Any other triplet of creatures sharing so many characteristics- both non-genetic (morphology, biochemistry, behavior) and genetic- would've been lumped together years ago. It was one of those open secrets in college: "Of course they're all one group, but let's not freak out the laypersons by mentioning it. Now back to something interesting like arthropods and the verbal fistfights on polyphyly..."
A closer analogy would be a technical manual (or programming code) written as a Word document. (And carrying on this analogy, we're wanting to compare two manuals where we think both were plagarized / copied from the same parent document- with 250,000 intervening generations each.)
The genome is very much like a technical manual written in Word, if Word has all the versioning and autosave features turned on. You can look at either the functional part- the readable manual- or the raw data. If you read the raw data you have blocks of the current and readable manual interspersed within blocks of outdated but readable text, blocks of barely readable fragments, and blocks of Word code / framing data. Similarly, you can look at individual genes alone or at the raw genetic data: in the raw data you have blocks of current and readable instructions for genes (i.e. exons) surrounded by everything else, some almost readable, some not at all (introns).
If you wanted to compare two documents for a common source some types of comparisons such as overall size or number of chapters aren't that useful: whole paragraphs or pages could be duplicated, or chapters split or concatenated. Ditto for genetic comparisons: humans have 23 chromosomes, other apes have 24: this might seem like a big difference. But human chromosome 2 looks like chimp chromosomes 2P and 2Q fused / concatenated- not much of a difference at all. The analogy holds one more level: if you concatenated two chapters you might expect bits of remnant chapter heading code to sit where the two were joined: human C.2 has nonfunctional telomere code right at the spot where you'd expect if you fused chimp 2P and 2Q. Article with references for this Here.
"Comparing only functional genes is like comparing only the current, readable parts of the Word document's raw data. Here they found over 99% similarity"
"Comparing only functional genes is like comparing only the curent, readable parts of the Word document's raw data. Here they found over 99% similarity"
The two previous paragraphs are 99% similar: if you saw both in two postings you'd suspect copying. If chapter after chapter in two manuals contained this level of similarity the suspicion would be corroborated. This similarity holds even if the compared chapters' instructions give different end results.
Going back to what I wrote, perhaps it is better put as "with regular mail, every action taken by every player involves a predictable trade..." In some cases the trade is negotiated as a public good (postal customers don't pay as much per letter because bulk mail subsidized them), but in all cases it is at a predictable price. (By the way, in what situations is mail delivered per pound? I've seen that for forwarding services. Where else? And with per-pound mail, it is unlikely someone would suddenly have to deal with 100 kgs of the stuff being returned- senders are usually known (to be able to get the bulk mail sent in the first place) and bulk mail is usually not returned to sender)).
With spam, a single spammer can force someone else to pay out (time or money) without any type of trade being involved. Peering agreements account for only some of the costs of spam.
For example, that example where I gave of someone spending an hour or two to clean up their inbox because they were falsely used as the return address: that is an unpredictable, unnegotiated cost. If an entire system gets clogged up and slowed down because of spam, the loss of time doesn't get recovered elsewhere in the system, it is a net loss. It is similar to an automobile accident. One accident that blocks highway lanes can easily cause 3,000 people to lose 1 hour of time. The highway patrol and towtruck operators might get paid $500 during that time, and the car repair place might get $2000. The payments into the local system because of that accident could be $3k, which doesn't make up for those 3,000 person-hours lost. Spam is similar.
As another example, take antiviral software. If a new virus comes out, the antivirus company might pay $2000 in overtime to get a patch out, and perhaps antivirus companies get another $500,000 in new customers. That won't make up for the 100,000 lost person-hours due to that virus.
Albeit from an involuntary agreement: in return for that bulk mail all first class mail you send out is much cheaper- bulk mail subsidizes regular mail. However, because postal mail is a public good (in the economists' sense) you yourself don't negotiate the contract about this. If as in your case you don't receive or send much postal mail it is costly to you, but on average it works out.
Bulk unsolicited email is the exact opposite. It is an unnegotiated public bad- neither you nor your ISP negotiates that 'contract' with the spammers that makes all email / ISP services much more expensive.
As compared to regular old postal mail, spam advertising is filled with externalities- costs, sometimes unpredictable, which no individual player wants to claim. Sure, someone does pay, but it is outside of the normal market process. Spam is the equivalent of a delivery service which uses old sparky trucks that periodically set off fires by the side of the road.(*) Yes, the fires are put out, but at no net benefit to the economy- the opportunity costs of that spending make it a net loss. (Money spent to put things back the way they were is a lot, lot less beneficial than money spent investing in the future, even if people are paid to do it. Which is better, paying people to fill potholes of paying the same people to build new roads? Spam is potholes.)
For example, with postal bulk mail every action taken by every player in the process has a price. You can model the process with reasonable accuracy, predicting ahead of time how much everyone will get paid, from the printer to the postal worker.
In contrast, with spam there are variable external costs. If the spammer decides to use your email address as the reply-to, you've now got 1000 messages clogging up your inbox. That hour or two of lost time to restore your inbox to health is pure cost- you didn't even get paid to restore it. (and if you miss out on an important email because you reached your limit...) If an ISP gets a flood of bounces, the fact that they pay someone to fix it (or pay customer support some overtime to calm down irate customers) doesn't make that money spent a net benefit to the economy.
(*)ref: one of the classic examples of externalities: trains that set of forest fires next to the train tracks in England.
Of course it becomes a different matter when the requirements imposed become very costly in one way or another. Requiring that you pay a US$10,000 departure tax, or submit to extensive anal probing before you fly, would certainly be an infringment upon your liberty (and in the second case your privacy as well).
If the only way to travel is to accept the government knowing, tracking and retaining data on all of my travels, that is "very costly." Did you read the Privacy Commissioner's overview? He details several proposed Canadian laws *applicable to Canadians in Canada, not just Canadians traveling in the US,* which cause significant loss of privacy rights... all but one of which were instigated or requested by the US.
I do not see how one can be free in a society where the government can force you to be known against your will. Again, refering to the overview: aren't the dangers of lost privacy he lists worth fearing (for example, one bad interpretation of your travel habits and you could be blacklisted for years, all without probable cause)? It really worries me that he is warning Canadians against the loss of rights which are already gone in the US.
Of course, I myself have a constitutional right to privacy, but that means never leaving the borders of California.
then you are being obstructed by others, aren't you? (I'm curious, would the Fourth Ammendment be about liberty or about a claim right, by these definitions?) For more on Canada's positions on this, or at least the Canadian Commissioner on Privacy's take on privacy as a right, read his well-written overview. A couple of relevant quotes:
"With regard to all these initiatives except street video surveillance, Government officials have repeatedly told me privately that pressure from the United States government is a strong motivating factor.
Let me be blunt: "The United States made us do it" cannot be a sufficient or acceptable justification for the Government to intrude on a fundamental right of Canadians.
Canada is a sovereign country.
Throughout our history, there have been important instances where Canada has found it necessary to take a position different from that of the United States on matters involving rights or values. It is surely no exaggeration to say that if our leaders had instead consistently succumbed to U.S. pressures to adopt that country's approaches as our own, there would today be no distinct Canada as we know it.
The same is true with regard to appropriate respect for fundamental rights in the wake of September 11. If the U.S. government is indeed exerting pressure on Canada to take steps that cannot be justified on their merits in accordance with our Canadian values and rights, then Canadians are entitled to expect that the Government will remain steadfast in meeting its responsibilities rather than trample on their rights out of fear of U.S. retaliation. "
"... The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom... But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy -- the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us -- is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being..."
"...The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society like Canada. But that is where we are inexorably headed, if the Government's current initiatives are allowed to proceed. "
I think some are misreading his essay as saying the "obvious right answer" = the ISP flat fee. Actually his "right answer" = compulsory licenses, with flat fees as one possible way to do this.
To quickly summarize his article: 1. The RIAA's antiP2P fight hurts many and helps no one, 2. Artists need to be paid, 3. Compulsory licensing pays artists, 4. One method of CL could be an ISP flat fee, 5. Many other CL methods exist (examples given) and could be used...
Once a bureaucracy is used to the money they fight like territorial bull moose to keep it. Taxes rarely go, and in that sense the analogy isn't the best one (but then few analogies are one-to-one matches, else they'd just be examples or analyses).
But as a starting analogy I think it is powerful, because it links in with some politicians' (Republicans especially) stated desires to demand accountability and cost benefit analyses for new regulations or current taxes. A permanent change to our civil liberties should demand as much review as a new regulation on air quality and pollution control equipment, no? And we should review it as much as we do regulations to make sure we're not mandating outdated technologies or trying to fix a problem that no longer exists?
I question his basic and unquestioned (by the media et al) assumption that to have a sunset provision equals the law not being renewed. If the Act has been a "demonstrated success" then they should have no problem getting those portions of the law renewed. Doesn't he have annual reviews? Those don't automatically mean he is fired, no? Don't we review the performance of our Congresspeople every 2 or 6 years? This latter review certainly doesn't mean that the reviewee is gone.
They act as if sunset provisions = not caring about the law. Quite the opposite, I think. Sunset provisions mean that a law is so important that it is worth coming back to, over and over again. Is it such a hard thing to ask that Congress spend at least as much time on "Review of Changes to Civil Liberties and Constitutional Rights in Response to Terrorism" once a year as they do to "What Shall We Call Deep Fried Potato Strips In Our Cafeteria?"? Or that they spend as much time each year reviewing it as they did in passing it in the first place? (which was, unfortunately, just a few hours as I recall: Congresspersons didn't even get a chance to read it, not all 300+ pages)
Discussing this recently the analogy I came up with was: during wartimes or other extraodinary circumstances we've sometimes raised taxes to pay for it. These taxes can be necessary, but because they are taxes we want accountability, time limits, and proof that the tax monies are going where we were told they'd go. And as with all taxes we want cost benefit analyses to prove we're getting the biggest bang for the buck.
The Patriot Act is a tax on civil liberties. Perhaps it is necessary. But we must demand at least as much proof of its necessity and review of its impact as we would a new tax. To require cost benefit analyses is *not* saying that it should be abolished, unless it cannot withstand scrutiny. And if it can't, why have it? If you're going take civil liberties out of my constitutional wallet, you better be ready to tell me where you're spending them and how well you're doing.
For these reviews or cost benefit analyses, a minimum step would be to require them to meet the requirements from this well-written report:
"...I have suggested that any [proposed new law] must meet a four-part test:
It must be demonstrably necessary in order to meet some specific need.
It must be demonstrably likely to be effective in achieving its intended purpose. In other words, it must be likely to actually make us significantly safer, not just make us feel safer.
The intrusion on privacy must be proportional to the security benefit to be derived.
And it must be demonstrable that no other, less privacy-intrusive, measure would suffice to achieve the same purpose..."
My short answer: because we lose a fundamental right, necessary (but not sufficient) for being a free country. (My answer used to be "if you aren't a voyeur, why are you looking?", but that (along with the 4th ammendment and 'innocent until guilty') has lost it's ironic zing. You know that your question itself used to be ironic, much like the question "Were there computers before Apple and Microsoft?"? i.e. That it is increasingly asked seriously isn't a good sign)
" A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
"By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
"The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
"If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy...
"...The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society...
While the local paper splashes your picture on page B1 after "Impending arrest of secret criminal" is leaked. You have to rely on friends or family to find a lawyer (do you have a criminal lawyer ready to go? How many people do?) While in jail you get little sleep, so that when you're let out you can't argue too well about why your boss shouldn't let you go. "Sorry, but it makes us look bad to have a criminal here." You've already lost a few days wages, and you have to think hard about how much time to pay for at $200/hour.
The city claims that the database software company is at fault. The dsc claims that Axciom is at fault. Axciom claims that it received data voluntarily and why didn't you clean up your credit report? The FBI claims it cannot reveal how it does its datamining in a public forum.
The city still decides to settle. You get your $5,000 and rent a trailer at Lucerne at Clear Lake, California.
With identity theft bad data gets attached to you and affects your ability to find a job, get a loan, rent an apartment... but it only affects you, and you get to attempt to fix it (takes an average of 175 hours and never really gets back to normal, but you legally can try).
With this new policy, bad data will affect you and your ability to, say, travel without strip searches. And you'll have few (meaning zero) opportunities to fix it. But the best part is that the bad data will creep out to taint anyone you associate with: you'll now have a permanent case of dataSARS. If you're a possible terrorist, then your old roommates might be too. And your new business partners. And whoever you call regularly, so now grandma gets a breast cancer screening whenever she flies.
I think the privacy commissioner of Canada is a precog: most of what he's warning about in his must-read essay on privacy is coming true. (Or Ashcroft is using it as an anti-blueprint):
" If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm.
"Worse yet, we may never know what negative assumptions or judgments have been made about us in state files... Decisions detrimental to us may be made on the basis of wrong facts, incomplete or out-of-context information or incorrect assumptions, without our ever having the chance to find out about it, let alone to set the record straight.
" That possibility alone will, over time, make us increasingly think twice about what we do, where we go, with whom we associate, because we will learn to be concerned about how it might look to the ubiquitous watchers of the state..."
"The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society...
Well...(retorical questions all, and based on the US BSA...)
Does the BSA believe that an *actually innocent* small business can afford to fight the BSA if the BSA is wrong? In the US penalties are so high no one except the largest companies can fight it. You'll fight a traffic ticket because you can afford to lose. What if the original ticket was $100,000, with a "negotiated" fine of $1,000? This is extortion, not a negotiation- you'll accept whatever the court says because you cannot risk losing. Not to mention if *you* had to show that you didn't speed, even a little bit, and lack of evidence = proof of guilt. (And the prosecution was allowed to dismantle your car, putting it out of service for days...) Extraordinary fines should require extraordinary proof, but instead the BSA has you do all the work, and even if you are entirely innocent you can still get hit.
Why is software piracy worse than activities that actually can harm life? Is software piracy that much worse than discharging toxic substances into waterways (max fine $125,000)? Misbranding a drug in interstate commerce (max fine $100,000)? Violating the Sherman Antitrust Act (the fine listed in Section 3571 (d) is "not more than the greater of twice the gross gain or twice the gross loss" caused by the conduct...)?
Are the BSA members willing to accept their own rules for their own activities? Would they accept a Software Consulting Association that can send audit letters out checking for late payments to consultants? If you've paid a consultant more than 30 days late, you get fined $200k. Or an Hourly Workers Association- you have to prove you've never underpaid hourly workers, or its $50k. How about a Pricing Mistake Association- if an online store misprices an item, you get not double the difference, or 10x, but 1,000x for each instance. [No, they wouldn't, because the rules that the BSA use wouldn't work if applied to all of society. Unless a mistake can cause extraordinary harm, you don't usually get to treat mistakes like a felony!]
How does the BSA get to levy fines so out of proportion to actual damages? In this Slashdot / Salon / LATimes coverage we saw Microsoft and the BSA vs the LA School District where "hundreds" of unlicensed copies were found. The threat was $150,000 fine for each copy of a $100 per license product. ($100 at best. 1/3 were MSDOS, and schools get very good rates). They "negotiate" down to a $300,000 total fine, and the school district probably felt very grateful for this kindness of the BSA. This is a 150,000% fine negotiated down to a 1,000% fine. (or 1,500x down to 10x). Yes, illegal copies are a crime (as is speeding), but the LAUSD wasn't running a mass piracy operation. Assuming that "hundreds" = 500 copies found, then the LAUSD had found roughly 1 copy per school, or 1 copy per 120 employees. The BSA got to treat the LAUSD as if it had found widespread felonious behavior rather than a few years worth of a few people deliberately or mistakenly making copies. No proof of bad intentions needed.
playing over and over. Even if a person's perfume had no allergens, sending out one scent constantly is boring / rude. The perfume industry markets the idea of a 'signature scent' people can wear to announce or associate with their presence. To me that is like a 'signature sound' that people could play to announce their presence-- a quiet ringtone that never stops.
No. Police must not forget that they don't have an automatic right to ask anything of anyone and get an answer right away. They don't have the right to get information easily, because we have the right to be treated as innocent. If I'm innocent, then questioning from authorities is an imposition on me and they have to act accordingly. Obligatory quote from my new favorite article in defense of privacy:
" A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
"By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
"The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
The commissioner's arguments in defense of privacy were written about Canada, but certainly apply here. Because he says it so well (emphasis mine):
" All this personal information -- more than 30 data elements including every destination to which we travel, who we travel with, how we pay for the tickets (sometimes including credit card numbers), what contact numbers we provide, even any dietary preferences or health-related requirements we communicate to the airline -- will be available for an almost limitless range of governmental purposes under the broad information-sharing provisions of the Customs Act...."
" This is unprecedented. The Government of Canada has absolutely no business creating a massive database of personal information about all law-abiding Canadians that is collected without our consent from third parties, not to provide us with any service but simply to have it available to use against us if it ever becomes expedient to do so. Compiling dossiers on the private activities of all law-abiding citizens is the sort of thing the Stasi secret police used to do in the former East Germany. It has no place in a free and democratic society...."
" It is difficult to imagine a more flagrant disregard for the rights of Canadians. This database is legally wrong and morally wrong. If the Government can get away with systematically logging and analyzing all the foreign travel activities of every law-abiding citizen, then no other private activity will long be safe from being included in the same personal dossiers -- our shopping, our banking, our communications, our movements within the country. The "Big Brother" society will be irrevocably upon us...."
Unfortunately we in the US don't have anyone in a comparable position as this guy-- an ombudsman of privacy-- so its unlikely this proposal will be revamped to take privacy into consideration. I'd worry that complaining about it will get you on the list, and once there, you can't get off (or even correct data about yourself). Does this new system actually get us additional security for its great loss of privacy? Quoting once more: "...I have suggested that any [proposed new law] must meet a four-part test:
It must be demonstrably necessary in order to meet some specific need.
It must be demonstrably likely to be effective in achieving its intended purpose. In other words, it must be likely to actually make us significantly safer, not just make us feel safer.
The intrusion on privacy must be proportional to the security benefit to be derived.
And it must be demonstrable that no other, less privacy-intrusive, measure would suffice to achieve the same purpose..."
So at least you get something for the $100 the next year.
I find the greatest value of my accountant is that he pushes his clients to take all legal deductions. When you're on your own you might not feel as safe doing that. But you should get an accountant who specializes in your field of employment. Mine has many clients who are independent contractors or who mix 1099 and W2 jobs-- a regular accountant at H & R Block might not be familiar with all the rules / deductions which apply to this group.
Or what we (in the US) have already lost. This overview is the best summary I've read on what losing privacy will mean. Written by Canada's Commissioner on Privacy, the overview is readable, conceptually rich, and not too long. What I find scary is the implication that Canada must protect itself against the losses the US already accepts. I don't accept them, and it is time to demand what he demands: "The burden of proof must always be on those who suggest that some new intrusion or limitation on privacy is needed in the name of security. I have suggested that any such proposed measure must meet a four-part test:
It must be demonstrably necessary in order to meet some specific need.
It must be demonstrably likely to be effective in achieving its intended purpose. In other words, it must be likely to actually make us significantly safer, not just make us feel safer.
The intrusion on privacy must be proportional to the security benefit to be derived.
And it must be demonstrable that no other, less privacy-intrusive, measure would suffice to achieve the same purpose..."
Some other good excerpts (but excerpts don't do it justice- go read it(and send its arguments to our own officials)):
"... The Government is, quite simply, using September 11 as an excuse for new collections and uses of personal information about all of us... that cannot be justified by the requirements of anti-terrorism and that, indeed, have no place in a free and democratic society.... the Government has shown no willingness to modify these initiatives in response to privacy concerns. "...Now "September 11" is invoked as a kind of magic incantation to stifle debate, disparage critical analysis and persuade us that we live in a suddenly new world where the old rules cannot apply.
"I wish to emphasize at the outset that I have never once raised privacy objections against a single actual anti-terrorist security measure. Indeed, I have stated repeatedly ever since September 11 that I would never seek as Privacy Commissioner to stand in the way of any measures that might be legitimately necessary to enhance security against terrorism, even if they involved some new intrusion or limitation on privacy. I have objected only to the extension of purported anti-terrorism measures to additional purposes completely unrelated to anti-terrorism, or to intrusions on privacy whose relevance or necessity with regard to anti-terrorism has not been in any way demonstrated...."
"...When people are worried about their safety, when we have seen the horrors of which today's breed of terrorists are capable -- and there may be more -- it's easy to lose perspective. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that security is all that matters and that human rights such as privacy are a luxury. But such extremes can only reward and encourage terrorism, not diminish it. They can only devastate our lives, without commensurately safeguarding them. Of course we all want to be safe. But we could be safer from terrorism -- perhaps -- if we permanently evacuated all the high-rise office towers, if we closed down the subways, if we forever grounded all airplanes. Yet no reasonable person would be likely to argue for adopting such measures. We'd say, "We want to be safe, yes -- but not at the price of sacrificing our whole way of life. The same reasoning should apply, in my view, to arguments that privacy should indiscriminately be sacrificed on the altar of enhanced security..."
"...But if we apply the premises of war to the challenges of dealing with terrorism, we will by definition be committing ourselves to a "war" with no possible end -- because there is no single, definable enemy. Any group of individuals, or even any single individual, that is willing to commit public mayhem in support of any particular cause is thereby a terrorist. And so for every particular group or faction of terrorists that is neutralized, another one may readily spring up... This means that there can never be a moment when it will be possible to declare a definitive victory in a "war" against terrorism. We need to recognize, therefore, that any intrusions or limitations on the fundamental human right of privacy that are imposed as a purported wartime measure against terrorism will likely never be rescinded. What we are confronting is the prospect of a permanent redefinition of Canadian society. And what will this redefinition achieve in terms of protecting us?...
"If Parliament and the public at large have been slow to react, it is probably because for most people, most of the time, privacy is a pretty abstract concept. Like our health, it's something we tend not to think about until we lose it -- and then discover that our lives have been very unpleasantly, and perhaps irretrievably, altered.... But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy -- the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us -- is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being."
"... A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered. The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
"If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy. But there also will be tangible, specific harm... The more information government compiles about us, the more of it will be wrong. That's simply a fact of life... The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society...
What about people who liked the idea of the Segway because it could give them mobility without the downsides of a wheelchair (motorized or not)? These are people who can walk, just not very far. Standing, on the other hand, they can do. A Segway-like device bridges the gap between those who need simple walking assistance (canes or walkers) and those who can't walk (wheelchairs of various sorts). Perhaps this particular implemention has problems, but banning them altogether? What if Segway came back with ones with a max speed of 5 mph. Would that be alright?
Because if they'd seen a few more before producing this show they could have made it much better. I was fast forwarding far too many times- it was slow. Now that Tivo believes I am Charles Darwin I have a near infinite supply of "death in the desert- a viper's story" type shows (which I *do* watch, so it's not a bad thing). What a typical nature show has, which the Future is Wild didn't, include:
A focus. While they couldn't give us a mother and cubs, they could've given us the evolutionary equivalent. Take a couple of classes or orders and get us to care what happens to them over then next 200 million years. Introduce the squids early on. The only continuity TFIW had was "location of former cities"
Drama- rather than suddenly show the last mammal, they should've shown 100 million years of decreasing diversity.
Digressions. TFIW had few animals per time zone. If TFIW didn't have the computational budget to animate more they at least could have had more still shots. Documentaries tend to be filled with side loops, constantly showing local diversity- while the predator waits, we take five minutes to check out a cute symbiotic relationship, or a flock of colorful birds, or the prey's prey, or a dung beetle (which also is part of my next point...)
Humor. Let's see some baby spiders falling off the web before going into the extinction of mammals next time.
A few random points relating to other threads in the comments:
Flying fish- yes, they do exist, flapping their tiny pectoral fins: check out some of the Amazonian Hatchetfish species.
the diversity of life over the past 500 million years: spend a few hours exploring the Tree of Life Project: after that, none of TFIW speculations seem too weird (although they made some physiological mistakes- as pointed out by others, the giant tortoises's legs don't make sense)
Extinct mammals: well, out of all of these all we have left are the birds.
Missing signs of humans: I've seen estimates (can't find them right away- one was in Sci-Am I think) that suggest most large-scale signs of humans (buildings, satellites, canals) would be gone within 500,000 years. Even the longest-lasting signs (large concentrations of radioactive elements, space probes, AOL CDs) won't last more than 100-200 million years given subduction, etc).
If they don't know why you're boycotting them, or if they don't even know they're being boycotted, then nothing changes: it's just noise to them.
A distributed "5 minute crusade" of phone calls does get their attention. They might choose not to care, but it'll have to be a choice on their part- and later on that choice may come back to bite them (or not, perhaps we aren't as big of a group as we think. Can't know until we try, though).
I don't think its as powerful as you make it out to be. Most paleo researchers I know would love to discover evidence of major catastrophes-- another asteroid extinction event for example. Standard big claims require big evidence cliche- it took a while, but the asteroid theory took hold as evidence came in.
About those mammoths- go back to the original articles and books, like you're planning with that one. I've seen too many theories put forth on the web where quotes out of context seem to support what they actually don't.
Anecdotally: my great-grandfather, a paleontologist, was one of the first Europeans to eat frozen mammoth (well, first for 7,000 years or whenever mammoths went extinct). Badly freezer burned, but not inedible.
Slashdot Mirror
Any other triplet of creatures sharing so many characteristics- both non-genetic (morphology, biochemistry, behavior) and genetic- would've been lumped together years ago. It was one of those open secrets in college: "Of course they're all one group, but let's not freak out the laypersons by mentioning it. Now back to something interesting like arthropods and the verbal fistfights on polyphyly..."
The genome is very much like a technical manual written in Word, if Word has all the versioning and autosave features turned on. You can look at either the functional part- the readable manual- or the raw data. If you read the raw data you have blocks of the current and readable manual interspersed within blocks of outdated but readable text, blocks of barely readable fragments, and blocks of Word code / framing data. Similarly, you can look at individual genes alone or at the raw genetic data: in the raw data you have blocks of current and readable instructions for genes (i.e. exons) surrounded by everything else, some almost readable, some not at all (introns).
If you wanted to compare two documents for a common source some types of comparisons such as overall size or number of chapters aren't that useful: whole paragraphs or pages could be duplicated, or chapters split or concatenated. Ditto for genetic comparisons: humans have 23 chromosomes, other apes have 24: this might seem like a big difference. But human chromosome 2 looks like chimp chromosomes 2P and 2Q fused / concatenated- not much of a difference at all. The analogy holds one more level: if you concatenated two chapters you might expect bits of remnant chapter heading code to sit where the two were joined: human C.2 has nonfunctional telomere code right at the spot where you'd expect if you fused chimp 2P and 2Q. Article with references for this Here.
"Comparing only functional genes is like comparing only the current, readable parts of the Word document's raw data. Here they found over 99% similarity"
"Comparing only functional genes is like comparing only the curent, readable parts of the Word document's raw data. Here they found over 99% similarity"
The two previous paragraphs are 99% similar: if you saw both in two postings you'd suspect copying. If chapter after chapter in two manuals contained this level of similarity the suspicion would be corroborated. This similarity holds even if the compared chapters' instructions give different end results.
With spam, a single spammer can force someone else to pay out (time or money) without any type of trade being involved. Peering agreements account for only some of the costs of spam.
For example, that example where I gave of someone spending an hour or two to clean up their inbox because they were falsely used as the return address: that is an unpredictable, unnegotiated cost. If an entire system gets clogged up and slowed down because of spam, the loss of time doesn't get recovered elsewhere in the system, it is a net loss. It is similar to an automobile accident. One accident that blocks highway lanes can easily cause 3,000 people to lose 1 hour of time. The highway patrol and towtruck operators might get paid $500 during that time, and the car repair place might get $2000. The payments into the local system because of that accident could be $3k, which doesn't make up for those 3,000 person-hours lost. Spam is similar.
As another example, take antiviral software. If a new virus comes out, the antivirus company might pay $2000 in overtime to get a patch out, and perhaps antivirus companies get another $500,000 in new customers. That won't make up for the 100,000 lost person-hours due to that virus.
Bulk unsolicited email is the exact opposite. It is an unnegotiated public bad- neither you nor your ISP negotiates that 'contract' with the spammers that makes all email / ISP services much more expensive.
For example, with postal bulk mail every action taken by every player in the process has a price. You can model the process with reasonable accuracy, predicting ahead of time how much everyone will get paid, from the printer to the postal worker.
In contrast, with spam there are variable external costs. If the spammer decides to use your email address as the reply-to, you've now got 1000 messages clogging up your inbox. That hour or two of lost time to restore your inbox to health is pure cost- you didn't even get paid to restore it. (and if you miss out on an important email because you reached your limit...) If an ISP gets a flood of bounces, the fact that they pay someone to fix it (or pay customer support some overtime to calm down irate customers) doesn't make that money spent a net benefit to the economy.
(*)ref: one of the classic examples of externalities: trains that set of forest fires next to the train tracks in England.
If the only way to travel is to accept the government knowing, tracking and retaining data on all of my travels, that is "very costly." Did you read the Privacy Commissioner's overview? He details several proposed Canadian laws *applicable to Canadians in Canada, not just Canadians traveling in the US,* which cause significant loss of privacy rights... all but one of which were instigated or requested by the US.
I do not see how one can be free in a society where the government can force you to be known against your will. Again, refering to the overview: aren't the dangers of lost privacy he lists worth fearing (for example, one bad interpretation of your travel habits and you could be blacklisted for years, all without probable cause)? It really worries me that he is warning Canadians against the loss of rights which are already gone in the US.
Of course, I myself have a constitutional right to privacy, but that means never leaving the borders of California.
"With regard to all these initiatives except street video surveillance, Government officials have repeatedly told me privately that pressure from the United States government is a strong motivating factor.
Let me be blunt: "The United States made us do it" cannot be a sufficient or acceptable justification for the Government to intrude on a fundamental right of Canadians.
Canada is a sovereign country.
Throughout our history, there have been important instances where Canada has found it necessary to take a position different from that of the United States on matters involving rights or values. It is surely no exaggeration to say that if our leaders had instead consistently succumbed to U.S. pressures to adopt that country's approaches as our own, there would today be no distinct Canada as we know it.
The same is true with regard to appropriate respect for fundamental rights in the wake of September 11. If the U.S. government is indeed exerting pressure on Canada to take steps that cannot be justified on their merits in accordance with our Canadian values and rights, then Canadians are entitled to expect that the Government will remain steadfast in meeting its responsibilities rather than trample on their rights out of fear of U.S. retaliation. "
"... The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom... But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy -- the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us -- is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being..."
"...The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society like Canada. But that is where we are inexorably headed, if the Government's current initiatives are allowed to proceed. "
To quickly summarize his article: 1. The RIAA's antiP2P fight hurts many and helps no one, 2. Artists need to be paid, 3. Compulsory licensing pays artists, 4. One method of CL could be an ISP flat fee, 5. Many other CL methods exist (examples given) and could be used...
But as a starting analogy I think it is powerful, because it links in with some politicians' (Republicans especially) stated desires to demand accountability and cost benefit analyses for new regulations or current taxes. A permanent change to our civil liberties should demand as much review as a new regulation on air quality and pollution control equipment, no? And we should review it as much as we do regulations to make sure we're not mandating outdated technologies or trying to fix a problem that no longer exists?
They act as if sunset provisions = not caring about the law. Quite the opposite, I think. Sunset provisions mean that a law is so important that it is worth coming back to, over and over again. Is it such a hard thing to ask that Congress spend at least as much time on "Review of Changes to Civil Liberties and Constitutional Rights in Response to Terrorism" once a year as they do to "What Shall We Call Deep Fried Potato Strips In Our Cafeteria?"? Or that they spend as much time each year reviewing it as they did in passing it in the first place? (which was, unfortunately, just a few hours as I recall: Congresspersons didn't even get a chance to read it, not all 300+ pages)
The Patriot Act is a tax on civil liberties. Perhaps it is necessary. But we must demand at least as much proof of its necessity and review of its impact as we would a new tax. To require cost benefit analyses is *not* saying that it should be abolished, unless it cannot withstand scrutiny. And if it can't, why have it? If you're going take civil liberties out of my constitutional wallet, you better be ready to tell me where you're spending them and how well you're doing.
For these reviews or cost benefit analyses, a minimum step would be to require them to meet the requirements from this well-written report:
"...I have suggested that any [proposed new law] must meet a four-part test:
Why is privacy a basic, fundamental right? Read the sections on privacy in this short but powerful essay [privcom.gc.ca]:
" A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
"By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
"The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
"If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy...
"...The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society...
The city claims that the database software company is at fault. The dsc claims that Axciom is at fault. Axciom claims that it received data voluntarily and why didn't you clean up your credit report? The FBI claims it cannot reveal how it does its datamining in a public forum.
The city still decides to settle. You get your $5,000 and rent a trailer at Lucerne at Clear Lake, California.
With this new policy, bad data will affect you and your ability to, say, travel without strip searches. And you'll have few (meaning zero) opportunities to fix it. But the best part is that the bad data will creep out to taint anyone you associate with: you'll now have a permanent case of dataSARS. If you're a possible terrorist, then your old roommates might be too. And your new business partners. And whoever you call regularly, so now grandma gets a breast cancer screening whenever she flies.
I think the privacy commissioner of Canada is a precog: most of what he's warning about in his must-read essay on privacy is coming true. (Or Ashcroft is using it as an anti-blueprint):
" If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm.
"Worse yet, we may never know what negative assumptions or judgments have been made about us in state files... Decisions detrimental to us may be made on the basis of wrong facts, incomplete or out-of-context information or incorrect assumptions, without our ever having the chance to find out about it, let alone to set the record straight.
" That possibility alone will, over time, make us increasingly think twice about what we do, where we go, with whom we associate, because we will learn to be concerned about how it might look to the ubiquitous watchers of the state..."
"The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society...
Does the BSA believe that an *actually innocent* small business can afford to fight the BSA if the BSA is wrong? In the US penalties are so high no one except the largest companies can fight it. You'll fight a traffic ticket because you can afford to lose. What if the original ticket was $100,000, with a "negotiated" fine of $1,000? This is extortion, not a negotiation- you'll accept whatever the court says because you cannot risk losing. Not to mention if *you* had to show that you didn't speed, even a little bit, and lack of evidence = proof of guilt. (And the prosecution was allowed to dismantle your car, putting it out of service for days...) Extraordinary fines should require extraordinary proof, but instead the BSA has you do all the work, and even if you are entirely innocent you can still get hit.
Why is software piracy worse than activities that actually can harm life? Is software piracy that much worse than discharging toxic substances into waterways (max fine $125,000)? Misbranding a drug in interstate commerce (max fine $100,000)? Violating the Sherman Antitrust Act (the fine listed in Section 3571 (d) is "not more than the greater of twice the gross gain or twice the gross loss" caused by the conduct...)?
Are the BSA members willing to accept their own rules for their own activities? Would they accept a Software Consulting Association that can send audit letters out checking for late payments to consultants? If you've paid a consultant more than 30 days late, you get fined $200k. Or an Hourly Workers Association- you have to prove you've never underpaid hourly workers, or its $50k. How about a Pricing Mistake Association- if an online store misprices an item, you get not double the difference, or 10x, but 1,000x for each instance. [No, they wouldn't, because the rules that the BSA use wouldn't work if applied to all of society. Unless a mistake can cause extraordinary harm, you don't usually get to treat mistakes like a felony!]
How does the BSA get to levy fines so out of proportion to actual damages? In this Slashdot / Salon / LATimes coverage we saw Microsoft and the BSA vs the LA School District where "hundreds" of unlicensed copies were found. The threat was $150,000 fine for each copy of a $100 per license product. ($100 at best. 1/3 were MSDOS, and schools get very good rates). They "negotiate" down to a $300,000 total fine, and the school district probably felt very grateful for this kindness of the BSA. This is a 150,000% fine negotiated down to a 1,000% fine. (or 1,500x down to 10x). Yes, illegal copies are a crime (as is speeding), but the LAUSD wasn't running a mass piracy operation. Assuming that "hundreds" = 500 copies found, then the LAUSD had found roughly 1 copy per school, or 1 copy per 120 employees. The BSA got to treat the LAUSD as if it had found widespread felonious behavior rather than a few years worth of a few people deliberately or mistakenly making copies. No proof of bad intentions needed.
playing over and over. Even if a person's perfume had no allergens, sending out one scent constantly is boring / rude. The perfume industry markets the idea of a 'signature scent' people can wear to announce or associate with their presence. To me that is like a 'signature sound' that people could play to announce their presence-- a quiet ringtone that never stops.
" A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
"By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
"The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
" All this personal information -- more than 30 data elements including every destination to which we travel, who we travel with, how we pay for the tickets (sometimes including credit card numbers), what contact numbers we provide, even any dietary preferences or health-related requirements we communicate to the airline -- will be available for an almost limitless range of governmental purposes under the broad information-sharing provisions of the Customs Act. ..."
" This is unprecedented. The Government of Canada has absolutely no business creating a massive database of personal information about all law-abiding Canadians that is collected without our consent from third parties, not to provide us with any service but simply to have it available to use against us if it ever becomes expedient to do so. Compiling dossiers on the private activities of all law-abiding citizens is the sort of thing the Stasi secret police used to do in the former East Germany. It has no place in a free and democratic society. ..."
" It is difficult to imagine a more flagrant disregard for the rights of Canadians. This database is legally wrong and morally wrong. If the Government can get away with systematically logging and analyzing all the foreign travel activities of every law-abiding citizen, then no other private activity will long be safe from being included in the same personal dossiers -- our shopping, our banking, our communications, our movements within the country. The "Big Brother" society will be irrevocably upon us. ..."
Unfortunately we in the US don't have anyone in a comparable position as this guy-- an ombudsman of privacy-- so its unlikely this proposal will be revamped to take privacy into consideration. I'd worry that complaining about it will get you on the list, and once there, you can't get off (or even correct data about yourself). Does this new system actually get us additional security for its great loss of privacy? Quoting once more: "...I have suggested that any [proposed new law] must meet a four-part test:
I find the greatest value of my accountant is that he pushes his clients to take all legal deductions. When you're on your own you might not feel as safe doing that. But you should get an accountant who specializes in your field of employment. Mine has many clients who are independent contractors or who mix 1099 and W2 jobs-- a regular accountant at H & R Block might not be familiar with all the rules / deductions which apply to this group.
- It must be demonstrably necessary in order to meet some specific need.
- It must be demonstrably likely to be effective in achieving its intended purpose. In other words, it must be likely to actually make us significantly safer, not just make us feel safer.
- The intrusion on privacy must be proportional to the security benefit to be derived.
- And it must be demonstrable that no other, less privacy-intrusive, measure would suffice to achieve the same purpose..."
Some other good excerpts (but excerpts don't do it justice- go read it(and send its arguments to our own officials)):"... The Government is, quite simply, using September 11 as an excuse for new collections and uses of personal information about all of us... that cannot be justified by the requirements of anti-terrorism and that, indeed, have no place in a free and democratic society. ... the Government has shown no willingness to modify these initiatives in response to privacy concerns. "...Now "September 11" is invoked as a kind of magic incantation to stifle debate, disparage critical analysis and persuade us that we live in a suddenly new world where the old rules cannot apply.
"I wish to emphasize at the outset that I have never once raised privacy objections against a single actual anti-terrorist security measure. Indeed, I have stated repeatedly ever since September 11 that I would never seek as Privacy Commissioner to stand in the way of any measures that might be legitimately necessary to enhance security against terrorism, even if they involved some new intrusion or limitation on privacy. I have objected only to the extension of purported anti-terrorism measures to additional purposes completely unrelated to anti-terrorism, or to intrusions on privacy whose relevance or necessity with regard to anti-terrorism has not been in any way demonstrated. ..."
"...When people are worried about their safety, when we have seen the horrors of which today's breed of terrorists are capable -- and there may be more -- it's easy to lose perspective. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that security is all that matters and that human rights such as privacy are a luxury. But such extremes can only reward and encourage terrorism, not diminish it. They can only devastate our lives, without commensurately safeguarding them. Of course we all want to be safe. But we could be safer from terrorism -- perhaps -- if we permanently evacuated all the high-rise office towers, if we closed down the subways, if we forever grounded all airplanes. Yet no reasonable person would be likely to argue for adopting such measures. We'd say, "We want to be safe, yes -- but not at the price of sacrificing our whole way of life. The same reasoning should apply, in my view, to arguments that privacy should indiscriminately be sacrificed on the altar of enhanced security..."
"...But if we apply the premises of war to the challenges of dealing with terrorism, we will by definition be committing ourselves to a "war" with no possible end -- because there is no single, definable enemy. Any group of individuals, or even any single individual, that is willing to commit public mayhem in support of any particular cause is thereby a terrorist. And so for every particular group or faction of terrorists that is neutralized, another one may readily spring up... This means that there can never be a moment when it will be possible to declare a definitive victory in a "war" against terrorism. We need to recognize, therefore, that any intrusions or limitations on the fundamental human right of privacy that are imposed as a purported wartime measure against terrorism will likely never be rescinded. What we are confronting is the prospect of a permanent redefinition of Canadian society. And what will this redefinition achieve in terms of protecting us? ...
"If Parliament and the public at large have been slow to react, it is probably because for most people, most of the time, privacy is a pretty abstract concept. Like our health, it's something we tend not to think about until we lose it -- and then discover that our lives have been very unpleasantly, and perhaps irretrievably, altered. ... But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy -- the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us -- is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being."
"... A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
"If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy. But there also will be tangible, specific harm... The more information government compiles about us, the more of it will be wrong. That's simply a fact of life... The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society...
What about people who liked the idea of the Segway because it could give them mobility without the downsides of a wheelchair (motorized or not)? These are people who can walk, just not very far. Standing, on the other hand, they can do. A Segway-like device bridges the gap between those who need simple walking assistance (canes or walkers) and those who can't walk (wheelchairs of various sorts). Perhaps this particular implemention has problems, but banning them altogether? What if Segway came back with ones with a max speed of 5 mph. Would that be alright?
- A focus. While they couldn't give us a mother and cubs, they could've given us the evolutionary equivalent. Take a couple of classes or orders and get us to care what happens to them over then next 200 million years. Introduce the squids early on. The only continuity TFIW had was "location of former cities"
- Drama- rather than suddenly show the last mammal, they should've shown 100 million years of decreasing diversity.
- Digressions. TFIW had few animals per time zone. If TFIW didn't have the computational budget to animate more they at least could have had more still shots. Documentaries tend to be filled with side loops, constantly showing local diversity- while the predator waits, we take five minutes to check out a cute symbiotic relationship, or a flock of colorful birds, or the prey's prey, or a dung beetle (which also is part of my next point...)
- Humor. Let's see some baby spiders falling off the web before going into the extinction of mammals next time.
A few random points relating to other threads in the comments:A distributed "5 minute crusade" of phone calls does get their attention. They might choose not to care, but it'll have to be a choice on their part- and later on that choice may come back to bite them (or not, perhaps we aren't as big of a group as we think. Can't know until we try, though).
Quoting from your quoted..."the evidence suggests an enormous tsunami raging across the land...".
About those mammoths- go back to the original articles and books, like you're planning with that one. I've seen too many theories put forth on the web where quotes out of context seem to support what they actually don't.
Anecdotally: my great-grandfather, a paleontologist, was one of the first Europeans to eat frozen mammoth (well, first for 7,000 years or whenever mammoths went extinct). Badly freezer burned, but not inedible.