I think it's pretty clear why I feel you're an idiot: because I am for punishing the criminals, not the victims, and your entire post is basically a slap in the face to fundamental professional ethics. You've said that if somebody takes advantage of your poorly secured system, the person abusing the system shouldn't be prosecuted, the people who "failed to prevent" that abuse should be prosecuted instead.
That a system is insecure doesn't magically absolve you from responsibility when you abuse the system and the data it houses.
Why do you say this crime is not worth a year and a half of jail time? She tampered with files & data. At a health center.
Do you know she didn't delete your medical records, or change something in them? Maybe you have a drug allergy. Are you okay with her nulling out a couple tables in a database that might contain that information? How about the lost time & effort of recreating or restoring all the data she tampered with and/or destroyed, and verifying the data that's still there to make sure she didn't corrupt it more subtly?
I'd say a year and a half (considering she'll probably be paroled for good behavior after she's served... what is it, 1/3 of the term she'll become eligible?) isn't all that steep. I think your sense of proportion as to how crimes are punished is skewed into thinking that simply because there's a computer involved, it must not be as serious as people think.
Then you find a new job. You don't damage their systems and delete their data to "teach them a lesson."
Imagine if your doctor, after years of telling you to get your cholesterol under control, decided to amputate a leg because you didn't take his admonitions with the seriousness and "respect" he felt that you owed him.
Imagine if your mechanic came to your house one night and cut your brake lines because you hadn't praised his work as effusively as he felt you should have when you picked up your car.
This "you better treat us right, or else," is unprofessional bullshit. Someone behaving unprofessionally towards you is not cause to behave the same way in return.
Come back in an hour when all those posts have been modded down to -1, Flamebait, and look at the stuff that's been marked up.
There are an awful lot of people here who are going through tortuous mental gymnastics to explain why Google locking down its OS so that the only thing you can do is run web apps is a good thing because you can wipe Chrome OS and install whatever else you want.
By that logic, Windows is the best OS ever, because you can wipe your new system from Dell and install something that's completely different from Windows on it. If the best thing you can say about Chrome OS is "you can replace it with something better," then it's not very good, is it?
Google doesn't get advertising dollars from you running a local app and disconnecting from the network. They *do* get advertising dollars for every online app you regularly use because that's the only way for you to get anything done.
I spend most of my work day with a couple browsers, a couple Putty sessions, Outlook, Excel, and a few other apps open. Imagine how many page impressions that would generate if every single one of those apps was based in "the cloud" and had a little section where Google could insert ads?
Still wondering why this is being touted by Google as the most innovative and revolutionary feature ever in OS design?
The headline isn't really misleading, it's actually quite accurate - Chrome OS doesn't trust apps or users to be safe. That you can replace Chrome OS with something more trusting doesn't mean Chrome OS itself suddenly trusts those apps and users.
That would be better stated, "... searching for trade routes, new products, and new land and resources to exploit."
The individual explorers were "adventurers". The people giving them ships and funding their explorations were looking for ROI. Guess which is harder to come by: pioneering spirit, or billions of dollars in investment capital to fund your pioneering adventures?
You know what the problem is with this line of thinking?
There's always someone out there who has less than you who will say its fine to make YOU a slave to their every whim.
Not being a parasite is not "insane and delusional," itelf the height of rational self-interest. Unless you're the one person on earth with absolutely nothing, then everybody who subscribes to your mode of thinking is somebody else's slave.
A heavily controlled and regulated market is not a "free market".
Controls and regulations are, in fact, the opposite of the "free" market.
When you say "freedom isn't free," what you really mean is, "We can't have a free market because it's impossible to have an economy in which the government doesn't heavily regulate & oversee things." That's an entirely different issue, and may well be a legitimate point, that some level of regulation is simply required; however, the resulting market can be called "free market"-ish, but it is not a "free market".
If I tried to use your "freedom isn't free" quote to suggest that wikileaks needed to be muzzled, or the press needed to be blocked from reporting certain things... would you say that that pithy little phrase makes sense still?
If you don't mean "free market", say what you do mean.
"The Giving Pledge" - the organization to which he made the pledge - issued the press release.
Do you know something that's not been reported about Mark's involvement in writing the press release? Was he involved, and using this organization as a front to make it seem like he wasn't? Or did he make the pledge, and then someone at the organization made a press release?
Why are you so insistent on putting the worst possible spin on all of this? Do you hate anybody who has a penny more than you that much? If Mr. Zuckerberg never spent a penny of his money on philanthropy, your life would be no different than if Mr. Zuckerberg spent 100% of every penny he owns on philanthropy.
Why not go anonymously donate a lot of money, and take satisfaction from knowing that you're just an all-around better person than any of these super-rich folks who you seem to despise so much? But be careful, if you derive TOO much satisfaction from being better than them, you're going to risk your "unselfish" status.
If you are executed with due process of law, does that make you any less dead?
You can endlessly debate the *merits* of taxation, and whether or not they're valid, useful, ethical, legitimate, and even necessary.
You *cannot* debate that the government imposes taxes by force: 1) You do not get to agree on a price for services rendered; 2) You do not get the privilege of opting out of paying; 3) Your choices are pay, or surrender your property & assets, and perhaps your freedom;
This is the antithesis of "voluntary" and "optional," and questions of whether or not you feel that it's okay is quite irrelevant when defining whether or not it *is* the use of force.
If they don't want or seek PR, but someone else believes it newsworthy, that's still unselfish.
Selfishness has to do with your intent: Did you donate a bajillion dollars to get written up in the NY Post as "Super Donor Of Teh YEEEEAAARZZ!!"? If so, that's selfish.
If you donate it, wanting, expecting, and seeking no fame or notoriety, and someone else says "WOW, this guy just donated a bajillion dollars," that's not selfish.
Saying that true charity can only be done by double-blind matchmaking cheapens the countless acts of true charity and goodwill that happen every day in the world.
Ah, but the question was: does the government take taxes by force.
The answer to that is, categorically, YES, they do.
Whether or not you think it's *justified* force wasn't really in question; If you'd like to discuss that, you're welcome to, but you stated - and I quote - "Government don't take money by force."
So my pointing out the irony of claiming you need to have some central body enforcing an "equitable distribution of wealth" in order to have the "free market economy" function efficiently is an ignorant libertarian rant?
As I said in response to your other snide response: I believe in describing things honestly. If you're saying you want to redistribute wealth, then what you are describing is absolutely not a "free market" economy.
You seem to be quite doggedly reading things into my posts that I didn't put there, so I'll once again encourage you to put your head back up your ass until you learn to read without projecting your own little agenda onto everything that someone else writes.
First, you'll note that I did not say that "taxation was theft" or that "government was evil."
I simply stated the demonstrably true fact that the government *does* tax through force. In fact, it is one of the important foundations of our system of government: citizens give up the right to use force on one another, and vest that power in the government, to allow them to enforce a consistent set of laws, which includes taxes.
If you don't pay your taxes, the government will seize your assets, and/or throw you in jail. If that's not the definition of "non-voluntary," I'm not sure what qualifies. I expressed NO opinion as to whether or not this taxation was "good" or the government was "evil" for doing so, that's all in your poor overworked little head. I simply pointed out that the original poster opining that the government isn't "taking money by force" was incorrect.
Why would I do that? Because I believe in being honest about how taxation works: it's not "government earnings," it's not "voluntary." It's "money which is legally seized by the government from its citizens, in order to support government and social functions." Whether or not you feel the taxes & entitlements are good or bad, that is *exactly* what they are and how they're funded.
I understand your ass is sufficiently sized and comfortable. Perhaps you'd like to relocate your head back up there now that you've gotten out your bout of indignant rage?
If Bill Gates had been born a poor black crack baby in Harlem, instead of a wealthy white son of a powerful lawyer with connections at IBM, would he still have built Microsoft exactly as he did?
Plenty of people build very successful lives out of disadvantaged beginnings - in your haste to show us that talent, skill, and hard work don't matter, you overcompensate and start pretending like circumstances and heredity are the only things that matter.
YES, there are people who are born into poverty, and destined for jail or death from a gunshot wound by the time they turn 20; YES, there are people who are born to privilege and no matter how big of a fuckup they are, they'll always be comfortable; And in between those small extremes, there's a HUGE gray area, where circumstances can help or hinder, but a huge part of what you make of your life is what you put into it.
But why should us lower classes have to go begging to some rich guy just to get what they need?
Because as much as you may not like to hear it, the "rich guys" are not beasts of burden whose sole purpose in life is to provide YOU with a flat screen tv and a shiny new Honda, you fucking parasite.
If you live in the US, try not paying your taxes, then see if you still believe that's the case.
And altruism is defined as "unselfish concern for the welfare of others." It doesn't prescribe in the least whether or not that concern has to be expressed anonymously, or through a foundation.
So are you suggesting that it would be better if they split up 40 billion dollars into a couple thousand dollar lump-sum payment to everybody in the world with malaria, and then proclaimed they had "solved the malaria problem"?
If you want to actually "solve the malaria problem," you find researchers and drug companies who are well-versed in the epidemiology of the disease, and you make grants to those researchers to find new and innovative ways of treating the disease.
Guess what - most of the researchers and drug companies who have the requisite experience and knowledge are... wait for it... western, rich, and not based in Africa!
If I'm walking down the street and you tell me you need $10 for a crack rock, but I instead take $1000 and invest it into building a drug treatment program, which is the better outcome? Giving $10 to 100 crack addicts, or $1000 to a "rich American company" to set up a treatment center to help 100 crack addicts break their dependency on crack? Handing a poor African family a $50,000 lump sum won't turn them into the family who lives next door - they will be fabulously rich, and have absolutely no infrastructure around them to better their lives with that money.
You just explained to us, in a sentence, why you'll never be rich enough to have to worry about what to do with your fortune. If you view it as a gamble, then go to your local credit union, and sock all your money away in an annual-2% savings account, and watch your money's purchasing power erode over time because it doesn't even keep up with the rate of inflation.
And as far as "forever" - rule of thumb is that, with fairly conservative investments, if you only ever spend about 4-5% of your invested capital each year, that's a "sustainable" rate of burn, which will result in your money lasting for a long, long, long time. There will be some tighter years and some better years, but over the long term, your capital will stay roughly the same, and the interest will provide a fairly consistent revenue stream.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's pretty clear why I feel you're an idiot: because I am for punishing the criminals, not the victims, and your entire post is basically a slap in the face to fundamental professional ethics. You've said that if somebody takes advantage of your poorly secured system, the person abusing the system shouldn't be prosecuted, the people who "failed to prevent" that abuse should be prosecuted instead.
That a system is insecure doesn't magically absolve you from responsibility when you abuse the system and the data it houses.
Why do you say this crime is not worth a year and a half of jail time? She tampered with files & data. At a health center.
Do you know she didn't delete your medical records, or change something in them? Maybe you have a drug allergy. Are you okay with her nulling out a couple tables in a database that might contain that information? How about the lost time & effort of recreating or restoring all the data she tampered with and/or destroyed, and verifying the data that's still there to make sure she didn't corrupt it more subtly?
I'd say a year and a half (considering she'll probably be paroled for good behavior after she's served... what is it, 1/3 of the term she'll become eligible?) isn't all that steep. I think your sense of proportion as to how crimes are punished is skewed into thinking that simply because there's a computer involved, it must not be as serious as people think.
You are an idiot. That is all.
"But your honor, she could have prevented this by wearing a locking chastity belt and carrying a gun. It's HER FAULT that she got raped!"
Then you find a new job. You don't damage their systems and delete their data to "teach them a lesson."
Imagine if your doctor, after years of telling you to get your cholesterol under control, decided to amputate a leg because you didn't take his admonitions with the seriousness and "respect" he felt that you owed him.
Imagine if your mechanic came to your house one night and cut your brake lines because you hadn't praised his work as effusively as he felt you should have when you picked up your car.
This "you better treat us right, or else," is unprofessional bullshit. Someone behaving unprofessionally towards you is not cause to behave the same way in return.
And user eyeballs is the product. Google can't serve you ads if you're not online.
Come back in an hour when all those posts have been modded down to -1, Flamebait, and look at the stuff that's been marked up.
There are an awful lot of people here who are going through tortuous mental gymnastics to explain why Google locking down its OS so that the only thing you can do is run web apps is a good thing because you can wipe Chrome OS and install whatever else you want.
By that logic, Windows is the best OS ever, because you can wipe your new system from Dell and install something that's completely different from Windows on it. If the best thing you can say about Chrome OS is "you can replace it with something better," then it's not very good, is it?
Google doesn't get advertising dollars from you running a local app and disconnecting from the network. They *do* get advertising dollars for every online app you regularly use because that's the only way for you to get anything done.
I spend most of my work day with a couple browsers, a couple Putty sessions, Outlook, Excel, and a few other apps open. Imagine how many page impressions that would generate if every single one of those apps was based in "the cloud" and had a little section where Google could insert ads?
Still wondering why this is being touted by Google as the most innovative and revolutionary feature ever in OS design?
The headline isn't really misleading, it's actually quite accurate - Chrome OS doesn't trust apps or users to be safe. That you can replace Chrome OS with something more trusting doesn't mean Chrome OS itself suddenly trusts those apps and users.
No no no, this is Slashdot.
When Steve Jobs says "HTML5 web apps are all you need," it's naked, leering, monopolistic evil.
When Google VP Sundar Pichai says the same thing, it's for your own good, and the most sensible advance in computing since the GUI was invented.
That would be better stated, "... searching for trade routes, new products, and new land and resources to exploit."
The individual explorers were "adventurers". The people giving them ships and funding their explorations were looking for ROI. Guess which is harder to come by: pioneering spirit, or billions of dollars in investment capital to fund your pioneering adventures?
You know what the problem is with this line of thinking?
There's always someone out there who has less than you who will say its fine to make YOU a slave to their every whim.
Not being a parasite is not "insane and delusional," itelf the height of rational self-interest. Unless you're the one person on earth with absolutely nothing, then everybody who subscribes to your mode of thinking is somebody else's slave.
A heavily controlled and regulated market is not a "free market".
Controls and regulations are, in fact, the opposite of the "free" market.
When you say "freedom isn't free," what you really mean is, "We can't have a free market because it's impossible to have an economy in which the government doesn't heavily regulate & oversee things." That's an entirely different issue, and may well be a legitimate point, that some level of regulation is simply required; however, the resulting market can be called "free market"-ish, but it is not a "free market".
If I tried to use your "freedom isn't free" quote to suggest that wikileaks needed to be muzzled, or the press needed to be blocked from reporting certain things... would you say that that pithy little phrase makes sense still?
If you don't mean "free market", say what you do mean.
Zuckerberg signed up. Along with 17 other people.
"The Giving Pledge" - the organization to which he made the pledge - issued the press release.
Do you know something that's not been reported about Mark's involvement in writing the press release? Was he involved, and using this organization as a front to make it seem like he wasn't? Or did he make the pledge, and then someone at the organization made a press release?
Why are you so insistent on putting the worst possible spin on all of this? Do you hate anybody who has a penny more than you that much? If Mr. Zuckerberg never spent a penny of his money on philanthropy, your life would be no different than if Mr. Zuckerberg spent 100% of every penny he owns on philanthropy.
Why not go anonymously donate a lot of money, and take satisfaction from knowing that you're just an all-around better person than any of these super-rich folks who you seem to despise so much? But be careful, if you derive TOO much satisfaction from being better than them, you're going to risk your "unselfish" status.
If you are executed with due process of law, does that make you any less dead?
You can endlessly debate the *merits* of taxation, and whether or not they're valid, useful, ethical, legitimate, and even necessary.
You *cannot* debate that the government imposes taxes by force:
1) You do not get to agree on a price for services rendered;
2) You do not get the privilege of opting out of paying;
3) Your choices are pay, or surrender your property & assets, and perhaps your freedom;
This is the antithesis of "voluntary" and "optional," and questions of whether or not you feel that it's okay is quite irrelevant when defining whether or not it *is* the use of force.
If they don't want or seek PR, but someone else believes it newsworthy, that's still unselfish.
Selfishness has to do with your intent: Did you donate a bajillion dollars to get written up in the NY Post as "Super Donor Of Teh YEEEEAAARZZ!!"? If so, that's selfish.
If you donate it, wanting, expecting, and seeking no fame or notoriety, and someone else says "WOW, this guy just donated a bajillion dollars," that's not selfish.
Saying that true charity can only be done by double-blind matchmaking cheapens the countless acts of true charity and goodwill that happen every day in the world.
Ah, but the question was: does the government take taxes by force.
The answer to that is, categorically, YES, they do.
Whether or not you think it's *justified* force wasn't really in question; If you'd like to discuss that, you're welcome to, but you stated - and I quote - "Government don't take money by force."
I'm simply pointing out that they do.
So my pointing out the irony of claiming you need to have some central body enforcing an "equitable distribution of wealth" in order to have the "free market economy" function efficiently is an ignorant libertarian rant?
As I said in response to your other snide response: I believe in describing things honestly. If you're saying you want to redistribute wealth, then what you are describing is absolutely not a "free market" economy.
You seem to be quite doggedly reading things into my posts that I didn't put there, so I'll once again encourage you to put your head back up your ass until you learn to read without projecting your own little agenda onto everything that someone else writes.
Awww, someone's been watching Mad Men.
First, you'll note that I did not say that "taxation was theft" or that "government was evil."
I simply stated the demonstrably true fact that the government *does* tax through force. In fact, it is one of the important foundations of our system of government: citizens give up the right to use force on one another, and vest that power in the government, to allow them to enforce a consistent set of laws, which includes taxes.
If you don't pay your taxes, the government will seize your assets, and/or throw you in jail. If that's not the definition of "non-voluntary," I'm not sure what qualifies. I expressed NO opinion as to whether or not this taxation was "good" or the government was "evil" for doing so, that's all in your poor overworked little head. I simply pointed out that the original poster opining that the government isn't "taking money by force" was incorrect.
Why would I do that? Because I believe in being honest about how taxation works: it's not "government earnings," it's not "voluntary." It's "money which is legally seized by the government from its citizens, in order to support government and social functions." Whether or not you feel the taxes & entitlements are good or bad, that is *exactly* what they are and how they're funded.
I understand your ass is sufficiently sized and comfortable. Perhaps you'd like to relocate your head back up there now that you've gotten out your bout of indignant rage?
So you're saying that we just need to exert massive control over the economy so we can force it to be a free market?
No, he probably would have built Roc-A-Fella records and numerous other successful business ventures instead.
Plenty of people build very successful lives out of disadvantaged beginnings - in your haste to show us that talent, skill, and hard work don't matter, you overcompensate and start pretending like circumstances and heredity are the only things that matter.
YES, there are people who are born into poverty, and destined for jail or death from a gunshot wound by the time they turn 20;
YES, there are people who are born to privilege and no matter how big of a fuckup they are, they'll always be comfortable;
And in between those small extremes, there's a HUGE gray area, where circumstances can help or hinder, but a huge part of what you make of your life is what you put into it.
Because as much as you may not like to hear it, the "rich guys" are not beasts of burden whose sole purpose in life is to provide YOU with a flat screen tv and a shiny new Honda, you fucking parasite.
If you live in the US, try not paying your taxes, then see if you still believe that's the case.
And altruism is defined as "unselfish concern for the welfare of others." It doesn't prescribe in the least whether or not that concern has to be expressed anonymously, or through a foundation.
So are you suggesting that it would be better if they split up 40 billion dollars into a couple thousand dollar lump-sum payment to everybody in the world with malaria, and then proclaimed they had "solved the malaria problem"?
If you want to actually "solve the malaria problem," you find researchers and drug companies who are well-versed in the epidemiology of the disease, and you make grants to those researchers to find new and innovative ways of treating the disease.
Guess what - most of the researchers and drug companies who have the requisite experience and knowledge are... wait for it... western, rich, and not based in Africa!
If I'm walking down the street and you tell me you need $10 for a crack rock, but I instead take $1000 and invest it into building a drug treatment program, which is the better outcome? Giving $10 to 100 crack addicts, or $1000 to a "rich American company" to set up a treatment center to help 100 crack addicts break their dependency on crack? Handing a poor African family a $50,000 lump sum won't turn them into the family who lives next door - they will be fabulously rich, and have absolutely no infrastructure around them to better their lives with that money.
You just explained to us, in a sentence, why you'll never be rich enough to have to worry about what to do with your fortune. If you view it as a gamble, then go to your local credit union, and sock all your money away in an annual-2% savings account, and watch your money's purchasing power erode over time because it doesn't even keep up with the rate of inflation.
And as far as "forever" - rule of thumb is that, with fairly conservative investments, if you only ever spend about 4-5% of your invested capital each year, that's a "sustainable" rate of burn, which will result in your money lasting for a long, long, long time. There will be some tighter years and some better years, but over the long term, your capital will stay roughly the same, and the interest will provide a fairly consistent revenue stream.