Ah yes. The old "they're not helping me spread my word, therefore they are suppressing me!" argument. Which, just like everytime it comes up on Slashdot, is complete hogwash.
Let me explain to the Foundem founder what has to be explained every time to Slashdot newbies: no one has an obligation to make sure that your site or opinion has to be heard by everyone. If Google would not exist, the Foundem founder would be faced with the exact same problem as now: no one knows about his site. And what solution exists to that? Marketing, of course.
In short, the Foundem founder is merely pissed that Google isn't doing his marketing for him. Fucking weenies and their sense of entitlement.
I'd make it even simpler: any nation that puts a citizen into orbit through a wholly national effort is developed. End of story. If it wants to argue that not all parts of the country are developed, or that on average it is not developed, or that other nations are farther ahead - tough luck. Investing into a massive vanity project like a man in space means that it has acquired the means to be developed. At that point, it can only blame itself if it isn't.
In the case of analyzing a market, market value is indeed the average (or median, or whatever statistical tool you want to use) of the prices recently paid for houses in the area.
However, in the case of an individual, market price is what he/she is willing to pay/be paid for the house. No more, no less. Forcing people to accept an arbitrary price for their house is identical to being evicted. Yes, they could buy a similar house in the area. But that doesn't count moving expenses, disruption of their lives; not to mention symbolic, aesthetic and emotional value that isn't being factored in.
I understand that really wasn't the focus of your nitpick, but I find this argument disturbing nonetheless. We already have few free markets as it is. But if people are forced to give up their homes for a price that doesn't match their value for the house (and yes, priceless is a value), we might as well just rename ourselves to the Communist States of America. Because at that point, nothing is safe from being taken.
If you think it takes courage to post an anonymous message on a public board, your definition of courage is scarily low. As is your definition of censorship.
The courage displayed here is not on the scale of Ghandi. It's not even on the scale of your local kitten rescuer. It's.... nothing.
As for actual numbers, you ought to count them at some point. Browse at -1 (you do browse at -1, right?). Count the number of posts that defend overthrowing Saddam at -1 and those at +5 (you can even find them in this thread). You might want to revise your axiom.
You and BadAnalogyGuy have both made courageous and insightful posts in this thread. i hope the partisans don't censor you with their points.
Off-topic comment of the day: it's a sad day when posting a movie-related comment on a message board with zero real-life repercussions now qualifies as courageous. Same thing for censorship now encompassing rating something up and down.
If this would be "Down with Khameini" in Iran, or "Down with the Communist Party" in China, maybe. But the two comments you referenced were an analysis of whether a movie was indicative of White Guilt and whether a movie might have been inspired by the Iraq invasion. Hardly opinions that are dangerous to your health, or even on the fringe of American opinion.
The guilt manifests itself as an embrace of Black culture, a willingness to provide undeserved support to the African American underclass, and a tendency to promote multiculturalism and its anti-judgmental system of evaluating cultures.
Holy crap, is it Racism is OK day today?
Let me ask you the reverse: if you see a white person embracing Black culture (whatever that means), exhibit willingness to provide support to the African American underclass (I'm leaving undeserved out, as that's a judgment call) and a tendency to promote multiculturalism and its anti-judgmental system of evaluating cultures, does that mean that they're automatically stricken with White Guilt?
Because so far, that's what I'm getting out of this whole discussion. I would really like to know how you distinguish someone suffering from White Guilt from someone who is socially aware. Does it require abandoning all your worldly possessions and live with those you want to help?
When I square off against someone on a forum about, I know it will get nasty, but I'm there for that reason: to test my skills, my power of argument, and possibly to persuade some and be persuaded myself, if the case arises.
And there I thought the purpose of discussion on a forum was "discussion" - you know, the exchange of ideas with the goal of ending up with more knowledge than before. Obviously, I was wrong - it's Thunderdome for basement-dwelling geeks.
I'm sorry if a movie has actually presented you with a view point that makes you sweat. You should go to Fox and file and lawsuit for false advertisement.
No. What made religion a threat to Stalin was its absolute authority over moral matters. And since communism stiled itself as a moral answer to social problems, religion was a direct competitor to the central authority of the state.
Christian religion was not under attack under Stalin, it was religion in general. I'm glad to see you at least dropped the misguided argument that Hitler was also after the Christian and Jews because of their religion.
Here is how it works if there's a sex scandal: you go to a tabloid, dish the dirt, and presto - instant sex scandal. No need for wikileaks. If you want to ruin someone's career because of what they do in their private lives, it's already trivial - you go to the people in their social circle, and drop some not so subtle hints. In the case of the teacher, email the parents some compromising photos, browser history, etc. It's easy, and absolutely requires no Wikileaks.
What do you actually need Wikileaks for? Stuff that a) will get you in trouble with people in power, AND b) that you don't know exactly who would be interested in and who would be able to make use of the document. I.e. stuff that has nothing to do with what porn you browse.
You're right on one topic: Wikileaks is not an arbiter of truth, justice or good taste. But it's not supposed to be. That's up to the rest of the world.
Re:a game that tells the truth about religion
on
Religion in Video Games
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
Oh please. Religion does not have a monopoly on the dignity of human life, rejecting oppression and supporting freedom and free will. The French Revolution and the Enlightenment period did happen, you know.
Stop trolling. And get a handle if you want to join the discussion.
Re:a game that tells the truth about religion
on
Religion in Video Games
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Newsflash: Hitler was at the very least a deist. Stalin was an equal-opportunity persecutor. Mussolini was a good Italian, and a catholic.
Christians are not a persecuted minority. Get over it. You have no idea what actual persecution is like.
Re:a game that tells the truth about religion
on
Religion in Video Games
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby."
A career that was ruined because something became publicly available is a career that should be ruined. After all, I'm pretty sure you're not talking about esoteric cases where a worker with a grudge would out an undercover CIA agent.
And your Copenhagen example is retarded. The only possible thing that would destabilize that is either a faked document or a pre-release document. The first will be dealt with best in the open and the second has already happened without wiki-leaks. And guess what - nothing happened.
Yes, I know your type. The type that thinks the plebs should not bother with the real world stuff of back-room deals and black ops and secret sniffing. The type that thinks that the world would be so much better off if everyone would just stop interfering and meddling in their affairs.
Get your grubby hands off of wikileaks and let the rest of the world have the same freedom that those with power and connections have: to communicate without risk.
I post this in the expectation group-think will mark the comment down as a "troll" and it will come back and bite you bunch of bastards down the line.
Ah yes. The old "if you mod me down, I'll become stronger than you can ever imagine!" ploy. In this case though, you're just crazy.
As for your refugees comment, why would someone want to post the refugee information online where everyone can see it, rather than just send it to whoever is doing the slaughtering? Plausible deniability? Right. Because when sending troops to slaughter refugees, you will care about an email that says "refugees be here".
Face it: the only thing that is useful to be distributed online is something that someone has, but can't do anything with it. Instead, it is distributed for the world to see so that someone, somewhere, can pick it up in full view of everyone watching, and run with it. And that's just not the mode of operation of someone committing a crime.
Really? How much of that info has been scrubbed? How much of it is online because it reflects the official government position? Try living in China, then come back and we'll talk some more.
Not to mention that you clearly have no idea the trouble that people go through to access things like twitter and facebook. Sometimes, all access fails.
They're locked down far more than you think. Her point is neat in theory, but fails in the face of reality. Her idea that networks will always route around damage are built on outdated notions of how international networks operate. Sorry to burst your bubble.
You can't stop people talking -- and just as we have physical connections to each other, increasingly we have digital connections to one another as well.
Neat theory. You might want to double-check how that's working out in China.
A programmers job is to take an idea and express it in a way a computer can understand. All we DO is express ourselves, if you aren't good at expressing yourself, you aren't a good programmer.
If I understand you right, you consider expressing yourself in a computer-understandable fashion makes you good at expressing yourself. I would like to introduce you to the rest of the world, where being good at expressing yourself is measured by how well other people understand you. People, not computers.
I find this to be a common error among programmers.
Oh please. Just shut the fuck up. I've counted 3 instances where a senator or representative was caught with his pants down - either it was for soliciting gays sex in a bathroom, engaging in sexual innuendo with male underage pages, and a guy with a mistress. Those are the most salacious ones, and the only ones I remember. You know what they have in common? Fox News claimed EVERY time that these people were democrats, for at least 24 hours. Multiple times. The official retraction, if any came at all, was at least a day late. If, however, the person in question was a democrat - like, say, one of the presidential candidates, they got it right. It got to the point where I could predict that Fox News was going to lie about the political affiliation. And no, they didn't change it on their own accord.
You, and everyone who claims that Fox News is anything but an entertainment channel catering to a very specific audience is lying, pure and simple. Your little strawman about media matters is cute and all, but it doesn't address the reality that Fox News plain lies.
Hah. Yeah. A new low-point for Reid. However, for every Democrat who makes an idiotic comment (generally Reid and Pelosi), there are about 5 Republican senators, 20 representatives and the entire Fox News crew to one-up them.
Just because someone else does it doesn't make it right. Just because one person does it doesn't mean that the 20 on the other side are excused.
Dems are the biggest racists on the planet. Keep people dependent on you forever.
I find it cute that this opinion is consistently voiced by people who are well beyond middle-class in status, or who chose to disregard the many ways in which they receive support from others.
It's a nice cop-out, and makes it impossible to have a rational discussion about the matter. After all, anyone who supports any type of social services clearly just wants to keep the black man (and woman) in poverty./sarcasm
You realize that the 14th century was the part were Europe was barely emerging from the dark ages? Not to mention that in the 14th century, girls were married off and had children way before the age of 18. How do you think that worked? Or do you think that the best way to introduce a girl to sex ed is on her honeymoon night when she's 15?
Google actually saw this coming, and this is why they put some effort behind the Android. As far as I can tell, the agreement is for specific types of phones, and doesn't cover the Android. Google doesn't want Verizon and ATT-style companies to choke off a giant market for Google's advertising business. Conversely, I'm quite happy that Google is going the route of releasing an open phone, because it means that a significant item in my computing gear won't necessarily be controlled by a company like Verizon and ATT.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes. The old "they're not helping me spread my word, therefore they are suppressing me!" argument. Which, just like everytime it comes up on Slashdot, is complete hogwash.
Let me explain to the Foundem founder what has to be explained every time to Slashdot newbies: no one has an obligation to make sure that your site or opinion has to be heard by everyone. If Google would not exist, the Foundem founder would be faced with the exact same problem as now: no one knows about his site. And what solution exists to that? Marketing, of course.
In short, the Foundem founder is merely pissed that Google isn't doing his marketing for him. Fucking weenies and their sense of entitlement.
Think carefully about extrapolating a curve (or any formula) from two points in a graph.
I'd make it even simpler: any nation that puts a citizen into orbit through a wholly national effort is developed. End of story. If it wants to argue that not all parts of the country are developed, or that on average it is not developed, or that other nations are farther ahead - tough luck. Investing into a massive vanity project like a man in space means that it has acquired the means to be developed. At that point, it can only blame itself if it isn't.
In the case of analyzing a market, market value is indeed the average (or median, or whatever statistical tool you want to use) of the prices recently paid for houses in the area.
However, in the case of an individual, market price is what he/she is willing to pay/be paid for the house. No more, no less. Forcing people to accept an arbitrary price for their house is identical to being evicted. Yes, they could buy a similar house in the area. But that doesn't count moving expenses, disruption of their lives; not to mention symbolic, aesthetic and emotional value that isn't being factored in.
I understand that really wasn't the focus of your nitpick, but I find this argument disturbing nonetheless. We already have few free markets as it is. But if people are forced to give up their homes for a price that doesn't match their value for the house (and yes, priceless is a value), we might as well just rename ourselves to the Communist States of America. Because at that point, nothing is safe from being taken.
If you think it takes courage to post an anonymous message on a public board, your definition of courage is scarily low. As is your definition of censorship.
The courage displayed here is not on the scale of Ghandi. It's not even on the scale of your local kitten rescuer. It's.... nothing.
As for actual numbers, you ought to count them at some point. Browse at -1 (you do browse at -1, right?). Count the number of posts that defend overthrowing Saddam at -1 and those at +5 (you can even find them in this thread). You might want to revise your axiom.
You and BadAnalogyGuy have both made courageous and insightful posts in this thread. i hope the partisans don't censor you with their points.
Off-topic comment of the day: it's a sad day when posting a movie-related comment on a message board with zero real-life repercussions now qualifies as courageous. Same thing for censorship now encompassing rating something up and down.
If this would be "Down with Khameini" in Iran, or "Down with the Communist Party" in China, maybe. But the two comments you referenced were an analysis of whether a movie was indicative of White Guilt and whether a movie might have been inspired by the Iraq invasion. Hardly opinions that are dangerous to your health, or even on the fringe of American opinion.
The guilt manifests itself as an embrace of Black culture, a willingness to provide undeserved support to the African American underclass, and a tendency to promote multiculturalism and its anti-judgmental system of evaluating cultures.
Holy crap, is it Racism is OK day today?
Let me ask you the reverse: if you see a white person embracing Black culture (whatever that means), exhibit willingness to provide support to the African American underclass (I'm leaving undeserved out, as that's a judgment call) and a tendency to promote multiculturalism and its anti-judgmental system of evaluating cultures, does that mean that they're automatically stricken with White Guilt?
Because so far, that's what I'm getting out of this whole discussion. I would really like to know how you distinguish someone suffering from White Guilt from someone who is socially aware. Does it require abandoning all your worldly possessions and live with those you want to help?
Ah yes. Because something is done by everybody, it is ok to do. Not only that, but it is encouraged to engage in it in every possible situation.
Nice way of justifying being an asshole.
When I square off against someone on a forum about, I know it will get nasty, but I'm there for that reason: to test my skills, my power of argument, and possibly to persuade some and be persuaded myself, if the case arises.
And there I thought the purpose of discussion on a forum was "discussion" - you know, the exchange of ideas with the goal of ending up with more knowledge than before. Obviously, I was wrong - it's Thunderdome for basement-dwelling geeks.
I'm sorry if a movie has actually presented you with a view point that makes you sweat. You should go to Fox and file and lawsuit for false advertisement.
Another reason for me not to fly. And another Al Qaeda success in disrupting the US economy and society beyond their wildest dreams.
No. What made religion a threat to Stalin was its absolute authority over moral matters. And since communism stiled itself as a moral answer to social problems, religion was a direct competitor to the central authority of the state.
Christian religion was not under attack under Stalin, it was religion in general. I'm glad to see you at least dropped the misguided argument that Hitler was also after the Christian and Jews because of their religion.
Here is how it works if there's a sex scandal: you go to a tabloid, dish the dirt, and presto - instant sex scandal. No need for wikileaks. If you want to ruin someone's career because of what they do in their private lives, it's already trivial - you go to the people in their social circle, and drop some not so subtle hints. In the case of the teacher, email the parents some compromising photos, browser history, etc. It's easy, and absolutely requires no Wikileaks.
What do you actually need Wikileaks for? Stuff that a) will get you in trouble with people in power, AND b) that you don't know exactly who would be interested in and who would be able to make use of the document. I.e. stuff that has nothing to do with what porn you browse.
You're right on one topic: Wikileaks is not an arbiter of truth, justice or good taste. But it's not supposed to be. That's up to the rest of the world.
Oh please. Religion does not have a monopoly on the dignity of human life, rejecting oppression and supporting freedom and free will. The French Revolution and the Enlightenment period did happen, you know.
Stop trolling. And get a handle if you want to join the discussion.
Newsflash: Hitler was at the very least a deist. Stalin was an equal-opportunity persecutor. Mussolini was a good Italian, and a catholic.
Christians are not a persecuted minority. Get over it. You have no idea what actual persecution is like.
"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby."
A career that was ruined because something became publicly available is a career that should be ruined. After all, I'm pretty sure you're not talking about esoteric cases where a worker with a grudge would out an undercover CIA agent.
And your Copenhagen example is retarded. The only possible thing that would destabilize that is either a faked document or a pre-release document. The first will be dealt with best in the open and the second has already happened without wiki-leaks. And guess what - nothing happened.
Yes, I know your type. The type that thinks the plebs should not bother with the real world stuff of back-room deals and black ops and secret sniffing. The type that thinks that the world would be so much better off if everyone would just stop interfering and meddling in their affairs.
Get your grubby hands off of wikileaks and let the rest of the world have the same freedom that those with power and connections have: to communicate without risk.
I post this in the expectation group-think will mark the comment down as a "troll" and it will come back and bite you bunch of bastards down the line.
Ah yes. The old "if you mod me down, I'll become stronger than you can ever imagine!" ploy. In this case though, you're just crazy.
As for your refugees comment, why would someone want to post the refugee information online where everyone can see it, rather than just send it to whoever is doing the slaughtering? Plausible deniability? Right. Because when sending troops to slaughter refugees, you will care about an email that says "refugees be here".
Face it: the only thing that is useful to be distributed online is something that someone has, but can't do anything with it. Instead, it is distributed for the world to see so that someone, somewhere, can pick it up in full view of everyone watching, and run with it. And that's just not the mode of operation of someone committing a crime.
Really? How much of that info has been scrubbed? How much of it is online because it reflects the official government position? Try living in China, then come back and we'll talk some more.
Not to mention that you clearly have no idea the trouble that people go through to access things like twitter and facebook. Sometimes, all access fails.
They're locked down far more than you think. Her point is neat in theory, but fails in the face of reality. Her idea that networks will always route around damage are built on outdated notions of how international networks operate. Sorry to burst your bubble.
You can't stop people talking -- and just as we have physical connections to each other, increasingly we have digital connections to one another as well.
Neat theory. You might want to double-check how that's working out in China.
A programmers job is to take an idea and express it in a way a computer can understand. All we DO is express ourselves, if you aren't good at expressing yourself, you aren't a good programmer.
If I understand you right, you consider expressing yourself in a computer-understandable fashion makes you good at expressing yourself. I would like to introduce you to the rest of the world, where being good at expressing yourself is measured by how well other people understand you. People, not computers.
I find this to be a common error among programmers.
Oh please. Just shut the fuck up. I've counted 3 instances where a senator or representative was caught with his pants down - either it was for soliciting gays sex in a bathroom, engaging in sexual innuendo with male underage pages, and a guy with a mistress. Those are the most salacious ones, and the only ones I remember. You know what they have in common? Fox News claimed EVERY time that these people were democrats, for at least 24 hours. Multiple times. The official retraction, if any came at all, was at least a day late. If, however, the person in question was a democrat - like, say, one of the presidential candidates, they got it right. It got to the point where I could predict that Fox News was going to lie about the political affiliation. And no, they didn't change it on their own accord.
You, and everyone who claims that Fox News is anything but an entertainment channel catering to a very specific audience is lying, pure and simple. Your little strawman about media matters is cute and all, but it doesn't address the reality that Fox News plain lies.
Hah. Yeah. A new low-point for Reid. However, for every Democrat who makes an idiotic comment (generally Reid and Pelosi), there are about 5 Republican senators, 20 representatives and the entire Fox News crew to one-up them.
Just because someone else does it doesn't make it right. Just because one person does it doesn't mean that the 20 on the other side are excused.
Dems are the biggest racists on the planet. Keep people dependent on you forever.
I find it cute that this opinion is consistently voiced by people who are well beyond middle-class in status, or who chose to disregard the many ways in which they receive support from others.
It's a nice cop-out, and makes it impossible to have a rational discussion about the matter. After all, anyone who supports any type of social services clearly just wants to keep the black man (and woman) in poverty. /sarcasm
14th century mentalities were on the right track.
You realize that the 14th century was the part were Europe was barely emerging from the dark ages? Not to mention that in the 14th century, girls were married off and had children way before the age of 18. How do you think that worked? Or do you think that the best way to introduce a girl to sex ed is on her honeymoon night when she's 15?
Google actually saw this coming, and this is why they put some effort behind the Android. As far as I can tell, the agreement is for specific types of phones, and doesn't cover the Android. Google doesn't want Verizon and ATT-style companies to choke off a giant market for Google's advertising business. Conversely, I'm quite happy that Google is going the route of releasing an open phone, because it means that a significant item in my computing gear won't necessarily be controlled by a company like Verizon and ATT.