That would be far more effort than it's worth. Trust me, we are bankrupting ourself fast enough that about all you'd get for your effort is the lawyer fee.
I work for an ISP, and we had a vendor try to sell us a box that would insert ads into downloaded web pages. My boss and I kicked the idea around for about half a second before turning our noses up at it.
Having said that, as a consumer, I wouldn't care if someone providing free WiFi inserted ads to offset the cost of providing bandwidth as long as the ads weren't too egregious. If you are providing a service that I value for free, then I don't care if you throw a few ads up to generate some revenue to fund your free service. For example, I've started seeing targeted ads on some web pages I visit, and quite frankly I don't much mind seeing ads for motorcycle parts and camping gear (two of my interests) when viewing web pages. Viagra and match.com, on the other hand...not so much.
The difference between this and what the vendor was trying to sell the company I work for is that we are already charging our customers for bandwidth. Inserting an ad on their connection after they've already paid to receive service seemed just a little...sleazy. WiFi at a hotel would seem similar to the ISP example.
Arresting a thief <<< waterboarding a prisoner. Not. At. All. The. Same.
First, a thief is someone who is free and still capable of doing harm. A prisoner has already been subdued and confined. Consequently, the prisoner is no longer capable of harming you. Inflicting additional injury upon a prisoner is therefore cowardly in the extreme. Second, I -- and I would assume the cops as well, although that might not always be true -- would use the minimum amount of force required to subdue a thief. A prisoner has already been subdued. Third, try to use violence to stop the random stranger in your example above when he is leaving your property and see what happens. The laws on the use of force by civilians varies with jurisdiction, but in my state, if I shoot a thief in the back, I'm going to jail. Why? Because if his back is turned, he is no longer a threat to me. Yes, he may have an armload full of my stuff, but I can't legally shoot him. Torturing a prisoner is even worse than shooting a thief in the back, because a thief at least might come back. As I've already stated, the prisoner is no longer a threat to you.
"None of us can be free while others are oppressed."
Intentionally inflicting physical harm on someone else in anything other than self-defense is oppression, and is evil. Period. You might try to argue that torturing an enemy combatant in a time of war is "self-defense" but I'd argue that you are stretching that definition to -- if not beyond -- the breaking point.
If you can rationalize brutality to someone because they aren't "one of you" perhaps you are not human.
If your goal is so precious that you are willing to discard ethical considerations to obtain it, perhaps your goal isn't nearly as noble as you believe.
Killing or injuring someone who is doing their level best to do the same to you is distasteful, but sometimes necessary. Doing so to someone who is bound, restrained and no longer in a position to pose a threat to you is, indeed, far worse. You can attempt to rationalize, but I, for one, have no desire to accept the ethical quagmire to which you apparently subscribe
In either case, the torturer deserves the same fate.
With all due respect, I disagree. IMHO, subjecting the torturer to the same fate as the torturer's victims is perpetuating the barbarity, requires someone else to do the exact same thing you think is wrong (i.e., hypocrisy) and creates a window of time in which they can escape, potentially allowing them to victimize others. Once they have had their due process, just kill them quickly and humanely and be done with it.
However, how long do you think it will be until the government decides to label Amnesty International a terrorist organization so that supporting them becomes supporting a terrorist organization, which I believe is already a crime here in the U.S.? (Sorry...I'm feeling a bit pessimistic today)
If you call me a pessimist you'd be wrong. I'm what you call a realist, because my conclusions are based on simple observations of reality, rather than hope, fear, and idealogy.
Pessimists always say that. Note that I'm not saying everything else before what I quoted was wrong, however:)
If you think only the right-wing is in favor of torture, then you, my friend, are sadly delusional. From my vantage point, it looks an awful lot like both parties are doing their best to wipe away the last vestiges of the Constitution and shred the few remaining civil liberties we have. Likewise, the news outlets are backing their guy, going through all kinds of conniptions when the other side does something ugly, but looks the other way when their guy(s) do(es) the same things. You can mention Fox News by name, but they are all playing the same game; they are just backing different teams. I don't trust ANY of them. "When two elephants fight, it's the grass underneath that gets trampled."
That's great, in the case where you know that the guy you are torturing knows the information. Unfortunately, that's never -- or at least close enough to "never" to be essentially the same thing.
One problem occurs when you grabbed an innocent bystander. You can torture him until the sun explodes in a giant supernova explosion (yes, I know...our sun isn't supposed to go supernova, but you understand what I'm saying anyway, don't you?), but you aren't going to get the information you want because he doesn't have it. And he can tell you that. Every. Single. Time. but you will have no way of knowing it's the truth, based on torture alone.
To illustrate a second problem, let's expand upon your password example. In my organization, when an employee leaves the company, their account password -- and any shared account passwords -- are changed, so that they no longer have access to the systems. In a military or paramilitary organization, I would expect that similar policies would be in place, expanded to include those who are MIA. So you capture an enemy combatant and start torturing him to provide The Password. He gives it to you. You test it. It fails, and so you continue to torture him because you asked a good question, tested the result, and it failed, so obviously, he's lying. In fact, however, he isn't lying. He gave you the right information, but the information has changed since his capture.
Your entire conclusion is wrong. Torture might work, in some cases, some of the time, if you are lucky. But you don't know -- and in fact, you CAN'T know -- when the intel you have received through torture is correct but has changed, when the intel you have received through torture is false and simply turning up the pressure will give you the answers you want or when the guy is just an innocent bystander who doesn't know squat. To you, they all look the same. So, yeah, you can prove a positive, but you can't prove a negative no matter how brutal you become. Consequently, torture is BOTH a question of ethics and effectiveness. IMHO, it is unethical and ineffective.
Yeah, that occurred to me. It starts with one side or the other flying nuclear powered drones. Then the other side shoots one down, not realizing it's nuclear powered. After that, the first side carries an advantage for awhile, because the other side is afraid to destroy the drones over their own troops. Eventually, however, the other side learns to seize control of the drone (like the Iranians already did when they spoofed the GPS signal) and either capture it, or crash it on the other side's territory. Then they carry the advantage until the first side patches the weakness that allowed the other side to seize control of their drone. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Clever. If the drone stays airborne, the enemy has valuable intel. If you shoot the drone down, your enemy no longer needs the intel because you've just detonated a dirty bomb over your own people.
There's a corollary, as well. If you design your system such that human factors can potentially (even extremely remotely) cause a catastrophic failure, then your probability theory becomes very simple: the chance of failure, eventually, is 100%.
Let me make sure I understand you correctly...if it doesn't affect America, it doesn't matter? Wow. Just...wow.
Then you go on: "The cheap energy they produce is much more important." Ummm...how much energy did Fukushima export to America? Chernobyl? No, the failures didn't significantly impact us, but neither did the energy production. Nevertheless, you say the energy produced is important, but the effects of the disasters aren't? Cognitive dissonance much?
"I support nuclear power *despite* and knowing full well there *will* be failures." What if the failure was in *your* back yard? I'm not arguing that nuclear power is *NOT* a better choice than most, if not all, of the alternatives, but your post comes across sounding like you don't care who has to deal with the failures as long as it isn't America. I'm American, yet I'm still offended by that attitude.
Slashdot Mirror
Liar!
If your "k" and "w" keys were stolen, your user name would be "ColdetDog!" To the gallows with you!
Covered that already.
That would be far more effort than it's worth. Trust me, we are bankrupting ourself fast enough that about all you'd get for your effort is the lawyer fee.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That should handle the right to communicate...now for the part outlawing intercepting communications...how about something like...:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Yeah...that should do it. Now, everyone petition your congress-critters to pass some kind of law like that!
I mean, it is illegal for the government to open my mail.
And who delivers the mail for you?
Q.E.D.
And no mod points when I really need them. Very, very well said, sir.
I work for an ISP, and we had a vendor try to sell us a box that would insert ads into downloaded web pages. My boss and I kicked the idea around for about half a second before turning our noses up at it.
Having said that, as a consumer, I wouldn't care if someone providing free WiFi inserted ads to offset the cost of providing bandwidth as long as the ads weren't too egregious. If you are providing a service that I value for free, then I don't care if you throw a few ads up to generate some revenue to fund your free service. For example, I've started seeing targeted ads on some web pages I visit, and quite frankly I don't much mind seeing ads for motorcycle parts and camping gear (two of my interests) when viewing web pages. Viagra and match.com, on the other hand...not so much.
The difference between this and what the vendor was trying to sell the company I work for is that we are already charging our customers for bandwidth. Inserting an ad on their connection after they've already paid to receive service seemed just a little...sleazy. WiFi at a hotel would seem similar to the ISP example.
'Kay. I'll concede that.
Arresting a thief <<< waterboarding a prisoner. Not. At. All. The. Same.
First, a thief is someone who is free and still capable of doing harm. A prisoner has already been subdued and confined. Consequently, the prisoner is no longer capable of harming you. Inflicting additional injury upon a prisoner is therefore cowardly in the extreme. Second, I -- and I would assume the cops as well, although that might not always be true -- would use the minimum amount of force required to subdue a thief. A prisoner has already been subdued. Third, try to use violence to stop the random stranger in your example above when he is leaving your property and see what happens. The laws on the use of force by civilians varies with jurisdiction, but in my state, if I shoot a thief in the back, I'm going to jail. Why? Because if his back is turned, he is no longer a threat to me. Yes, he may have an armload full of my stuff, but I can't legally shoot him. Torturing a prisoner is even worse than shooting a thief in the back, because a thief at least might come back. As I've already stated, the prisoner is no longer a threat to you.
Ah...thanks for the clarification. *THAT* I would agree with.
"None of us can be free while others are oppressed."
Intentionally inflicting physical harm on someone else in anything other than self-defense is oppression, and is evil. Period. You might try to argue that torturing an enemy combatant in a time of war is "self-defense" but I'd argue that you are stretching that definition to -- if not beyond -- the breaking point.
If you can rationalize brutality to someone because they aren't "one of you" perhaps you are not human.
If your goal is so precious that you are willing to discard ethical considerations to obtain it, perhaps your goal isn't nearly as noble as you believe.
Killing or injuring someone who is doing their level best to do the same to you is distasteful, but sometimes necessary. Doing so to someone who is bound, restrained and no longer in a position to pose a threat to you is, indeed, far worse. You can attempt to rationalize, but I, for one, have no desire to accept the ethical quagmire to which you apparently subscribe
In either case, the torturer deserves the same fate.
With all due respect, I disagree. IMHO, subjecting the torturer to the same fate as the torturer's victims is perpetuating the barbarity, requires someone else to do the exact same thing you think is wrong (i.e., hypocrisy) and creates a window of time in which they can escape, potentially allowing them to victimize others. Once they have had their due process, just kill them quickly and humanely and be done with it.
I'd sign that petition. Out of curiosity, however, can you (or should you) start such a petition before he is found guilty?
Good call. I think I'll look into that,too.
However, how long do you think it will be until the government decides to label Amnesty International a terrorist organization so that supporting them becomes supporting a terrorist organization, which I believe is already a crime here in the U.S.? (Sorry...I'm feeling a bit pessimistic today)
If you call me a pessimist you'd be wrong. I'm what you call a realist, because my conclusions are based on simple observations of reality, rather than hope, fear, and idealogy.
Pessimists always say that. Note that I'm not saying everything else before what I quoted was wrong, however :)
Oh, please.
If you think only the right-wing is in favor of torture, then you, my friend, are sadly delusional. From my vantage point, it looks an awful lot like both parties are doing their best to wipe away the last vestiges of the Constitution and shred the few remaining civil liberties we have. Likewise, the news outlets are backing their guy, going through all kinds of conniptions when the other side does something ugly, but looks the other way when their guy(s) do(es) the same things. You can mention Fox News by name, but they are all playing the same game; they are just backing different teams. I don't trust ANY of them. "When two elephants fight, it's the grass underneath that gets trampled."
That's great, in the case where you know that the guy you are torturing knows the information. Unfortunately, that's never -- or at least close enough to "never" to be essentially the same thing.
One problem occurs when you grabbed an innocent bystander. You can torture him until the sun explodes in a giant supernova explosion (yes, I know...our sun isn't supposed to go supernova, but you understand what I'm saying anyway, don't you?), but you aren't going to get the information you want because he doesn't have it. And he can tell you that. Every. Single. Time. but you will have no way of knowing it's the truth, based on torture alone.
To illustrate a second problem, let's expand upon your password example. In my organization, when an employee leaves the company, their account password -- and any shared account passwords -- are changed, so that they no longer have access to the systems. In a military or paramilitary organization, I would expect that similar policies would be in place, expanded to include those who are MIA. So you capture an enemy combatant and start torturing him to provide The Password. He gives it to you. You test it. It fails, and so you continue to torture him because you asked a good question, tested the result, and it failed, so obviously, he's lying. In fact, however, he isn't lying. He gave you the right information, but the information has changed since his capture.
Your entire conclusion is wrong. Torture might work, in some cases, some of the time, if you are lucky. But you don't know -- and in fact, you CAN'T know -- when the intel you have received through torture is correct but has changed, when the intel you have received through torture is false and simply turning up the pressure will give you the answers you want or when the guy is just an innocent bystander who doesn't know squat. To you, they all look the same. So, yeah, you can prove a positive, but you can't prove a negative no matter how brutal you become. Consequently, torture is BOTH a question of ethics and effectiveness. IMHO, it is unethical and ineffective.
Yeah, that occurred to me. It starts with one side or the other flying nuclear powered drones. Then the other side shoots one down, not realizing it's nuclear powered. After that, the first side carries an advantage for awhile, because the other side is afraid to destroy the drones over their own troops. Eventually, however, the other side learns to seize control of the drone (like the Iranians already did when they spoofed the GPS signal) and either capture it, or crash it on the other side's territory. Then they carry the advantage until the first side patches the weakness that allowed the other side to seize control of their drone. Wash, rinse, repeat.
In other words, business as usual.
Interesting.
I wonder if, like motion sickness or the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, some people notice the effect more than others?
Dang it. Yep, I foobarred that one.
Clever. If the drone stays airborne, the enemy has valuable intel. If you shoot the drone down, your enemy no longer needs the intel because you've just detonated a dirty bomb over your own people.
Ah, "humor." It is a difficult concept.
There's a corollary, as well. If you design your system such that human factors can potentially (even extremely remotely) cause a catastrophic failure, then your probability theory becomes very simple: the chance of failure, eventually, is 100%.
If there are no humans left on that earth, what does it matter?
Let me make sure I understand you correctly...if it doesn't affect America, it doesn't matter? Wow. Just...wow.
Then you go on: "The cheap energy they produce is much more important." Ummm...how much energy did Fukushima export to America? Chernobyl? No, the failures didn't significantly impact us, but neither did the energy production. Nevertheless, you say the energy produced is important, but the effects of the disasters aren't? Cognitive dissonance much?
"I support nuclear power *despite* and knowing full well there *will* be failures." What if the failure was in *your* back yard? I'm not arguing that nuclear power is *NOT* a better choice than most, if not all, of the alternatives, but your post comes across sounding like you don't care who has to deal with the failures as long as it isn't America. I'm American, yet I'm still offended by that attitude.