When it comes to this sort of thing, they don't need to learn. Most of their user base will not jailbreak or unlock anything; they don't get a lot of benefit from policing the few who do. In fact, if it becomes too easy, then there's a problem: if a critical number of people start tethering unlocked phones, the carrier will then need to meter bandwidth. As long as only a techie few are doing it, they can generally be left alone.
We have come to a point where all the test cases for free speech are people being unambiguous assholes, rather than people simply stating unpopular political opinions. As a result, we are put in a situation where we have to choose between an absolute commitment to free speech and a society where people can mourn their dead in peace. The latter will win, ultimately, even if it means using the Constitution as toilet paper (hopefully, it won't come to that.) And I think, ultimately, I would rather that the latter won. I don't value free speech for its own sake: I value it as a means of checking power, of keeping discourse lively and intellects rigorous, of keeping us from getting complacent, dumb, or too obedient.
That could be a consequence of the laws against Holocaust denial: only those committed enough to their beliefs that they are willing to face censure and jail (that is, highly motivated bigots) will give voice to denialist ideas.
These people will soon be in charge of health care.
Should I take this to mean that you think private companies like British Petroleum, Countrywide or Union Carbide should be managing the nuclear arsenal?
I don't disagree with you.: that's why I say the only effective approach is political, not violent. (I'm not against violence per se, but it just is useless in this context, and the whole guns-defend-liberty is, as you suggest, pure macho posturing.)
I actually think "liberty" is incremental, not absolute, and is constructed through a network of negotiated protections and expectations, not by the fiat of a one-time constitutional moment.
There are no ways you can keep your liberties from being trampled upon by looking for clever technological hacks or legal protections. The state has access to more technology than you, and to the instruments to create, interpret and enforce law. The real solutions are political. Until enough people who care about civil liberty start winning political fights, it isn't going to change.
It is also hard work, incremental, involves compromise and not simply firing potshots across ideological divides, either. The libertarians (except Radley Balko and Justin Raimundo) long ago squandered a chance to build common cause with people on the left, because they lazily wanted everyone to subscribe to a very specific conception of liberty before taking any positive action.
Something that I simply don't know: what actually happens when someone is fined more than they are ever likely to earn in their lifetime? How much gets garnished? How do they eat, pay for shelter, etc.? At some point, I might prefer to just rob a bank and force the state to put a roof over my head and feed me if it happened to me...
It is poor writing to repeat terms in close succession. Grammatically correct, but stylistically weak. One can almost always find ways to convey the same information without redundancy.
Then you know very little about games. Melodrama has been part of games for over a decade: it's the standard narrative stance in Japanese RPGs. More recently, a game which dealt with heart-wrenching emotions was Heavy Rain (the English version marred by terrible voice acting, unfortunately.) Rod Humble's "The Marriage" and Jason Roehrer's "Passage" are melodramatic at the level of gameplay, too.
There is also a growing body of work that deals with difficult topics in games, from Brenda Brathwaite's "Train" to "Escape from Woomera" to "Darfur is Dying."
The was a time in which the novel was considered a trivial form, appropriate only for "semi-educated women" in the 18th century. Film had a tenure as "mere entertainment," as well. You need to catch up.
I actually do not think this feature is universally evenly distributed, and often find it more strongly in some places (e.g. the military) than others.
I grant you that most people care more about their own than about others. But there's a gap between that and expecting, universally, that everyone else respect and recognize them for exceptional treatment. The angry exceptionalism (blended with self-pity) seems strongest among the military in the US (less elsewhere! Burden of empire, I guess) and the police.
I don't think the Iraqis, or even the Taliban, were ever even close to being in a position to keep us from playing what we want on our PS3s. When there is a credible immediate existential threat to the US, let me know. Until then, please do not keep papering over the exercise of geo-political authority in promotion of a range of national interests with the "defense of freedom."
So, you have no right to talk about the suffering of people killed by the US military, since you don't have a loved one who is an Iraqi or Afghani civilian?
I find that many of the family members of US military personnel make claims for exceptional treatment that they never extend to anyone else.
There was a little revolution between then and now: the CIA-created Shah regime signed that treaty. And, of course, parties are free to leave the NNPT whenever they like: that's how treaties work.
Iran is one of the best examples of "blowback" out there.
There's a lot of ways to slice the geek/nerd taxonomies. I tend to see "geeks" as cultural consumers, and "nerds" as producers. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don't. I think as science and tech gets more rarified and abstract, a lot of people who woud have been nerds 30+ years ago (inventing things, researching interesting natural phenomena, designing things, etc) have become geeks (buying, collecting, playing and cataloging things.)
"But, PC gaming will only ever be limited by the average intellect of the masses."
Yep, that's right. A bunch of FPS-obsessed geeks are far superior intellectually to people who play casual games in the spare time they have between their graduate studies, international travel, and outdoor activities.
I love geek narcissism - it's the most clueless, self-deluded variety there is.
Read the thread. He was responding to the idea that people work only for rent and food and nothing more. He is not saying that people should only work for rent and food.
Sorry for dividing my response into 3 posts, but the ultimate point is that a/theism is orthogonal to religious membership for many religions. The opposite of atheism really should be understood to be theism, not religion, even in the context of a discussion of atheism. There are just too many non-theistic religions and religious identities to permit the conflation you defend.
Additionally, the practice of Shintoism no longer requires one actually posit a belief in the Kami. Historically, this was true: however, now there are atheist Shinto religionists just as there can be said to be atheist Jewish religionists (who attend services, participate in synagogues, etc.)
The academic discipline of religious studies emphasizes practice over doctrine as being what constitutes a religion.
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It's 2 year olds that are a problem. Most three year olds have started doing graduate work.
Ah, it's the True Scotsman Phallacy.
When it comes to this sort of thing, they don't need to learn. Most of their user base will not jailbreak or unlock anything; they don't get a lot of benefit from policing the few who do. In fact, if it becomes too easy, then there's a problem: if a critical number of people start tethering unlocked phones, the carrier will then need to meter bandwidth. As long as only a techie few are doing it, they can generally be left alone.
I think you do not understand what I wrote.Try again.
We have come to a point where all the test cases for free speech are people being unambiguous assholes, rather than people simply stating unpopular political opinions. As a result, we are put in a situation where we have to choose between an absolute commitment to free speech and a society where people can mourn their dead in peace. The latter will win, ultimately, even if it means using the Constitution as toilet paper (hopefully, it won't come to that.) And I think, ultimately, I would rather that the latter won. I don't value free speech for its own sake: I value it as a means of checking power, of keeping discourse lively and intellects rigorous, of keeping us from getting complacent, dumb, or too obedient.
That could be a consequence of the laws against Holocaust denial: only those committed enough to their beliefs that they are willing to face censure and jail (that is, highly motivated bigots) will give voice to denialist ideas.
What must change is your stubborn chauvinism and near-paranoia.
These people will soon be in charge of health care.
Should I take this to mean that you think private companies like British Petroleum, Countrywide or Union Carbide should be managing the nuclear arsenal?
I don't disagree with you.: that's why I say the only effective approach is political, not violent. (I'm not against violence per se, but it just is useless in this context, and the whole guns-defend-liberty is, as you suggest, pure macho posturing.)
I actually think "liberty" is incremental, not absolute, and is constructed through a network of negotiated protections and expectations, not by the fiat of a one-time constitutional moment.
There are no ways you can keep your liberties from being trampled upon by looking for clever technological hacks or legal protections. The state has access to more technology than you, and to the instruments to create, interpret and enforce law. The real solutions are political. Until enough people who care about civil liberty start winning political fights, it isn't going to change.
It is also hard work, incremental, involves compromise and not simply firing potshots across ideological divides, either. The libertarians (except Radley Balko and Justin Raimundo) long ago squandered a chance to build common cause with people on the left, because they lazily wanted everyone to subscribe to a very specific conception of liberty before taking any positive action.
Something that I simply don't know: what actually happens when someone is fined more than they are ever likely to earn in their lifetime? How much gets garnished? How do they eat, pay for shelter, etc.? At some point, I might prefer to just rob a bank and force the state to put a roof over my head and feed me if it happened to me...
It is poor writing to repeat terms in close succession. Grammatically correct, but stylistically weak. One can almost always find ways to convey the same information without redundancy.
Then you know very little about games. Melodrama has been part of games for over a decade: it's the standard narrative stance in Japanese RPGs. More recently, a game which dealt with heart-wrenching emotions was Heavy Rain (the English version marred by terrible voice acting, unfortunately.) Rod Humble's "The Marriage" and Jason Roehrer's "Passage" are melodramatic at the level of gameplay, too.
There is also a growing body of work that deals with difficult topics in games, from Brenda Brathwaite's "Train" to "Escape from Woomera" to "Darfur is Dying."
The was a time in which the novel was considered a trivial form, appropriate only for "semi-educated women" in the 18th century. Film had a tenure as "mere entertainment," as well. You need to catch up.
I actually do not think this feature is universally evenly distributed, and often find it more strongly in some places (e.g. the military) than others.
I grant you that most people care more about their own than about others. But there's a gap between that and expecting, universally, that everyone else respect and recognize them for exceptional treatment. The angry exceptionalism (blended with self-pity) seems strongest among the military in the US (less elsewhere! Burden of empire, I guess) and the police.
I don't think the Iraqis, or even the Taliban, were ever even close to being in a position to keep us from playing what we want on our PS3s. When there is a credible immediate existential threat to the US, let me know. Until then, please do not keep papering over the exercise of geo-political authority in promotion of a range of national interests with the "defense of freedom."
So, you have no right to talk about the suffering of people killed by the US military, since you don't have a loved one who is an Iraqi or Afghani civilian?
I find that many of the family members of US military personnel make claims for exceptional treatment that they never extend to anyone else.
There was a little revolution between then and now: the CIA-created Shah regime signed that treaty. And, of course, parties are free to leave the NNPT whenever they like: that's how treaties work.
Iran is one of the best examples of "blowback" out there.
You're trolling, aren't you? I mean, no one is really this blinkered, are they?
There's a lot of ways to slice the geek/nerd taxonomies. I tend to see "geeks" as cultural consumers, and "nerds" as producers. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don't. I think as science and tech gets more rarified and abstract, a lot of people who woud have been nerds 30+ years ago (inventing things, researching interesting natural phenomena, designing things, etc) have become geeks (buying, collecting, playing and cataloging things.)
"But, PC gaming will only ever be limited by the average intellect of the masses."
Yep, that's right. A bunch of FPS-obsessed geeks are far superior intellectually to people who play casual games in the spare time they have between their graduate studies, international travel, and outdoor activities.
I love geek narcissism - it's the most clueless, self-deluded variety there is.
Read the thread. He was responding to the idea that people work only for rent and food and nothing more. He is not saying that people should only work for rent and food.
You are failing at comprehension.
It could be worse. It could have been marked as "Ov-arrrrrr-rated."
All the parrot poop on the floor, the indentations left by a peg leg, and the stench of rum are a dead giveaway.
Sorry for dividing my response into 3 posts, but the ultimate point is that a/theism is orthogonal to religious membership for many religions. The opposite of atheism really should be understood to be theism, not religion, even in the context of a discussion of atheism. There are just too many non-theistic religions and religious identities to permit the conflation you defend.
Additionally, the practice of Shintoism no longer requires one actually posit a belief in the Kami. Historically, this was true: however, now there are atheist Shinto religionists just as there can be said to be atheist Jewish religionists (who attend services, participate in synagogues, etc.)
The academic discipline of religious studies emphasizes practice over doctrine as being what constitutes a religion.