So now, 'individualism' means 'denying people the right to have choices' and 'collectivism' means 'giving people choices'. Fascinating, Captain. Total semantic inversion.
Jose unilaterally decided no one should be able to choose to eat at a McDonalds. No one is ever dragged, kicking and screaming, through the door of a McDonalds, or compelled to wear Gap jeans, or perform any other such acts of evil consumption. People WANT to. Jose is losing his cheese business (or whatever) because people PREFER McDonalds to the product he produces. He doesn't want them to have that choice. Neither, apparently, does Mr. Katz.
I don't mind socialism. (Well, OK, I do) But let us CALL it socialism. For Mr. Katz to use the word 'individualism' to describe the world of grinding conformity -- yes, CONFORMITY -- that will come out of the likes of Jose is beyond repulsiuve. It is, perhaps, the closest thing I, uber-atheist-Lizard, have heard to blasphemy.
A world in which a howling mob is the arbiter of who can open a shop, build a house, or market a product is not a world of individualism. It is a world in which all is reduced to that which is acceptable to the most small-minded member of the most violent horde.
Jose is not stnading up for geeks, freaks, and innovators -- he lives in deadly fear of them. It is, after, all the geeks who are cracking the genetic code, programming the computers, and writing the marketing algorithms. It was the geeks who created the industrial revolution. It's folks like Jose who fear anything new, anything different, anything which upsets the dull, plodding routine of their planned, plotted, lives.
Jon, to put it simply -- you are off the deep end. You're flailing around for a new 'theme', now that the Internet is everywhere and Columbine is in the past, and you've latched onto a repulsive mix of Communism and Luddism that is turning you from a moderately cool, if somewhat liberal, commentator into a total laughingstock.
..is there anyone in the Justice Department who sincerely believes these laws are constitutional, or, for that matter, anyone in Congress? The JD's defense of the CDA (especially considering the Pitbullesque tenacity they've shown in the Microsoft case) was legendarily tepid -- sure, they had a weak case to begin with, but they fought it very poorly. (Not that I'm not happy with the results!)
I cannot help but conclude that these laws are passed, and then defended, solely to please loud-mouthed, small-minded (Hello, Jodi!), and deep-pocketed constituencies (who likewise know they're bad laws, but are merely trying to have something to tell the little old ladies who send them their social security money every month). It seems it's all a collossal con game, a waste of taxpayer money, and the only people being fooled by it are some inbred trailer-park goobers somewhere in the Deep South. (Hello again, Jodi!)
Apologies, Sincere, 1 Each, if this has been posted multiple times. I kept getting 'unknown error'.
{ why(Lessig.trustgovernment)==true } ??? It is government that creates and enforces copyright laws, after all. Lessig wants the same people that WROTE the laws to somehow SAVE us from them. Lessig is an old-school statist;he is determined that government 'have a role' for the sake of having a role;the idea of government as anachronism is utter heresy to him. This is a war of technologies -- the best copy-protection technologies vs. the best cracking technology. To the cunning, the spoils!
..why anyone would be bothered by this. It is wonderful that private enterprise is getting behind space exploration. The only way you and me and otherwise 'normal' people will ever get to space -- or even get the benefits of permenant human space habitation -- will be if it is done privately. (Please remember most of the great 'voyages of discovery', from Marco Polo to Columbus, were mercantile ventures).
Anyone who is bothered by the spectre of filthy lucre driving mankind forward is welcome to try building a spaceship out of the spare change they find behind the couch. As for me, I will cheer on any corporation that puts its money behind mans' advancement. Go, Radio Shack! (But you still make crappy computers)
The 'interesting theories' guy, that is. Well, a moron or a liar. I vote the latter. Scale a human to a dinosaur and, yes, you won't be able to stand. Likewise, make a human weigh as much as an elephant, and he won't be able to stand. Elephants aren't built like humans, and neither are sauropods. Without going into too much detail, the issue is the cross-sectional width of the muscle. The legs of an elephant, or a sauropod, are VERY THICK -- as thick as the skull of Senator Exon, at the very least. By deliberately ignoring structure, and focusing solely on weight, the author of the article treads perilously close to out-and-out fraud. I'm not a biologist -- three semesters of biochem convinced me my future was in the liberal arts -- but lowered gravity is not necessary to explain dinosaurs. (Also, we know NOTHING of the biochemistry of the muscle tissue itself -- it could have evolved very interesting internal structures. We won't know until we find one of those bronto-sucking mosquitos they used in J. Park.)
Freedom of speech, to be meaningful, must apply first and foremost to speech which is 'offensive' or 'hurtful'. To ban something because someone else finds it unpleasant is the heart and soul of censorship. The fatwah placed on Rushdie was justified by some on the grounds his books deeply wounded the feelings of devout Muslims -- which, of course, they did. So smegging what? Hurt feelings do not justify censorship. The international nature of the net means only two answers are possible:Either the laws of the most restrictive nation on the net apply to all nations, or the laws of the LEAST restrictive nation on the net apply to all nations. I unhesitatingly support the latter. As for those who don't like it -- too bad. Your computer, just like your television and radio, is equipped with an 'off' switch.
What you propose is not 'individualism' -- it is just the opposite. You want 'family farms' -- so you crush any farmer who is too succesful and grows beyond the family. You want curmudgeonly newspaper editors...until their paper is popular enough to expand past the small town it began in. You want a corner store -- but only so long as the owner doesn't turn enough of a profit to begin a chain. You want to keep business from 'controlling' technology -- but the only way to do that is via an all-powerful government which crushes anyone who is actually succesful.
Furthermore, the concept of people gathering to declare that they are all individualists brings to mind the hilarious balcony scene from 'Life Of Brian', in which the crowd chants, in unison, "Yes...we are all individuals", then proceeds to beat the one man who says, "I'm not".
Go back to being this generations' Fighting Young Priest Who Can Talk To Youth, and give up on trying to found a social movement based on concepts you clearly do not comprehend. Bruce Sterling failed with his 'viridian' claptrap, and you aren't in his league by a long shot. Social movements do not begin with someone says, "Hey kids! Let's put on a revolution! We can use my Uncles' barn!"
As a final note, your good buddy McCain is behind both TV ratings and COPA, the 'sequel' to the CDA. You backed the wrong horse on this one.
The enemy isn't Disney;it's people who buy tickets to Disney movies. If everything is 'Disneyfied', it's because that's what The People, so beloved of Katzian leftists, *actually* *want*. Contrary to bumper-sticker politics, 'corporate greed' exists only to serve 'human need' -- otherwise, the greedy corporations don't get any money. Corporations serve The People more slavishly and more fanatically than any government does.
Katz claims he wants the opportunity for individuals to excel, not to be crushed into gray paste by the evil corporations -- but isn't a global corporation the ultimate symbol of human excellence? Katz seems to think that you have a right to run a business if you're barely eking out a living, starving slowly in your little shop in the little main street of a little town, but, should you be SUCCESSFUL -- should you advance beyond your little store, become a big store, then a chain, then a franchise, then a true player on the international scene -- well, then, you've gotten too big for your britches, buddy, and you must be controlled, constrained, chained down -- in the name, hilariously, of 'individualism'!
Katx has not merely redefined 'corporatism' -- he has redefined 'invidualism' to mean 'communism'. Rather a tricky task. When Katz demands corporations produce media that is more 'controversial', he is saying, in effect, "Produce stuff no one wants to buy! It's your social duty to go out of business!" That he wraps this sort of self-evisceration in the mantle of 'individualism' -- which Katz clearly opposes utterly -- is repellant.
Every cent a corporation has was given to it by one of The People, who freely chose to buy their goods. If corporations have 'too much power', then, blame the people who gave them their money -- not the businesses whose only crime is offering goods for sale that anyone is free to choose not to buy.
Signing off, while I sit here by my Dell Computer and guzzle Diet Coke. I think, in honor of Jon, I'll go to McDonalds for lunch today.
If you think technology is bad for your health...
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Silicon Hell
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· Score: 1
Despite my fanatical pro-capitalist tendencies, I am always disturbed when people try to defend freedom of speech on the grounds that it's good for business. Freedom of speech must be defended as a good thing *in* *itself*, not because it has positive secondary effects, either on business or society. (Freedom of thought and expression invariably threaten the existing order, so it is usually BAD for both business and society. Too bad for business and society, then -- freedom comes first.)
E-commerce, meaning, buying useless tchotchkes online instead of shoving through the bleating herd to do so, is only loosely tied to free speech. The true value of the internet is not in e-bay or.coms, but in the ease with which people can forge communities. It is THAT which is threatened by idiotic lawsuits.
As a longtime FOD and former BFOD, I find your comment inaccurate, not to mention insulting. I will be happy to vouch for both her ethics and her technical skills.
Granted, Lizard vouching for someone else ethics is somewhat dubious...
Judges Guild was not "forced off the shelves by T$R". Just the opposite, in fact. They were the first major producer of ****authorized**** D&D/AD&D supplementary material. They produced very cool stuff, but ultimately fell apart because they kept their production standard to 1976 levels as games moved into the 80s. When games moved to full-color covers, decent typography, and high-quality art and writing, they were still producing courier-on-newsprint products, and died a slow, lingering, death. However, retro is in, and they've come back to pseudo-life! (judgesguild.com? Not sure, haven't checked, I do know they have a website)
Except that, in the United States, there are no laws about 'spreading hate'. Other nations, mostly those with no tradition of free speech, do not understand this. IOW, at least as regards the US, there no 'current laws' to enforce, and this greatly irks those who think they should be allowed to silence any speech they disagree with. I suspect what will happen will be an attempt to cut a deal:Sweden will agree to block porn if the US agrees to block racism.
There is no such thing as an ideal 'geek ticket', because intelligent people are a very small minority, of no interest to politicians. There will never be a representative who genuinely *represents* me or mine. Period.
I had some hopes for Forbes back in 1996, but since then, he's turned into a pawn of the Religious Reich. The rest of the lot, if they notice the Internet at all, spew a lot of tired mantras, a blend of 'encourage e-commerce', 'protect the children', 'protect the consumer', all without any trace of an actual ideology.
As a side comment to the person who asked the question which began this thread, you cannot protect privacy AND free speech. Privacy protection is fundementally a limit on free speech -- you are limiting what person 'a' can communicate to person 'b' about what person 'c' did. More and more, it appears that liberty and privacy are opposed values, and it seems we will need to pick one in the very near future. (After all, even though YOU don't want Bill Gates knowing about you, you want to know what HE is up to, don't you? As the Internet erases the old line between 'public' and 'private' figures (is a well-known Usenet poster a public figure?), the conflict between 'privacy' and 'accountability' grows ever sharper.
Heh. In case you missed it, there are no more such tradeoffs. A combination of techno-illiterate judges, brain-dead patent officials, and good old fashioned corruption has basically reduced the court system for IP issues to a modern form of 'trial by combat'. In Ye Olden Dayse, you see, issues could be settled by hiring a champion to fight for you. The richest man, obviously, could hire the best champion -- thus assuring himself victory, unless the person he was in disagreement with was named 'Volagr, Destroyer Of Towns' or some such.
Today, the situation is similair, though less physical blood is shed. A court system that inflicts almost no penalty on those who file baseless lawsuits encourages such filings, and the victim often has no resources to challenge it.
The recent 'extension' to the 'limited copyright' granted in the Constitution is a prime example of this.
I tend to be in favor of IP rights as social convention -- they should be honored because it is the right thing to do. The last few years have seen so many attacks on basic rights in the name of protecting IP that I can no longer in good conscience claim that the current system is workable.
The reason you never hear from censorship proponents is very simple -- it's against their philosophy.
The free speechers believe that "the answer to bad speech is better speech". The censors believe "The answer to bad speech is a bullet through the head". The censors do not wish to debate, argue, discuss, or convince:They wish to FORCE. They spend their time bribing congresscritters and scaring parents. In their world, it doesn't matter if people agree with them or not, so long as they are suitably obedient.
On a mailing list I'm on, every once in a great while, a bookburner will pop up his or her pointy little head, then quicky scurry away in fear. Why? Because in an open discussion, where people are disinclined to be silenced by cries of "What about the CHILDREN???" and where any spurious 'facts' can be dissected at leisure, they have lost the only weapons they know how to use. Forced to argue on equal grounds, they prefer to run and hide. Think roaches and the kitchen lights.
You cannot censor what has never been written. There are no 'pro censorship' posts on Slashdot because censors rarely read it, and never reply to it.
Well, first off, you're wrong. Minors DO have the right to read what they wish, because rights not artifacts of the State, but inherent properties of being human. A being consciously able to assert a right ought to be permitted the exercise of it. One of the great errors of our society has been the conflation of privileges and rights. Health care, a drivers liscence, and the vote are privileges -- social artifacts. Freedom of thought and conscience are rights -- inherent properties of sentient beings.
The sole function of government (see the D of I) is to protect rights. When it becomes injurious to those ends...well, you know the rest. Or maybe you don't. I wonder...
Please tell me how you would code an algorithm which could:
a)Distinguish between a lurid sexual fantasy in Nancy Friday's "Men In Love", which most assuredly WAS in my local library when I was an impressionable little hatchling, and a lurid sexual fantasy in "Letters To Penthouse", which wasn't. (Please note that 'Men In Love' used every four-letter and slang term imaginable, no cute euphemisms like 'her sex' or 'cupids battering ram' here!)
b)Distinguish between Nazi propaganda posted on an 'Aryan Nations' site, and the same propaganda posted on something like Nizkor.
When you have answered, you may claim censorware is viable. Not until.
You can go to amazon.com and order "The Anarchists Cookbook", and probably quite a lot of other 'seditious' works. Bomb making is basic chemistry.
Publication of information on how to commit crimes, or even advocating their commission (Brandenburg vs. Ohio, 1969) is 100% legal in meatspace. Therefore, it should be legal in cyberspace as well. (As if anyone could really stop me from spamming "The Terrorists Handbook" to Usenet in order to make sure tens of thousands of people get to DL copies.)
It is part of my annual Christmas ritual, along with some XMas-themed MST3K episodes. "Bad" doesn't begin to describe it. The worst part is, elements of it have become SW canon, believe it or not...
Back in the early 90s, Dan Quayle made headlines for his idiotic treatment of the fictional TV character 'Murphy Brown' as if she were a real human being. Quayles' inability to distinguish fact from fantasy (such as his belief there were canals and oxygen on Mars) is part of what marked him as an utter boob, and dangerous to have 44 calibers from the presidency of a nuclear-armed nation.
Now, Jon Katz places himself in the same intellectual league as Mr. Quayle. Victor Frankenstein wasn't real, Jon, and the author was luddite scum. (Luddite scum, like damn yankee, is one word.)
Why is Mr. Katz so up on computers and so down on genetics? I suspect it's because he understands and is comfortable with computers, and with their likely social impact, but is less well versed in genetic science -- since his primary sources are movies and novels, not scientific journals.
(As a PS, does Katz remind anyone else of those overaged teachers who kept trying to prove they were still 'groovy' and 'hip to what you kids are into, dig?'?
There's a classic trick in debating. It is to mention something in a tone which implies it is evil, without ever specifying WHY it is evil. The implication is that if you DON'T think this is evil, you must be stupid/ignorant/evil yourself.
A child has a right to its own life? Surely. But we shape our childrens lives all the time. We buy them 'good' toys, send them to the 'right' schools, encourage them to read this or not read that, to take dance lessons or join Little League. How is going back to before the womb any different? (A parent who made no effort to shape the moral and physical character of his child would, and should, be jailed for child abuse.)
We might eliminate the retarded, the crippled, the congenitally insane? This is a problem? Remember, we are not talking about death camps -- we are talking about them never being conceived, much less born. Do we become lesser for not having them to pity? I do not know, but I do know that only a very sick man (Hello, Mr. Katz!) would demand that people be born to miserable, wretched lives so that the majority can be morally uplifted by watching them suffer.
Further, there is no need to eliminate the person -- just the defect. The next Stephen Hawking will still be born, he'll just be born with the genes for his disease decativated by gene therapy in the womb. The embryo which shows a high probability of being born blind will be altered so that it is born sighted. (You can always take some cells from that fetus, abort it, edit the cells, then reimplant. Presto! Same baby -- but with perfect vision. This is bad? This is wrong? Only to a very, very, mean-spirited person. Please don't say "It won't be the same person!". It isn't a person at all until it's actually got out into the world and had a life.)
Dictators might form communities of only the 'right' people? Again, so what? We are not discussing exterminations, death camps, or famines as a political tool -- we're discussing the choice of conception. There is no inherent right to be born -- even the most fanatical of doctor-murdering 'right to lifers' does not mandate we all have sex at every opportunity, lest a possible chance at conception be missed. We make the choice to not conceive a child dozens of times a year, more if we're lucky. If this choice is informed by genetics as well as economics and personal preference, is that so bad?
The most frightening thing is that Katz is pleading for mandated ignorance. If knowledge is 'dangerous', he argues, it must be suppressed for 'the greater good'. The people do not have 'input' into these decisions? This is a GOOD thing -- 'the people' are not intellectually or morally qualified to make these decisions. If we put scientific advancement up to the popular vote, we would be huddling frozen in caves -- fire having been banned as soon as Little Timmy burned his hands for the first time.
Re:Touchier than it might seem
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License to Surf
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· Score: 5
In the real world, you do not need to present identification before being able to commit violent crimes. That is, take your 'iToaster' example. Mapping it to the real world -- I can buy a gallon of gasoline and a book of matches without presenting ID. I can make this purchase in California and burn down a house in Texas, making it quite hard for the police to find the stoned store clerk who might dimly remember selling me the supplies. Is our solution to record all transactions? No.
To a very real extent, crime is a tax we all pay on freedom. There are societies with very little crime -- these are invariably societies no one sane would want to live in, where the most common crime is trying to escape.
We manage to maintain an acceptable (hell, plunging rapidly!) rate of crime in the 'real world' without mandatory identification and tracking of all citizen-units. If anything, hunting down crooks in cyberspace, anonymity or no, is generally easier because it's much easier to leave footprints, and because, let's face it, most hackers aren't the cunning criminal geniuses you see in movies. Most of them are script kiddies who have learned one or two k00l trix, and use them incessantly. Modus operandi is the first step to capture.
What we need is not new laws. What we need is for those charged with enforcing the existing laws to get off their doughnut-fattened butts and haul their corpulant forms into classes where they can learn about the new technology they need to master.
What will we do when the governments are bankrupt? Give a big cheer, methinks. Indeed, a large part of the appeal of the net for commerce is that it frees commerce from government control. Sooner or later, someone will devise a form of 'e-currency' that catches on. Since the government has already conditioned people to accept the idea that money is just a token, not needing to be backed by anything, it is not hard to imagine that, soon enough, people won't need their tokens to be government-produced.
It ought to be noted that, if governments decide that software is a taxable service, 'free' software will simply cease to exist. For that matter, what happens when someone decides that the transmission of this very forum is similair enough to a newspaper or magazine that it, too, ought to be stopped at the border, censored, and taxed?
Slashdot Mirror
Jose unilaterally decided no one should be able to choose to eat at a McDonalds. No one is ever dragged, kicking and screaming, through the door of a McDonalds, or compelled to wear Gap jeans, or perform any other such acts of evil consumption. People WANT to. Jose is losing his cheese business (or whatever) because people PREFER McDonalds to the product he produces. He doesn't want them to have that choice. Neither, apparently, does Mr. Katz.
I don't mind socialism. (Well, OK, I do) But let us CALL it socialism. For Mr. Katz to use the word 'individualism' to describe the world of grinding conformity -- yes, CONFORMITY -- that will come out of the likes of Jose is beyond repulsiuve. It is, perhaps, the closest thing I, uber-atheist-Lizard, have heard to blasphemy.
A world in which a howling mob is the arbiter of who can open a shop, build a house, or market a product is not a world of individualism. It is a world in which all is reduced to that which is acceptable to the most small-minded member of the most violent horde.
Jose is not stnading up for geeks, freaks, and innovators -- he lives in deadly fear of them. It is, after, all the geeks who are cracking the genetic code, programming the computers, and writing the marketing algorithms. It was the geeks who created the industrial revolution. It's folks like Jose who fear anything new, anything different, anything which upsets the dull, plodding routine of their planned, plotted, lives.
Jon, to put it simply -- you are off the deep end. You're flailing around for a new 'theme', now that the Internet is everywhere and Columbine is in the past, and you've latched onto a repulsive mix of Communism and Luddism that is turning you from a moderately cool, if somewhat liberal, commentator into a total laughingstock.
I cannot help but conclude that these laws are passed, and then defended, solely to please loud-mouthed, small-minded (Hello, Jodi!), and deep-pocketed constituencies (who likewise know they're bad laws, but are merely trying to have something to tell the little old ladies who send them their social security money every month). It seems it's all a collossal con game, a waste of taxpayer money, and the only people being fooled by it are some inbred trailer-park goobers somewhere in the Deep South. (Hello again, Jodi!)
Apologies, Sincere, 1 Each, if this has been posted multiple times. I kept getting 'unknown error'.
{ why(Lessig.trustgovernment)==true } ??? It is government that creates and enforces copyright laws, after all. Lessig wants the same people that WROTE the laws to somehow SAVE us from them. Lessig is an old-school statist;he is determined that government 'have a role' for the sake of having a role;the idea of government as anachronism is utter heresy to him. This is a war of technologies -- the best copy-protection technologies vs. the best cracking technology. To the cunning, the spoils!
I'll fly a rocket with Barney on one side and the Windows logo on the other.
Anyone who is bothered by the spectre of filthy lucre driving mankind forward is welcome to try building a spaceship out of the spare change they find behind the couch. As for me, I will cheer on any corporation that puts its money behind mans' advancement. Go, Radio Shack! (But you still make crappy computers)
The 'interesting theories' guy, that is. Well, a moron or a liar. I vote the latter. Scale a human to a dinosaur and, yes, you won't be able to stand. Likewise, make a human weigh as much as an elephant, and he won't be able to stand. Elephants aren't built like humans, and neither are sauropods. Without going into too much detail, the issue is the cross-sectional width of the muscle. The legs of an elephant, or a sauropod, are VERY THICK -- as thick as the skull of Senator Exon, at the very least. By deliberately ignoring structure, and focusing solely on weight, the author of the article treads perilously close to out-and-out fraud. I'm not a biologist -- three semesters of biochem convinced me my future was in the liberal arts -- but lowered gravity is not necessary to explain dinosaurs. (Also, we know NOTHING of the biochemistry of the muscle tissue itself -- it could have evolved very interesting internal structures. We won't know until we find one of those bronto-sucking mosquitos they used in J. Park.)
Freedom of speech, to be meaningful, must apply first and foremost to speech which is 'offensive' or 'hurtful'. To ban something because someone else finds it unpleasant is the heart and soul of censorship. The fatwah placed on Rushdie was justified by some on the grounds his books deeply wounded the feelings of devout Muslims -- which, of course, they did. So smegging what? Hurt feelings do not justify censorship. The international nature of the net means only two answers are possible:Either the laws of the most restrictive nation on the net apply to all nations, or the laws of the LEAST restrictive nation on the net apply to all nations. I unhesitatingly support the latter. As for those who don't like it -- too bad. Your computer, just like your television and radio, is equipped with an 'off' switch.
Furthermore, the concept of people gathering to declare that they are all individualists brings to mind the hilarious balcony scene from 'Life Of Brian', in which the crowd chants, in unison, "Yes...we are all individuals", then proceeds to beat the one man who says, "I'm not".
Go back to being this generations' Fighting Young Priest Who Can Talk To Youth, and give up on trying to found a social movement based on concepts you clearly do not comprehend. Bruce Sterling failed with his 'viridian' claptrap, and you aren't in his league by a long shot. Social movements do not begin with someone says, "Hey kids! Let's put on a revolution! We can use my Uncles' barn!"
As a final note, your good buddy McCain is behind both TV ratings and COPA, the 'sequel' to the CDA. You backed the wrong horse on this one.
The enemy isn't Disney;it's people who buy tickets to Disney movies. If everything is 'Disneyfied', it's because that's what The People, so beloved of Katzian leftists, *actually* *want*. Contrary to bumper-sticker politics, 'corporate greed' exists only to serve 'human need' -- otherwise, the greedy corporations don't get any money. Corporations serve The People more slavishly and more fanatically than any government does.
Katz claims he wants the opportunity for individuals to excel, not to be crushed into gray paste by the evil corporations -- but isn't a global corporation the ultimate symbol of human excellence? Katz seems to think that you have a right to run a business if you're barely eking out a living, starving slowly in your little shop in the little main street of a little town, but, should you be SUCCESSFUL -- should you advance beyond your little store, become a big store, then a chain, then a franchise, then a true player on the international scene -- well, then, you've gotten too big for your britches, buddy, and you must be controlled, constrained, chained down -- in the name, hilariously, of 'individualism'!
Katx has not merely redefined 'corporatism' -- he has redefined 'invidualism' to mean 'communism'. Rather a tricky task. When Katz demands corporations produce media that is more 'controversial', he is saying, in effect, "Produce stuff no one wants to buy! It's your social duty to go out of business!" That he wraps this sort of self-evisceration in the mantle of 'individualism' -- which Katz clearly opposes utterly -- is repellant.
Every cent a corporation has was given to it by one of The People, who freely chose to buy their goods. If corporations have 'too much power', then, blame the people who gave them their money -- not the businesses whose only crime is offering goods for sale that anyone is free to choose not to buy.
Signing off, while I sit here by my Dell Computer and guzzle Diet Coke. I think, in honor of Jon, I'll go to McDonalds for lunch today.
'nuff said.
E-commerce, meaning, buying useless tchotchkes online instead of shoving through the bleating herd to do so, is only loosely tied to free speech. The true value of the internet is not in e-bay or .coms, but in the ease with which people can forge communities. It is THAT which is threatened by idiotic lawsuits.
Granted, Lizard vouching for someone else ethics is somewhat dubious...
Judges Guild was not "forced off the shelves by T$R". Just the opposite, in fact. They were the first major producer of ****authorized**** D&D/AD&D supplementary material. They produced very cool stuff, but ultimately fell apart because they kept their production standard to 1976 levels as games moved into the 80s. When games moved to full-color covers, decent typography, and high-quality art and writing, they were still producing courier-on-newsprint products, and died a slow, lingering, death. However, retro is in, and they've come back to pseudo-life! (judgesguild.com? Not sure, haven't checked, I do know they have a website)
Except that, in the United States, there are no laws about 'spreading hate'. Other nations, mostly those with no tradition of free speech, do not understand this. IOW, at least as regards the US, there no 'current laws' to enforce, and this greatly irks those who think they should be allowed to silence any speech they disagree with. I suspect what will happen will be an attempt to cut a deal:Sweden will agree to block porn if the US agrees to block racism.
I had some hopes for Forbes back in 1996, but since then, he's turned into a pawn of the Religious Reich. The rest of the lot, if they notice the Internet at all, spew a lot of tired mantras, a blend of 'encourage e-commerce', 'protect the children', 'protect the consumer', all without any trace of an actual ideology.
As a side comment to the person who asked the question which began this thread, you cannot protect privacy AND free speech. Privacy protection is fundementally a limit on free speech -- you are limiting what person 'a' can communicate to person 'b' about what person 'c' did. More and more, it appears that liberty and privacy are opposed values, and it seems we will need to pick one in the very near future. (After all, even though YOU don't want Bill Gates knowing about you, you want to know what HE is up to, don't you? As the Internet erases the old line between 'public' and 'private' figures (is a well-known Usenet poster a public figure?), the conflict between 'privacy' and 'accountability' grows ever sharper.
We live in interesting times, eh wot?
Today, the situation is similair, though less physical blood is shed. A court system that inflicts almost no penalty on those who file baseless lawsuits encourages such filings, and the victim often has no resources to challenge it.
The recent 'extension' to the 'limited copyright' granted in the Constitution is a prime example of this.
I tend to be in favor of IP rights as social convention -- they should be honored because it is the right thing to do. The last few years have seen so many attacks on basic rights in the name of protecting IP that I can no longer in good conscience claim that the current system is workable.
The free speechers believe that "the answer to bad speech is better speech". The censors believe "The answer to bad speech is a bullet through the head". The censors do not wish to debate, argue, discuss, or convince:They wish to FORCE. They spend their time bribing congresscritters and scaring parents. In their world, it doesn't matter if people agree with them or not, so long as they are suitably obedient.
On a mailing list I'm on, every once in a great while, a bookburner will pop up his or her pointy little head, then quicky scurry away in fear. Why? Because in an open discussion, where people are disinclined to be silenced by cries of "What about the CHILDREN???" and where any spurious 'facts' can be dissected at leisure, they have lost the only weapons they know how to use. Forced to argue on equal grounds, they prefer to run and hide. Think roaches and the kitchen lights.
You cannot censor what has never been written. There are no 'pro censorship' posts on Slashdot because censors rarely read it, and never reply to it.
The sole function of government (see the D of I) is to protect rights. When it becomes injurious to those ends...well, you know the rest. Or maybe you don't. I wonder...
a)Distinguish between a lurid sexual fantasy in Nancy Friday's "Men In Love", which most assuredly WAS in my local library when I was an impressionable little hatchling, and a lurid sexual fantasy in "Letters To Penthouse", which wasn't. (Please note that 'Men In Love' used every four-letter and slang term imaginable, no cute euphemisms like 'her sex' or 'cupids battering ram' here!)
b)Distinguish between Nazi propaganda posted on an 'Aryan Nations' site, and the same propaganda posted on something like Nizkor.
When you have answered, you may claim censorware is viable. Not until.
Publication of information on how to commit crimes, or even advocating their commission (Brandenburg vs. Ohio, 1969) is 100% legal in meatspace. Therefore, it should be legal in cyberspace as well. (As if anyone could really stop me from spamming "The Terrorists Handbook" to Usenet in order to make sure tens of thousands of people get to DL copies.)
It is part of my annual Christmas ritual, along with some XMas-themed MST3K episodes. "Bad" doesn't begin to describe it. The worst part is, elements of it have become SW canon, believe it or not...
Now, Jon Katz places himself in the same intellectual league as Mr. Quayle. Victor Frankenstein wasn't real, Jon, and the author was luddite scum. (Luddite scum, like damn yankee, is one word.)
Why is Mr. Katz so up on computers and so down on genetics? I suspect it's because he understands and is comfortable with computers, and with their likely social impact, but is less well versed in genetic science -- since his primary sources are movies and novels, not scientific journals.
(As a PS, does Katz remind anyone else of those overaged teachers who kept trying to prove they were still 'groovy' and 'hip to what you kids are into, dig?'?
A child has a right to its own life? Surely. But we shape our childrens lives all the time. We buy them 'good' toys, send them to the 'right' schools, encourage them to read this or not read that, to take dance lessons or join Little League. How is going back to before the womb any different? (A parent who made no effort to shape the moral and physical character of his child would, and should, be jailed for child abuse.)
We might eliminate the retarded, the crippled, the congenitally insane? This is a problem? Remember, we are not talking about death camps -- we are talking about them never being conceived, much less born. Do we become lesser for not having them to pity? I do not know, but I do know that only a very sick man (Hello, Mr. Katz!) would demand that people be born to miserable, wretched lives so that the majority can be morally uplifted by watching them suffer.
Further, there is no need to eliminate the person -- just the defect. The next Stephen Hawking will still be born, he'll just be born with the genes for his disease decativated by gene therapy in the womb. The embryo which shows a high probability of being born blind will be altered so that it is born sighted. (You can always take some cells from that fetus, abort it, edit the cells, then reimplant. Presto! Same baby -- but with perfect vision. This is bad? This is wrong? Only to a very, very, mean-spirited person. Please don't say "It won't be the same person!". It isn't a person at all until it's actually got out into the world and had a life.)
Dictators might form communities of only the 'right' people? Again, so what? We are not discussing exterminations, death camps, or famines as a political tool -- we're discussing the choice of conception. There is no inherent right to be born -- even the most fanatical of doctor-murdering 'right to lifers' does not mandate we all have sex at every opportunity, lest a possible chance at conception be missed. We make the choice to not conceive a child dozens of times a year, more if we're lucky. If this choice is informed by genetics as well as economics and personal preference, is that so bad?
The most frightening thing is that Katz is pleading for mandated ignorance. If knowledge is 'dangerous', he argues, it must be suppressed for 'the greater good'. The people do not have 'input' into these decisions? This is a GOOD thing -- 'the people' are not intellectually or morally qualified to make these decisions. If we put scientific advancement up to the popular vote, we would be huddling frozen in caves -- fire having been banned as soon as Little Timmy burned his hands for the first time.
To a very real extent, crime is a tax we all pay on freedom. There are societies with very little crime -- these are invariably societies no one sane would want to live in, where the most common crime is trying to escape.
We manage to maintain an acceptable (hell, plunging rapidly!) rate of crime in the 'real world' without mandatory identification and tracking of all citizen-units. If anything, hunting down crooks in cyberspace, anonymity or no, is generally easier because it's much easier to leave footprints, and because, let's face it, most hackers aren't the cunning criminal geniuses you see in movies. Most of them are script kiddies who have learned one or two k00l trix, and use them incessantly. Modus operandi is the first step to capture.
What we need is not new laws. What we need is for those charged with enforcing the existing laws to get off their doughnut-fattened butts and haul their corpulant forms into classes where they can learn about the new technology they need to master.
It ought to be noted that, if governments decide that software is a taxable service, 'free' software will simply cease to exist. For that matter, what happens when someone decides that the transmission of this very forum is similair enough to a newspaper or magazine that it, too, ought to be stopped at the border, censored, and taxed?