There is no power involved. The only FCAT that matters is the 10th grade one. You need that to graduate.
It's the power to sow confusion which actually ends up making impressionable people more complacent and compliant. It's hard to stand up for yourself or generally to have a backbone when you aren't rooted in a solid foundation of fact. A generation of young people who don't know which way is up and which way is down is a tyrant's wet dream, for they will be needy and dependent and that's always been the ticket to real power.
You don't think this, the side effects it will have, or the fact it comes from government is one great big accident do you? It's not so much a carefully planned conspiracy. It's more like, the same mentality that believes power for its own sake is a worthy goal is the same mentality that would believe this kind of institutionalized insanity is a good idea.
Anyone who really had the students' best interests at heart would expect better of them than they expect from themselves and equip them to rise to meet or exceed that standard. Assuming from the start that they're just too dumb to be expected to understand some basic things comes from the belief that they're already under your thumb, right where they "should be", and will always be dependent, subservient and mediocre. No one expects excellence from cogs in a machine or blocks at the bottom of a pyramid. If any of you have taken the time to learn about how public schooling was established in America, then you are aware the industrial tycoons feared the poor and wanted to keep them stupid and created their own imitation of the Prussian schools and the Hindu caste system in order to do it. We still pay for that today.
Ideally, adult people wouldn't have children they were not in a position to afford, both raising them and educating them. Since the bar for personal responsibility (and actual adulthood, which is marked by sound decision-making) has been lowered so much, government involvement is here to stay for the foreseeable future. If we're going to have government involved in the upbringing of children, it needs to be in a limited and controlled fashion. For this reason I would love a voucher-type system where the money follows the child, not the other way around (which do we value more?), and parents can move their children to other schools at-will instead of being stuck.
But allowing government to directly administer the schools is a terrible, horrible idea. It breeds stupidity like this, and zero tolerance, and the total lack of justice (in a fistfight, the unprovoked attacker AND the defender are both punished equally?!) and it can do nothing else. That is in the nature of the situation when you hand your children over to these people. Seriously, stop acting surprised every time there's a story like this. I for one would never consider having children until I could make other arrangements -- private school if I have the money or homeschooling in a friendly community if I don't. But then I don't think I'm entitled to create life, I don't pretend that this is something that "just happens" as if it weren't the product of adult decisions, and I don't think I'm entitled to shift the burden of parenting onto other people. It's a situation I wouldn't be in unless I were truly prepared to handle it. No excuses, no bullshit, and no pretending like my actions have no impact on it.
If you love your children and care for their well-being you don't make excuses about not subjecting them to such a suffocating and degrading environment as modern public schools. If you love your convenience more, and secretly regard your children as little more than property or sophisticated pets, another chore to be done, then you whine about how that's "too hard" or how it's so terrible that not everyone can do the same because they fail to plan ahead, have children they are not prepared to raise, etc. It amazes me how people say things like that as though more good examples wouldn't have a positive effect.
Unfortunately those natural substances have serious side effects.
Yeah like persecution by the state for the "crime" of altering your consciousness in unauthorized ways.
As though your consciousness were theirs to regulate. I can understand why they regulate the roads with traffic laws -- they used tax money to build those roads and continue using tax money to maintain them. Makes sense and you can clearly see why they would have a claim there. But the inner sanctum of your consciousness?
Just because idiots who like to screw with things they haven't taken the time to understand might hurt themselves?
All currency is based on trust in some entity, and trust that that entity will repay their debts.
Really? So tell me, whom do I need to trust that gold coins will retain substantial value? Did someone discover an economical way to turn lead into gold that I don't know about?
No, you simply described all fiat currency. Not all currency. Even paper money is based on wealth and not debt if it's representative currency backed by gold or silver.
Why don't you take a few minutes sometime to read up on how the Federal Reserve works, how they create currency out of thin air in exchange for government IOUs called treasury bonds, how interest is attached to the money at the time it is created which means there is never enough money in circulation to repay the debt, which means the only possibility is ever-increasing debt? Just insisting really, really hard that this can't be so will not change the situation.
America got hoodwinked and America got fucked the moment the Fed was established. Many other nations followed suit. It's that simple. In fact good ol' Abraham Lincoln had a lot to say about this very subject. Do you perchance know why he issued the greenback? It was in response to bankers' attempts to establish something just like the modern Federal Reserve during his time. He knew this would mean the government losing control of the money supply and being beholden to said bankers. He issued the greenback to stop this from happening. In fact I believe that's why he was murdered, but that's another subject (amazing how people will believe that a mugger might shoot someone for the $20 in their pocket but won't believe that powerful people will murder over tremendous amounts of wealth).
This is what Lincoln said:
The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace, and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insular than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned; an era of corruption will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed.
Oh and here's another quote, this time from FDR:
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson. -- U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, 1933
Hey, and another rather frank one from Henry Ford:
It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there
would be revolution before tomorrow morning.
They used to be much more open about what they want. Ever heard of the USA Banker's Magazine? Try this one:
Capital must protect itself in every possible manner by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages must be
foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through a process of law, the common people lose their homes they will become more docile and more easily
governed through the influence of the strong arm of government, applied by a central power of wealth under control of leading financiers. This truth
is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of Capital to govern the world. By dividing the voters through the
political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance. Thus by discreet action we can secure
for ourselves what has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished... -- USA Banker's Magazine, August 25, 1924
Thomas Jefferson was farsighted enough to see this as well. It is very much like performing a security audit of a computer system: you can dis
Well, before that I'd honestly never posted AC before:P. I didn't know that the CAPTCHA was just for AC since I post fairly infrequently these days I actually thought it was something new. But when you say it like that, yes it was kinda stupid.
Anyone and I do mean anyone can do a stupid thing. The fact you have a sense of humor about it is strong evidence, in fact proof positive, that you're not a stupid person.
If you were a stupid person you would resent and resist all suggestions that you erred in any way that could be corrected. That is the mark of stupidity. It never admits fault no matter how obvious it may be and never believes it should ever do anything differently. Instead it climbs up on its high horse, acts "hurt" and tries to convince you that you're a terrible person for observing fault. Stupidity and immaturity are interconnected in that sense, for all immature people secretly think of themselves as something like "God", and you don't "blaspheme" "God" or you face "God's" wrath. Their egos are bigger than both their brains and their guts combined in that way.
P.S. I am the original AC. It wouldn't have been as amusing if I made the original post while logged in.
Nice "me too" but no, not entirely. There's a lesson here for other would-be whistleblowers.
The lesson? Don't try to be a nice guy by going through channels, keeping it internal, identifying yourself, etc. Instead, quietly collect all the absolutely damning evidence you can gather, be certain that it names names, and then bring it straight to the authorities. If you can remain anonymous while doing that, like an informant, then so much the better.
If this is how someone who raises a benign warning is going to be treated, then just fucking nail them as hard as you can. They are obviously unworthy of someone who wants to be amiable and play softball, as one would expect of the kind of sociopaths who create this situation in the first place. Instead of letting this frighten you into reluctant silence, just don't put the ball in their court to begin with as that's terrible strategy.
Consider what happens if it's the other way around, what if the company violates their responsibilities under the TOS? Is that automatically a crime? No. In some cases, if you can show they were willfully misleading, to a large group of customers, then it might be treated as criminal fraud. But the company violating the TOS is not automatically a crime, it's a civil breach of contract.
I'd have an attorney read over the TOS before suing, though. I've read some that have a clause saying that by using the service I accept the TOS and agree to hold the provider blameless in anything that may come up, up to and including the Second Coming of Elvis.
I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, yadda yadda. Owing to the legally protected freedom of speech, they may write whatever they want into a document. That doesn't necessarily mean it will hold up in court. Some states are better than others about rejecting unreasonable clauses in such contracts.
About the only things I want from a distribution are a good package manager, a good selection of available packages, and timely attention paid to security.
What comes installed by default is something I'm likely to rearrange anyway. I don't like Unity either, which is why it would be installed for all of a few minutes until I replace it with something else if I decided that Ubuntu/Kubuntu fit my criteria.
So how many Slashdotters really just stick with defaults no matter how much they like something else better? Seems like a total non-issue (and a non-complaint) to me.
I don't see what ethical people would fear from this. Not at the workplace, anyway.
Why do so many people here lack imagination. Ethical people still do and say stupid things (even if they generally are intelligent), ethical people can still get embarassed.
It's not (my) imagination issue, it's (your) reading comprehension issue. The context was fear of getting caught. Too bad ACs don't have reply messages, but here's to hoping you'll read this anyway.
I guess, your statement has more to do with simply not wanting to get caught
That's about the only thing a sociopath fears. That's why the "threat" of video documentation is so effective.
than being ethical.
I don't see what ethical people would fear from this. Not at the workplace, anyway.
I think this situation has merely arisen to cope with a modern reality: that altruism and enlightened self-interest are at an all-time low. Many people won't even fake them anymore to be thought of as "good" because it is the value of those things itself that is eroding. People like this are self-absorbed and often live as though other people don't exist and could not be inconvenienced or harmed by their bad decision-making, something you can witness in traffic daily. It's not that they are malicious, it's that they don't even notice how their actions affect other people. They don't even have sense enough not to block doorways or other basic things like that. People like this need a selfish reason to do the right thing, like avoiding embarassment, because they can no longer be trusted to have any other kind.
Of course there have always been bandits, assholes, etc. The difference is they used to be rare enough to stand out. Self-absorbed obliviousness as a societal norm is the next logical step after ADD and perpetual victimhood ("nothing's ever my fault"). That's where we are today.
I wouldn't worry so much about the secrets, but rather the nuclear materials you provide them free of charge for anyone who manages to shoot (or lure) one down.
Just like with Desert Storm and Desert Shield, we have a long history of selling our old weapons to these "rogue nations" so we can turn around and hit them with our new weapons. For freedom and the flag, of course.
I suspect lighter than air technology has less capability for transferring wealth from the poor to the rich and therefore is a non-starter / invalid to the successful continuation of the status quo.
You know, one of the most insidious and diabolical tricks the rulers ever pulled was (through the media they own) to make into a popular notion something so close to the truth of the matter, that the person who accepts it as truth will never see what's actually going on.
Don't let the concern about wealth and wealth envy distract you. It's not about transferring wealth. The people who make things happen already have enough wealth to secure a high standard of living for the next 20 generations of their descendants. They have wealth in effectively limitless quantities.
It's about power. It's about transferring more and more power from the masses to the ruling elite. Money is involved only because money is a form of power; it is economic power. Old-style slaves had to be fed and housed; economic slaves will feed and house themselves. That's why it is not just money.
It is also increasingly intrusive government, declining privacy, demonization of things like guns that are also a form of power, demonization of things like drugs that tend to alter conscious enough to make people see things differently and not through the media-defined lenses, attacks on the family and on religion because those demand loyalty to something other than the state, control of the education system so that childhood immaturities extend well into adulthood, conditioned helplessness instead of independence, obsession with group identity and ignorance of individuality, promotion of left/right either-or thinking, unreasonable laws and burdensome tax codes, marginalization of the tiny minority who can see what's wrong with this, etc.
You really, really want to put a population under your thumb, you subject them to a blitz by throwing all of these at them at once. Then you supply them with charismatic, popular, almost Messianic leaders who claim to understand them. They fall for that one every time, as though telling the truth required slick presentation and the great speaking skill to sway the crowds.
you get a bunch of responses from people who want to show their intellectual superiority
You left one out: misunderstanding your argument because they're dense and have problems with reading comprehension, and then talking down to you like you're an idiot because of what they falsely think you said. Then launching personal attacks, or splitting hairs, or selectively quoting you when you point out what was right there in black-and-white because that's actually easier for them than admitting they made a mistake. That's a popular one.
It's the unintentional straw man approach. It's... the autostraw.
They would... only be limited by the ordinance they could drop on a potential foe.
Not surprising that it's the United States which comes up with a device to literally drop their laws on unsuspecting nations.
Oh wait, slashdot, you must have meant ordnance.
If they're like us and never, ever repeal laws no matter how much of a failure they've been (c.f. war on some drugs), the bullets and bombs would be the kinder, gentler alternative in the long run. At least those do damage one time, not perpetually into the future.
That is, assuming they don't waste too much money on something that has serious downsides
Seems to me the very best way to avoid doing that is to restrict the military to securing one's own border (and only one's own border) against unprovoked foreign attacks. Then you could also reduce expenditures until we're only 2-3 times more powerful than the second strongest military.
That's also why I would never make it in politics.
In all other cases where we implement nuclear technology, there's not a huge risk of it falling into enemy hands. So how will they address these concerns for a drone?
I don't believe the decision-makers are concerned about that. They have great security and lots of bunkers they can hide out in to maintain "continuity of government" etc.
For them, that risk is probably viewed as political capital (because it's all just a game and winning is all that counts). That's how sociopaths think. The whole 9/11 thing is wearing thin. Imagine how many pointless foreign wars of aggression you could justify if some enemy with an unpronouncable name who dresses funny had NUCLEAR SECRETS! You'd really be super-ultra unpatriotic to oppose THAT one.
If you're a private military contractor with lots of clout in Washington, then even the worst-case scenario is a goldmine. After all, it's not like it will be you personally or your own sons who go off to some foreign shithole to get shot at by the locals.
and only later backed away slightly as they realized their mistake.
"Realized their mistake"...? Is that a clever way of saying "realized that in the Information Age it's harder to pull the wool over everyone's eyes because they can check behind you"? I mean that sort of bullshitting was much, much easier to do when the only way to get news was in the form of a one-to-many presentation.
I don't believe this was a "mistake", any more than I believe it's an "accident" that the mainstream media have a policy of never, ever reporting when a conceal-carry permit holder successfully stops a crime without firing a single shot. They always use a vague description like "the suspect was subdued until police arrived". It's amazing how these "mistakes" fit a pattern and serve a remarkably consistent agenda.
The agenda? Government power is GREAT and can never be expanded enough, but personal power and personal liberty is BAD. Group identity is utterly important and we don't even know why people have names anymore, while individuality is completely insignificant and must be downplayed whenever possible. Criminals and other perpetrators who actively harm others are somehow not as bad as citizens who stand up to them, presumably because those citizens are not government agents. Everyone is some kind of victim and no adult person ever suffers as a result of his or her own bad decision-making. Strong feelings about something are at least as valid as things like evidence and logic.
Every news story must be made to fit this profile even if that means omitting half the facts.
That's really, really weak 'evidence'. It could be a spot fro resting his head in the car.
He was treated by paramedics prior to dealing with police which is kinda standard procedure for those who need medical attention. Paramedics do things like stop bleeding and treat wounds.
Why is this so hard to understand that so many people keep asking about it?
if you want to make more money just raise game prices.
We aren't going to buy all the games new that we are currently buying used, we'll just play less games
It isn't about making more money. If they want to make money they can follow Steam and LOWER prices and get more sales. Making money is not the issue (don't let any of the copyright math about "lost sales" fool you)
What this is really about about is control. That (the bold) is exactly what they want you to do - just don't play their games at all. Ditto for pirates
They see themselves as owners of a theater, with the full price of a new game being the admission/ticket fee. They don't want anybody who paid nothing (from their perspective) to get to watch the show
I'm not saying their perspective is right or wrong. Just pointing out that it's not about money. It's about control
I believe you have this right but it still makes no sense when you consider it.
A corporation exists for the sole purpose of making money. There is no point in attaining control if it does not result in higher profits. There is really no point if it actually results in lower profits.
Seems to me like the way to change this is to point this out to the shareholders. If they divested in companies conducting such petty and counterproductive business practices, this situation would change in a hurry.
It's kind of sad that you're defined by an operating system. Reminds me a bit of the Amish.
If you keep talking about the Amish that way, you're going to offend them and they'll stop visiting Slashdot! You insensitive clod...
All fine and dandy, but you don't hear the Amish complaining that nobody makes spoilers compatible with their buggies because it's a lifestyle choice.
It's much harder to entertain that asinine entitlement mentality when eating fried chicken means going to the coop and wringing its neck yourself*. If for some reason they thought aerodynamic lift was a problem for their buggies and wanted a spoiler, they'd make one themselves.
* What I really appreciate are people who can enjoy modern conveniences without becoming soft, complacent and fat because of them. It requires this thing that was once called "values" before politicians destroyed any meaning this term had. It could also be called having principles.
And reproduce.
A tiny percentage of poor people just had "bad luck" or lack of opportunity.
The vast, vast majority are poor because of a reason. Here is (one example of) what that reason looks like: "let's see, I can barely afford to feed myself, I have not completed my education, I have not achieved a solid career for myself, I have no savings worth mentioning, and I am not in a stable committed relationship. Wow, I sure am in a great position to have children! I'll just pretend like babies magically happen and are not the product of adult decisions and have lots of risky, casual, unprotected sex with partners who have no intention of becoming parents, yeah, that's the best move I can make at this point in my life!" For fuck's sake, you can get birth control for free and, I hate to break this to you, you can also survive without sex.
And for some reason when they complain that life is not what they hoped it would be, you guys drag out the pity-party and think that only a terrible person would ever question the facts of the matter. You are not Mother Theresa, people like that are not victims, and feeling sorry for them does not make you noble and good. It makes you an enabler who legitimizes bad decision-making by adults who should know better.
You're such mindless sheep you don't even realize this pity-movement is not even your own idea. It's politically useful to the Democrats and other Leftists who just love social inequalities because it means more power for them. You drank their flavor-aide. Now you think it's your own idea just like every other follower. See the funny thing about feelings is they can be extremely deceptive. You have strong feelings about this and you think that makes it real. That's another thing mature adults don't fall for.
And there's an odd notion that we shouldn't make things even more unfair for them than they already are.
Yes, it's so terribly *unfair* to expect a person who thinks they can afford a child ($$expensive$$) to also afford a computer (cheap). You know what *fair* is? When adults who make good decisions reap what they sow, and adults who make bad decisions also reap what they sow. Anything else is by definition not fair.
What I write below is not an endorsement of the quoted post. I simply want to point out that this is low-quality, abusive moderation. By "abusive" I mean it is not the intended purpose of the moderation system to down-mod posts with which you disagree. Note that there was no bigoted language or anything like that which would actually justify a summary down-mod.
You know, I get mod points from time to time myself. I never bought into this childish culture of using that to silence things simply because I dislike them. The ultimate expression of that mentality was the Spanish Inquisition -- say the wrong thing back then and you might just find yourself tied to a stake. It makes me wonder if these cowardly type of moderators can see what's wrong with that while denying their own hypocrisy. That would be a severe load of cognitive dissonance.
Let's outline two simple conditions:
A) The mod is a total coward with no belief in the strength of his own beliefs.
B) The mod disagrees with this poser.
If and only if both Condition A and Condition B are true, it follows that the moderator would take the cheap-and-easy route of modding this down. If Condition A is false, but Condition B is true, the mod would rebut it. If Condition A and Condition B are both false, there is no action to take.
Now, let's see if there are four cowardly mods who will put me into -1 territory as well. I quoted the post verbatim just to tempt you. Go ahead, I have lots of karma.
Meanwhile, if this post is so terribly wrong it should be easy to demonstrate why.
We live in an age of irresponsible children and helicopter parents. If an assignment is on the board and a middle schooler has to copy it down and keep track of his assignment book, he's learning something. He's forming a habit. That little boy or girl is learning to take responsibility for himself. Moreover, the parent will have to keep tabs on his or her kid, and ask about the homework assignments. In this way, the parent is contributing to the child's moral development.
Expecting the school system to be more of a parent than the parents is part of why the public schools are so fucked up. You know what this well-meaning but idiotic intention produces? Zero tolerance policies. That way, when a young child points a french fry at another student and says "bang bang" (something that was once viewed as harmless imagination like cops-and-robbers) he gets expelled because of the zero-tolerance policy concerning guns. The only "moral" he learns is to never respect authority, because the only ones he knows are unreasonable to the core.
Public schooling is part business and part jobs project. Parenting is best done by people who love the child and care about his well-being. It does not work out so well when you want it to come from a bureaucratic machine that views them as fungible line-items on a budget.
If society is going to break because homework is available in an electronic format, we have far bigger problems than redundant handwriting is going to solve.
You know that makes no sense, correct? I'll break it down for you.
1. Parent gives e-mail address to school (just as they currently provide other information at the time of registration). 2. Teachers now have this on file. 3. Teacher e-mails parent. 4. Parent receives e-mail.
Do you see any point in that process where the student supplies a password? Neither do I.
Sure, maybe you can come up with some retarded way to do things that would give the student such an opportunity. That would be an argument against doing things a retarded way, not an argument against utilizing the Information Age.
Just because someone accepts something in grade school doesn't mean that they won't appreciate giving it up after they are out of school.
Likewise, just because you can break free from your early influence and training, and question it, and ultimately reject it, does not mean that the average person has enough individuality to do so.
That's a very sad and tragic thing to say. I wish it weren't so. But in this way, you are somewhat exceptional.
Ah yes, the conservative mentality: children are pets of their adult owners.
Conservatives are the ones for freedom and elimination of government oversight at all levels.
Liberals are the ones who do things "for your own good".
Get it straight man or you end up voting for exactly the opposite result as you desire. See: present.
Actually conservatism is all about worship of the status quo. It is the belief that it should change very slowly if at all. It's misused all the time by people who don't understand it, and so has become one of those words that means whatever the speaker intends it to mean. But that's the actual definition; look it up if you doubt me.
Libertarians (similar to classical liberals, nothing like modern liberals) are the ones who want to maximize freedom. Libertarianism is the belief that consenting adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want, no matter who disapproves, so long as they don't pose a threat to non-participants. Libertarianism would seriously take off as a political movement if it were possible to get candidates on the ballot for all major elections, which is why the two-party duopoly creates ridiculously elaborate, inconsistent, burdensome electoral rules and deeply entrenched funding mechanisms to prevent this from happening.
Of course, "convervative" has been co-opted as a term and now tends to mean someone who is prudish, religious in an institutional (not personal) way, and wishes their preferred lifestyle to have the force of law, combined with the celebration of corporate power over state power. Just like "liberal" has become co-opted to mean "we know what's good for you" social engineering as well as an obsession with group identity (black, white, female, etc) at the expense of dealing with people as individuals. In that sense conservatives tend to be materialistic while liberals tend to be utterly childish and unable to separate their emotions from reason. Both are the delight of power-hungry politicians everywhere because both can be pandered to.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no power involved. The only FCAT that matters is the 10th grade one. You need that to graduate.
It's the power to sow confusion which actually ends up making impressionable people more complacent and compliant. It's hard to stand up for yourself or generally to have a backbone when you aren't rooted in a solid foundation of fact. A generation of young people who don't know which way is up and which way is down is a tyrant's wet dream, for they will be needy and dependent and that's always been the ticket to real power.
You don't think this, the side effects it will have, or the fact it comes from government is one great big accident do you? It's not so much a carefully planned conspiracy. It's more like, the same mentality that believes power for its own sake is a worthy goal is the same mentality that would believe this kind of institutionalized insanity is a good idea.
Anyone who really had the students' best interests at heart would expect better of them than they expect from themselves and equip them to rise to meet or exceed that standard. Assuming from the start that they're just too dumb to be expected to understand some basic things comes from the belief that they're already under your thumb, right where they "should be", and will always be dependent, subservient and mediocre. No one expects excellence from cogs in a machine or blocks at the bottom of a pyramid. If any of you have taken the time to learn about how public schooling was established in America, then you are aware the industrial tycoons feared the poor and wanted to keep them stupid and created their own imitation of the Prussian schools and the Hindu caste system in order to do it. We still pay for that today.
Ideally, adult people wouldn't have children they were not in a position to afford, both raising them and educating them. Since the bar for personal responsibility (and actual adulthood, which is marked by sound decision-making) has been lowered so much, government involvement is here to stay for the foreseeable future. If we're going to have government involved in the upbringing of children, it needs to be in a limited and controlled fashion. For this reason I would love a voucher-type system where the money follows the child, not the other way around (which do we value more?), and parents can move their children to other schools at-will instead of being stuck.
But allowing government to directly administer the schools is a terrible, horrible idea. It breeds stupidity like this, and zero tolerance, and the total lack of justice (in a fistfight, the unprovoked attacker AND the defender are both punished equally?!) and it can do nothing else. That is in the nature of the situation when you hand your children over to these people. Seriously, stop acting surprised every time there's a story like this. I for one would never consider having children until I could make other arrangements -- private school if I have the money or homeschooling in a friendly community if I don't. But then I don't think I'm entitled to create life, I don't pretend that this is something that "just happens" as if it weren't the product of adult decisions, and I don't think I'm entitled to shift the burden of parenting onto other people. It's a situation I wouldn't be in unless I were truly prepared to handle it. No excuses, no bullshit, and no pretending like my actions have no impact on it.
If you love your children and care for their well-being you don't make excuses about not subjecting them to such a suffocating and degrading environment as modern public schools. If you love your convenience more, and secretly regard your children as little more than property or sophisticated pets, another chore to be done, then you whine about how that's "too hard" or how it's so terrible that not everyone can do the same because they fail to plan ahead, have children they are not prepared to raise, etc. It amazes me how people say things like that as though more good examples wouldn't have a positive effect.
Unfortunately those natural substances have serious side effects.
Yeah like persecution by the state for the "crime" of altering your consciousness in unauthorized ways.
As though your consciousness were theirs to regulate. I can understand why they regulate the roads with traffic laws -- they used tax money to build those roads and continue using tax money to maintain them. Makes sense and you can clearly see why they would have a claim there. But the inner sanctum of your consciousness?
Just because idiots who like to screw with things they haven't taken the time to understand might hurt themselves?
All currency is based on trust in some entity, and trust that that entity will repay their debts.
Really? So tell me, whom do I need to trust that gold coins will retain substantial value? Did someone discover an economical way to turn lead into gold that I don't know about?
No, you simply described all fiat currency. Not all currency. Even paper money is based on wealth and not debt if it's representative currency backed by gold or silver.
Why don't you take a few minutes sometime to read up on how the Federal Reserve works, how they create currency out of thin air in exchange for government IOUs called treasury bonds, how interest is attached to the money at the time it is created which means there is never enough money in circulation to repay the debt, which means the only possibility is ever-increasing debt? Just insisting really, really hard that this can't be so will not change the situation.
America got hoodwinked and America got fucked the moment the Fed was established. Many other nations followed suit. It's that simple. In fact good ol' Abraham Lincoln had a lot to say about this very subject. Do you perchance know why he issued the greenback? It was in response to bankers' attempts to establish something just like the modern Federal Reserve during his time. He knew this would mean the government losing control of the money supply and being beholden to said bankers. He issued the greenback to stop this from happening. In fact I believe that's why he was murdered, but that's another subject (amazing how people will believe that a mugger might shoot someone for the $20 in their pocket but won't believe that powerful people will murder over tremendous amounts of wealth).
This is what Lincoln said:
The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace, and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insular than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned; an era of corruption will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed.
Oh and here's another quote, this time from FDR:
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson. -- U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, 1933
Hey, and another rather frank one from Henry Ford:
It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be revolution before tomorrow morning.
They used to be much more open about what they want. Ever heard of the USA Banker's Magazine? Try this one:
Capital must protect itself in every possible manner by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages must be foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through a process of law, the common people lose their homes they will become more docile and more easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government, applied by a central power of wealth under control of leading financiers. This truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of Capital to govern the world. By dividing the voters through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance. Thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves what has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished... -- USA Banker's Magazine, August 25, 1924
Thomas Jefferson was farsighted enough to see this as well. It is very much like performing a security audit of a computer system: you can dis
Well, before that I'd honestly never posted AC before :P. I didn't know that the CAPTCHA was just for AC since I post fairly infrequently these days I actually thought it was something new. But when you say it like that, yes it was kinda stupid.
Anyone and I do mean anyone can do a stupid thing. The fact you have a sense of humor about it is strong evidence, in fact proof positive, that you're not a stupid person.
If you were a stupid person you would resent and resist all suggestions that you erred in any way that could be corrected. That is the mark of stupidity. It never admits fault no matter how obvious it may be and never believes it should ever do anything differently. Instead it climbs up on its high horse, acts "hurt" and tries to convince you that you're a terrible person for observing fault. Stupidity and immaturity are interconnected in that sense, for all immature people secretly think of themselves as something like "God", and you don't "blaspheme" "God" or you face "God's" wrath. Their egos are bigger than both their brains and their guts combined in that way.
P.S. I am the original AC. It wouldn't have been as amusing if I made the original post while logged in.
That pretty much sums it up.
Nice "me too" but no, not entirely. There's a lesson here for other would-be whistleblowers.
The lesson? Don't try to be a nice guy by going through channels, keeping it internal, identifying yourself, etc. Instead, quietly collect all the absolutely damning evidence you can gather, be certain that it names names, and then bring it straight to the authorities. If you can remain anonymous while doing that, like an informant, then so much the better.
If this is how someone who raises a benign warning is going to be treated, then just fucking nail them as hard as you can. They are obviously unworthy of someone who wants to be amiable and play softball, as one would expect of the kind of sociopaths who create this situation in the first place. Instead of letting this frighten you into reluctant silence, just don't put the ball in their court to begin with as that's terrible strategy.
I'd have an attorney read over the TOS before suing, though. I've read some that have a clause saying that by using the service I accept the TOS and agree to hold the provider blameless in anything that may come up, up to and including the Second Coming of Elvis.
I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, yadda yadda. Owing to the legally protected freedom of speech, they may write whatever they want into a document. That doesn't necessarily mean it will hold up in court. Some states are better than others about rejecting unreasonable clauses in such contracts.
Because Unity sucks.
About the only things I want from a distribution are a good package manager, a good selection of available packages, and timely attention paid to security.
What comes installed by default is something I'm likely to rearrange anyway. I don't like Unity either, which is why it would be installed for all of a few minutes until I replace it with something else if I decided that Ubuntu/Kubuntu fit my criteria.
So how many Slashdotters really just stick with defaults no matter how much they like something else better? Seems like a total non-issue (and a non-complaint) to me.
I don't see what ethical people would fear from this. Not at the workplace, anyway.
Why do so many people here lack imagination. Ethical people still do and say stupid things (even if they generally are intelligent), ethical people can still get embarassed.
It's not (my) imagination issue, it's (your) reading comprehension issue. The context was fear of getting caught. Too bad ACs don't have reply messages, but here's to hoping you'll read this anyway.
I guess, your statement has more to do with simply not wanting to get caught
That's about the only thing a sociopath fears. That's why the "threat" of video documentation is so effective.
than being ethical.
I don't see what ethical people would fear from this. Not at the workplace, anyway.
I think this situation has merely arisen to cope with a modern reality: that altruism and enlightened self-interest are at an all-time low. Many people won't even fake them anymore to be thought of as "good" because it is the value of those things itself that is eroding. People like this are self-absorbed and often live as though other people don't exist and could not be inconvenienced or harmed by their bad decision-making, something you can witness in traffic daily. It's not that they are malicious, it's that they don't even notice how their actions affect other people. They don't even have sense enough not to block doorways or other basic things like that. People like this need a selfish reason to do the right thing, like avoiding embarassment, because they can no longer be trusted to have any other kind.
Of course there have always been bandits, assholes, etc. The difference is they used to be rare enough to stand out. Self-absorbed obliviousness as a societal norm is the next logical step after ADD and perpetual victimhood ("nothing's ever my fault"). That's where we are today.
You left one out: misunderstanding your argument
I think you're the one that misunderstands.
you're an idiot
Right back at you. Look I liked Automan too but it only had like 7 episodes. Nice strawman. :p
Haha that's a good one. Plausible!
I wouldn't worry so much about the secrets, but rather the nuclear materials you provide them free of charge for anyone who manages to shoot (or lure) one down.
Just like with Desert Storm and Desert Shield, we have a long history of selling our old weapons to these "rogue nations" so we can turn around and hit them with our new weapons. For freedom and the flag, of course.
You think such a thing would be an accident?
I suspect lighter than air technology has less capability for transferring wealth from the poor to the rich and therefore is a non-starter / invalid to the successful continuation of the status quo.
You know, one of the most insidious and diabolical tricks the rulers ever pulled was (through the media they own) to make into a popular notion something so close to the truth of the matter, that the person who accepts it as truth will never see what's actually going on.
Don't let the concern about wealth and wealth envy distract you. It's not about transferring wealth. The people who make things happen already have enough wealth to secure a high standard of living for the next 20 generations of their descendants. They have wealth in effectively limitless quantities.
It's about power. It's about transferring more and more power from the masses to the ruling elite. Money is involved only because money is a form of power; it is economic power. Old-style slaves had to be fed and housed; economic slaves will feed and house themselves. That's why it is not just money.
It is also increasingly intrusive government, declining privacy, demonization of things like guns that are also a form of power, demonization of things like drugs that tend to alter conscious enough to make people see things differently and not through the media-defined lenses, attacks on the family and on religion because those demand loyalty to something other than the state, control of the education system so that childhood immaturities extend well into adulthood, conditioned helplessness instead of independence, obsession with group identity and ignorance of individuality, promotion of left/right either-or thinking, unreasonable laws and burdensome tax codes, marginalization of the tiny minority who can see what's wrong with this, etc.
You really, really want to put a population under your thumb, you subject them to a blitz by throwing all of these at them at once. Then you supply them with charismatic, popular, almost Messianic leaders who claim to understand them. They fall for that one every time, as though telling the truth required slick presentation and the great speaking skill to sway the crowds.
you get a bunch of responses from people who want to show their intellectual superiority
You left one out: misunderstanding your argument because they're dense and have problems with reading comprehension, and then talking down to you like you're an idiot because of what they falsely think you said. Then launching personal attacks, or splitting hairs, or selectively quoting you when you point out what was right there in black-and-white because that's actually easier for them than admitting they made a mistake. That's a popular one.
... the autostraw.
It's the unintentional straw man approach. It's
They would ... only be limited by the ordinance they could drop on a potential foe.
Not surprising that it's the United States which comes up with a device to literally drop their laws on unsuspecting nations.
Oh wait, slashdot, you must have meant ordnance.
If they're like us and never, ever repeal laws no matter how much of a failure they've been (c.f. war on some drugs), the bullets and bombs would be the kinder, gentler alternative in the long run. At least those do damage one time, not perpetually into the future.
That is, assuming they don't waste too much money on something that has serious downsides
Seems to me the very best way to avoid doing that is to restrict the military to securing one's own border (and only one's own border) against unprovoked foreign attacks. Then you could also reduce expenditures until we're only 2-3 times more powerful than the second strongest military.
That's also why I would never make it in politics.
In all other cases where we implement nuclear technology, there's not a huge risk of it falling into enemy hands. So how will they address these concerns for a drone?
I don't believe the decision-makers are concerned about that. They have great security and lots of bunkers they can hide out in to maintain "continuity of government" etc.
For them, that risk is probably viewed as political capital (because it's all just a game and winning is all that counts). That's how sociopaths think. The whole 9/11 thing is wearing thin. Imagine how many pointless foreign wars of aggression you could justify if some enemy with an unpronouncable name who dresses funny had NUCLEAR SECRETS! You'd really be super-ultra unpatriotic to oppose THAT one.
If you're a private military contractor with lots of clout in Washington, then even the worst-case scenario is a goldmine. After all, it's not like it will be you personally or your own sons who go off to some foreign shithole to get shot at by the locals.
and only later backed away slightly as they realized their mistake.
"Realized their mistake"...? Is that a clever way of saying "realized that in the Information Age it's harder to pull the wool over everyone's eyes because they can check behind you"? I mean that sort of bullshitting was much, much easier to do when the only way to get news was in the form of a one-to-many presentation.
I don't believe this was a "mistake", any more than I believe it's an "accident" that the mainstream media have a policy of never, ever reporting when a conceal-carry permit holder successfully stops a crime without firing a single shot. They always use a vague description like "the suspect was subdued until police arrived". It's amazing how these "mistakes" fit a pattern and serve a remarkably consistent agenda.
The agenda? Government power is GREAT and can never be expanded enough, but personal power and personal liberty is BAD. Group identity is utterly important and we don't even know why people have names anymore, while individuality is completely insignificant and must be downplayed whenever possible. Criminals and other perpetrators who actively harm others are somehow not as bad as citizens who stand up to them, presumably because those citizens are not government agents. Everyone is some kind of victim and no adult person ever suffers as a result of his or her own bad decision-making. Strong feelings about something are at least as valid as things like evidence and logic.
Every news story must be made to fit this profile even if that means omitting half the facts.
That's really, really weak 'evidence'. It could be a spot fro resting his head in the car.
He was treated by paramedics prior to dealing with police which is kinda standard procedure for those who need medical attention. Paramedics do things like stop bleeding and treat wounds.
Why is this so hard to understand that so many people keep asking about it?
if you want to make more money just raise game prices.
We aren't going to buy all the games new that we are currently buying used, we'll just play less games
It isn't about making more money. If they want to make money they can follow Steam and LOWER prices and get more sales. Making money is not the issue (don't let any of the copyright math about "lost sales" fool you)
What this is really about about is control. That (the bold) is exactly what they want you to do - just don't play their games at all. Ditto for pirates
They see themselves as owners of a theater, with the full price of a new game being the admission/ticket fee. They don't want anybody who paid nothing (from their perspective) to get to watch the show
I'm not saying their perspective is right or wrong. Just pointing out that it's not about money. It's about control
I believe you have this right but it still makes no sense when you consider it.
A corporation exists for the sole purpose of making money. There is no point in attaining control if it does not result in higher profits. There is really no point if it actually results in lower profits.
Seems to me like the way to change this is to point this out to the shareholders. If they divested in companies conducting such petty and counterproductive business practices, this situation would change in a hurry.
It's kind of sad that you're defined by an operating system. Reminds me a bit of the Amish.
If you keep talking about the Amish that way, you're going to offend them and they'll stop visiting Slashdot! You insensitive clod...
All fine and dandy, but you don't hear the Amish complaining that nobody makes spoilers compatible with their buggies because it's a lifestyle choice.
It's much harder to entertain that asinine entitlement mentality when eating fried chicken means going to the coop and wringing its neck yourself*. If for some reason they thought aerodynamic lift was a problem for their buggies and wanted a spoiler, they'd make one themselves.
* What I really appreciate are people who can enjoy modern conveniences without becoming soft, complacent and fat because of them. It requires this thing that was once called "values" before politicians destroyed any meaning this term had. It could also be called having principles.
Poor people exist. And attend school.
And reproduce. A tiny percentage of poor people just had "bad luck" or lack of opportunity. The vast, vast majority are poor because of a reason. Here is (one example of) what that reason looks like: "let's see, I can barely afford to feed myself, I have not completed my education, I have not achieved a solid career for myself, I have no savings worth mentioning, and I am not in a stable committed relationship. Wow, I sure am in a great position to have children! I'll just pretend like babies magically happen and are not the product of adult decisions and have lots of risky, casual, unprotected sex with partners who have no intention of becoming parents, yeah, that's the best move I can make at this point in my life!" For fuck's sake, you can get birth control for free and, I hate to break this to you, you can also survive without sex. And for some reason when they complain that life is not what they hoped it would be, you guys drag out the pity-party and think that only a terrible person would ever question the facts of the matter. You are not Mother Theresa, people like that are not victims, and feeling sorry for them does not make you noble and good. It makes you an enabler who legitimizes bad decision-making by adults who should know better. You're such mindless sheep you don't even realize this pity-movement is not even your own idea. It's politically useful to the Democrats and other Leftists who just love social inequalities because it means more power for them. You drank their flavor-aide. Now you think it's your own idea just like every other follower. See the funny thing about feelings is they can be extremely deceptive. You have strong feelings about this and you think that makes it real. That's another thing mature adults don't fall for.
And there's an odd notion that we shouldn't make things even more unfair for them than they already are.
Yes, it's so terribly *unfair* to expect a person who thinks they can afford a child ($$expensive$$) to also afford a computer (cheap). You know what *fair* is? When adults who make good decisions reap what they sow, and adults who make bad decisions also reap what they sow. Anything else is by definition not fair.
What I write below is not an endorsement of the quoted post. I simply want to point out that this is low-quality, abusive moderation. By "abusive" I mean it is not the intended purpose of the moderation system to down-mod posts with which you disagree. Note that there was no bigoted language or anything like that which would actually justify a summary down-mod.
You know, I get mod points from time to time myself. I never bought into this childish culture of using that to silence things simply because I dislike them. The ultimate expression of that mentality was the Spanish Inquisition -- say the wrong thing back then and you might just find yourself tied to a stake. It makes me wonder if these cowardly type of moderators can see what's wrong with that while denying their own hypocrisy. That would be a severe load of cognitive dissonance.
Let's outline two simple conditions:
A) The mod is a total coward with no belief in the strength of his own beliefs.
B) The mod disagrees with this poser.
If and only if both Condition A and Condition B are true, it follows that the moderator would take the cheap-and-easy route of modding this down. If Condition A is false, but Condition B is true, the mod would rebut it. If Condition A and Condition B are both false, there is no action to take.
Now, let's see if there are four cowardly mods who will put me into -1 territory as well. I quoted the post verbatim just to tempt you. Go ahead, I have lots of karma.
Meanwhile, if this post is so terribly wrong it should be easy to demonstrate why.
We live in an age of irresponsible children and helicopter parents. If an assignment is on the board and a middle schooler has to copy it down and keep track of his assignment book, he's learning something. He's forming a habit. That little boy or girl is learning to take responsibility for himself. Moreover, the parent will have to keep tabs on his or her kid, and ask about the homework assignments. In this way, the parent is contributing to the child's moral development.
Expecting the school system to be more of a parent than the parents is part of why the public schools are so fucked up. You know what this well-meaning but idiotic intention produces? Zero tolerance policies. That way, when a young child points a french fry at another student and says "bang bang" (something that was once viewed as harmless imagination like cops-and-robbers) he gets expelled because of the zero-tolerance policy concerning guns. The only "moral" he learns is to never respect authority, because the only ones he knows are unreasonable to the core.
Public schooling is part business and part jobs project. Parenting is best done by people who love the child and care about his well-being. It does not work out so well when you want it to come from a bureaucratic machine that views them as fungible line-items on a budget.
If society is going to break because homework is available in an electronic format, we have far bigger problems than redundant handwriting is going to solve.
Students do not give their password to parents.
You know that makes no sense, correct? I'll break it down for you.
1. Parent gives e-mail address to school (just as they currently provide other information at the time of registration). 2. Teachers now have this on file. 3. Teacher e-mails parent. 4. Parent receives e-mail.
Do you see any point in that process where the student supplies a password? Neither do I.
Sure, maybe you can come up with some retarded way to do things that would give the student such an opportunity. That would be an argument against doing things a retarded way, not an argument against utilizing the Information Age.
Just because someone accepts something in grade school doesn't mean that they won't appreciate giving it up after they are out of school.
Likewise, just because you can break free from your early influence and training, and question it, and ultimately reject it, does not mean that the average person has enough individuality to do so.
That's a very sad and tragic thing to say. I wish it weren't so. But in this way, you are somewhat exceptional.
Ah yes, the conservative mentality: children are pets of their adult owners.
Conservatives are the ones for freedom and elimination of government oversight at all levels.
Liberals are the ones who do things "for your own good".
Get it straight man or you end up voting for exactly the opposite result as you desire. See: present.
Actually conservatism is all about worship of the status quo. It is the belief that it should change very slowly if at all. It's misused all the time by people who don't understand it, and so has become one of those words that means whatever the speaker intends it to mean. But that's the actual definition; look it up if you doubt me.
Libertarians (similar to classical liberals, nothing like modern liberals) are the ones who want to maximize freedom. Libertarianism is the belief that consenting adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want, no matter who disapproves, so long as they don't pose a threat to non-participants. Libertarianism would seriously take off as a political movement if it were possible to get candidates on the ballot for all major elections, which is why the two-party duopoly creates ridiculously elaborate, inconsistent, burdensome electoral rules and deeply entrenched funding mechanisms to prevent this from happening.
Of course, "convervative" has been co-opted as a term and now tends to mean someone who is prudish, religious in an institutional (not personal) way, and wishes their preferred lifestyle to have the force of law, combined with the celebration of corporate power over state power. Just like "liberal" has become co-opted to mean "we know what's good for you" social engineering as well as an obsession with group identity (black, white, female, etc) at the expense of dealing with people as individuals. In that sense conservatives tend to be materialistic while liberals tend to be utterly childish and unable to separate their emotions from reason. Both are the delight of power-hungry politicians everywhere because both can be pandered to.