Afghanistan and Iraq were trying to amend our Constitution? Those bastards! Let's nuke 'em!
The military is nothing but an arm of the US government. The US government can't protect us from abuses by the US government. Groups like the ACLU does that.
There must however be more creative and legal ways to mount mass protest against these corporate entities that go beyond just terminating your private use of their services. Some possibilities come to mind: writing tons of emails complaining about their decisions to all company related email adresses you can dig up and mass posting reviews on Amazon criticizing their decision for instance. I'm sure I'm missing lots of interesting ones but you get the point.
No, I think you're missing the point. There really is no better way to mount a mass protest against these corporate/government entities that anybody has thought of. The masses are too ill-informed or lazy to lift a finger, to say, not use a credit card and use cash instead, or to get up off of their fat butts and buy locally instead of through Mother Amazon. There *should* be other ways, but the fact is that the system is far too entrenched and protected for the People to make legitimate, "legal" grievances. This is really all that's left, as far as I can tell.
Then how does DDoSing Amazon/Paypal/Visa exactly help the situation?
Hopefully, it hits them in their wallets. I can't think of any other way to combat the gross Government/Big Business collusion that happens on a daily basis. How else does one inflict any damage to the massive Military Industrial Complex? Voting is a farce. The average Joe is too stupid, ignorant, or lazy to make any changes to how they do business. What else is there?
Picketing is a public act. DDoS is not. There is an essential difference.
Yes, the difference is that picketing rarely gets one arrested, while DDoSing activates all of the police and military power of the federal government. There's a hell of a lot more to lose by participating in a DDos than picketing.
"asymmetric warfare is often used by terrorists. Make sure you are careful when you can create an ethics based on the assumption that fighting an asymmetric war is justified."
It is an asymmetric war. The government and the big corporations hold all of the power. The People have virtually no power. In this case, the Government and Big Business are colluding to keep all kinds of secrets about immoral and illegal acts from the People who supposedly both pay them and put them in power.
I've talked to my Nebraska Representatives and Senators. I've also reached out to a State Senator to ask for Limited Liability laws to change.
And how did that work out for you? Did you sit down to lunch with them and have a discussion? Did you write the bill for them to push through Congress? Anybody can "talk" to their representatives, but if you think that you, as an individual, has any clout at all if you're not giving them millions in "campaign contributions", you're incredibly naive. For all the good it did, you could have instead asked a doorknob to change whatever laws you disagreed with.
They are now actually aiding countries like China and Saudi Arabia by exposing all the US information and opinions on them.
We couldn't help Saudi Arabia any more if we tried. 9/11 hijackers were all Saudis, yet we have the President holding hands and kissing their King. We give them billions of dollars, and prop up their regime. You seriously drank the Kool Aid if you think this is going to do any damage to the US, or if you think that whatever damage it may do would be a bad thing.
"The nature of the attack itself strips it of both credibility and value - instead, it gets classified (by those who even notice it) as whiny children playing their whiny child games."
So what's the alternative? Should we politely write our Congresspeople, asking them to please tell us all of the secret, illegal things they're doing with our money? Should we simply be happy with our rigged system and pretend like we make a difference when we vote?
"As someone upthread said, these aren't freedom fighters, they're thugs."
I'm fine with calling them thugs, if we can come up with some more colorful names for our Government/Business overlords that secretly do illegal and immoral things with our money in our names. To say that we, the powerless people have to play by their rules that they write, and they selectively enforce, is absurd.
"They felt the best way to support Democracy and affect change was to use Democracy itself.
That is such a novel concept."
More than novel, it's incredibly naive. How do you propose that actual people (not corporations) influence their government in any way? How are regular people going to open up our horribly, horribly corrupt government? Politely vote in our Coke/Pepsi elections, and ask them to please tell us all of the illegal and immoral things they've been doing in our name with our tax dollars?
"The problem is this "hacktivism" is doing far more damage than good because it easily allows the politicians to say "We need an internet kill switch"."
If you think that the politicians need a reason to do this, then you're living on another planet. The politicians will do whatever the Big Corporations tell them to do. To say that the people shouldn't fight back for fear of repercussions is laughable.
"Freedom of speech involves freedom from retaliation. If you choose not to do business with them, that's great. But if you prevent others from doing business with them then you've crossed the line."
Assuming that we're starting with a level playing field. Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, and Amazon are all able to buy Congressmen. Regular people can't. Our government is so corrupt at this point, there's really no recourse for regular people who have to go up against these corporations with more rights and privileges than actual people.
Is it just me, or is it funny as hell to think about a bunch of old people in Congress griping about TV commercial volumes? I don't know a lot of non-old people who still watch TV.
"2) No delivery service is going to be 100% mistake free. Negative outcomes will happen in life. Get over it."
FedEx is notoriously bad. As somebody who deals with UPS and FedEx daily, I feel very comfortable saying that FedEx provides abysmal service when compared to UPS.
Seriously? Ahead of consoles? You've got to be kidding me. I can slap a disc in a $300 box with no buttons, and play it. I don't care what PC games look like or play like, because the experience is ruined before the power cord is attached. Hundreds of dollars for video cards, extra memory, high-end CPU's? You gotta be kidding me. That's a horrible experience.
"Further, people STILL don't know everything that is in the healthcare law and that is STILL creating future uncertainty. It's pointless to hire and train new people today if you don't know if you'll be able to afford them in 6 months or a year."
Nice Fox News talking points. As an employer, I can tell you that this particular Fox News talking point is absolute hogwash. It's so wrong, it's laughable. Employers don't decide to hire or not hire people based on taxes. Maybe huge, tax-dodging employers do (ie: Haliburton, Wal-Mart), but small and mid size employers hire people when they need them, regardless of what the tax rate is now or in the future. Do you honestly think that Joe Blow sandwich shop owner thinks, "I really need to hire another person to cover the morning shift, but I'd better hold off because my tax bill may go up by 3% next year"? C'mon. You don't have to be a business owner to understand this. You just have to be able to think. The whole "uncertainty" story that Fox News/Republicans have drummed up is just plain stupid. Nobody knows what the future holds.
"I'd say some niche markets are underserved at present but, largely, those communities are building their own tools now"
A niche like... oh I don't know... small business? There's not one functional accounting application that runs on Linux. Not one.
There's no reason for *anybody* except for the absolute wealthiest to use banks. Use a credit union. Most credit unions provide much better service (including more than 3 months' transaction history).
Wow! One of the best articles in a long time. Really interesting videos. I'm inspired to learn something about electronics just so I have a reason to visit.
Slashdot Mirror
Afghanistan and Iraq were trying to amend our Constitution? Those bastards! Let's nuke 'em!
The military is nothing but an arm of the US government. The US government can't protect us from abuses by the US government. Groups like the ACLU does that.
How does one protest Mastercard, exactly?
There must however be more creative and legal ways to mount mass protest against these corporate entities that go beyond just terminating your private use of their services. Some possibilities come to mind: writing tons of emails complaining about their decisions to all company related email adresses you can dig up and mass posting reviews on Amazon criticizing their decision for instance. I'm sure I'm missing lots of interesting ones but you get the point.
No, I think you're missing the point. There really is no better way to mount a mass protest against these corporate/government entities that anybody has thought of. The masses are too ill-informed or lazy to lift a finger, to say, not use a credit card and use cash instead, or to get up off of their fat butts and buy locally instead of through Mother Amazon. There *should* be other ways, but the fact is that the system is far too entrenched and protected for the People to make legitimate, "legal" grievances. This is really all that's left, as far as I can tell.
Then how does DDoSing Amazon/Paypal/Visa exactly help the situation?
Hopefully, it hits them in their wallets. I can't think of any other way to combat the gross Government/Big Business collusion that happens on a daily basis. How else does one inflict any damage to the massive Military Industrial Complex? Voting is a farce. The average Joe is too stupid, ignorant, or lazy to make any changes to how they do business. What else is there?
Picketing is a public act. DDoS is not. There is an essential difference.
Yes, the difference is that picketing rarely gets one arrested, while DDoSing activates all of the police and military power of the federal government. There's a hell of a lot more to lose by participating in a DDos than picketing.
"asymmetric warfare is often used by terrorists. Make sure you are careful when you can create an ethics based on the assumption that fighting an asymmetric war is justified." It is an asymmetric war. The government and the big corporations hold all of the power. The People have virtually no power. In this case, the Government and Big Business are colluding to keep all kinds of secrets about immoral and illegal acts from the People who supposedly both pay them and put them in power.
As someone who pays a fortune in taxes supporting them and their families for no apparent reason, I say, go screw yourself, as well.
"You might want to look into the Freedom of Information Act. It's where we, the people, politely ask our government to tell us their secrets."
... and they tell us "you aren't authorized to have that information".
You've just described 90% of the US military. That doesn't stop the whole country from lauding them as "heroes". What's your point?
I've talked to my Nebraska Representatives and Senators. I've also reached out to a State Senator to ask for Limited Liability laws to change.
And how did that work out for you? Did you sit down to lunch with them and have a discussion? Did you write the bill for them to push through Congress? Anybody can "talk" to their representatives, but if you think that you, as an individual, has any clout at all if you're not giving them millions in "campaign contributions", you're incredibly naive. For all the good it did, you could have instead asked a doorknob to change whatever laws you disagreed with.
They are now actually aiding countries like China and Saudi Arabia by exposing all the US information and opinions on them.
We couldn't help Saudi Arabia any more if we tried. 9/11 hijackers were all Saudis, yet we have the President holding hands and kissing their King. We give them billions of dollars, and prop up their regime. You seriously drank the Kool Aid if you think this is going to do any damage to the US, or if you think that whatever damage it may do would be a bad thing.
"The nature of the attack itself strips it of both credibility and value - instead, it gets classified (by those who even notice it) as whiny children playing their whiny child games."
So what's the alternative? Should we politely write our Congresspeople, asking them to please tell us all of the secret, illegal things they're doing with our money? Should we simply be happy with our rigged system and pretend like we make a difference when we vote?
"As someone upthread said, these aren't freedom fighters, they're thugs."
I'm fine with calling them thugs, if we can come up with some more colorful names for our Government/Business overlords that secretly do illegal and immoral things with our money in our names. To say that we, the powerless people have to play by their rules that they write, and they selectively enforce, is absurd.
"They felt the best way to support Democracy and affect change was to use Democracy itself. That is such a novel concept."
More than novel, it's incredibly naive. How do you propose that actual people (not corporations) influence their government in any way? How are regular people going to open up our horribly, horribly corrupt government? Politely vote in our Coke/Pepsi elections, and ask them to please tell us all of the illegal and immoral things they've been doing in our name with our tax dollars?
"The problem is this "hacktivism" is doing far more damage than good because it easily allows the politicians to say "We need an internet kill switch"."
If you think that the politicians need a reason to do this, then you're living on another planet. The politicians will do whatever the Big Corporations tell them to do. To say that the people shouldn't fight back for fear of repercussions is laughable.
"Freedom of speech involves freedom from retaliation. If you choose not to do business with them, that's great. But if you prevent others from doing business with them then you've crossed the line." Assuming that we're starting with a level playing field. Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, and Amazon are all able to buy Congressmen. Regular people can't. Our government is so corrupt at this point, there's really no recourse for regular people who have to go up against these corporations with more rights and privileges than actual people.
"Hatred of the US"? Sounds like somebody has been spending too much time watching Fox News...
PayPal has been screwing people over for more than a decade. This shouldn't come as a surprise.
Is it just me, or is it funny as hell to think about a bunch of old people in Congress griping about TV commercial volumes? I don't know a lot of non-old people who still watch TV.
"2) No delivery service is going to be 100% mistake free. Negative outcomes will happen in life. Get over it." FedEx is notoriously bad. As somebody who deals with UPS and FedEx daily, I feel very comfortable saying that FedEx provides abysmal service when compared to UPS.
Seriously? Ahead of consoles? You've got to be kidding me. I can slap a disc in a $300 box with no buttons, and play it. I don't care what PC games look like or play like, because the experience is ruined before the power cord is attached. Hundreds of dollars for video cards, extra memory, high-end CPU's? You gotta be kidding me. That's a horrible experience.
"Further, people STILL don't know everything that is in the healthcare law and that is STILL creating future uncertainty. It's pointless to hire and train new people today if you don't know if you'll be able to afford them in 6 months or a year." Nice Fox News talking points. As an employer, I can tell you that this particular Fox News talking point is absolute hogwash. It's so wrong, it's laughable. Employers don't decide to hire or not hire people based on taxes. Maybe huge, tax-dodging employers do (ie: Haliburton, Wal-Mart), but small and mid size employers hire people when they need them, regardless of what the tax rate is now or in the future. Do you honestly think that Joe Blow sandwich shop owner thinks, "I really need to hire another person to cover the morning shift, but I'd better hold off because my tax bill may go up by 3% next year"? C'mon. You don't have to be a business owner to understand this. You just have to be able to think. The whole "uncertainty" story that Fox News/Republicans have drummed up is just plain stupid. Nobody knows what the future holds.
"I'd say some niche markets are underserved at present but, largely, those communities are building their own tools now" A niche like... oh I don't know... small business? There's not one functional accounting application that runs on Linux. Not one.
There's no reason for *anybody* except for the absolute wealthiest to use banks. Use a credit union. Most credit unions provide much better service (including more than 3 months' transaction history).
Wow! One of the best articles in a long time. Really interesting videos. I'm inspired to learn something about electronics just so I have a reason to visit.