The government relies on confidential informants. This list of individuals is supposed to be secret. What do you think would happen to these people if their names and profiles were released to the public?
I'm tired of seeing articles which talk about IT "professionals" who don't even know how to use encryption.
It's not hard, it's more a matter of people not wanting to have any security because then they don't have to hire actual professionals who might cost a bit more.
You can't copyright your job if you don't own it. You can't own anything if you don't own yourself.
Face it, most individuals in this country are owned by corporations to the point that they'll rat out anybody who tries to do their own thing or get ahead. It's your co-worker who tells your bosses all your plans and ideas which keep you from ever being able to compete with your boss.
Just because we do a lot of useless shit at work, and make a lot of useless junk, it does not mean there is any point to what we are doing besides making our bosses richer. The productivity is not the point. Quality is the point, whether it be quality of life, of service, or of the product produced.
The only thing workers care about is keeping their high salaries, or getting a raise. Have salaries been rising? No absolutely not. So who gives a damn about productivity?
If they are going to work you into the grave to raise productivity, why bother?
It's vital that any election you run that you run with industry support. If you want to take out the copyright cartel then you'd have to get many big companies organized behind you to take them on, and these companies must know that their profits are at stake.
Think of the ISP's, the Googles, the Napsters, the Tubes, and if the profit loss is great enough then you can go to these companies and tell them that if this ACTA passes that their profit potential will diminish x1000, you can email their employees a newsletter which alerts them to the dangers of allowing ACTA to pass and how it will influence their salaries and lead to massive layoffs.
If you want to stop ACTA, you have to do it in the corporate boardrooms, not on Slashdot.
I make a political calculation. Does it help me increase my prosperity or does it keep me down?
ACTA it's a CARTEL move. It's that simple. People in control want to secure control of the entertainment industry. It has nothing to do with artists, musicians, talent, or prosperity for the people who actually come up with new ideas. This is about securing profits for corporate royalty.
It's as simple as that. There is no moral argument because there is no right to profits and if the government is going to secure the rights of profit for one industry over another, that means these music corps are now state owned organizations. It's no different than what goes on in China with their state run industries.
In a free market there would be no need for ACTA. Sure you would need to protect physical property and intellectual property against actual piracy. If we are talking about individuals who mass produce Windows 7 and sell it in China then by all means we should confront that problem. But if we are going to declare another war on American citizens, and charge them with possession of virtual property, I'm absolutely against it. It's already illegal to SELL Windows 7 if it's not genuine.
And honestly I don't see anyone doing that in this country. And if it does happen it's not happening on a massive scale.The only reason this happens is because the music industry kingpins are smart enough to use the government to secure their profits. Maybe you should do the same for your industry, get some reps elected and then have them write laws to secure your job and guarantee your profits.
It's fair game because if one industry can do it, why not all industries?
IT's funny how when Presidents like Obama talk about profits, productivity, and prosperity it's "ours" but when the actual distribution of the money and American dream takes place suddenly it's all "theirs" and theres nothing left for "us" or "our" children. It's a scam.
Unless you are directly profiting from ACTA, there is no logical reason to support it. Lets make them buy our support just like they make us buy everything we produce.
Are you saying the police shouldn't save "bad people" from others?
It was done in the American west. The sheriff/judge would declare somebody to be an outlaw. Once that happened, he was no longer protected by the law. You could cook and eat him if you wanted to.
It's not safe to do this because of mistaken identity, but otherwise it's appropriate for the most severe crimes. Lots of people would enjoy killing a pedophile.
Or if they are in a building on fire, the firemen shouldn't save them?
There are neighborhoods where firemen are shot at. I expect that many fire departments quietly give priority to places where that doesn't happen. This can be done when deciding where to locate a firehouse and/or when prioritizing where to send the trucks.
When you live in a civilized society with rule of law, everyone gets certain protections, certain freedoms, even free access to various resources.
No, that's uncivilized. Civilization exists to protect the useful from the useless. If we didn't need police/military to protect us, we'd have never accepted the loss of freedom required to form a civilization. Civilization is all about stopping the useless people from taking our resources; it's not about handing over our resources to the useless.
Or should they save a well-heeled politician who has lied and thus caused the death of tens of thousands of people for the benefit of himself and his friends (and not the nation)?
That's the inevitable imperfection. It's like autoimmune disease: we have an immune system to protect our body, but sometimes it attacks us.
There is a huge difference between a pedophile and a child molester. The fact that you cannot distinguish a difference is why we should not have these sorts of witch hunts. If we are going to murder serial rapists you have to think of the consequences beyond the obvious protecting of children. You murder the rapist, the rapist might have people who love him and her who might murder some of your "bad" people, now you have a civil war.
It's better to put the bad people in prison, and let the system chew them up and spit them out. It's always better to side with the law than to let the mob rule. The reason is because mob rule is anarchy.
Nobody is entitled to anything, not a penny, not a hug, and not time.
Now that this is settled, every human life born costs the rest of us. Whether we put that human in prison, or we give that human welfare, we will be paying for that human one way or another.
Since most humans are functionally useless, we should strive to create less of them.
You might want to convince yourself that your life cannot be valued in dollars but I can assure you that it can be. There are no priceless lives except in the hearts of the immediate family and friends who care if they live or die. That's probably a handful of people.
If you only make $15 an hour this should be an indication as to your worth. But if you really want to know how much your life is worth, find out how much it would cost to have someone take your life and you'll receive an answer.
Between 1979 and 1984, the researchers recruited pregnant women living in poor areas of Cincinnati, which had a high concentration of older, lead-contaminated housing, into the Cincinnati Lead Study. They measured the women's blood lead concentrations during pregnancy as an indication of their offspring's prenatal lead exposure and the children's blood lead levels regularly until they were six and half years old. They then obtained information from the local criminal justice records on how many times each of the 250 offspring had been arrested between becoming 18 years old and the end of October 2005. The researchers found that increased blood lead levels before birth and during early childhood were associated with higher rates of arrest for any reason and for violent crimes. For example, for every 5 g/dl increase in blood lead levels at six years of age, the risk of being arrested for a violent crime as a young adult increased by almost 50% (the "relative risk" was 1.48).
No, you don't get it. This is not a matter of taking sides, it is about answering a threat posed by our common enemies. Americans, Europeans, Russians and even the Chinese all have a shared interest in crushing the Islamists, despite whatever else we may or may not agree upon. It would best for all of us to pursue that goal without further delay.
Everyone agrees on that, but what we dont' agree on is what happens after the Islamist extremists are neutralized. What? Are we going to end up with Christian extremists who replace them? That seems to be the plan among American social Conservatives. That plan is unacceptable.
The FDA only has to check the food because we have huge supermarkets and chemicals in the food. Maybe if we went back to growing our food locally we wouldn't need a federal agency to check the food.
Maybe we wouldn't need the government involved in worker safety if Unions weren't crushed and if Corporations weren't persons.
And come on, why compare us to countries like Haiti and Somolia? You act as if this big government actually makes us safer. We are no safer than we were 100 years ago. In fact the world is a more dangerous place than it was 100 years ago, because the government doesn't care about individuals anymore. 100 years ago the government cared about people.
If we want the best outcome for the public, the federal government should not get involved. Let state governments regulate and tax, and let states solve cultural issues. The federal government already has an NSA, it already has a military, it has DARPA, it has no reason to get more involved and police the internet. Nobody asked the government to police the internet. Do you see citizens around the country going "Please Obama, please make the internet safer!" No you don't.
'As I said previously, this is a generational struggle for the Islamists. It may take centuries, but they are working towards a very clearly stated long term goal. IMHO, the evidence in Europe and to a lesser extent here in the United States demonstrates that substantial portions of our citizens are either ignorant of this threat or naive. "
But you still don't get it. It does not matter who wins because life will be worse for the non-religious no matter which religion wins. Do you think the Christians are going to let gays marry, legalize prostitution, gambling and drugs? Why would someone like myself, a person who is not religious, take a side when both side wants me to submit to their God and their morality?
So you have extremist Christians who want to force prohibition and their concept of morality on all of us. Or you have extremist Muslims who want to force women to cover their hair and force their concept of morality on us?
Neither culture is better. Both cultures are equally oppressive. So why should I care which extremist group wins that war? It's not like these two groups are all that different, both are extremists to the max and both want to force their morality on everyone else in authoritarian fashion. They both want a theocracy and the battle is to determine which group will get to have their theocracy.
In my opinion extremism in general is the problem. In my opinion authoritarianism in general is the problem. And since America is basically run by the most extreme elements, whether left or right, it's not like we are in any real position at this time to say our culture is superior to theirs.
Slashdot Mirror
The government relies on confidential informants. This list of individuals is supposed to be secret. What do you think would happen to these people if their names and profiles were released to the public?
Identities have to be kept secret.
I'm tired of seeing articles which talk about IT "professionals" who don't even know how to use encryption.
It's not hard, it's more a matter of people not wanting to have any security because then they don't have to hire actual professionals who might cost a bit more.
You can't copyright your job if you don't own it. You can't own anything if you don't own yourself.
Face it, most individuals in this country are owned by corporations to the point that they'll rat out anybody who tries to do their own thing or get ahead. It's your co-worker who tells your bosses all your plans and ideas which keep you from ever being able to compete with your boss.
Just because we do a lot of useless shit at work, and make a lot of useless junk, it does not mean there is any point to what we are doing besides making our bosses richer. The productivity is not the point. Quality is the point, whether it be quality of life, of service, or of the product produced.
The only thing workers care about is keeping their high salaries, or getting a raise. Have salaries been rising? No absolutely not. So who gives a damn about productivity?
If they are going to work you into the grave to raise productivity, why bother?
It's vital that any election you run that you run with industry support. If you want to take out the copyright cartel then you'd have to get many big companies organized behind you to take them on, and these companies must know that their profits are at stake.
Think of the ISP's, the Googles, the Napsters, the Tubes, and if the profit loss is great enough then you can go to these companies and tell them that if this ACTA passes that their profit potential will diminish x1000, you can email their employees a newsletter which alerts them to the dangers of allowing ACTA to pass and how it will influence their salaries and lead to massive layoffs.
If you want to stop ACTA, you have to do it in the corporate boardrooms, not on Slashdot.
I make a political calculation. Does it help me increase my prosperity or does it keep me down?
ACTA it's a CARTEL move. It's that simple. People in control want to secure control of the entertainment industry. It has nothing to do with artists, musicians, talent, or prosperity for the people who actually come up with new ideas. This is about securing profits for corporate royalty.
It's as simple as that. There is no moral argument because there is no right to profits and if the government is going to secure the rights of profit for one industry over another, that means these music corps are now state owned organizations. It's no different than what goes on in China with their state run industries.
In a free market there would be no need for ACTA. Sure you would need to protect physical property and intellectual property against actual piracy. If we are talking about individuals who mass produce Windows 7 and sell it in China then by all means we should confront that problem. But if we are going to declare another war on American citizens, and charge them with possession of virtual property, I'm absolutely against it. It's already illegal to SELL Windows 7 if it's not genuine.
And honestly I don't see anyone doing that in this country. And if it does happen it's not happening on a massive scale.The only reason this happens is because the music industry kingpins are smart enough to use the government to secure their profits. Maybe you should do the same for your industry, get some reps elected and then have them write laws to secure your job and guarantee your profits.
It's fair game because if one industry can do it, why not all industries?
IT's funny how when Presidents like Obama talk about profits, productivity, and prosperity it's "ours" but when the actual distribution of the money and American dream takes place suddenly it's all "theirs" and theres nothing left for "us" or "our" children. It's a scam.
Unless you are directly profiting from ACTA, there is no logical reason to support it. Lets make them buy our support just like they make us buy everything we produce.
I'm not saying Carlos is involved in that, but I'm sure there are a lot of rich Mexicans, some who are as rich as Carlos Slim.
I don't mean to appear racist but how much of his 53 billion is drug money?
Am I wrong to be skeptical of that kind of growth?
When you have so much money that everyone (including your wife and children) hate you, thats when you know you are TOO RICH.
Are you saying the police shouldn't save "bad people" from others?
It was done in the American west. The sheriff/judge would declare somebody to be an outlaw. Once that happened, he was no longer protected by the law. You could cook and eat him if you wanted to.
It's not safe to do this because of mistaken identity, but otherwise it's appropriate for the most severe crimes. Lots of people would enjoy killing a pedophile.
Or if they are in a building on fire, the firemen shouldn't save them?
There are neighborhoods where firemen are shot at. I expect that many fire departments quietly give priority to places where that doesn't happen. This can be done when deciding where to locate a firehouse and/or when prioritizing where to send the trucks.
When you live in a civilized society with rule of law, everyone gets certain protections, certain freedoms, even free access to various resources.
No, that's uncivilized. Civilization exists to protect the useful from the useless. If we didn't need police/military to protect us, we'd have never accepted the loss of freedom required to form a civilization. Civilization is all about stopping the useless people from taking our resources; it's not about handing over our resources to the useless.
Or should they save a well-heeled politician who has lied and thus caused the death of tens of thousands of people for the benefit of himself and his friends (and not the nation)?
That's the inevitable imperfection. It's like autoimmune disease: we have an immune system to protect our body, but sometimes it attacks us.
There is a huge difference between a pedophile and a child molester. The fact that you cannot distinguish a difference is why we should not have these sorts of witch hunts. If we are going to murder serial rapists you have to think of the consequences beyond the obvious protecting of children. You murder the rapist, the rapist might have people who love him and her who might murder some of your "bad" people, now you have a civil war.
It's better to put the bad people in prison, and let the system chew them up and spit them out. It's always better to side with the law than to let the mob rule. The reason is because mob rule is anarchy.
Nobody is entitled to anything, not a penny, not a hug, and not time.
Now that this is settled, every human life born costs the rest of us. Whether we put that human in prison, or we give that human welfare, we will be paying for that human one way or another.
Since most humans are functionally useless, we should strive to create less of them.
And charge them hundreds of millions, or even billions. This will create jobs for the rest of us while we nurse and doctor the sickly billionaires.
Sounds like a good plan to me. Do you have a better plan?
You might want to convince yourself that your life cannot be valued in dollars but I can assure you that it can be. There are no priceless lives except in the hearts of the immediate family and friends who care if they live or die. That's probably a handful of people.
The truth is sometimes the exact opposite and usually somewhere in between.
If you only make $15 an hour this should be an indication as to your worth. But if you really want to know how much your life is worth, find out how much it would cost to have someone take your life and you'll receive an answer.
Your life is worth your salary. If you don't like it, perhaps you should take it up with your boss?
Between 1979 and 1984, the researchers recruited pregnant women living in poor areas of Cincinnati, which had a high concentration of older, lead-contaminated housing, into the Cincinnati Lead Study. They measured the women's blood lead concentrations during pregnancy as an indication of their offspring's prenatal lead exposure and the children's blood lead levels regularly until they were six and half years old. They then obtained information from the local criminal justice records on how many times each of the 250 offspring had been arrested between becoming 18 years old and the end of October 2005. The researchers found that increased blood lead levels before birth and during early childhood were associated with higher rates of arrest for any reason and for violent crimes. For example, for every 5 g/dl increase in blood lead levels at six years of age, the risk of being arrested for a violent crime as a young adult increased by almost 50% (the "relative risk" was 1.48).
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/576717_sidebar1
http://toxicology.suite101.com/article.cfm/irreversible-effects-of-toxic-lead-brain-damage
No, you don't get it. This is not a matter of taking sides, it is about answering a threat posed by our common enemies. Americans, Europeans, Russians and even the Chinese all have a shared interest in crushing the Islamists, despite whatever else we may or may not agree upon. It would best for all of us to pursue that goal without further delay.
Everyone agrees on that, but what we dont' agree on is what happens after the Islamist extremists are neutralized. What? Are we going to end up with Christian extremists who replace them? That seems to be the plan among American social Conservatives. That plan is unacceptable.
I don't want a theocracy period.
You are exactly right.
The FDA only has to check the food because we have huge supermarkets and chemicals in the food. Maybe if we went back to growing our food locally we wouldn't need a federal agency to check the food.
Maybe we wouldn't need the government involved in worker safety if Unions weren't crushed and if Corporations weren't persons.
And come on, why compare us to countries like Haiti and Somolia? You act as if this big government actually makes us safer. We are no safer than we were 100 years ago. In fact the world is a more dangerous place than it was 100 years ago, because the government doesn't care about individuals anymore. 100 years ago the government cared about people.
If we want the best outcome for the public, the federal government should not get involved. Let state governments regulate and tax, and let states solve cultural issues. The federal government already has an NSA, it already has a military, it has DARPA, it has no reason to get more involved and police the internet. Nobody asked the government to police the internet. Do you see citizens around the country going "Please Obama, please make the internet safer!" No you don't.
Why else would the government care about the internet?
They want to control the bits and who can access them.
'As I said previously, this is a generational struggle for the Islamists. It may take centuries, but they are working towards a very clearly stated long term goal. IMHO, the evidence in Europe and to a lesser extent here in the United States demonstrates that substantial portions of our citizens are either ignorant of this threat or naive.
"
But you still don't get it. It does not matter who wins because life will be worse for the non-religious no matter which religion wins. Do you think the Christians are going to let gays marry, legalize prostitution, gambling and drugs? Why would someone like myself, a person who is not religious, take a side when both side wants me to submit to their God and their morality?
So you have extremist Christians who want to force prohibition and their concept of morality on all of us. Or you have extremist Muslims who want to force women to cover their hair and force their concept of morality on us?
Neither culture is better. Both cultures are equally oppressive. So why should I care which extremist group wins that war? It's not like these two groups are all that different, both are extremists to the max and both want to force their morality on everyone else in authoritarian fashion. They both want a theocracy and the battle is to determine which group will get to have their theocracy.
In my opinion extremism in general is the problem. In my opinion authoritarianism in general is the problem. And since America is basically run by the most extreme elements, whether left or right, it's not like we are in any real position at this time to say our culture is superior to theirs.