Actually, I consider my fact #2 to quite a strong argument,
I consider it pretty irrelevant. UDIDs are useless for any "tracking" purpose - and even if they *were*... these UDID's were not taken from an FBI computer.
So explain how any of your shouty mad paranoia has anything to do with this, won't you?
point me to a standardly accepted dictionary that has that as it's first meaning.
I see your confusion, you think there's a definition for "free market" that says "fraud is fine, and allowed." Care to point out any definitions that don't require tortuous misreading to justify that? Because ONE definition of 'hacker' actually includes the negative meaning you mention, but I can't find any definition of "free market" that says anything about fraud being allowed or even encouraged.
It's a concept that requires a lot more than a sentence to describe it anyway. But if you want to look it up in dictionaries, pretty much any definition of "free market" or "market economy" that was not written by somebody with your obvious agenda will include something about the government upholding basic property rights and voluntary exchanges made to mutual benefit.
Since you obviously have an interest in being educated - I can only assume that's why you'd publicly demonstrate your shocking lack of any education - I'll reproduce part of the Free-market Economy article on Wikipedia here. I'd encourage you to read through it, then feel free to click on citations and references to read some more primary sources. I hope a few sentences won't tax you overly much:
A market economy (or free-market economy) is an economy in which decisions regarding investment, production and distribution are based on supply and demand, and the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is contrasted with a planned economy, where investment and production decisions are embodied in a plan of production. Market economies can range from hypothetical laissez-faire and free market variants to regulated markets and interventionist variants. Most existing market economies include a degree of economic planning or state-directed activity and are thus classified as mixed economies.
In a true market economy, the government allows and protects ownership of property and voluntary exchange. In such a society, government plays an important role as the protector of property rights and individual liberty.
In the real world, market economies do not exist in pure form, as societies and governments regulate them to varying degrees rather than allow full self-regulation by market forces. The term free-market economy is sometimes used synonymously with market economy, but, as Ludwig Erhard once pointed out, this does not preclude an economy from providing various social welfare programs such as unemployment benefits, as in the case of the social market economy.
TL;DR - fuck your "commonly understood" meaning. Claiming that people can only understand the term 'free market' by looking up its constituent terms in the dictionary is patently incorrect. I'll say it again - "free market" protects cheating and fraud like "liberal democracy" protects rape and murder.
You're wrong. A free market requires some impartial body as protector of rights and arbiter of when rights have been broken.
A free market, in a nut, REQUIRES the rule of law to be a free market. It requires a commonly accepted standard of property rights and an adherence to trading to mutual benefit. If people are allowed to hold you at knifepoint, then it is not a "free" market, it is naked savagery calling itself commerce. If people are allowed to commit fraud (and mind you, we are talking ACTUAL FRAUD - not "hey, I made a bad decision, and paid $25 more than I should have on that television set! Best Buy had it on sale!"), then it is not a "free market," because "free markets" require transparency and informed consumers.
Now, I'll agree with you on the point that it's unlikely that anything like this (complete transparency, 100% agreement on property rights & other laws governing commerce, informed consumers) could exist except as a Platonic ideal... but claiming that "free market" = "law of the jungle" is exactly the sort of thing that makes you sound foolish when you decry the notion of the free market. You know that's not what's meant by the term, and everybody else does, too - but you keep repeating the mantra as if enough repetition will make it true.
The free market is not about "allowing cheating and fraud" any more than a "free and democratic society" is "all about allowing rape and murder." A free market is about not creating external influences (such as abusive, government-granted monopolies, and abusive, over-reaching regulation that stifles competition) that will distort the free market and ultimately harm the consumer. It's about preventing companies from seizing the machinery of government in order to preserve their industry-leader status by passing laws and preventing competition - which requires a light touch by a government of limited power which is not susceptible to special interest groups.
(As I said, that last part is pretty much what makes it exist only in a Platonic ideal... but since we're talking theory, let's at least get the theory correct.)
Fact, you're simply underscoring my point. Fact, the UDID's are useless for any sort of "tracking." Fact, you're taking a bunch of completely disparate individual points and trying to make a pattern out of them. Fact, the human brain is very good at this, which is why we often times fool ourselves into believing that we see deep patterns in fundamentally random data. Fact, you're doing it right now.
So... No, you need not go on, unless you're prepared to provide a much stronger argument than "some unrelated feds have occasionally done unrelated bad things in the past, so any bizarre theory containing the word "Fed" in it will automatically be considered true, and diabolically evil."
Then you should probably not agree to an interview with this company. Because, you know, that's your right to do so. But remember, not everybody has the exact same interests and standards of value as you do.
Other people, for whom a week on the beach with SO (and perhaps a kid or two) in a city they really want to move to, or trying out for a company they really want to work at... might find it a far more compelling offer, and be thrilled to accept.
Obviously, if you're employed, it's difficult to take a week off for this sort of thing. But in interviews I've done that were out-of-state, I actually would have preferred a week "on the ground" to get a feel for the company, the city, and the area before making a move. The standard "fly out Sunday, interview Monday, fly home Monday night," dance doesn't give you much of a chance to see the area the company wants to interest you in moving to. I also suspect that they're probably not working interviewees 16 hours a day for the interview week, either.
It used to be funny, then it got scary, now it is just boring.
No, it's still kind of scary. Consider: these are supposed to be the rational, intelligent, science-minded geeks, for whom logic and reason trump everything. Watching the de-evolution of ostensibly rational people from a fact- and logic-based worldview to one based on primitive superstition and fueled by paranoid delusion is disconcerting.
If you can locate the Commodore VIC MODEM, your children could set-up a small bulletin board system (BBS). In my opinion, your children will get a greater sense of achievement from such a computer system because in essence they control almost every aspect of its behaviour plus they learn about microprocessors, memory resource management, efficient software implementation, problem solving and critical thinking while having fun.
Or, buy them a tablet (doesn't have to be an iPad), and give them access to a computer on which they can program for that tablet - e.g., Android SDK + Kindle Fire.
Spend a little father/child time building an app, if it's something they're interested in. Teach them about programming, show them the guts, let them define the operation of the app - then watch how excited they get when you install it on a real device and run it, and they realize, "Wow, we *did that*." Setting up a small BBS system is foolish, considering virtually nobody uses a modem to connect to the internet for residential service anymore, and so nobody would bother dicking around with your child's BBS.
I fail to see how "build an app, install it on a kindle fire or similar" is somehow "mindless consumption" or "lacking critical thought." What I find lacking critical thought and encouraging pointless behavior is this notion that "because the state of the art was C64 and TI 99-4A and Atari when we were kids, by god, that's what EVERY child should learn on." Technology has moved on - let them learn on the state of the art now that they're kids - and state of the art would be tablets and a modern computer.
Except that HIV treatments have improved dramatically since the early 90's when Mr. Johnson (not Jordan) announced his diagnosis, with people being diagnosed today having a life expectancy slightly shorter than - but actually approaching - the general population. Of course, it depends on how quickly you start treatment after diagnosis, how far along your infection has progressed when you're diagnosed, your overall health, and your access to appropriate treatments.
But Magic Johnson has survived a bit over 20 years with his HIV under control; That's not even really an outlier based on today's prognosis - proper medication and treatment will turn it into a chronic, but mostly manageable, disease for many people. Given that Johnson was famous, rich, and presumably in excellent physical condition, it's not all that surprising that he'd have access to the best care available, and survive for a long time as a result.
You should probably also look up Long-Term Non-Progressors (HIV "controllers"), and the general natural history (infection process) of HIV. After initial infection, HIV typically enters clinical latency which can last up to 20 years (avg. of about 10 years, I believe). AIDS is only diagnosed when T-cell counts drop below a certain level, or one of the opportunistic infections associated with AIDS is diagnosed.
Given his diagnosis about 20 years ago, and the increasing efficacy of HIV treatments in the last 20 years... it's really not all that shocking that a young, healthy, rich man with access to the best care that money & fame can buy, and who also happens to be in excellent physical condition as a professional athlete, even if he's not a "controller," would be able to survive past his initial diagnosis for this long.
wait until Facebook inevitably turned the thumbscrews on the users enough for them to become dissatisfied.
At which point they'll move to G+. Or Orkut. Or back to Myspace. Or to some new centralized service.
The BEST you can hope for is that the "next great social network" will be a pay service, where "you own what you post, we don't mine data, and we don't sell your data to other companies." (See: app.net's recent attempt to take on Twitter using this very model. They managed to get ~10k supporters to pledge during their funding drive, so perhaps there's a burgeoning interest in this model.)
If Facebook turns the screws hard enough as you're suggesting, people aren't going to magically want to become home server admins as a result. They'll say, "Well I want a service that respects my privacy and stops selling all my information to other companies." And if they want that, someone will come along and say, "For $10 a month, SocialFaceSpace will give you all the features of Facebook, but you'll retain full rights to ANYTHING you post (provided you own the copyrights to it in the first place, etc. etc.), and we will NEVER sell your data to third parties!"
Most people would rather spend $10 a month for a service than learn how to administer their own servers. The idea that people will suddenly develop a lust for Linux as a result of Facebook implementing further privacy intrusions is way too far-fetched. They'll simply move to a new central service which will promise (for a fee) to not behave like Facebook.
So stop attacking the strawman of state-socialism because it doesn't apply to me. I'm a left-libertarian. I believe in the absense of government, in the destruction of authority and the equality of man.
Sorry to break this to you, but no, you're not a left-libertarian if you're making the following arguments, quoted directly from your original post:
if you have DONE that then you shouldn't qualify for tax-funded medical care (since your early death is caused by your own stupidity)
Since, you know, for tax-funded healthcare to exist in the first place, it requires a government who is taxing people to pay for that healthcare.
you sure as hell aren't allowed to drive (but by all means, take the bus).
And what mechanism do you propose to use to force stop people from driving after working lots of overtime, o rabid 'anarchist'?
it's really simpler to just ban it outright
What a surprise. A self-proclaimed "anarchist" who believes that he oughta have the right to unilaterally ban things and force other people to behave as he wants them to. Quelle surprise!
You are not so free if you live in a place where your TLS connections are being tampered with -- which is, unfortunately, quite a lot of places. The App Store gives you a digitally signed program, so you have at least some assurance that it was not tampered with (there are no CAs involved; Apple's key is built in). That is the benefit of the App Store; the problem is that the key holder (Apple) has absurd, far-right policies banning applications that might offend anyone or which criticize politicians (and don't think for a moment that this is anything less than an enforcement of conservative values; yes, Democrats are conservative).
How absurd. Apple's policies are no more "far right" than they are "far left." Their policies are "adhere to the blandly inoffensive at all times."
You will no more find "Whack the Christ-Loving White Trash" app for the iPhone than you will find "Whack a San Francisco Queer." Both would be wildly offensive to differing segments of the population, and Apple would ban both, because they don't want any potential customers to be offended into buying a competitor's product. You'll probably find "Whack a Mole" and other inoffensive variants of that same game, though; and apps like Evernote, Netflix, and Facebook are pretty much entirely inoffensive in their functionality, and so may be safely sold. (Best Buy will sell you a DVD player... but they won't sell you porn, will they? Why do you imagine that is?)
This leaves you - the self-styled free-thinker demographic that just likes to get offended and cries "censorship" because somebody tries to keep their store bland and inoffensive, even though all the "offensive" content you want is a single click away in a web browser on ANY device. Fortunately for Apple, you're a fairly small market, and you would've bought a competitor's device anyway, so you're both irrelevant to and happily negligible in their business decisions.
Only if the business acts as a controlled gateway to a very restricted market, which is the case with the current mobile platforms (and only if the content is legal). It is not for Apple to play at being the arbiter of morality and taste any more than it is for Verizon or AT&T.
But they're not restricting you from accessing and viewing porn on their devices - fire up any of the numerous porn-oriented tube sites online in the safari browser, and you will have a plethora of porn available, right there on your device. Snap some sexy pictures of your lady friend and you engaged in a romantic liasion. Record some video of the same thing. Download all kinds of fiction (including plenty burly-chested-men with heaving-bosomed women types of semi-erotic, erotic, and downright pornographic fiction available via the Kindle Apps and even the iBooks store), add all kinds of photos and videos as well if you want - the possibilities are quite diverse. You just won't buy the porn content from Apple, because Apple declines to carry apps that include (or directly sell) pornography in its store.
Why should Apple (or ANYBODY ELSE) be forced to sell something they don't care to sell in their store? You wouldn't argue that Best Buy should be *compelled* to carry porn because they sell DVD players... you wouldn't argue that Blockbuster should be *compelled* to carry porn because they rent other types of movies... each store selects the merchandise it's willing to sell based on the values of the company - and you know the restriction is there from the moment you buy an Apple device, there's no bait and switch happening; if you don't like those terms, the Android and Windows and RIM phones are still quite available, and some of them DO allow porn on their app markets, so perhaps one of those would be a better choice.
But your argument that Apple is somehow controlling your access to this content by declining to sell it in their own store space is a little foolish. There's no shortage of iphone and ipad-capable porn, and in fact, you can load all kinds of pornographic content on your iPhone, if you want to - you just have to buy it (or access it) at sites other than the itunes store.
Enough to put food on the table, a roof over your head, a reasonably reliable vehicle in the garage, health care, and schools for the kiddos?
Great, so you've "provided me" with that.
Now I want a modest, week-long family vacation on the beach in Florida. And a nicer car. And a bigger tv, or a second tv so that I can watch the shows I want while my kids watch dancing with the stars. Oh, and my kid, who's really into computers, he'd like a laptop and I want to encourage his interest in computer programming since it can turn into a pretty good career for him down the road, so I want to get that for him. And my daughter sings like an angel, and really wants to take voice & guitar lessons, and I want to support that too, because I love her.
So how do I get all that? What magical government program will swoop in and magically raise MY standard of living? Or do I have to tell my son, "Sorry kid, I worked in the factory, and you'll work in the factory just like me," and tell my daughter, "singing is the devil's work, you should just strive to marry rich and have babies," and tell my wife, "I know you want to go to Florida this year for vacation, but instead, we can set up a sprinkler in the backyard, and PRETEND like it's the beach, it's almost the same thing!"
With benevolent overlords like you, it's impossible for me to imagine how you'd possibly end up on the guillotine during the inevitable revolution that will wrack your perfect society.
If you're the one trying to get off of government handouts, why are you complaining that they'll take away your government handouts? That's the very thing you're trying to get off of isn't it?
So you prefer to create a citizenry entirely dependent on the government for every aspect of their life, rather than viewing government programs as a way to help people improve their lives and wean themselves OFF of reliance on government.
The rich pays for the bulk of your health care and your roads. So why shouldn't they have a say (more say) than you on whether your health or the roads or that car loan (if you can pay for your car in full out of pocket, you aren't that poor) is covered by THEIR money?
That's right, poor people should learn to enjoy being poor, and stay poor, rather than try to rise and challenge the supremacy of the ruling class. Who are they to want to take responsibility for their own lives and futures, when the "rich" people (or, "ruling class") have provided such a generous subsistence allowance for them, and allowed them to work in their factories, farm their land, rent their property, and ride their public transportation?
It's not often that one is confronted by naked, leering, grasping, acquisitive evil; I'm glad you've provided us with an opportunity to see it here.
So you're saying that cows have all kinds of "rights", it's just that people don't give a shit about them, and violate them repeatedly and regularly, in manners which would have the same person committing the same act on a dog thrown in jail for animal cruelty.
I think you just underscored my point - that the "cuddly, fuzzy" animals that we form emotional attachments to are afforded greater protection because we form those "cuddly, fuzzy" attachments to them.
No, "sensible precautions" are just that - sensible precautions.
The whole "zombie apocalypse" thought experiment is a "what if." Do I really believe the dead will rise and walk in my hometown, and try to eat my brains? Of course not. But do I think that it'd be entirely likely that a snowstorm, ice storm, tornado, hurricane will rip through my area and leave my home town without electricity, hot water, heat, etc. for a few days or a week, just like what might happen if zombies suddenly attacked the power plant or local town center? Sure, big storms that knock out utilities for several days to a week have happened several times in recent memory, in fact.
If I'm prepared to survive for a time without external sources of food, water, or heat... then that means the people trying to restore power can focus on the people who DO need food, water and heat - the people in most need. If I'm prepared to survive like that, that means I can take care of my family and friends and other loved ones in case THEY lose food, power and heat for a week. We could also make the supplies last longer with sensible rationing, and if we can't make them last long enough that some sort of help can reach us, then the zombies probably really ARE walking around outside, and we're destined to be someone's dinner anyway.
But anybody who assumes that the lights will NEVER go off, the water will NEVER stop flowing from the tap, and the grocery store will ALWAYS be well-stocked and open 24x7 is in for a rude awakening when the inevitable power outage, water outage, food shortage, etc. happen. Unfortunately, the people who live that way also tend to think that the supplies other people have laid aside for situations like that are ripe pickings, and that's where it's entirely reasonable to imagine that you might ALSO want a gun in your survival kit for self-defense.
But employers are NOT "making their workers work for 80-100 hour work weeks." *SOME* Workers are volunteering for it, because they need and/or want more money. Hell, some workers are simply working TWO jobs, and getting no overtime from either, in order to save some cash up.
You'd have a point if we all lived in factory towns with one major employer, or if we didn't live in a society where there are already significant worker-protection and overtime laws on the books. The workers we're talking about who are volunteering to work 20 or 40 hours of overtime a week ARE being paid more because of this (see: cops), and that's *why* they're volunteering; or they're working a full time job and a part time job, or a full time job and two part time jobs, to pay bills and save.
See also: The progressive age, which followed the gilded age, and enacted sweeping labor reforms, many of which are still in place today.
Silentcoder's point above was that if you want to volunteer to work lots of hours, you should be marginalized and exempted from any social benefits - want to work two jobs to save money for your kids to go to college? Tough, no healthcare for you, no car for you, you wanted to work more, and didn't want to depend on the benevolent largesse of a government handout to determine your standard of living. In fact, since you'd be paying taxes on your income, you'd actually be paying into a system that actively marginalizes you and gives your tax money to other people to reward them for not choosing to work hard.
But I do have a right to say that if your boss asks you to do that HE is violating everybody else's freedom
Which freedoms is he violating, exactly? The freedom to never be in a room with someone who worked a long, hard day today?
I certainly have a right to say that if you have DONE that then you shouldn't qualify for tax-funded medical care
Ah yes, if you're poor and want to work more hours to try and not be poor, we'll let you die in the streets. Don't try to rise above your station, poor people!
you sure as hell aren't allowed to drive (but by all means, take the bus).
That's right - you don't need a car, you can take shitty public transportation to one of the few jobs that happen to be in reasonable public transit range of your ghetto home. Don't be polluting up our nice suburbs with your crappy vehicles, take the train here, clean my house, and take the train home.
Really, I'm with you friend - I also think that poor people should learn to be happy with whatever money they HAPPEN to earn in their 40 hours of drudgery each week, and should stop whining about wanting to "get ahead" with an "education" and a "better home" and a "better standard of living for their family."
They certainly don't have as many rights as horses, or house cats, or puppies, do they?
And that is exactly the point made in the article: that robotic "companions" may eventually be granted this additional protection, not because they are fundamentally different from a Roomba or a toaster oven, but because WE attach to them in a fundamentally different way than we would a Roomba or a toaster oven - we anthropomorphize them and project emotional and mental states onto them; we grow attached to them, and in some way, extending legal protections to them is a concession to OUR OWN emotions FOR the other thing, more than any inherent quality of the thing itself.
Yes, actually, I did. I in fact demonstrated with quotes and links directly to the treaty texts that your assertion that "Sweden could temporarily surrender him without an extradition request" was false. The only way a temporary surrender can be made is in the context of an extradition request - no temporary surrender can be made without one. Furthermore, the UK and Sweden are BOTH signatories to the US/EU extradition treaty, which contains a clause which is almost a word-for-word replica of the language in the US-Sweden treaty. Go read Article 9, and try to explain to me again how Sweden's the only country who can do this?
I also demonstrated that the UK could extradite him just as easily as Sweden, in direct contradiction to your assertion that they "could not" extradite him legally. All it requires is a valid extradition request.
Click "Parent" a few times - see those points you ignored when I cited text from the treaties? Yeah, that was me, giving you evidence, which you deliberately ignored because it clashed with your pathetically juvenile world view.
Have fun telling yourself you've made some good points here. I'm getting a great big laugh out of your attempts to paint yourself as some sort of rational thinker.
It is not my fault that your definition of evidence is whatever you accept as evidence. That is circular logic, and just another fallacy
LOL how's that work again? My definition of evidence is actual facts - not speculation. It's not my fault you can't provide any facts, just a bizarrely complex conspiracy theory that has no basis in reality. If you can seriously call a demand for facts and evidence 'circular logic and a fallacy,' then it's quite clear exactly how deep your neurosis runs. I'm sorry to see you're in the grip of it, but don't expect me to indulge your childish fantasies that you're engaging in rational thought.
Let's just review the points of your conspiracy theory that fall down on logical inspection:
-- No evidence to support the theory that the US is going to charge him, or will try to extradite him; In fact, officials with actual knowledge of the investigation have said that there are no charges, they don't expect there will be charges, and many officials question the wisdom of charging him even if they DID have evidence;
-- No evidence to support the notion that Sweden can "easily" extradite him to the US - espionage is a political/military crime, also often a capital crime, and Sweden has specific prohibitions against extradition for both of those; temporary surrender can ONLY happen in the context of an extradition request, it is not some magical rabbit hole through which he can be whisked away to Guantanamo Bay; the UK, who you've boldly stated "couldn't" extradite Assange even if they wanted to, would STILL have to approve the extradition from Sweden, even under a temporary surrender order, and the same people in the UK would have to approve it as if the extradition request was received by the UK;
-- No evidence to suggest that Sweden and the UK are going to collude in some sort of illegal rendition, or that there is any benefit for them in doing so; And if the US was going to strong-arm the Swedish & UK governments into breaking the law for no benefit to themselves, it's far more likely that Sweden and the UK would simply turn a blind eye to a "disappearance" orchestrated by the US, giving Sweden & the UK plausible deniability;
-- No evidence to support the theory that the rape allegations are "just a smear campaign," orchestrated by the US;
In short - no evidence that ANY of the preconditions required to accept your theory that it's a conspiracy have been offered. Numerous examples, cited from the relevant laws, have been offered, which leads to the conclusion that your conspiracy theory is simply off-its-ass-WRONG, and you're simply eager to whitewash ANYTHING that Mr. Assange does to avoid having to face the cognitive dissonance that comes from learning that your hero might not be a white knight on a horse, but actually might just be a regular guy who's managed to do some good things, and occasionally behaves like an asshole to women.
"You can't absolutely prove you are right, and so you are wrong.". A phrase that can also be applied to evolution, quantum physics, classical physics and basically any scientific achievement of mankind.
Yeah, my response to evolution, quantum physics, classical physics, and any scientific achievement of mankind is, not surprisingly, ALSO to say, "show me the evidence, don't just expect me to accept everything you tell me on blind faith." The problem is, the scientists working on all of these problems CAN show me the evidence, and DO have measurable, repeatable data that allows me to both understand, and agree, that their theories are accurate. Your arguments fall FAR short of any standard of scientific proof - definitely in the area I'd call "quackery." If you don't like that, then it's on YOU to provide some evidence that is not created out of biased speculation and denial of reality.
In short, your arguments boil down to: 1) I'm right; 2) Anybody who disagrees with me and provides counter-evidence to any
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I consider it pretty irrelevant. UDIDs are useless for any "tracking" purpose - and even if they *were*... these UDID's were not taken from an FBI computer.
So explain how any of your shouty mad paranoia has anything to do with this, won't you?
I see your confusion, you think there's a definition for "free market" that says "fraud is fine, and allowed." Care to point out any definitions that don't require tortuous misreading to justify that? Because ONE definition of 'hacker' actually includes the negative meaning you mention, but I can't find any definition of "free market" that says anything about fraud being allowed or even encouraged.
It's a concept that requires a lot more than a sentence to describe it anyway. But if you want to look it up in dictionaries, pretty much any definition of "free market" or "market economy" that was not written by somebody with your obvious agenda will include something about the government upholding basic property rights and voluntary exchanges made to mutual benefit.
Since you obviously have an interest in being educated - I can only assume that's why you'd publicly demonstrate your shocking lack of any education - I'll reproduce part of the Free-market Economy article on Wikipedia here. I'd encourage you to read through it, then feel free to click on citations and references to read some more primary sources. I hope a few sentences won't tax you overly much:
TL;DR - fuck your "commonly understood" meaning. Claiming that people can only understand the term 'free market' by looking up its constituent terms in the dictionary is patently incorrect. I'll say it again - "free market" protects cheating and fraud like "liberal democracy" protects rape and murder.
You're wrong. A free market requires some impartial body as protector of rights and arbiter of when rights have been broken.
A free market, in a nut, REQUIRES the rule of law to be a free market. It requires a commonly accepted standard of property rights and an adherence to trading to mutual benefit. If people are allowed to hold you at knifepoint, then it is not a "free" market, it is naked savagery calling itself commerce. If people are allowed to commit fraud (and mind you, we are talking ACTUAL FRAUD - not "hey, I made a bad decision, and paid $25 more than I should have on that television set! Best Buy had it on sale!"), then it is not a "free market," because "free markets" require transparency and informed consumers.
Now, I'll agree with you on the point that it's unlikely that anything like this (complete transparency, 100% agreement on property rights & other laws governing commerce, informed consumers) could exist except as a Platonic ideal... but claiming that "free market" = "law of the jungle" is exactly the sort of thing that makes you sound foolish when you decry the notion of the free market. You know that's not what's meant by the term, and everybody else does, too - but you keep repeating the mantra as if enough repetition will make it true.
The free market is not about "allowing cheating and fraud" any more than a "free and democratic society" is "all about allowing rape and murder." A free market is about not creating external influences (such as abusive, government-granted monopolies, and abusive, over-reaching regulation that stifles competition) that will distort the free market and ultimately harm the consumer. It's about preventing companies from seizing the machinery of government in order to preserve their industry-leader status by passing laws and preventing competition - which requires a light touch by a government of limited power which is not susceptible to special interest groups.
(As I said, that last part is pretty much what makes it exist only in a Platonic ideal... but since we're talking theory, let's at least get the theory correct.)
Fact, you're simply underscoring my point.
Fact, the UDID's are useless for any sort of "tracking."
Fact, you're taking a bunch of completely disparate individual points and trying to make a pattern out of them.
Fact, the human brain is very good at this, which is why we often times fool ourselves into believing that we see deep patterns in fundamentally random data.
Fact, you're doing it right now.
So... No, you need not go on, unless you're prepared to provide a much stronger argument than "some unrelated feds have occasionally done unrelated bad things in the past, so any bizarre theory containing the word "Fed" in it will automatically be considered true, and diabolically evil."
Then you should probably not agree to an interview with this company. Because, you know, that's your right to do so. But remember, not everybody has the exact same interests and standards of value as you do.
Other people, for whom a week on the beach with SO (and perhaps a kid or two) in a city they really want to move to, or trying out for a company they really want to work at... might find it a far more compelling offer, and be thrilled to accept.
Obviously, if you're employed, it's difficult to take a week off for this sort of thing. But in interviews I've done that were out-of-state, I actually would have preferred a week "on the ground" to get a feel for the company, the city, and the area before making a move. The standard "fly out Sunday, interview Monday, fly home Monday night," dance doesn't give you much of a chance to see the area the company wants to interest you in moving to. I also suspect that they're probably not working interviewees 16 hours a day for the interview week, either.
No, it's still kind of scary. Consider: these are supposed to be the rational, intelligent, science-minded geeks, for whom logic and reason trump everything. Watching the de-evolution of ostensibly rational people from a fact- and logic-based worldview to one based on primitive superstition and fueled by paranoid delusion is disconcerting.
Or, buy them a tablet (doesn't have to be an iPad), and give them access to a computer on which they can program for that tablet - e.g., Android SDK + Kindle Fire.
Spend a little father/child time building an app, if it's something they're interested in. Teach them about programming, show them the guts, let them define the operation of the app - then watch how excited they get when you install it on a real device and run it, and they realize, "Wow, we *did that*." Setting up a small BBS system is foolish, considering virtually nobody uses a modem to connect to the internet for residential service anymore, and so nobody would bother dicking around with your child's BBS.
I fail to see how "build an app, install it on a kindle fire or similar" is somehow "mindless consumption" or "lacking critical thought." What I find lacking critical thought and encouraging pointless behavior is this notion that "because the state of the art was C64 and TI 99-4A and Atari when we were kids, by god, that's what EVERY child should learn on." Technology has moved on - let them learn on the state of the art now that they're kids - and state of the art would be tablets and a modern computer.
Except that HIV treatments have improved dramatically since the early 90's when Mr. Johnson (not Jordan) announced his diagnosis, with people being diagnosed today having a life expectancy slightly shorter than - but actually approaching - the general population. Of course, it depends on how quickly you start treatment after diagnosis, how far along your infection has progressed when you're diagnosed, your overall health, and your access to appropriate treatments.
But Magic Johnson has survived a bit over 20 years with his HIV under control; That's not even really an outlier based on today's prognosis - proper medication and treatment will turn it into a chronic, but mostly manageable, disease for many people. Given that Johnson was famous, rich, and presumably in excellent physical condition, it's not all that surprising that he'd have access to the best care available, and survive for a long time as a result.
You should probably also look up Long-Term Non-Progressors (HIV "controllers"), and the general natural history (infection process) of HIV. After initial infection, HIV typically enters clinical latency which can last up to 20 years (avg. of about 10 years, I believe). AIDS is only diagnosed when T-cell counts drop below a certain level, or one of the opportunistic infections associated with AIDS is diagnosed.
Given his diagnosis about 20 years ago, and the increasing efficacy of HIV treatments in the last 20 years... it's really not all that shocking that a young, healthy, rich man with access to the best care that money & fame can buy, and who also happens to be in excellent physical condition as a professional athlete, even if he's not a "controller," would be able to survive past his initial diagnosis for this long.
At which point they'll move to G+. Or Orkut. Or back to Myspace. Or to some new centralized service.
The BEST you can hope for is that the "next great social network" will be a pay service, where "you own what you post, we don't mine data, and we don't sell your data to other companies." (See: app.net's recent attempt to take on Twitter using this very model. They managed to get ~10k supporters to pledge during their funding drive, so perhaps there's a burgeoning interest in this model.)
If Facebook turns the screws hard enough as you're suggesting, people aren't going to magically want to become home server admins as a result. They'll say, "Well I want a service that respects my privacy and stops selling all my information to other companies." And if they want that, someone will come along and say, "For $10 a month, SocialFaceSpace will give you all the features of Facebook, but you'll retain full rights to ANYTHING you post (provided you own the copyrights to it in the first place, etc. etc.), and we will NEVER sell your data to third parties!"
Most people would rather spend $10 a month for a service than learn how to administer their own servers. The idea that people will suddenly develop a lust for Linux as a result of Facebook implementing further privacy intrusions is way too far-fetched. They'll simply move to a new central service which will promise (for a fee) to not behave like Facebook.
I'm fairly confident in predicting that there aren't too many people around you who will pay attention.
Sorry to break this to you, but no, you're not a left-libertarian if you're making the following arguments, quoted directly from your original post:
Since, you know, for tax-funded healthcare to exist in the first place, it requires a government who is taxing people to pay for that healthcare.
And what mechanism do you propose to use to force stop people from driving after working lots of overtime, o rabid 'anarchist'?
What a surprise. A self-proclaimed "anarchist" who believes that he oughta have the right to unilaterally ban things and force other people to behave as he wants them to. Quelle surprise!
You are not so free if you live in a place where your TLS connections are being tampered with -- which is, unfortunately, quite a lot of places. The App Store gives you a digitally signed program, so you have at least some assurance that it was not tampered with (there are no CAs involved; Apple's key is built in). That is the benefit of the App Store; the problem is that the key holder (Apple) has absurd, far-right policies banning applications that might offend anyone or which criticize politicians (and don't think for a moment that this is anything less than an enforcement of conservative values; yes, Democrats are conservative).
How absurd. Apple's policies are no more "far right" than they are "far left." Their policies are "adhere to the blandly inoffensive at all times."
You will no more find "Whack the Christ-Loving White Trash" app for the iPhone than you will find "Whack a San Francisco Queer." Both would be wildly offensive to differing segments of the population, and Apple would ban both, because they don't want any potential customers to be offended into buying a competitor's product. You'll probably find "Whack a Mole" and other inoffensive variants of that same game, though; and apps like Evernote, Netflix, and Facebook are pretty much entirely inoffensive in their functionality, and so may be safely sold. (Best Buy will sell you a DVD player... but they won't sell you porn, will they? Why do you imagine that is?)
This leaves you - the self-styled free-thinker demographic that just likes to get offended and cries "censorship" because somebody tries to keep their store bland and inoffensive, even though all the "offensive" content you want is a single click away in a web browser on ANY device. Fortunately for Apple, you're a fairly small market, and you would've bought a competitor's device anyway, so you're both irrelevant to and happily negligible in their business decisions.
But they're not restricting you from accessing and viewing porn on their devices - fire up any of the numerous porn-oriented tube sites online in the safari browser, and you will have a plethora of porn available, right there on your device. Snap some sexy pictures of your lady friend and you engaged in a romantic liasion. Record some video of the same thing. Download all kinds of fiction (including plenty burly-chested-men with heaving-bosomed women types of semi-erotic, erotic, and downright pornographic fiction available via the Kindle Apps and even the iBooks store), add all kinds of photos and videos as well if you want - the possibilities are quite diverse. You just won't buy the porn content from Apple, because Apple declines to carry apps that include (or directly sell) pornography in its store.
Why should Apple (or ANYBODY ELSE) be forced to sell something they don't care to sell in their store? You wouldn't argue that Best Buy should be *compelled* to carry porn because they sell DVD players... you wouldn't argue that Blockbuster should be *compelled* to carry porn because they rent other types of movies... each store selects the merchandise it's willing to sell based on the values of the company - and you know the restriction is there from the moment you buy an Apple device, there's no bait and switch happening; if you don't like those terms, the Android and Windows and RIM phones are still quite available, and some of them DO allow porn on their app markets, so perhaps one of those would be a better choice.
But your argument that Apple is somehow controlling your access to this content by declining to sell it in their own store space is a little foolish. There's no shortage of iphone and ipad-capable porn, and in fact, you can load all kinds of pornographic content on your iPhone, if you want to - you just have to buy it (or access it) at sites other than the itunes store.
And what constitutes a "decent living wage"?
Enough to put food on the table, a roof over your head, a reasonably reliable vehicle in the garage, health care, and schools for the kiddos?
Great, so you've "provided me" with that.
Now I want a modest, week-long family vacation on the beach in Florida. And a nicer car. And a bigger tv, or a second tv so that I can watch the shows I want while my kids watch dancing with the stars. Oh, and my kid, who's really into computers, he'd like a laptop and I want to encourage his interest in computer programming since it can turn into a pretty good career for him down the road, so I want to get that for him. And my daughter sings like an angel, and really wants to take voice & guitar lessons, and I want to support that too, because I love her.
So how do I get all that? What magical government program will swoop in and magically raise MY standard of living? Or do I have to tell my son, "Sorry kid, I worked in the factory, and you'll work in the factory just like me," and tell my daughter, "singing is the devil's work, you should just strive to marry rich and have babies," and tell my wife, "I know you want to go to Florida this year for vacation, but instead, we can set up a sprinkler in the backyard, and PRETEND like it's the beach, it's almost the same thing!"
With benevolent overlords like you, it's impossible for me to imagine how you'd possibly end up on the guillotine during the inevitable revolution that will wrack your perfect society.
So you prefer to create a citizenry entirely dependent on the government for every aspect of their life, rather than viewing government programs as a way to help people improve their lives and wean themselves OFF of reliance on government.
That's right, poor people should learn to enjoy being poor, and stay poor, rather than try to rise and challenge the supremacy of the ruling class. Who are they to want to take responsibility for their own lives and futures, when the "rich" people (or, "ruling class") have provided such a generous subsistence allowance for them, and allowed them to work in their factories, farm their land, rent their property, and ride their public transportation?
It's not often that one is confronted by naked, leering, grasping, acquisitive evil; I'm glad you've provided us with an opportunity to see it here.
So you're saying that cows have all kinds of "rights", it's just that people don't give a shit about them, and violate them repeatedly and regularly, in manners which would have the same person committing the same act on a dog thrown in jail for animal cruelty.
I think you just underscored my point - that the "cuddly, fuzzy" animals that we form emotional attachments to are afforded greater protection because we form those "cuddly, fuzzy" attachments to them.
No, "sensible precautions" are just that - sensible precautions.
The whole "zombie apocalypse" thought experiment is a "what if." Do I really believe the dead will rise and walk in my hometown, and try to eat my brains? Of course not. But do I think that it'd be entirely likely that a snowstorm, ice storm, tornado, hurricane will rip through my area and leave my home town without electricity, hot water, heat, etc. for a few days or a week, just like what might happen if zombies suddenly attacked the power plant or local town center? Sure, big storms that knock out utilities for several days to a week have happened several times in recent memory, in fact.
If I'm prepared to survive for a time without external sources of food, water, or heat... then that means the people trying to restore power can focus on the people who DO need food, water and heat - the people in most need. If I'm prepared to survive like that, that means I can take care of my family and friends and other loved ones in case THEY lose food, power and heat for a week. We could also make the supplies last longer with sensible rationing, and if we can't make them last long enough that some sort of help can reach us, then the zombies probably really ARE walking around outside, and we're destined to be someone's dinner anyway.
But anybody who assumes that the lights will NEVER go off, the water will NEVER stop flowing from the tap, and the grocery store will ALWAYS be well-stocked and open 24x7 is in for a rude awakening when the inevitable power outage, water outage, food shortage, etc. happen. Unfortunately, the people who live that way also tend to think that the supplies other people have laid aside for situations like that are ripe pickings, and that's where it's entirely reasonable to imagine that you might ALSO want a gun in your survival kit for self-defense.
But employers are NOT "making their workers work for 80-100 hour work weeks." *SOME* Workers are volunteering for it, because they need and/or want more money. Hell, some workers are simply working TWO jobs, and getting no overtime from either, in order to save some cash up.
You'd have a point if we all lived in factory towns with one major employer, or if we didn't live in a society where there are already significant worker-protection and overtime laws on the books. The workers we're talking about who are volunteering to work 20 or 40 hours of overtime a week ARE being paid more because of this (see: cops), and that's *why* they're volunteering; or they're working a full time job and a part time job, or a full time job and two part time jobs, to pay bills and save.
See also: The progressive age, which followed the gilded age, and enacted sweeping labor reforms, many of which are still in place today.
Silentcoder's point above was that if you want to volunteer to work lots of hours, you should be marginalized and exempted from any social benefits - want to work two jobs to save money for your kids to go to college? Tough, no healthcare for you, no car for you, you wanted to work more, and didn't want to depend on the benevolent largesse of a government handout to determine your standard of living. In fact, since you'd be paying taxes on your income, you'd actually be paying into a system that actively marginalizes you and gives your tax money to other people to reward them for not choosing to work hard.
You have obviously never yourself, or known another person, who read any of the coverage of factory farming practices.
Which freedoms is he violating, exactly? The freedom to never be in a room with someone who worked a long, hard day today?
Ah yes, if you're poor and want to work more hours to try and not be poor, we'll let you die in the streets. Don't try to rise above your station, poor people!
That's right - you don't need a car, you can take shitty public transportation to one of the few jobs that happen to be in reasonable public transit range of your ghetto home. Don't be polluting up our nice suburbs with your crappy vehicles, take the train here, clean my house, and take the train home.
Really, I'm with you friend - I also think that poor people should learn to be happy with whatever money they HAPPEN to earn in their 40 hours of drudgery each week, and should stop whining about wanting to "get ahead" with an "education" and a "better home" and a "better standard of living for their family."
Let them eat cake, indeed!
They certainly don't have as many rights as horses, or house cats, or puppies, do they?
And that is exactly the point made in the article: that robotic "companions" may eventually be granted this additional protection, not because they are fundamentally different from a Roomba or a toaster oven, but because WE attach to them in a fundamentally different way than we would a Roomba or a toaster oven - we anthropomorphize them and project emotional and mental states onto them; we grow attached to them, and in some way, extending legal protections to them is a concession to OUR OWN emotions FOR the other thing, more than any inherent quality of the thing itself.
I'm pretty sure that Dutch sailors didn't have access to the modern human's supply of Shake and Bake, either.
Paired with Kraft Dinner, that'll make a delicious meal out of ANYTHING.
Really? When have they been bent? Can you give any examples?
Yes, actually, I did. I in fact demonstrated with quotes and links directly to the treaty texts that your assertion that "Sweden could temporarily surrender him without an extradition request" was false. The only way a temporary surrender can be made is in the context of an extradition request - no temporary surrender can be made without one. Furthermore, the UK and Sweden are BOTH signatories to the US/EU extradition treaty, which contains a clause which is almost a word-for-word replica of the language in the US-Sweden treaty. Go read Article 9, and try to explain to me again how Sweden's the only country who can do this?
I also demonstrated that the UK could extradite him just as easily as Sweden, in direct contradiction to your assertion that they "could not" extradite him legally. All it requires is a valid extradition request.
Click "Parent" a few times - see those points you ignored when I cited text from the treaties? Yeah, that was me, giving you evidence, which you deliberately ignored because it clashed with your pathetically juvenile world view.
Have fun telling yourself you've made some good points here. I'm getting a great big laugh out of your attempts to paint yourself as some sort of rational thinker.
LOL how's that work again? My definition of evidence is actual facts - not speculation. It's not my fault you can't provide any facts, just a bizarrely complex conspiracy theory that has no basis in reality. If you can seriously call a demand for facts and evidence 'circular logic and a fallacy,' then it's quite clear exactly how deep your neurosis runs. I'm sorry to see you're in the grip of it, but don't expect me to indulge your childish fantasies that you're engaging in rational thought.
Let's just review the points of your conspiracy theory that fall down on logical inspection:
-- No evidence to support the theory that the US is going to charge him, or will try to extradite him; In fact, officials with actual knowledge of the investigation have said that there are no charges, they don't expect there will be charges, and many officials question the wisdom of charging him even if they DID have evidence;
-- No evidence to support the notion that Sweden can "easily" extradite him to the US - espionage is a political/military crime, also often a capital crime, and Sweden has specific prohibitions against extradition for both of those; temporary surrender can ONLY happen in the context of an extradition request, it is not some magical rabbit hole through which he can be whisked away to Guantanamo Bay; the UK, who you've boldly stated "couldn't" extradite Assange even if they wanted to, would STILL have to approve the extradition from Sweden, even under a temporary surrender order, and the same people in the UK would have to approve it as if the extradition request was received by the UK;
-- No evidence to suggest that Sweden and the UK are going to collude in some sort of illegal rendition, or that there is any benefit for them in doing so; And if the US was going to strong-arm the Swedish & UK governments into breaking the law for no benefit to themselves, it's far more likely that Sweden and the UK would simply turn a blind eye to a "disappearance" orchestrated by the US, giving Sweden & the UK plausible deniability;
-- No evidence to support the theory that the rape allegations are "just a smear campaign," orchestrated by the US;
In short - no evidence that ANY of the preconditions required to accept your theory that it's a conspiracy have been offered. Numerous examples, cited from the relevant laws, have been offered, which leads to the conclusion that your conspiracy theory is simply off-its-ass-WRONG, and you're simply eager to whitewash ANYTHING that Mr. Assange does to avoid having to face the cognitive dissonance that comes from learning that your hero might not be a white knight on a horse, but actually might just be a regular guy who's managed to do some good things, and occasionally behaves like an asshole to women.
Yeah, my response to evolution, quantum physics, classical physics, and any scientific achievement of mankind is, not surprisingly, ALSO to say, "show me the evidence, don't just expect me to accept everything you tell me on blind faith." The problem is, the scientists working on all of these problems CAN show me the evidence, and DO have measurable, repeatable data that allows me to both understand, and agree, that their theories are accurate. Your arguments fall FAR short of any standard of scientific proof - definitely in the area I'd call "quackery." If you don't like that, then it's on YOU to provide some evidence that is not created out of biased speculation and denial of reality.
In short, your arguments boil down to: 1) I'm right; 2) Anybody who disagrees with me and provides counter-evidence to any