and unlocking the doors, leaving it unattended for long periods of time, putting a huge illuminated sign saying "there is no camera and no alarm guarding this car!" and then acting shocked and amazed when someone steals the diamonds. Sure, theft is wrong, but you should have seen that one coming.
Getting the law involved is in fact dangerous -- these days, it's 50/50 whether it would be made illegal, or whether it would be specifically allowed as a natural extension to the DMCA and ACTA.
The Diablo3 DRM doesn't bother me because I just assume Blizzard bans people at random (but with low frequency), and evaluate the product on that basis. If a Blizzard game can't justify it's price within a couple weeks of gameplay, I'll give it a miss.
Unless you are among the pirates, then by the time you make that determination they have already received your money. Personally, I wouldn't patronize a company that bans innocent users at random, just like I wouldn't shop at a store that refused to serve black people. But like I said, I have principles.
So do you actually install it as a different user, or do you just feel warm and fuzzy that they can't modify your system, even though most of what you probably care about exists within your user account?
Even if you install it as a different user, you would need to log out of your main account every time (or, I suppose, run a secondary X server) as the rights required to display to your X server pretty much give full access to your account.
My own setup has a user account specifically dedicated to Wine. This user doesn't run anything else. That user has no network access at all because of iptables. There is a PAM module that gives this user access to draw on the X display when I switch to it (Gentoo does this by default; on most Debian-derived distros you have to configure PAM with a one-liner in /etc/pam.d/su -- add "session optional pam_xauth.so" to that text file).
I use a Gentoo Hardened system so I place extra restrictions on it. The Wine user cannot see processes of any other user and the permissions on anything outside of its home directory are quite restrictive. Back when I played WoW (and had to allow network access, but only just what it needed), it would scan the running processes as an anti-cheating measure; on this system it would see only itself and a couple of Wine processes. On a normal Linux system, any user can view every user's running processes. Also, Wine is compiled with SSP and has NX and other hardening features applied to it.
That's not an exhaustive list but it covers the main steps I took. You can probably gather that I don't trust binary Windows programs.
If they're happy, either we aren't doing a good job making our point, or it really doesn't matter to them.
It's like losing freedom or any other kind of proverbial "frog soup" situation. Restrictions are added and each one seems harmless enough. Eventually a tipping point is reached where the sum total of these incremental restrictions is much worse than you bargained for. The problem of course is that early on was the time to do something about it.
That's the problem with so many people valuing convenience more than principle. They won't take action until their backs are against the wall, but by that time they've lost most of their room to maneuver.
The big issue with many modern desktops including Gnome and Win8 is they are hell bent on chasing the "dumb it down! dumb it all down! moaarrr dumber!!" crowd. Ripping out power user functionality, removing configurability, and generally making it about as annoying to use for proficient users as possible.
For some reason stagnation is expected in computing, even when this is rare elsewhere. I call them "permanant noobs".
When you got your first bicycle and used it with training wheels, no one expected that you would still use those training wheels years later. When you got your learner's permit, it was expected that this was a stepping stone you would use to ultimatley gain enough skill to get your own proper driver's license. No one actually expected that these early learning stages would or should be permanent.
The "dumb it down" mentality with computing is the assumption that the early learning stages should be sanctified and made permanent, that they are some kind of perfect ideal, that it's not reasonable to ever expect a user's skill to grow with time. Sure, some users have more aptitude than others, some learn faster than others, but the "dumb it down" idea throws all of that out and assumes no one should ever learn anything.
It's like anything else. It grows if you feed it. It shrinks if you starve it. The constant feeding of it in mainstream thought has led to users who can operate a computer for 5+ years and still know nothing more about it than when they started. They get frustrated at the same problems that frustrated them five years ago because they have not learned anything. They demand overly-simplified interfaces and balk at the slightest investment of learning (and even then, nothing major, just paying attention and picking up facts here and there with experience would make a big difference).
It's standard penny-wise, dollar-stupid thinking. It's saving a slight effort in the short term in order to screw oneself in the long term. An intermediate user with an interface that presents the available options in an intelligent way has a much better experience than any user with an interface built on the assumption that you're an idiot. But the concept of making an investment is alien to this mentality. It's by no means limited to computing. You see it in corporations all the time, where everything is all about this quarter's earnings even when this leads to long-term sustainability problems.
should further clarify, harassment is bad, my personal belief is that for the most part this should be a business issue and not a legal issue, that being said, sexual harassment is out of control and you must walk on egg shells.
The problem is, it's one of the few areas of law where it seems that the accused is guilty until proven innocent. A mere allegation can cause untold amounts of grief even if there is little or no evidence. It's the kind of power that is easily abused.
No...sounds like a typical group of guys that have been working together for a long period of time, without having to artificially censor themselves, or walk on eggshells in how they naturally converse with each other within the group.
Pretty common to all male working groups....
I have no idea why you were modded Troll except that a lot of moderators reject the concept of objectivity.
What you're saying is generally true. I've been at places where it was mostly men, at least in my particular department. There, where you were determined what was permissible. If you're in a back room, with all men, with other co-workers you know well, with whom you have a strong rapport, then it was more relaxed environment and no one was sensitive about mere words. You could even make fun of others and they'd genuinely think it was funny if you were creative and witty about it. Nothing was taken too personally and no one acted with malice. It was just "guy talk". If anything, it helped us to have some fun and relieve some of the stress from deadlines and such.
In that same place, though, if we had clients, upper management visiting from out of town, or something like that, we were much more careful about what we said. When you don't personally know everyone involved then you fall back to something impersonal, like basic sterile professional conduct. It's not as fun and not as relaxed but at some point you have to look out for yourself. It's unwise to assume that someone you just met is going to have the same sense of humor as the people you know well, especially if they're a conservative ("uptight" if you like) bigwig who could fire you on the spot. That's just asking for trouble in today's environment.
It's the kind of thing that really should be common sense, but a lot of people seem to get into easily-preventable trouble.
This man's coworkers probably just think they're having good clean fun and that they're "keeping it real" in the face of what they feel to be phony soul-tarnishing political correctness.
Well to hell with their "realness" and their "feelings". Their attitude is pathetic.
However, it's hard to really walk in another's shoes sometimes.
Which is why the far easier route of adhering to a accepted standard of maturity and professionalism is the way to go. Don't harass people. Don't have your "fun" at the expense of someone else's ability to their job without unwanted and needless distraction.
I generally agree with you but I want to approach the other side of this coin. Honestly, if I got bent out of shape and wanted to punish or othewise harm (and let's be clear, destroying someone's career is definitely "harm") someone merely for saying something I didn't like, when I knew it was not a personal attack aimed at me, well, at that point I would stop considering myself a mature adult. That's partly because I truly do believe in free speech, as a principle and not just as a legal concept, and partly because I don't consider emotionally volatile, easily offended people to be actual adults.
Maturity works both ways. Hellfire, brimstone, and a ruthless vindictiveness for the slightest thing you don't like isn't terribly mature either. Now if you're talking about actual harassment with malicious intent, by all means, fire their ass. The key there is malice. But if I happen to overhear something R-rated that has nothing to do with me and isn't intended against me, I'm happy to let that go. That's what I would want them to do if the roles were ever reversed.
The one problem I've seen is that the person who feels like it it was over the line is afraid to say so.
Standing up for yourself in a constructive, useful manner has never been 100% free of effort. It has always required at least a little guts. That's why people with even a little decency will respect that you have standards.
If that person is afraid to be honest, he or she will find that it is more than worthwhile to work through that fear. It will positively impact almost all areas of life that relate to dealing with people, not just the workplace. Being a doormat is not healthy. It's bad for the doormat to get trampled and it's bad for the trampler to get used to having such behavior tolerated.
Because, like it or not, there are going to be more women in the IT workplace in the future, not less. Our society is becoming more integrated, which is a good thing! Step back for a minute, look at what you just said, only replace 'female' with 'black' or 'irish' or 'peasant' and 'male' with 'white' or 'British' or 'noble'.
"Why should the group have to change for one new incommer?" Because it's the right thing to do, even if it's inconvenient and doesn't go smoothly.
It's easy to advocate such changes when you personally do not have to bear their burden.
If you want more integration, there needs to be an atmosphere of tolerance and benefit of doubt on all sides. If the newcomer is going to scream about every little PG-rated comment, it's not likely to work. If the existing group is not going to be welcoming and inclusive of the newcomer, it's not likely to work. It's a give-and-take. That's what makes it go more smoothly.
Give-and-take breaks down when the newcomer says "I have $GROUP_IDENTITY so all of you will bow down and adapt to suit MY wishes, or else!" Honestly, I have been the new guy in several different work environments and I accepted that I was joining up with them, not the other way around. Once we got to know each other a little better it went quite well, partly because I did not insist that everyone else must be just like me. Likewise, they didn't insist I must be just like them. The result was trust and respect instead of a "walking on eggshells" environment that no one really wants.
Part of trust and respect means you can like the person even if you don't like every opinion they have or decision they make. The only really important component is that you can see the other person bears no malice, which is the difference between dissent and attack. It really can be this simple, at least when people are mature enough not to look for ways to control other people. Anyone who thinks they must fully agree with every opinion, belief, statement, and decision someone makes before they can treat them with respect and work as a team is simply not mature enough to be regarded as an adult.
"Diversity" should mean something more than people who cosmetically look different. How much of a tan you have and how permanent it is means nothing to me either way -- we're all just homo sapiens sapiens. That you might see something I don't see or think of something that didn't occur to me, now that's valuable.
And they don't trust you not to abuse the anonymity. Seems fair to me. Seriously.
Let's see. On the anonynimity side we have potential consequences like someone reading a comment and getting offended (oh noes!). A whole lot of this going on with no moderation system at all would harm the utility of the forum.
On the real-name side, we have potential consequences like facilitating identity theft, real-world harassment and intimidation, and lovely fun things like employers denying you a job for some throw-away comment you made and forgot about 15 years ago. Funny thing about that, if you knew every detail of their life you could most definitely find something nasty someone has said or done and use that to deny them almost anything. Humans are like that. Or there'd just be a constant chilling effect where you'd never say anything that could ever be twisted around in any possible way, by unknown parties at an unknown future time, which would also harm the utility of the forum.
Google is being selfish by choosing potential real-world harm to their users over the slight inconvenience of coming up with a moderation system. I find companies often make decisions like this, so long as it will not be they who bear the cost of it. If you're a fan of that kind of decision-making, then you'll have no problem paying my bills this month, right?
Go. Read a thread on YouTube. That is worth your time?
Its not about being offended. Its about wasting your time on noise without signal.
Get off my high horse? Get off yours. You didnt even listen to what I said. You had some holier than thou response all picked out that doesn't even address my point.
When I described the easily offended in the penultimate paragraph of my last post, I was describing the main reason so many people support some kind of censorship or moderation. I did not imagine that anything I said there applied to you. I was merely explaining my own preferences, just as you explained your preference for some kind of quality control (moderation or whatever system you think will work).
If you are in fact among the easily offended, well then you have cause to rejoice, for I just told you the truth of the matter. Now you can question the socially patterned, programmed response you've been taught to imitate. See for yourself that it makes no sense. Unless of course "random strangers controlling my emotional well-being" is something you consider a "feature".
I did in fact listen to what you said. I just don't value an ultra-high signal-to-noise ratio like you do. I mean, it sure does sound nice, but the price is too high. Maybe this is a big surprise to you, but some Youtube videos have intelligent comments. Many don't. I don't view Youtube for the comments. The videos are worth my time. The comments are just extra. In other words, Youtube is not Slashdot. It's not a comment-driven site. You know what would be a real waste of my time? That would be bitching about something I didn't have to view.
I did address your point. You just didn't like it, which is not my problem, you dense angry little man. I addressed your point by informing you that you can go to sites that provide the experience you claim to want. You're just upset that Youtube isn't one of them, suggesting a need for everything to conform to your wishes (or a failure to realize that viewing Youtube comments is not essential to life). Go. Where. You. Get. What. You. Want. It's amazing how little there is to complain about when you do it that way.
Is it possible that the whole move is more about music upload and "piracy"? Who will dare to upload copyrighted content if they have to use their real names.
Captcha "suspects"
Yes, because people who demonstrate a willingness to break the law are so well known for their strict adherence to rules and policies...
It's like the anti-gun nuts. They simply cannot (read: refuse to) understand that criminals who are willing to commit murder are not afraid of getting charged for a weapons violation.
YouTube is a smart vehicle to choose to make people more comfortable with using their real name online. This is likely an Internet-culture shift that Google wants, and it has the online presence needed to try and muscle it in.
That's part of the problem I have with this. It's not a response to overwhelming demand by the users. Rather, it's something they are trying to force on users who didn't ask for it and may not even want it. It's only possible because Google has a huge presence and they can use that as a form of leverage.
As I take a look at the world around me, I realize that in a couple of ways I must be a very strange individual. For one, I don't care to be where I am not wanted and appreciated. Also, I don't want to look for leverage to make people do things they don't want to do. Apparently that makes me a fucking weirdo.
People make racist, idiotic, hate-mongering, and otherwise disgusting posts on Facebook all the time, and did so on Myspace when it was still a going concern. Anonymity isn't the issue, it's the perception that the Internet gives them a safe distance to hurl insults and spam from.
Some people are just assholes. It's really that simple and doesn't warrant all the debate and analysis that's expended on it. There have always been assholes.
If you allow the actions of those assholes to alter in any way the experience for everyone else, you have given them far more power than they deserve, and more than they likely dreamed of. It's a form of caving in. I for one think a minority of dumbshits already ruin too many things for the rest of us.
How can you be offended then?
"You're an adult, grow up, deal with it!" "Nothing happens when you're offended!"
Hah. I appreciated this vid. This man is actually an adult. He's not a member of the majority which are overgrown children who can't deal with their emotions and think everyone should conform to their personal tastes and preferences and act so shocked and hurt when this doesn't happen. God damn, am I ever tired of that.
Thank you for sending me the link!
What do do? Expect adult people to be able to handle speech they dislike. That means overlooking it, ignoring it, countering it with speech they consider better, or simply not viewing whatever it is they have a problem with.
And lets not forget the value to society of not letting future employers look at every stupid comment you posted when you were 15.
Some things are best not saved for posterity.
Besides, you really don't want a society where everybody has to be exactly like Ned Flanders. You would end up with a society of liars who are used to being phony and deceptive. It would select for people who are great at not getting caught and putting on a front. We already have enough of that going on.
because, as a look at youtube posts, or slashdot browsing at -1 proves, it destroys the forum
a communication channel will be abandoned by serious people if there is no signal and just a lot of useless noise. tragedy of the commons. so you need to police the commons
perhaps youtube could embrace moderation instead, but either way, you WANT to squelch, aka, censor, useless anonymous speech
i would be posting anonymously if i were in syria
but in the usa, if i post anonymously, my intentions are not in the interest of a good forum, but just abusing the forum for some antisocial problem of mine
there's always 4chan. for everything else serious, you need moderation or integrity of word and speaker with real life ids
If you haven't noticed, there are heavily-moderated forums if that's what you like. Most are not like Slashdot's moderation system, where posts go as low as -1. Most simply delete unwanted posts. In fact, there are forums where posts cannot be viewed until they are first approved by a moderator. These are not difficult to find.
If that's the experience you want, feel free to visit those forums.
I don't want that kind of "managed' experience. I'm an adult. While there are things I like and things I dislike, I'm basically impossible to offend. I think getting on your high horse and crying about how offended you are is childish, low-class, and a thinly veiled excuse to control other people. Because I feel that way, I'm not remotely tempted to do it. I see how those people are and I don't want to become like them. If some troll wants to make an ass of himself, that's not my problem. So for me, I'll take the uncensored experience. It doesn't "destroy" anything for me. In fact a lot of the -1 posts are downright amusing, though some aren't at all.
You know what's great about the current Internet? We can both have what we want. That's why I disagree with you. Perhaps I am misinterpreting what you wrote above, but it sounds to me like you don't want such an option to exist. It sounds like you want ALL forums to be moderated. That's equivalent to saying that people should not be allowed to decide for themselves. There's no way I can support that. I mean, how would you feel if I told you what you should read?
Have you considered that Google doesn't care if you use your real name or not? But chances are, if you use your real name you're not going to troll with racist, inane, idiotic, offensive, inflammatory, poorly spelled, quasi-literate trash which describes 99.9% of youtube posts.
You can still do it, but you have to be determined. If you care, and you want to remain anonymous and post, you can still do it. Chances are you are not one of those filling the place up with bullshit.
IANAL. Having said that, do you know that in many states, you can make up an alias on the spot and sign a contract, and it's legally valid? You're legit so long as you honestly answer questions like "is this your signature".
If you could do that to sign a mortgage, why wouldn't you do that to sign a throwaway Youtube post?
Whatever happened to the concept of "it's just not your business?" .....
I mean sure, Google can do what they like with their properties.
You answered your own question.
I'm sorry but I hope you are not this shallow when it comes to anything significant. I really do, for your sake.
You see, the first statement is a matter of whether they *should*. The second is a matter of whether they *could*.
I mean, you could take a sledgehammer to your perfectly functioning computer. It's your property. You are both legally and morally entitled to do that. But why the hell should you do that? See the difference?
So no, to anyone who understands the distinction, I did not answer my own question. That was neither what I said nor was it my intended meaning. I left it open-ended quite deliberately.
Obligatory:
http://xkcd.com/481/
The comments on YouTube videos are a plague of idiocy, racism, hate-mongering, astro-turfing...
Something has to be done, no?
What should be done is so easy, so simple, that its value is often overlooked.
What do do? Expect adult people to be able to handle speech they dislike. That means overlooking it, ignoring it, countering it with speech they consider better, or simply not viewing whatever it is they have a problem with.
I'm telling you, emphasizing that would make for a better world.
So between our two viewpoints, it comes down essentially to what your motivation is in posting. Any way you look at it, the only reason to wish to post anonymously is to avoid some form of repercussion (whether identity theft, stalking/harassment, or simply being outed as a douchetard.)
Whatever happened to the concept of "it's just not your business?" It's the idea of "if I wanted you to know or thought you were entitled to this information, I would provide it willingly without being prompted for it." Is that disappearing along with the idea of focusing on what is being said rather than making everything into a petty personal matter focused on who is saying it?
I mean sure, Google can do what they like with their properties. That doesn't make it a worthy or noble idea, though.
Just for kicks, I pulled out a floppy with some files on it from 1987 ( My resume was short back then! ). I had no problems reading the files. However, I could not run any 16 bit programs ( I found a copy of Norton SI -- I was wondering what the speed index on my Core i7 would be ).
Try using DosBox. It's an emulator so it'll work on modern hardware.
I wonder how they enforce that. All someone would have to do is not openly admit to being an atheist. The sooner the world gets rid of religion, the better off we will be. Religion holds us back... for the first time ever in history, the combined knowledge of humanity is available in one place for those who care to look for it and yet these theocracies throw it away in favor of blind faith in primitive mythology. Sure, they're just blocking porn right now, but what stops them from blocking anything that undermines their power? It's absolutely sad that some 7th century Arab tribesman's scam to get money, power, and women has persisted all the way to the 21st century. Christianity is not much better, however I give it credit for not being in the "killing people" phase anymore.
Religion isn't the problem. Using the force of law (i.e. men with guns) to enforce your brand of morality on others is the problem.
Religion is only one excuse for doing this. "For your safety" or "for the children" are others. The process is the same. The excuse is just that -- an excuse. It's all about power, control, and trying to force everyone to be like yourself because you are too insecure to be an individual. These are people who derive security from being among the like-minded. Consequently they feel threatened by someone who does not agree.
These are petty, egotistical little tyrants. The thing to understand about ego is that in its own eyes, it is never wrong and never at fault. Therefore, if my insecurity causes me to feel threatened, I absolutely cannot attribute that to insecurity or any other fault within myself (even though that would lead to personal growth*). I must blame it on the person who makes me feel insecure by believing something I don't. It's a scapegoat. If I happen to have political power, then I can put the force of law behind this. If not, I can cry about how "offended" I am and try to shame the other person into submission.
Most people are like this, unfortunately. This is part of why the world is the way that it is. That's why when most people find a radio program or TV show offensive, simply not listening or watching isn't good enough for them. They have to try to take it off the air. That's why people who don't drink alcohol want to support "no alcohol sales on Sunday" and other stupid, easily circumvented laws (stock up Saturday). It's why people who don't do drugs support throwing people in jail and ruining their lives over possession of a plant, even though they weren't driving intoxicated or otherwise endangering anyone.
They're cowards who don't have the strength to be individuals. That's why they cannot allow others to be individuals and make their own personal choices. Deep down they know they're cowards, so they try to appear big and fearsome. State power certainly satisfies that requirement, so they ally themselves to it. They're compensating** for personal shortcomings instead of facing them. The hardest part to understand is that these are subconscious processes -- the people themselves believes they're sincere and would probably pass any polygraph test. It's basic denial that becomes "fact" when it goes on long enough. The only exception to that would be most of the politicians, who view these cowards as little more than useful idiots who can be exploited to advance state power.
* Avoiding the introspection and never developing the courage to face one's own faults and work to remedy them makes these things self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing.
** Compensation is not a deliberate, planned process. It's more like a form of energy. Being energy, it is neither created nor destroyed; it changes form. Their cowardice changes into the form of support for bad laws that deserve none. The fear and ignorance that makes "for the children" laws possible is also like this.
WalMart and FaceBook offer things that people seem willing to exchange money/information for. You can opt out anytime.
Actually you need friends with common sense (and actual respect for you, though why you'd be friends otherwise is a mystery...) and some technical skill. Otherwise it's quite difficult to prevent Facebook from ever knowing anything about you. If you had this idea that never personally visiting Facebook.com meant never being in Facebook's database, that's demonstrably false.
The average user of Facebook has little or no technical skill and thinks it is useful or valuable to collect superficial acquaintences. They tend not to realize that every "Like" button you see on a non-Facebook site is a tracking device even if it is not clicked. When you access a non-Facebook site with such a "Like" button, there is no opt-out form presented. You need tools like Adblock and NoScript (among others) to frustrate this form of tracking. You first need to be aware of what tracking is and how it works before you can defeat it, of course. For average users, this is hardly "opting out anytime". This is "they aren't even asking me, they're just taking the info they want while hoping I remain ignorant". This is inherently exploitative because it's done without informed consent.
Likewise, the effect Walmart tends to have on local businesses is difficult to opt out of. So is its impact on wages and benefits. Walmart knows how to play the retail game, that's for sure. They are in a stronger bargaining position than the localities they operate in and the workers they employ. They want to keep it that way, which is why they have so adamantly resisted unionization (unions have their own problems but actually would challenge this, and management knows it). Their overall effect tends to be the transfer of wealth out of local communities, rather than the creation of wealth within them. Maybe you're fine with that and maybe you'll make an apology for it, but in either case it's rather hard to simply opt out of.
which is essentially sows distrust of everything that comes from TV, Radio and the Internet.
That would be an improvement. Why, somthing like widespread critical thinking might emerge! The world is full of people who benefit by being dishonest.
in other words, you create in the other person the sentiment that IT'S ALL BULLSHIT.
All? No. Just most of it. Usually this is in the "bought and paid for" sense of advertisements. Half-truths are always a popular one as well, because on the surface they seem legitimate unless you scrutinize how they're being used. It tends to fool people who are otherwise smart except that they're naive.
then they're drawn to someone who strikes down that FUD, in person, face to face.
What would lead them to believe this person is any more truthful than what they read? At some point they'd have to learn to test the truth of information they are told to believe. Otherwise we're back again to the naive people, the ones who (no matter how high their IQs) get suckered by charm and charisma. Or they might get suckered by thinking those who look you in the eye are automatically more truthful than someone who writes a post online, even though meeting a single liar is enough to falsify that notion.
then you end up with exactly what you seeked to defuse in the first place
No the real problem here is that both government and corporations find it highly desirable to have malleable, docile populace who don't question too much or think too critically. Politicians think that's just great and so do advertisers. They'd really rather not rock that boat. That's why they want to counter one kind of propaganda with another kind of propaganda instead of teaching people how to recognize propaganda and identify ulterior agendas.
Besides, you frame this in terms of "distrust". I went along with that in order to respond to you more easily, but I don't view it that way at all. It's not about trust or distrust or mistrust. It's about skepticism. Healthy skepticism is a good thing. If you aren't willing to go wherever the evidence and reason leads, then we're moving away from skepticism and towards mistrust. That's the difference.