"Basically, large companies have proven themselves untrustworthy (in general) and dangerous to the well being and rights of the individual. They have also been able to corrupt the government to the detriment of the individual. I'd say any behavior they show that is damaging to the individual is troubling, wouldn't you?"
and i think that ebooks suck. it's the user interface, its horrible when compared with the book. with a book, you don't have to start it up, wait while it loads, and scroll and lose your place all the time.
and for most of my classes i try to AVOID even buying the books if i can. they're waaay too expensive, some of them don't help at all, and a lot of the time i don't even need them, unless the teacher assigns homework out of it.
did i miss something...wasn't there all of this uproar about that 87 billion dollars for iraq? hey, those soldiers can find their own armor, but those potholes have to go!
this makes me wonder how the corruption between government and the media actually works. are the news people just dumb, are they in cahoots with all the congressmen, or are they only controlled by a few so that, unless those few get angry, they don't report it.
hey, space is ALREADY weaponized...just ask the dinosaurs!
"I agree that there are far too many examples of both in the world, but when push comes to shove the gun beats the ideal every time, so we'd damn well better be the guy with the gun.)"
and no, the gun does not beat the ideal everytime, the ideal controls the gun.
"Don't bet on it. Of course the first people to be tagged won't be Republicans. It will start with convicted felons. Then it will be required for other types of disenfranchised people, such as retarded citizens, "for their own good". Then it will be required for airline travel "for our own safety". Then there will be a knock on the door....
You never realize you're on the slippery slope until you've stepped on it."
you've got the right idea, but i think that the real backdoor that would work would be child molesters. i mean that would be a way to get people on board with little dissent. how many congressmen would stand up and say "No, we shouldn't track that child molester." i don't think very many would. i certainly doubt if the people on tv news would even protest. and before you know it, we'd all be either criminals or slaves.
i agree. does anybody out there think that the hijackers who attaked the world trade center would have let something like a little microchip stop them?
i mean they think it will help with security?!? just look at iraq...130,000 u.s. troops for security and people STILL find ways to blow themselves up.
personally, i will not get ANYTHING like that. i won't get a national id card if they have one. i won't get some microchip. i won't put a microchip in my dog.
"So, like in Russia years ago and in other countries, we can quickly move to the point where not having the "right" political beliefs (that is, not sharing the beliefs of whoever is in power) will result in losing your livelihood. As a result, people will stop expressing their political beliefs. And there are many powerful people who would love that to happen."
the solution is to say what you think anyway. you only have the "right" if you take it. screw the rich people who think that their money gives them the power to say what other people should do.
Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776: "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
i read the bible all the time. if you read the part were jesus talks about "the rapture" (luke 17 verses 34-37), if you believe it, it seems like people are just going to disappear one day...
but if you read from luke 17 verses 20-21, you'll see the part where jesus is asked about when the kingdom of god should come. and he replies "the kingdom of god cometh not with observation. neither shall they say, lo here! or lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of god is within you."
HOW CAN THEY IGNORE THIS!!!!
personally, i think that people buy those books just for some kind of wierd social thing or to be entertained. i mean WHY would anybody by a FICTION book that is supposed to "reinforce" their faith?
and i think that "intelligent design" is a piping hot LOAF! i think that god made everything in seven days (go ahead and laugh, i don't care). but i'm not going to be some little pu**y and switch my beliefs so that they meld nicely with what science says. screw that. and i'm not going to tell somebody that they're going to hell if they don't do such and such.
he's smarter than me and i am of no help to anybody or myself if i'm sitting there condemning other people.
i don't think that piracy is wrong. after i've bought a cd or movie or program, i OWN the cd and everything on it. i paid for the dips and peaks on the cd, i OWN them. and i don't think that some company should be able to tell me what i can and can't do with something that i own just because they bought themselves some congressmen and made some crappy law. just because there is a law against something, doesn't mean that it is wrong and just because something is legal doesn't mean that it's right.
and from the record companies' point of view, they see piracy as a threat to their profit stream and are doing what they think will protect their profit stream. they don't care about illegal or legal, they just want their money and they'll buy more congressmen to change the laws to get their money if they need to. they don't see the connection that their strategy of pushing crappy music is resulting in smaller profits. it can't be their fault that they aren't making as much money as they used to, it HAS to be someone else's fault.
this is why corporations having so much power is bad for us. their focus is only on profits and they don't have a conscience. so, if you're in the way of them getting their money, well too bad. this movie pretty much sums it all up...
"you have huge sections of the country that put religion above science, or at least give it equal time, you have the basis for lower education standards"
"above science"...what does that even mean? do you put science "above religion"? do you pray to F = M*A or maybe P = M*V? science is ONLY our attempt at MODELING reality so that we can predict what will happen next. that is it. science != truth.
"Now add in an economy where many of the jobs that really use your brain get offshored, and what's left are service jobs that require not as much education, and you have an increasing pressure not to care about higher education. Just get one of those service jobs and root for your team and have a beer after work and all is well in your world. Right? "
whose fault is it that all of those jobs get sent to india while the CEO gets a pay raise? it's not the fault of the education system. it's not the fault of the teacher trying to teach a class full of 30 students while having to worry if she can keep her lights on and pay back her student loans at the same time. it's the fault of the theives in government who TAKE IT UP THE ASS from the corporations and then turn around and give themselves a raise and call it a cost of living increase. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-04 -congress-pay-raise_x.htm
china's economy is "strong"?
tell that to the SLAVES working for 3 cents an hour to make clothes.
oh, wait...if you told them that, the police would most likely SHOOT you!
"The problem with our political/media system is that the only people who tend to end up in positions of power are those who really want it (and are willing to do whatever it takes to get that power). Unfortunately, these are precisely the people you don't want in power."
"Ironically, possibly the single greatest injustice of our time is the fact that 4% of the adult male black population lives in gated communities and are treated sub-human as they are incarcerated."
but i don't agree with... "America's system rewards those who take initiative and live life to the fullest and is cruel to those who just want to get by on the backs of others."
i don't think that's quite right (see slave owners in the 1800s). and besides america's system doesn't reward anybody. the reward of what's supposed to be america's system is the freedom to live how you want to live, not to be rewarded for your hard work by being rich. the "american dream" as portrayed on tv and in the media is a COMPLETE JOKE. the real dream is not to be rich or to "make it to the top". the real american dream is best summed up by samuel adams...
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
however, because of this common misconception of what the american dream is, it is becoming harder and harder to live the way that you want to live and not be "assimilated" into a culture where you must participate. i used to live next to some people who were always working on their cars and one day i saw the "code enforcement" truck pull up to their house. the next day, all of their cars were behind a fence. what was that? some moron's "property value" was more important than that guy's right to do what he wants? horseshit.
think about it...you "have" to go to college to get a good job, but if you don't have wealthy parents or you aren't really smart, you'll be in debt by the time you get out, so you take the first job you can get, but then you get laid off because some moron ceo wants his stock to go up because if he doesn't "grow" the company and become more profitable, then the ABSOLUTELY MORONIC people in the "finance" industry will take that to mean that the company is about to go out of business and sell their stock which will put the company out of business. IT'S ALL CRAP. people aren't even viewed as living beings anymore, they're viewed as consumers whose only desire is for more and more shit they don't need.
if you think about it, all the programs, songs, movies, blah blah blah, are just one gigantic number (in base 2). so really, all the people are doing are sharing numbers. and, i know this might sound a little bit stupid but, isn't suing someone for sharing numbers against freedom of speech?
Uh...excuse me but, without "high-speed" access, not too many people would download all the crap that they download now. Why else would you need 400K Bytes/second speed? To get news? Maybe check the sports scores? To read email? Maybe if you're downloading different programming crap or research crap, but how many of the people who have cable or dsl do that?
How many of the people who have cable or dsl also have Kazaa or another program like that? I'll bet almost all of them.
Slashdot Mirror
"Basically, large companies have proven themselves untrustworthy (in general) and dangerous to the well being and rights of the individual. They have also been able to corrupt the government to the detriment of the individual. I'd say any behavior they show that is damaging to the individual is troubling, wouldn't you?"
wow, i couldn't have said it better myself.
i think you've got it pretty much right.
and i think that ebooks suck. it's the user interface, its horrible when compared with the book. with a book, you don't have to start it up, wait while it loads, and scroll and lose your place all the time.
and for most of my classes i try to AVOID even buying the books if i can. they're waaay too expensive, some of them don't help at all, and a lot of the time i don't even need them, unless the teacher assigns homework out of it.
"The Energy bill is a mess the likes of which haven't been seen since the Patriot Act. That's where the focus needs to be."
l l.ap/
I D=/20050804/EDIT/508040321/1003
well said...
oh, and nobody in the media seemed to notice that the senate just passed a 300 BILLION dollar bill for ROADS!!!
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/29/highway.bi
did i miss something...wasn't there all of this uproar about that 87 billion dollars for iraq? hey, those soldiers can find their own armor, but those potholes have to go!
this makes me wonder how the corruption between government and the media actually works. are the news people just dumb, are they in cahoots with all the congressmen, or are they only controlled by a few so that, unless those few get angry, they don't report it.
i think we need more reporters like this guy...
http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A
hey, space is ALREADY weaponized...just ask the dinosaurs!
"I agree that there are far too many examples of both in the world, but when push comes to shove the gun beats the ideal every time, so we'd damn well better be the guy with the gun.)"
and no, the gun does not beat the ideal everytime, the ideal controls the gun.
"Don't bet on it. Of course the first people to be tagged won't be Republicans. It will start with convicted felons. Then it will be required for other types of disenfranchised people, such as retarded citizens, "for their own good". Then it will be required for airline travel "for our own safety". Then there will be a knock on the door....
You never realize you're on the slippery slope until you've stepped on it."
you've got the right idea, but i think that the real backdoor that would work would be child molesters. i mean that would be a way to get people on board with little dissent. how many congressmen would stand up and say "No, we shouldn't track that child molester." i don't think very many would. i certainly doubt if the people on tv news would even protest.
and before you know it, we'd all be either criminals or slaves.
i agree. does anybody out there think that the hijackers who attaked the world trade center would have let something like a little microchip stop them?
i mean they think it will help with security?!? just look at iraq...130,000 u.s. troops for security and people STILL find ways to blow themselves up.
personally, i will not get ANYTHING like that. i won't get a national id card if they have one. i won't get some microchip. i won't put a microchip in my dog.
"So, like in Russia years ago and in other countries, we can quickly move to the point where not having the "right" political beliefs (that is, not sharing the beliefs of whoever is in power) will result in losing your livelihood. As a result, people will stop expressing their political beliefs. And there are many powerful people who would love that to happen."
the solution is to say what you think anyway. you only have the "right" if you take it. screw the rich people who think that their money gives them the power to say what other people should do.
Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776:
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
this drives me nuts too!
i read the bible all the time. if you read the part were jesus talks about "the rapture" (luke 17 verses 34-37), if you believe it, it seems like people are just going to disappear one day...
but if you read from luke 17 verses 20-21, you'll see the part where jesus is asked about when the kingdom of god should come. and he replies "the kingdom of god cometh not with observation. neither shall they say, lo here! or lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of god is within you."
HOW CAN THEY IGNORE THIS!!!!
personally, i think that people buy those books just for some kind of wierd social thing or to be entertained. i mean WHY would anybody by a FICTION book that is supposed to "reinforce" their faith?
and i think that "intelligent design" is a piping hot LOAF! i think that god made everything in seven days (go ahead and laugh, i don't care). but i'm not going to be some little pu**y and switch my beliefs so that they meld nicely with what science says. screw that. and i'm not going to tell somebody that they're going to hell if they don't do such and such.
he's smarter than me and i am of no help to anybody or myself if i'm sitting there condemning other people.
"I know this is a capitalist society. That's great. But I thought I lived in a democratic country not a corporation."
me too.
you've got it pretty much right.
i don't think that piracy is wrong. after i've bought a cd or movie or program, i OWN the cd and everything on it. i paid for the dips and peaks on the cd, i OWN them. and i don't think that some company should be able to tell me what i can and can't do with something that i own just because they bought themselves some congressmen and made some crappy law. just because there is a law against something, doesn't mean that it is wrong and just because something is legal doesn't mean that it's right.
and from the record companies' point of view, they see piracy as a threat to their profit stream and are doing what they think will protect their profit stream. they don't care about illegal or legal, they just want their money and they'll buy more congressmen to change the laws to get their money if they need to.
they don't see the connection that their strategy of pushing crappy music is resulting in smaller profits. it can't be their fault that they aren't making as much money as they used to, it HAS to be someone else's fault.
this is why corporations having so much power is bad for us. their focus is only on profits and they don't have a conscience. so, if you're in the way of them getting their money, well too bad. this movie pretty much sums it all up...
http://thecorporation.tv/
"So to answer your question, since 1791." ...well only since 1964 to black people.
"you have huge sections of the country that put religion above science, or at least give it equal time, you have the basis for lower education standards"
4 -congress-pay-raise_x.htm
"above science"...what does that even mean?
do you put science "above religion"?
do you pray to F = M*A or maybe P = M*V?
science is ONLY our attempt at MODELING reality so that we can predict what will happen next. that is it. science != truth.
"Now add in an economy where many of the jobs that really use your brain get offshored, and what's left are service jobs that require not as much education, and you have an increasing pressure not to care about higher education. Just get one of those service jobs and root for your team and have a beer after work and all is well in your world. Right? "
whose fault is it that all of those jobs get sent to india while the CEO gets a pay raise? it's not the fault of the education system. it's not the fault of the teacher trying to teach a class full of 30 students while having to worry if she can keep her lights on and pay back her student loans at the same time.
it's the fault of the theives in government who TAKE IT UP THE ASS from the corporations and then turn around and give themselves a raise and call it a cost of living increase.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-0
china's economy is "strong"?
tell that to the SLAVES working for 3 cents an hour to make clothes.
oh, wait...if you told them that, the police would most likely SHOOT you!
you moron.
"Chinese students will soon have fewer reasons to leave home." ...other than getting run over by a tank.
that's funny.
"...leaving the rest of the "peaceful demonstrators" to take the heat (sorry) for their indescretions."
no apology needed.
"The problem with our political/media system is that the only people who tend to end up in positions of power are those who really want it (and are willing to do whatever it takes to get that power). Unfortunately, these are precisely the people you don't want in power."
couldn't have said it better myself.
"Ironically, possibly the single greatest injustice of our time is the fact that 4% of the adult male black population lives in gated communities and are treated sub-human as they are incarcerated."
/
that was a great comment.
even though black people only make up 12% of the poulation, they make up 43% of the prison population.
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/incarceration
but i don't agree with...
"America's system rewards those who take initiative and live life to the fullest and is cruel to those who just want to get by on the backs of others."
i don't think that's quite right (see slave owners in the 1800s). and besides america's system doesn't reward anybody. the reward of what's supposed to be america's system is the freedom to live how you want to live, not to be rewarded for your hard work by being rich. the "american dream" as portrayed on tv and in the media is a COMPLETE JOKE. the real dream is not to be rich or to "make it to the top". the real american dream is best summed up by samuel adams...
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
however, because of this common misconception of what the american dream is, it is becoming harder and harder to live the way that you want to live and not be "assimilated" into a culture where you must participate. i used to live next to some people who were always working on their cars and one day i saw the "code enforcement" truck pull up to their house. the next day, all of their cars were behind a fence. what was that? some moron's "property value" was more important than that guy's right to do what he wants? horseshit.
think about it...you "have" to go to college to get a good job, but if you don't have wealthy parents or you aren't really smart, you'll be in debt by the time you get out, so you take the first job you can get, but then you get laid off because some moron ceo wants his stock to go up because if he doesn't "grow" the company and become more profitable, then the ABSOLUTELY MORONIC people in the "finance" industry will take that to mean that the company is about to go out of business and sell their stock which will put the company out of business. IT'S ALL CRAP. people aren't even viewed as living beings anymore, they're viewed as consumers whose only desire is for more and more shit they don't need.
if you think about it, all the programs, songs, movies, blah blah blah, are just one gigantic number (in base 2). so really, all the people are doing are sharing numbers. and, i know this might sound a little bit stupid but, isn't suing someone for sharing numbers against freedom of speech?
stealing millions of dollars from your employees... 10 years in prison4 /enron01 1404.htm)
u th_scrush y.html?.v=25)
3 701119.h tm)
k /index_np.html
(http://www.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel0
inflating your companies earnings by $2.7 billion dollars, so you can get rich off the stock...acquittal on 36 counts.
(http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050628/healthso
using what amounts to slave labor to fatten your pockets...become the largest and richest company in the world.
(http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_40/b
revealing the identity of an undercover cia officer because her husband doesn't like your president...get off scot free.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/02/nova
sharing a movie with friends...5 years in prison.
this is insane.
Uh...excuse me but, without "high-speed" access, not too many people would download all the crap that they download now. Why else would you need 400K Bytes/second speed? To get news? Maybe check the sports scores? To read email? Maybe if you're downloading different programming crap or research crap, but how many of the people who have cable or dsl do that? How many of the people who have cable or dsl also have Kazaa or another program like that? I'll bet almost all of them.