Let me break it down for you: Just because you know something that someone else doesn't, it doesn't mean you're smarter then them. Because it's possible (and dare I say, likely) that they also know something you don't.
Geeks place a lot of weight and value on being smart, so they like to dwell on the things they know that others do not. Kind of like you are, pointing out how helpless other people are because they don't have the same knowledge as you. But here's the thing: for every area where you're smugly well-versed, there are countless others where you're the helpless novice. So don't talk shit on being a novice - it just makes you look bad in the end.
By your reasoning, nothing anyone says can ever be trusted for any reason, because everyone has some kind of reason (read: corrupt interest) for saying anything they say.
Having motivation to say something does not always discredit the speaker.
No, that's the point, it's obviously a silly scale. You're not better or smarter than someone else simply because you understand technology on a more basic level than them. Any good technology abstracts its workings, allowing people to develop new disciplines with the technology as a tool. Anyone working with technology is using tools they don't fully understand, so when programmers trot out that argument against sysadmins, it's the pot calling the kettle black.
I don't entirely agree, I think that the belief that certain objects are necessary means to experiences is a key aspect of materialism.
For example, I bought an MP3 player so I could have the experience of listening to music. But I don't actually need an MP3 player to have that experience. I was prompted to buy the product because of my materialistic belief that having it would make my experience better, more rich or worthwhile.
Basically, you can always make the claim "i need this object in order to have this particular experience". But I don't think it's that easy to say it's therefore not materialism.
many environmentalists are afraid that someone may make money off of it
Many environmentalists oppose oil drilling because the oil will be used to fill the atmosphere with carbon, which is a very bad thing. Notice how environmentalists do not complain when people make money in other industries, as you would expect them to if they were categorically opposed to people making money.
I understand that there may be legitimate environmental concerns, then why bring up how much money someone may make?
Because, just as with a crime, the motive is important. Why is the oil company so upbeat about drilling in this spot? Why do they have all these reports about how harmless and wonderful it will be? Why are they willing to ignore potential environmental risks and health threats?
Well, they have a very strong motive to do so, namely, they stand to make a lot of money. This should be taken into account when deciding how much scrutiny to give their arguments, because they have a very good reason to distort the facts.
the GP post is upset that [...] the "haves" will do better than everyone else.
It's unfair that, even though everyone profits, one group gets a disproportionate share of those profits. It's like if we went into business together, hit it rich, and when it came time to split profits I took 70%. "Hey, we're both making money, why are you nitpicking about how much I'm making?". Well, it's not fair. And sadly, often the best way to deal with unfair distributions is for the exploited party to destroy the benefit for everyone, so that next time the exploiting party will know better than to try to take advantage. Sort of the equivalent of "If you can't share the toy nicely, neither of you will get to play with it".
People are naturally inclined towards a narrative of justice. They seek fairness and egalitarianism, and abhor unfair things.
Sometimes you may disagree with them about what's fair and what isn't, but don't complain about the fact that people value fairness. It's what makes civilization possible.
It wasn't "an original thought" as in it had never been considered before. Plenty of people speculated about it, it just took a long time before anyone could come up with a solid explanation for how such a thing could have actually happened.
You have an RSA-encrypted copy of your own random key, R(K), because that's what the ransomers need you to send them so they can sell you the decryption key K.
Which raises the question: why wouldn't the ransomers just send "K" to themselves, index it to some random serial number on the machine, and then remove it entirely from the victim's machine, instead of leaving an encrypted copy? I guess their method allows the attack to work even if connectivity can't be established to send out K.
And, barring this longshot attack by Kaspersky, i guess there's not much danger of K being decrypted.
That's funny, because whenever activists lobby to illegalize a particular trade, people get in an uproar about how it's interference with the free market, and how horrible it is to legislate what could be solved through consumer advocacy in the private sector.
So really, which is it? Should we use the strong arm of the government to prevent people from trading ivory, or should we apply market pressure to stop businesses from assisting in the trade?
Or is there a third, unmentioned option that everyone's really getting at, which is we should just let people kill elephants and sell their ivory freely?
Even if drugs were legal, mugging old ladies would not be. Therefore, someone who committed a crime due to drug addiction would still go to jail.
The amount of crime that happens due to the underground drug sales industry is overwhelming (and much more violent) compared to the crime committed by people to feed drug habits. Even if it did cause an uptick in addict crime, it would have to be a massive one to compensate for the drop in drug dealing-related crime.
It's as you say - some bittorrent trackers allow you to specify a different IP than the one you've connected from as the peer IP.
Then, the MPAA connects to the tracker and gets a list of peers, including the fake IP you register. And since they're lazy, they don't bother to actually download the torrent, they just make a list of all the IPs and start sending out letters.
based on the inconclusive nature of the current
monitoring methods, we find that it is possible for amalicious user (or buggy software) to implicate (frame) seemingly any network endpoint in the sharing of copyrighted materials
(emphasis added)
So taxation is theft, granted. If that's the only point you were trying to make, then we're agreed.
But again, ethically (if you like), what's the difference between taking $100 from you and then giving you a gift of $10, versus only taking $90? There is no difference. Either way, you end up with $10, and have lost a total of $90. Compared to everyone else who has $100 taken from them, you're $10 up. 10 free dollars.
It's the same damn thing. As long as taxation exists, and the government can demand arbitrary amounts of money from everyone, whenever they decline to collect money that they otherwise could have it's effectively a gift from the government to that person. Couch it in whatever ideological terms you want, but it's pretty obvious.
Ok, but imagine you lived in a country where every year, everyone had to give the king 10% of their wealth. And then one year the king picked you out of the crowd and said, "this year, you only have to give me 9% of your wealth".
Economically, how would this be different from the king giving you a gift of an amount of money equal to 1% of your wealth after you paid your taxes?
Well, abolishing taxes will take care of the "making involuntary redistribution impossible to execute" part, but there's more to it than that.
We also need to make such involuntary redistribution unnecessary. Because currently, a huge number of people depend on government redistribution to live decent lives. And while they should be cut off, just cutting them off will lead to huge inequality, poverty and ultimately disaster.
This is the half of the equation that, in my opinion, you libertarians need to bone up on. It's well and good to get rid of taxes, but we need to be building decentralized systems of mutual aid and voluntary social support to replace government services. It's not that hard...look at the volunteer fire department as an example. Otherwise, no poor person will ever take the libertarian movement seriously, because all you have to offer them is replacing the free services they depend on with expensive ones.
Interesting. So you're telling me that even if the government gives me free money (tax cuts) to stimulate the economy, I could then end up spending it on foreign goods that don't stimulate the US economy?
Sort of like how US corporations who get massive tax-breaks to stimulate the economy then turn around and send US jobs to Mexico and China, which actually weakens the US economy?
Hm. Maybe we'll have to rethink this whole "tax breaks for mega-rich businesses" thing.
Yes. Decentralization is one of the most profound solutions to our socio-economic woes, and one that everyone all over the political spectrum can agree on: "If those people over there think that's a good idea, fine for them. But let us run our community the way we want!". Very few people disagree with that sentiment. And yet it's the one thing you'll never hear politicians talking about.
The reason is that A) It works, and B) It doesn't involve them.
If people realize that most socio-economic problems can be solved in many different ways when cities, neighborhoods, and even individuals take responsibility for solving problems, the upper echelons of government will become more and more irrelevant.
Well, then I guess public housing, socialized healthcare, government childcare, etc. are fine in your eyes? After all, they're not "giving" anybody money, they're just "not taking" the money you would otherwise have to pay for rent, medical bills, childcare, etc.
Over here in reality though, "not taking" is quite the same as "giving". If you have to pay me $5000 a month, and I decide you have to pay 10% less this month, that's pretty much identical to giving you $500.
Our customers got a tax cut, which made them be able to afford to hire my company.
Oh, I see how this works! It's ok to give free money to super-rich companies, because they'll spend it on stuff, and spending money on stuff helps the economy! Hell, I'll agree to spend every cent on economy-stimulating, employment-creating things like luxury electronics, restaurants, massage therapists, and huge mansions. Bring on the tax cuts for poor people, we'll stimulate the fuck out of the economy!
When you go to that much trouble, it's not about enjoying good movies, it's about having all that stuff. You can see the same behavior in a more extreme form with audiophiles. They're unable to thoroughly enjoy music unless it's on a sufficiently expensive, elaborate sound system. And it's not because the music is more beautiful, it's because having all the "perfect" equipment and the knowledge that you're playing the music "as it's meant to be played" is satisfying in itself.
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Let me break it down for you: Just because you know something that someone else doesn't, it doesn't mean you're smarter then them. Because it's possible (and dare I say, likely) that they also know something you don't.
Geeks place a lot of weight and value on being smart, so they like to dwell on the things they know that others do not. Kind of like you are, pointing out how helpless other people are because they don't have the same knowledge as you. But here's the thing: for every area where you're smugly well-versed, there are countless others where you're the helpless novice. So don't talk shit on being a novice - it just makes you look bad in the end.
By your reasoning, nothing anyone says can ever be trusted for any reason, because everyone has some kind of reason (read: corrupt interest) for saying anything they say. Having motivation to say something does not always discredit the speaker.
No, that's the point, it's obviously a silly scale. You're not better or smarter than someone else simply because you understand technology on a more basic level than them. Any good technology abstracts its workings, allowing people to develop new disciplines with the technology as a tool. Anyone working with technology is using tools they don't fully understand, so when programmers trot out that argument against sysadmins, it's the pot calling the kettle black.
All the useful tools in the programmer arsenal have been created by very talented lower-level programmers.
/their/ arsenal have been created by very talented electrical engineers.
/their/ arsenal have been created by very talented physicists.
And all the useful tools in
And all the useful tools in
So I mean, you can go down that road if you want, but it doesn't end with programmers looking smart.
I don't entirely agree, I think that the belief that certain objects are necessary means to experiences is a key aspect of materialism.
For example, I bought an MP3 player so I could have the experience of listening to music. But I don't actually need an MP3 player to have that experience. I was prompted to buy the product because of my materialistic belief that having it would make my experience better, more rich or worthwhile.
Basically, you can always make the claim "i need this object in order to have this particular experience". But I don't think it's that easy to say it's therefore not materialism.
at best a one car garage
Wait, a "one car garage"? But then where did they park their SUV and their Hummer?
In your case, I'm guessing that enemy is people who don't share your same attitudes about "progress".
many environmentalists are afraid that someone may make money off of it
Many environmentalists oppose oil drilling because the oil will be used to fill the atmosphere with carbon, which is a very bad thing. Notice how environmentalists do not complain when people make money in other industries, as you would expect them to if they were categorically opposed to people making money.
I understand that there may be legitimate environmental concerns, then why bring up how much money someone may make?
Because, just as with a crime, the motive is important. Why is the oil company so upbeat about drilling in this spot? Why do they have all these reports about how harmless and wonderful it will be? Why are they willing to ignore potential environmental risks and health threats?
Well, they have a very strong motive to do so, namely, they stand to make a lot of money. This should be taken into account when deciding how much scrutiny to give their arguments, because they have a very good reason to distort the facts.
the GP post is upset that [...] the "haves" will do better than everyone else.
It's unfair that, even though everyone profits, one group gets a disproportionate share of those profits. It's like if we went into business together, hit it rich, and when it came time to split profits I took 70%. "Hey, we're both making money, why are you nitpicking about how much I'm making?". Well, it's not fair. And sadly, often the best way to deal with unfair distributions is for the exploited party to destroy the benefit for everyone, so that next time the exploiting party will know better than to try to take advantage. Sort of the equivalent of "If you can't share the toy nicely, neither of you will get to play with it".
People are naturally inclined towards a narrative of justice. They seek fairness and egalitarianism, and abhor unfair things.
Sometimes you may disagree with them about what's fair and what isn't, but don't complain about the fact that people value fairness. It's what makes civilization possible.
That would just blow the fuse, not hurt anyone. So I guess it's a pretty cheap mistake to make.
It wasn't "an original thought" as in it had never been considered before. Plenty of people speculated about it, it just took a long time before anyone could come up with a solid explanation for how such a thing could have actually happened.
You have an RSA-encrypted copy of your own random key, R(K), because that's what the ransomers need you to send them so they can sell you the decryption key K.
Which raises the question: why wouldn't the ransomers just send "K" to themselves, index it to some random serial number on the machine, and then remove it entirely from the victim's machine, instead of leaving an encrypted copy? I guess their method allows the attack to work even if connectivity can't be established to send out K.
And, barring this longshot attack by Kaspersky, i guess there's not much danger of K being decrypted.
That's funny, because whenever activists lobby to illegalize a particular trade, people get in an uproar about how it's interference with the free market, and how horrible it is to legislate what could be solved through consumer advocacy in the private sector.
So really, which is it? Should we use the strong arm of the government to prevent people from trading ivory, or should we apply market pressure to stop businesses from assisting in the trade?
Or is there a third, unmentioned option that everyone's really getting at, which is we should just let people kill elephants and sell their ivory freely?
Well? Don't leave us hanging, what is this "agenda that certain Greens push"?
Even if drugs were legal, mugging old ladies would not be. Therefore, someone who committed a crime due to drug addiction would still go to jail.
The amount of crime that happens due to the underground drug sales industry is overwhelming (and much more violent) compared to the crime committed by people to feed drug habits. Even if it did cause an uptick in addict crime, it would have to be a massive one to compensate for the drop in drug dealing-related crime.
one wonders how the shipping is handled...
Via ICMB. It'll be "used" by the time it arrives, trust me. Plus, you're guaranteed DOA!
It's as you say - some bittorrent trackers allow you to specify a different IP than the one you've connected from as the peer IP.
Then, the MPAA connects to the tracker and gets a list of peers, including the fake IP you register. And since they're lazy, they don't bother to actually download the torrent, they just make a list of all the IPs and start sending out letters.
From the report:
based on the inconclusive nature of the current monitoring methods, we find that it is possible for amalicious user (or buggy software) to implicate (frame) seemingly any network endpoint in the sharing of copyrighted materials
(emphasis added)
So taxation is theft, granted. If that's the only point you were trying to make, then we're agreed.
But again, ethically (if you like), what's the difference between taking $100 from you and then giving you a gift of $10, versus only taking $90? There is no difference. Either way, you end up with $10, and have lost a total of $90. Compared to everyone else who has $100 taken from them, you're $10 up. 10 free dollars.
It's the same damn thing. As long as taxation exists, and the government can demand arbitrary amounts of money from everyone, whenever they decline to collect money that they otherwise could have it's effectively a gift from the government to that person. Couch it in whatever ideological terms you want, but it's pretty obvious.
Ok, but imagine you lived in a country where every year, everyone had to give the king 10% of their wealth. And then one year the king picked you out of the crowd and said, "this year, you only have to give me 9% of your wealth".
Economically, how would this be different from the king giving you a gift of an amount of money equal to 1% of your wealth after you paid your taxes?
Come on, this isn't that hard.
Well, abolishing taxes will take care of the "making involuntary redistribution impossible to execute" part, but there's more to it than that.
We also need to make such involuntary redistribution unnecessary. Because currently, a huge number of people depend on government redistribution to live decent lives. And while they should be cut off, just cutting them off will lead to huge inequality, poverty and ultimately disaster.
This is the half of the equation that, in my opinion, you libertarians need to bone up on. It's well and good to get rid of taxes, but we need to be building decentralized systems of mutual aid and voluntary social support to replace government services. It's not that hard...look at the volunteer fire department as an example. Otherwise, no poor person will ever take the libertarian movement seriously, because all you have to offer them is replacing the free services they depend on with expensive ones.
Interesting. So you're telling me that even if the government gives me free money (tax cuts) to stimulate the economy, I could then end up spending it on foreign goods that don't stimulate the US economy?
Sort of like how US corporations who get massive tax-breaks to stimulate the economy then turn around and send US jobs to Mexico and China, which actually weakens the US economy?
Hm. Maybe we'll have to rethink this whole "tax breaks for mega-rich businesses" thing.
Yes. Decentralization is one of the most profound solutions to our socio-economic woes, and one that everyone all over the political spectrum can agree on: "If those people over there think that's a good idea, fine for them. But let us run our community the way we want!". Very few people disagree with that sentiment. And yet it's the one thing you'll never hear politicians talking about.
The reason is that A) It works, and B) It doesn't involve them.
If people realize that most socio-economic problems can be solved in many different ways when cities, neighborhoods, and even individuals take responsibility for solving problems, the upper echelons of government will become more and more irrelevant.
"Not taking" is not the same as "giving'.
Well, then I guess public housing, socialized healthcare, government childcare, etc. are fine in your eyes? After all, they're not "giving" anybody money, they're just "not taking" the money you would otherwise have to pay for rent, medical bills, childcare, etc.
Over here in reality though, "not taking" is quite the same as "giving". If you have to pay me $5000 a month, and I decide you have to pay 10% less this month, that's pretty much identical to giving you $500.
Our customers got a tax cut, which made them be able to afford to hire my company.
Oh, I see how this works! It's ok to give free money to super-rich companies, because they'll spend it on stuff, and spending money on stuff helps the economy! Hell, I'll agree to spend every cent on economy-stimulating, employment-creating things like luxury electronics, restaurants, massage therapists, and huge mansions. Bring on the tax cuts for poor people, we'll stimulate the fuck out of the economy!
When you go to that much trouble, it's not about enjoying good movies, it's about having all that stuff. You can see the same behavior in a more extreme form with audiophiles. They're unable to thoroughly enjoy music unless it's on a sufficiently expensive, elaborate sound system. And it's not because the music is more beautiful, it's because having all the "perfect" equipment and the knowledge that you're playing the music "as it's meant to be played" is satisfying in itself.