Hm, that link was news to me. Interesting. I'll have to revise my opinion.
So? What does the age of the event have to do with it? Are you saying things would be different now?
No, I'm saying that we can not make a list of events distributed over 6 years in time and 4 continents in space and compare that to events happening today, in a certain area. It just doesn't work. It's comparing apples with oranges. That's the entire point. I don't say who is right or wrong, just that the comparison is faulty.
they could do a heck of a lot more than they are to combat that myth. Showing outrage at the terrorist acts themselves, condemning those that commit such acts in the name of Islam, not electing a terrorist organization (which unfortunately goes a long way to dispel the notion that it's all the violent minority), finding a strong leader to stand up to be the voice of the non-militants (an anti bin Laden, if you will). They have allowed some extremists to completely corrupt their religion by using it to perpetrate heinously violent acts. It's time for the silent majority to become not-so-silent.
I don't think it's as easy as that. The americans elected Bush, twice. A man who started a war and killed probably 100,000 people on fake reasons. I don't think that even compares to Hamas. True, they are open pro-terrorism. However, they also build schools, support a ton of local projects and I'm sure much of their popularity comes from that. Much like Osama, in fact, who according to some sources did a lot for Afghanistan volunteers, back when the war was Afghanistan vs. USSR and the american government backed him and sent him weapons.
Then there's the other reasons. The one that politically, the voice of reason is easily silenced by bombs and gunfire - namely the voices of reason in Iraq were very certainly silenced for many years due to the US invasion. And the voices of reason in palestine have it very hard due to continued Israeli violation of a dozen or so UN resolutions.
Throw oil into the fire or complain about it being so hot. One or the other, please. Not both.
[9/11]: You do recall the images of thousands of them celebrating in the streets, don't you?
Yes, and I do also remember that those very images were debunked as archive footage two days later. Do you?
But yes, a lot of people in the middle east didn't exactly feel sorry for the US. Much like a lot of people in the US don't feel sorry for the 100,000 or so innocent civilians killed in Bush's war.
And so in reaction to that, they burn some embassies?
No, that's the others. The violent ones. The minority. Yes, a loud and vocal minority, that gets lots and lots of air time.
Dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, the USS Cole, African embassy bombings, Sept 11, the Madrid train bombing, the bombings in London. Where is the outrage at all those?
Probably as divided over time and space as those incidents. The Cole was in 2000. That's 6 years ago.
Again, yes we don't see much outrage. And there probably is less than there were if, say, some british fanatic were to blow up the Saudi embassy. But then again, would we call for an invasion of the UK in that case? Would we go around calling every brit a terrorist?
The arabs do react differently. But how much of that is because we treat them differently?
yes, it's a fact - some Muslims are terrorists
As are some europeans. And some americans. In those cases, we consider them lunatics, lone offenders. Even when a nation's war machinery wreaks havoc on some foreign country, we make a difference between that and that nation's people. And yet with the arabs, we call them all terrorists (or at least potential terrorist, or terrorist suspects) because a bunch of them actually are?
I agree with you, both sides have abundant reasons to hate each other, but you came across more as a Muslim apologist than anything else.
I have no special ties whatsoever. In fact, I don't even know any muslims closely. But I speak out against injustice when I see it, and this is injustice.
There's what, a billion or so of them? And we judge them by the deeds of a few hundred?
One of the best features of mplayer is it's no-nonsense approach to DVD playback. It just launches the movie. No menus, no FBI warnings, no ads, no crap.
If Muslims would denounce the actions of fundamentalists that commit crimes against humanity then just maybe non-Muslims wouldn't have such a negative view of Islam.
They do, in droves. The mainstream press doesn't consider that newsworthy.
Only 41% of Palestinians viewed the attack on the world trade center as terrorism.
Both stories did not ask what they call it instead. That'd be interesting to hear. I'm sure a lot of americans don't consider the war on Iraq terrorism, yet for many Iraqis that's exactly what it feels like.
When was the last time you saw a bishop calling for the death of someone, or a local pastor yelling "death, death to Saudi Arabia!"?
I'm sure you'll find them if you start looking. There's enough christian fanatics around as well, or people using the Jesus religion as their cover. They just don't get blown up into "a majority of christian people" by the press.
Yes, a ton of muslims are very upset. 99.9% of them protest or complain peacefully. 0.01% are shown on TV.
Don't think, for a second, that I'm a fan of either xtianity or judaism. I think the world would be much better off without all three Abrahamic religions, actually.
We agree on that.
But in the topic on hand, it's kind of hard to ignore the very dissimilar outputs, given such very similar inputs.
Correct. Which is why I pointed out that you have to consider history. It's not only religion, it's also culture. Western/christian culture has had a few centuries to adapt to the thoughts of freedom (free press, free speech, etc.) while arab/muslim culture has not. The transition wasn't painless in the west. How can we be so stupid as to expect it'll be painless in the arab world?
Mmmm, European arrogance (Intelligent papers indeed).
Yes, I - together with much of the rest of the world - am proud not to be an american. But that ain't the point. I don't know about US papers, hence the "at least over here" statement. And quite honestly, we have a huge amount of shit papers as well.
Why aren't the muslims cleaning up their own house
They are, and have been for a decade or two. The mainstream media coverage angle of this affair has just thrown them back at least five years. Did you know, for example, that the european muslims are in the process of setting up their own religious leadership, independent from the more radical near-east ones? That they were striving to have that council officially accepted so it can issue fatwas (religious doctrines)?
One Arab released video tape of a beheading is worth a *million* cartoons as far as 'islam image' is concerned.
Pot, meet kettle. Beheading video, meet Abu Gharib pictures.
These people are killing innocent people in the name of their religion!
These US soldiers are killing innocent civilians in the name of WMD/removing Saddam/bringing democracy/pacifying the area/whatever this week's reason for the Iraq war is.
When they decide that foreigners being kidnapped, beheaded, and tapes of the events being released is too much, then we'll see change. Until then it's quiet acceptance of those acts (read: they don't really care).
I could mimic that with the Iraqi war as well, but that would be too easy.
Here's an issue where both sides have ample reason to hate the other. And there will be no peace until both sides understand that. As long as the "we're right, they're wrong and they're the reason for all of this, we just react" attitude prevails, we'll have bloodshed and innocent people will die.
Actually, a few more intelligent papers report the real news - at least over here in Europe. The funny thing is that a lot of muslims are quite upset. But for reasons different from what the mainstream media shows, and the vast majority of them is protesting peacefully. One of the chief reasons they are upset is that the pictures strengthen and play on the very prejudice they've been trying to get rid off for a long while now, namely muslim == terrorist. They didn't consider that a media in war frenzy will turn that into exactly that direction.
And if you don't think our media is a) in a war frenzy and b) subject to massive and intentional manipulation by those who stand to profit from a continuation of this nonsense then you've not read what Rummsfield has been going on about for the last week or so.
On the whole, Christians don't threaten death to company executives or members of the press if they disagree with their opinions.
On the whole, muslims don't, either. Some fanatics, yes. But right-wing born-again christians also not only threaten but on a few occasions have actually killed abortion doctors or activists and others they dislike.
Jews, Christains, Atheists...there's lots of wackos amongst those groups, but in the last few decades radical islam wins hands down for self-righteous violence and terror.
Depends on a) how much you believe the mainstream press is reporting truth and how much you think they report whatever will make more sales b) how many of the people who use religion as their cover you actually consider to be religious fanatics c) Whether or not you take into account the prejudice and hatred against all muslims, because prejudice doesn't run through a "are you a radical?" checklist first.
Only in the textbooks. Real life is more complicated than that and does contain quite a huge number of forces that the various market theories exclude.
Remember: The market theories, just like newtonian mechanics, are approximations. Sometimes darn good ones, sometimes (under other conditions) lousy. This isn't religion and the word of the textbook isn't The Truth(tm).
A place where I enter my profile. What I am today, what I am looking for.
Companies likewise create profiles of open positions.
Then profiles are matched and matching profiles are notified. There's enough fuzzy logic, bayesian and other stuff available to ensure good matching even if the two sides don't use the same words.
Oh, and more honesty on the employers' side. I've been to a few interviews where jobs were advertised that sounded cool, only to find out what they're really looking for isn't exactly what they were advertising. I have a safe job. If you are advertising something I care for because it sounds considerably better than what I have, you'd better live up to it or I'll be sorry I invested the time to visit you.
They have have SmartFetch or whatever it's called so it knows what applications you typically use and at what times so it'll preload them into memory making it seem snappier.
Yes, as long as it guesses correctly. The other 90% of the time, it'll be a useless resource hog.;)
And Linux, BSD, and even Mac OS have had package management systems since when, forever?
And this isn't even a package manager! Can you install OpenOffice on Windos Update? Or even M$ Office? No, this isn't the equivalent to synaptic, adept or any other package manager, it's just a GUI for "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade".
6. More media: Over the years, one of the key reasons to upgrade versions of Windows has been the free stuff Gates and Company toss into the new OS, and Vista is no exception.
This must be some kind of joke.
I'm certain it is. I know of nobody who ever bought any version of windos because of some bundled stuff. Plus, of course, exactly what is bundled depends a lot more on the OEM than on M$. There's no "standard offer" as there is with OS X.
But the worst joke is:
Vista takes security to the next level.
Oh yeah, I'm sure it will - for the first 5 days or so, until the first remote root is found in the default setup.
Plus, of course, most of these reasons are just recycled from the XP launch.
Here's the key: since it's happening so slowly, the deaths are more spread out over time.
That's a good point, though I am not convinced it is true. Driving from A to B covers the same distance, yet at moderate speeds I'll burn less fuel than if I push the pedal to the metal all the way. I believe it's the same for change processes - at adequate speed, they will take longer, but cause less friction, both at the instant and in total.
I don't have much data to support my point, however. It's more a gut feeling based on what I know about change processes in general.
Also, there *have* been bloodless coups in the world.
True, but the vast majority of them didn't change the culture of a country, only the government.
I don't know. Have you asked him? According to his official webpage, contact details are:
For general information email to: info@dalailama.com
To contact the office kindly email to: ohhdl@dalailama.com
Or you can write to The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama Thekchen Choeling P.O. McLeod Ganj Dharamsala H.P. 176219 India Tel: +91-(0) 1892 221343/221879 Fax: +91-(0) 1892 221813
I wouldn't want to be in their place, however, and decide the future of over a billion people. First, that's a huge responsibility. Second, no matter what you do, at that number you are guaranteed there's always a large group that suffers or protests. Third, even if you do everything (mostly) right, someone from outside will complain because it doesn't fit his or her view of the world.
Oversimplification. Do you really believe freedom is a binary property? I'm sure a lot of chinese will protest if you tell them their lives are worthless.
if someone would listen to your assertion, than you could basically say that we should let kidnappers get off the hook: what is the cost of saving a kidnap victim? the kidnap victim may die in a rescue attempt, so better pay the ransom
Re-read, please. I don't want to prevent change towards more freedom - I do advocate doing it at a controlled speed. The same goes for hostage rescues. A half-assed, hurried attempt is often worse than doing nothing or even letting the kidnappers/terrorists just kill the victims. See Munich 1972.
what i say is, no matter what the risk of bloody revolution, free speech is always preferable, no matter what the risk or cost involved
Personally, I don't think any of us should have a say in whether or not a few million other people die, or if it's "worth" it. You can decide the above for yourself and your own life, but who gives you authority to decide for others?
As much as I am a friend of free speech, I don't forget that we live in countries that had a few centuries to adapt to the concept, and it was far from painless. From the french revolution to the american independence war, and a hundred smaller clashes.
We forget so often that the chinese government isn't stupid, and maybe not even evil. They have reasons for why they do what they do. You may disagree with the reasons, of course. But let's not forget that preventing large-scale civil unrest is among them. Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong. But are you ready to gamble a few million lives on that?
The french revolution took maybe 100,000 lives (40k alone went to the guillotine), in a country of about 40 mio. people. Now imagine the body count in a 1200 mio. people country. Add modern firearms and tanks. 3 mio.? 4 mio.? maybe 5 mio. people could die during an all-china civil unrest.
If the chinese leaders are wrong, they are oppressive tyrants who've killed thousands. But if the free speech advocates are wrong, they are rebellion initiators with millions of dead on their consciousness.
China is moving towards more freedom, though at glacial speeds. That is probably too slow. But the demands of the western world for essentially immediate total freedom are very certainly too much, too fast. Change needs time, and a look into our own history books would tell us what the stakes are.
Of course my eyes and ears can and will detect the change - it's my consciousness that will not, because the small differences are filtered out in the brain's pre-processing.
In a dark room, a human eye can detect a single photon. Our ears are somewhat less sensitive, but some audiophiles have a hearing you'd not believe. Are their ears different - or their brains?
The point is that many things you don't consciously notice still lower the quality of what you see or hear. Low-quality encoding (video more visibly, but audio as well) is an excellent example. The picture will look blurry or "bad", even though you can't pinpoint exactly what it is that gives you that impression.
I'm sure you won't notice consciously, and you certainly won't notice if you hear your music on $2 headphones. But have you ever played an MP3 in a club/disco with an excellent sound setup? Man do you hear the difference to uncompressed CD quality.
Slashdot Mirror
No, in fact I don't remember that.
Hm, that link was news to me. Interesting. I'll have to revise my opinion.
So? What does the age of the event have to do with it? Are you saying things would be different now?
No, I'm saying that we can not make a list of events distributed over 6 years in time and 4 continents in space and compare that to events happening today, in a certain area. It just doesn't work. It's comparing apples with oranges. That's the entire point. I don't say who is right or wrong, just that the comparison is faulty.
they could do a heck of a lot more than they are to combat that myth. Showing outrage at the terrorist acts themselves, condemning those that commit such acts in the name of Islam, not electing a terrorist organization (which unfortunately goes a long way to dispel the notion that it's all the violent minority), finding a strong leader to stand up to be the voice of the non-militants (an anti bin Laden, if you will). They have allowed some extremists to completely corrupt their religion by using it to perpetrate heinously violent acts. It's time for the silent majority to become not-so-silent.
I don't think it's as easy as that. The americans elected Bush, twice. A man who started a war and killed probably 100,000 people on fake reasons. I don't think that even compares to Hamas. True, they are open pro-terrorism. However, they also build schools, support a ton of local projects and I'm sure much of their popularity comes from that. Much like Osama, in fact, who according to some sources did a lot for Afghanistan volunteers, back when the war was Afghanistan vs. USSR and the american government backed him and sent him weapons.
Then there's the other reasons. The one that politically, the voice of reason is easily silenced by bombs and gunfire - namely the voices of reason in Iraq were very certainly silenced for many years due to the US invasion. And the voices of reason in palestine have it very hard due to continued Israeli violation of a dozen or so UN resolutions.
Throw oil into the fire or complain about it being so hot. One or the other, please. Not both.
[9/11]: You do recall the images of thousands of them celebrating in the streets, don't you?
Yes, and I do also remember that those very images were debunked as archive footage two days later. Do you?
But yes, a lot of people in the middle east didn't exactly feel sorry for the US. Much like a lot of people in the US don't feel sorry for the 100,000 or so innocent civilians killed in Bush's war.
And so in reaction to that, they burn some embassies?
No, that's the others. The violent ones. The minority. Yes, a loud and vocal minority, that gets lots and lots of air time.
Dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, the USS Cole, African embassy bombings, Sept 11, the Madrid train bombing, the bombings in London. Where is the outrage at all those?
Probably as divided over time and space as those incidents. The Cole was in 2000. That's 6 years ago.
Again, yes we don't see much outrage. And there probably is less than there were if, say, some british fanatic were to blow up the Saudi embassy. But then again, would we call for an invasion of the UK in that case? Would we go around calling every brit a terrorist?
The arabs do react differently. But how much of that is because we treat them differently?
yes, it's a fact - some Muslims are terrorists
As are some europeans. And some americans. In those cases, we consider them lunatics, lone offenders. Even when a nation's war machinery wreaks havoc on some foreign country, we make a difference between that and that nation's people. And yet with the arabs, we call them all terrorists (or at least potential terrorist, or terrorist suspects) because a bunch of them actually are?
I agree with you, both sides have abundant reasons to hate each other, but you came across more as a Muslim apologist than anything else.
I have no special ties whatsoever. In fact, I don't even know any muslims closely. But I speak out against injustice when I see it, and this is injustice.
There's what, a billion or so of them? And we judge them by the deeds of a few hundred?
One of the best features of mplayer is it's no-nonsense approach to DVD playback. It just launches the movie. No menus, no FBI warnings, no ads, no crap.
If Muslims would denounce the actions of fundamentalists that commit crimes against humanity then just maybe non-Muslims wouldn't have such a negative view of Islam.
They do, in droves. The mainstream press doesn't consider that newsworthy.
Anyone know if Salmon Rushdie is still in hiding?
No, and he hasn't been for years, even though the Fatwa calling for his execution was re-affirmed last year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_Rushdie.
Only 41% of Palestinians viewed the attack on the world trade center as terrorism.
Both stories did not ask what they call it instead. That'd be interesting to hear. I'm sure a lot of americans don't consider the war on Iraq terrorism, yet for many Iraqis that's exactly what it feels like.
When was the last time you saw a bishop calling for the death of someone, or a local pastor yelling "death, death to Saudi Arabia!"?
I'm sure you'll find them if you start looking. There's enough christian fanatics around as well, or people using the Jesus religion as their cover. They just don't get blown up into "a majority of christian people" by the press.
Yes, a ton of muslims are very upset. 99.9% of them protest or complain peacefully. 0.01% are shown on TV.
Don't think, for a second, that I'm a fan of either xtianity or judaism. I think the world would be much better off without all three Abrahamic religions, actually.
We agree on that.
But in the topic on hand, it's kind of hard to ignore the very dissimilar outputs, given such very similar inputs.
Correct. Which is why I pointed out that you have to consider history. It's not only religion, it's also culture. Western/christian culture has had a few centuries to adapt to the thoughts of freedom (free press, free speech, etc.) while arab/muslim culture has not.
The transition wasn't painless in the west. How can we be so stupid as to expect it'll be painless in the arab world?
Where are the moderate or liberal voices of Islam?
They're there. The press just doesn't cover them. Just like the liberals in the US have a much harder time getting their views on air than Bush & Co.
Mmmm, European arrogance (Intelligent papers indeed).
Yes, I - together with much of the rest of the world - am proud not to be an american. But that ain't the point. I don't know about US papers, hence the "at least over here" statement. And quite honestly, we have a huge amount of shit papers as well.
Why aren't the muslims cleaning up their own house
They are, and have been for a decade or two. The mainstream media coverage angle of this affair has just thrown them back at least five years.
Did you know, for example, that the european muslims are in the process of setting up their own religious leadership, independent from the more radical near-east ones? That they were striving to have that council officially accepted so it can issue fatwas (religious doctrines)?
One Arab released video tape of a beheading is worth a *million* cartoons as far as 'islam image' is concerned.
Pot, meet kettle. Beheading video, meet Abu Gharib pictures.
These people are killing innocent people in the name of their religion!
These US soldiers are killing innocent civilians in the name of WMD/removing Saddam/bringing democracy/pacifying the area/whatever this week's reason for the Iraq war is.
When they decide that foreigners being kidnapped, beheaded, and tapes of the events being released is too much, then we'll see change. Until then it's quiet acceptance of those acts (read: they don't really care).
I could mimic that with the Iraqi war as well, but that would be too easy.
Here's an issue where both sides have ample reason to hate the other. And there will be no peace until both sides understand that. As long as the "we're right, they're wrong and they're the reason for all of this, we just react" attitude prevails, we'll have bloodshed and innocent people will die.
Actually, a few more intelligent papers report the real news - at least over here in Europe. The funny thing is that a lot of muslims are quite upset. But for reasons different from what the mainstream media shows, and the vast majority of them is protesting peacefully.
One of the chief reasons they are upset is that the pictures strengthen and play on the very prejudice they've been trying to get rid off for a long while now, namely muslim == terrorist.
They didn't consider that a media in war frenzy will turn that into exactly that direction.
And if you don't think our media is a) in a war frenzy and b) subject to massive and intentional manipulation by those who stand to profit from a continuation of this nonsense then you've not read what Rummsfield has been going on about for the last week or so.
Islamofascist apologists
I stopped reading there. I don't argue with people who start off with an insult.
On the whole, Christians don't threaten death to company executives or members of the press if they disagree with their opinions.
On the whole, muslims don't, either.
Some fanatics, yes. But right-wing born-again christians also not only threaten but on a few occasions have actually killed abortion doctors or activists and others they dislike.
Jews, Christains, Atheists...there's lots of wackos amongst those groups, but in the last few decades radical islam wins hands down for self-righteous violence and terror.
Depends on
a) how much you believe the mainstream press is reporting truth and how much you think they report whatever will make more sales
b) how many of the people who use religion as their cover you actually consider to be religious fanatics
c) Whether or not you take into account the prejudice and hatred against all muslims, because prejudice doesn't run through a "are you a radical?" checklist first.
Market forces rule.
Only in the textbooks. Real life is more complicated than that and does contain quite a huge number of forces that the various market theories exclude.
Remember: The market theories, just like newtonian mechanics, are approximations. Sometimes darn good ones, sometimes (under other conditions) lousy. This isn't religion and the word of the textbook isn't The Truth(tm).
Here's what I want:
A place where I enter my profile. What I am today, what I am looking for.
Companies likewise create profiles of open positions.
Then profiles are matched and matching profiles are notified. There's enough fuzzy logic, bayesian and other stuff available to ensure good matching even if the two sides don't use the same words.
Oh, and more honesty on the employers' side. I've been to a few interviews where jobs were advertised that sounded cool, only to find out what they're really looking for isn't exactly what they were advertising.
I have a safe job. If you are advertising something I care for because it sounds considerably better than what I have, you'd better live up to it or I'll be sorry I invested the time to visit you.
They have have SmartFetch or whatever it's called so it knows what applications you typically use and at what times so it'll preload them into memory making it seem snappier.
;)
Yes, as long as it guesses correctly. The other 90% of the time, it'll be a useless resource hog.
5. Better updates:
And Linux, BSD, and even Mac OS have had package management systems since when, forever?
And this isn't even a package manager! Can you install OpenOffice on Windos Update? Or even M$ Office? No, this isn't the equivalent to synaptic, adept or any other package manager, it's just a GUI for "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade".
6. More media: Over the years, one of the key reasons to upgrade versions of Windows has been the free stuff Gates and Company toss into the new OS, and Vista is no exception.
This must be some kind of joke.
I'm certain it is. I know of nobody who ever bought any version of windos because of some bundled stuff. Plus, of course, exactly what is bundled depends a lot more on the OEM than on M$. There's no "standard offer" as there is with OS X.
But the worst joke is:
Vista takes security to the next level.
Oh yeah, I'm sure it will - for the first 5 days or so, until the first remote root is found in the default setup.
Plus, of course, most of these reasons are just recycled from the XP launch.
Here's the key: since it's happening so slowly, the deaths are more spread out over time.
That's a good point, though I am not convinced it is true. Driving from A to B covers the same distance, yet at moderate speeds I'll burn less fuel than if I push the pedal to the metal all the way. I believe it's the same for change processes - at adequate speed, they will take longer, but cause less friction, both at the instant and in total.
I don't have much data to support my point, however. It's more a gut feeling based on what I know about change processes in general.
Also, there *have* been bloodless coups in the world.
True, but the vast majority of them didn't change the culture of a country, only the government.
I don't know. Have you asked him? According to his official webpage, contact details are:
For general information email to:
info@dalailama.com
To contact the office kindly email to:
ohhdl@dalailama.com
Or you can write to
The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Thekchen Choeling
P.O. McLeod Ganj
Dharamsala H.P. 176219
India
Tel: +91-(0) 1892 221343/221879
Fax: +91-(0) 1892 221813
Yes, probably.
I wouldn't want to be in their place, however, and decide the future of over a billion people. First, that's a huge responsibility. Second, no matter what you do, at that number you are guaranteed there's always a large group that suffers or protests. Third, even if you do everything (mostly) right, someone from outside will complain because it doesn't fit his or her view of the world.
a life that isn't free isn't worth living
Oversimplification. Do you really believe freedom is a binary property? I'm sure a lot of chinese will protest if you tell them their lives are worthless.
if someone would listen to your assertion, than you could basically say that we should let kidnappers get off the hook: what is the cost of saving a kidnap victim? the kidnap victim may die in a rescue attempt, so better pay the ransom
Re-read, please. I don't want to prevent change towards more freedom - I do advocate doing it at a controlled speed. The same goes for hostage rescues. A half-assed, hurried attempt is often worse than doing nothing or even letting the kidnappers/terrorists just kill the victims. See Munich 1972.
what i say is, no matter what the risk of bloody revolution, free speech is always preferable, no matter what the risk or cost involved
Personally, I don't think any of us should have a say in whether or not a few million other people die, or if it's "worth" it. You can decide the above for yourself and your own life, but who gives you authority to decide for others?
if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'"
Because my sex life is not for your entertainment.
As much as I am a friend of free speech, I don't forget that we live in countries that had a few centuries to adapt to the concept, and it was far from painless. From the french revolution to the american independence war, and a hundred smaller clashes.
We forget so often that the chinese government isn't stupid, and maybe not even evil. They have reasons for why they do what they do. You may disagree with the reasons, of course. But let's not forget that preventing large-scale civil unrest is among them. Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong. But are you ready to gamble a few million lives on that?
The french revolution took maybe 100,000 lives (40k alone went to the guillotine), in a country of about 40 mio. people. Now imagine the body count in a 1200 mio. people country. Add modern firearms and tanks. 3 mio.? 4 mio.? maybe 5 mio. people could die during an all-china civil unrest.
If the chinese leaders are wrong, they are oppressive tyrants who've killed thousands. But if the free speech advocates are wrong, they are rebellion initiators with millions of dead on their consciousness.
China is moving towards more freedom, though at glacial speeds. That is probably too slow. But the demands of the western world for essentially immediate total freedom are very certainly too much, too fast. Change needs time, and a look into our own history books would tell us what the stakes are.
In theory (and cryptography), you're right on the money.
But in real life (and the court system), zero-knowledge proofs don't convince people who are not into crypto.
Of course my eyes and ears can and will detect the change - it's my consciousness that will not, because the small differences are filtered out in the brain's pre-processing.
In a dark room, a human eye can detect a single photon. Our ears are somewhat less sensitive, but some audiophiles have a hearing you'd not believe. Are their ears different - or their brains?
The point is that many things you don't consciously notice still lower the quality of what you see or hear. Low-quality encoding (video more visibly, but audio as well) is an excellent example. The picture will look blurry or "bad", even though you can't pinpoint exactly what it is that gives you that impression.
I'm sure you won't notice consciously, and you certainly won't notice if you hear your music on $2 headphones. But have you ever played an MP3 in a club/disco with an excellent sound setup? Man do you hear the difference to uncompressed CD quality.
That's an interesting technology, I hadn't heard of that before.
:-)
Yes, absolutely. Combine those and you have a winner. I want my Apple TouchBook Pro!