If we can't even get basic computer security right, would you really trust every aspect of your life to algorithms?
So instead I should trust people? People are even less reliable than computers and even less able to follow security protocols.
The fact is that science doesn't really know anything.
Says the person using a computer that was designed by scientists and engineers.
coders make stupid errors with security and algorithms we really aren't ready for that
So instead, you want to rely on human beings to perform those functions? When last I checked, humans were almost always the weakest link in the security chain, and humans add additional error to already imperfect protocols.
Which would still be inapplicable, since there were Fidonet nodes that used shortwave radio to exchange mail with each other, and likely many other wireless transmission systems before that.
It depends on what sort of religious schooling you are talking about. The Reform movement's schools are teaching something similar to your first idea, although rather than saying "bad moral systems" they will say "inapplicable legal codes" or will have discussions on what the meaning of a particular passage is (e.g. Abraham nearly sacrificing his son). The conservative movement is not as willing to take loose interpretations of the bible, but they still acknowledge and teach that some things are not applicable in the 21st century and they do not reject science. Orthodoxy is another story; there are the modern orthodox, who try to reconcile religion and science, and there are hasidim, who take a more literal interpretation of the bible (but who will still acknowledge that some things are inapplicable in modern life; orthodox Jews are not going around executing people according to what the bible says).
Actually, the Jewish bible can be divided into four types of text. The first are the stories, essentially the legends and myths of a group of ancient near-east tribes that were originally passed down orally and eventually written, along with a few more recent stories found in the Writings section of the bible (the Jewish bible has three sections, Torah, Prophets, and Writings). Then there are the laws, which are the civil and criminal laws of an ancient near-east country. Related to the laws are the chronicle-type texts, which are a combination of court records, military records, and historical documents (with a bit of mythology mixed in, which was apparently the style of that time). Finally there are the prayers / poems, which are things like Psalms, Lamentations, Song of Songs, and so forth.
As for what should be taken as a metaphor, in general the legal sections are not taken to be metaphors, although some of the legal sections are not applicable anymore (e.g. pretty much everything concerning the temple in Jerusalem), and some have been expanded or superseded by later legal texts (e.g. the Talmud). The mythology and historical sections are almost always used as metaphors or in the context of teaching lessons about morality, or to put parts of the legal code into context. The prayers are still used in Jewish religious ceremonies, and people frequently read their prayers metaphorically.
Of course, the view I just described is very much not-orthodox, and if there are any orthodox Jews reading/. this morning who would like to weigh in, I invite them to do so.
Which part of the Bible contains the facts, and which doesn't?
The modern view of the bible is that it is not a textbook, that it does not contain "facts," and that it should be interpreted as a metaphor. Some people disagree and insist that we should go back to believing that the bible is 100% factual, but those people are idiots who don't understand the history of their own religion.
I think these people are nothing more than deep-cover atheists.
Only under the simplest definition of an atheist: someone who does not believe that any deities exist. The modern atheist movement tends to be composed largely of people who reject religion all together, because they believe that if there are no deities there is no point to anything else in the religion. It seems clear that the people described in TFA do not fall into the category of people who reject religion entirely, and I would personally doubt that they have given up their faith in the Christian god. If I had to guess, I would say that they probably believe that the bible was written by humans, and that human language could not possibly describe their deity or his (their? I never understood the trinity) work.
That worked really well for Ward Churchill, right? The courts even found that his free speech rights had been violated, and granted him a full dollar -- one dollar.
There is the ideal world, where people respect each other's rights, and then there is the real world, where people sometimes need to be ever so slightly proactive in protecting their own rights.
It is hard to call someone who wants to end the war on drugs and end the policy of imprisoning millions a "conservative." Your confusion seems to arise from the belief that anyone who represents a free-market point of view is a "conservative" (if that were the case, there would be practically no conservatives in America, since the major parties both strongly support various regulations on what businesses are permissible and both parties support government hand-outs to big businesses).
Probably because quite a lot of them are getting something back from the MTA in return. Eventually that becomes a self-perpetuating cycle and the only way to fix it is for everyone not benefitting from graft and kickbacks leaves and the system collapses on itself.
As I understand it, that is a point of contention among roughly half the voters in New York State -- the half that do not live in the New York City area, and who do not directly benefit from the public transit system (they might indirectly benefit from New York City's economic contribution to the state). As for those who do live in the area served by the MTA, the operating budget is technically separate from the "capital improvements" budget, which is where vast amounts of money are sunk into projects that have fallen far behind schedule, or whose final results are not close to what was promised. The system will eventually have to collapse on itself, given the fiscal condition of New York -- eventually the MTA's spending will have to be addressed, either by bringing in new leadership who will see to the completion of the projects or (more likely) killing the projects and letting the transit system stagnate.
The effect is that the employees had to work for no pay -- the fine they received was based on their individual salaries (if I remember correctly, their base salaries, so e.g. employees could work overtime to pay the fine faster). It is a pointless semantic argument, except to make the no-pay work legal by avoiding issues of anti-slavery laws.
My point is not that the law is good or bad, it is that the employees were indeed punished for striking. As for taking their case to the politicians, I would say that New Yorkers as a whole need to rein in the MTA, which has been caught keeping two sets of accounting books and which seems to have the unique ability to choose the worst contractors that can be found (they have poured billions of dollars into late/incomplete/abandoned projects, and even opened a new contract with the same company that defrauded New York City out of $800 million after it was publicly announced that the company was being investigated). For some reason, New York State residents remain oblivious to how many tax dollars are being handed over to the MTA, and have failed to elect politicians who are willing to stand up to the MTA.
Oh well, not really my problem anymore, I live in Virginia now.
do you really think that NYC transit workers make that little? MBTA workers in Boston typically made 40-50k/year - more than what I made working in finance and actually graduating from college
So to "prove" that NYC transit workers, who unlike Verizon workers are public employees, don't "make that little," you cite the salaries of Boston transit employees (who are also public employees), then complain about how you do not make as much money working in "finance." Sounds like you have an undeserved sense of entitlement, since you went to college and feel like you need to be repaid for those years spent studying.
Of course, your finance job does not entail any danger to your life or health, or even a danger of getting your hands dirty. College is not a meal ticket, and I know plenty of people who did not go to college or who only received an associate's degree who make boatloads more money than I do, which does not bother me a bit (I like what I am doing despite not being paid much). Perhaps you should have gone to a vocational school instead, which would have given you a two year head start on graduates of four year colleges and which probably would have resulted in a higher salary for you.
If people were known by their real identity then suddenly one part of the greater internet fuckwad theory falls away. Suddenly everyone can see just what a pimple on the ass of humanity you really are when you troll a forum.
Unfortunately, if online anonymity goes away, free speech will suffer. You may not agree with his views, but Ward Churchill had every right to publish those views -- and then lost his job when the article was dug up years later.
Unfortunately, a large number of people are relying on online services to communicate, which has undermined many of the anonymity technologies that were developed in the 90s. The network effects of systems like Facebook and Google+ should not be ignored -- people who want to stay off of those systems may be forced to use those systems just to stay in touch with their friends.
You seem to be confused. After the strike, the workers had to work at no pay for every they were on strike. To follow your analogy, it would be as if every time you hit yourself in the head, I came along and hit you in the head again.
Are they also planning to have pat-downs in major cities? Pretty soon, everywhere you go you will either have to go through an X-ray or get patted down, all for "security."
We are trained to think that "criminal behavior" means "violence or theft," but the reality is that there are plenty of non-violent/victimless "crimes" that would almost certainly fall under the scope of this sort of censorship law. Additionally, it is not clear what constitutes "supporting" criminal behavior -- does giving people accurate information about drugs that contradicts government propaganda count?
Freedom of speech does not mean "freedom of speech as long as it meets certain criteria."
You seem to be confused about the difference between using Tor and running a Tor exit node. A simple way to think of Tor is as a system that automatically sets up a chain of proxy servers for you, and then builds a new chain periodically (your connections to each proxy are encrypted, so there are many layers of encryption surrounding your connection -- hence "onion routing"). As a user, you connect to an "entry node," and use that node to connect to a "relay node" and ultimately to an "exit node," and from the exit node you connect to whatever it was that you wanted to anonymously connect to. Running an exit node entails the risks that you described, although I hear that the EFF will defend any American citizen who is caught up in such a situation.
OK, so China says the accusations are groundless. Obvious question: why were the accusations made? Is it just because of China's reputation, or is there a real reason to think that China is involved?
The Internet is currently a little bit like the American Wild West.
Indeed: long ago, it was inhabited by tribes who had their own culture, traditions, and laws. Then the corporations came in, and the US government began to impose its laws and regulations on the land, bringing in armies to quell whatever resistance the tribes could offer. Soon the tribes were outcasts, and all the US citizens thought that the land was theirs and had no concept of the customs and cultures that had existed there in an earlier generation, and expected their government to pass laws that would make the land a safe place for their children. The tribes fell into obscurity and decay, relegated to communities where the US citizens dare not go, and were often referred to as the bad guys who made the land unsafe (especially for children).
Anonymity will be the standard, since the laws of humans are no match for the laws of mathematics.
Which in turn are no match for apathy. Most people are not worried about being anonymous, and are not concerned about the ability of others to be anonymous.
Funny, because Ben Franklin published a book anonymously, "Abridgment of the Book of Command Prayer." Anonymity was probably easier to achieve back then, since forensic science was not developed and one could send anonymous letters or publish pseudonymous articles in newspapers.
Slashdot Mirror
If we can't even get basic computer security right, would you really trust every aspect of your life to algorithms?
So instead I should trust people? People are even less reliable than computers and even less able to follow security protocols.
The fact is that science doesn't really know anything.
Says the person using a computer that was designed by scientists and engineers.
coders make stupid errors with security and algorithms we really aren't ready for that
So instead, you want to rely on human beings to perform those functions? When last I checked, humans were almost always the weakest link in the security chain, and humans add additional error to already imperfect protocols.
Which would still be inapplicable, since there were Fidonet nodes that used shortwave radio to exchange mail with each other, and likely many other wireless transmission systems before that.
It depends on what sort of religious schooling you are talking about. The Reform movement's schools are teaching something similar to your first idea, although rather than saying "bad moral systems" they will say "inapplicable legal codes" or will have discussions on what the meaning of a particular passage is (e.g. Abraham nearly sacrificing his son). The conservative movement is not as willing to take loose interpretations of the bible, but they still acknowledge and teach that some things are not applicable in the 21st century and they do not reject science. Orthodoxy is another story; there are the modern orthodox, who try to reconcile religion and science, and there are hasidim, who take a more literal interpretation of the bible (but who will still acknowledge that some things are inapplicable in modern life; orthodox Jews are not going around executing people according to what the bible says).
Actually, the Jewish bible can be divided into four types of text. The first are the stories, essentially the legends and myths of a group of ancient near-east tribes that were originally passed down orally and eventually written, along with a few more recent stories found in the Writings section of the bible (the Jewish bible has three sections, Torah, Prophets, and Writings). Then there are the laws, which are the civil and criminal laws of an ancient near-east country. Related to the laws are the chronicle-type texts, which are a combination of court records, military records, and historical documents (with a bit of mythology mixed in, which was apparently the style of that time). Finally there are the prayers / poems, which are things like Psalms, Lamentations, Song of Songs, and so forth.
/. this morning who would like to weigh in, I invite them to do so.
As for what should be taken as a metaphor, in general the legal sections are not taken to be metaphors, although some of the legal sections are not applicable anymore (e.g. pretty much everything concerning the temple in Jerusalem), and some have been expanded or superseded by later legal texts (e.g. the Talmud). The mythology and historical sections are almost always used as metaphors or in the context of teaching lessons about morality, or to put parts of the legal code into context. The prayers are still used in Jewish religious ceremonies, and people frequently read their prayers metaphorically.
Of course, the view I just described is very much not-orthodox, and if there are any orthodox Jews reading
Which part of the Bible contains the facts, and which doesn't?
The modern view of the bible is that it is not a textbook, that it does not contain "facts," and that it should be interpreted as a metaphor. Some people disagree and insist that we should go back to believing that the bible is 100% factual, but those people are idiots who don't understand the history of their own religion.
I think these people are nothing more than deep-cover atheists.
Only under the simplest definition of an atheist: someone who does not believe that any deities exist. The modern atheist movement tends to be composed largely of people who reject religion all together, because they believe that if there are no deities there is no point to anything else in the religion. It seems clear that the people described in TFA do not fall into the category of people who reject religion entirely, and I would personally doubt that they have given up their faith in the Christian god. If I had to guess, I would say that they probably believe that the bible was written by humans, and that human language could not possibly describe their deity or his (their? I never understood the trinity) work.
Are people really that dumb over there?
Do you even have to ask?
How the hell can a 1994 patent cover email transmission?
That worked really well for Ward Churchill, right? The courts even found that his free speech rights had been violated, and granted him a full dollar -- one dollar.
There is the ideal world, where people respect each other's rights, and then there is the real world, where people sometimes need to be ever so slightly proactive in protecting their own rights.
It is hard to call someone who wants to end the war on drugs and end the policy of imprisoning millions a "conservative." Your confusion seems to arise from the belief that anyone who represents a free-market point of view is a "conservative" (if that were the case, there would be practically no conservatives in America, since the major parties both strongly support various regulations on what businesses are permissible and both parties support government hand-outs to big businesses).
Should I point out where you are missing citations?
Probably because quite a lot of them are getting something back from the MTA in return. Eventually that becomes a self-perpetuating cycle and the only way to fix it is for everyone not benefitting from graft and kickbacks leaves and the system collapses on itself.
As I understand it, that is a point of contention among roughly half the voters in New York State -- the half that do not live in the New York City area, and who do not directly benefit from the public transit system (they might indirectly benefit from New York City's economic contribution to the state). As for those who do live in the area served by the MTA, the operating budget is technically separate from the "capital improvements" budget, which is where vast amounts of money are sunk into projects that have fallen far behind schedule, or whose final results are not close to what was promised. The system will eventually have to collapse on itself, given the fiscal condition of New York -- eventually the MTA's spending will have to be addressed, either by bringing in new leadership who will see to the completion of the projects or (more likely) killing the projects and letting the transit system stagnate.
The effect is that the employees had to work for no pay -- the fine they received was based on their individual salaries (if I remember correctly, their base salaries, so e.g. employees could work overtime to pay the fine faster). It is a pointless semantic argument, except to make the no-pay work legal by avoiding issues of anti-slavery laws.
My point is not that the law is good or bad, it is that the employees were indeed punished for striking. As for taking their case to the politicians, I would say that New Yorkers as a whole need to rein in the MTA, which has been caught keeping two sets of accounting books and which seems to have the unique ability to choose the worst contractors that can be found (they have poured billions of dollars into late/incomplete/abandoned projects, and even opened a new contract with the same company that defrauded New York City out of $800 million after it was publicly announced that the company was being investigated). For some reason, New York State residents remain oblivious to how many tax dollars are being handed over to the MTA, and have failed to elect politicians who are willing to stand up to the MTA.
Oh well, not really my problem anymore, I live in Virginia now.
do you really think that NYC transit workers make that little? MBTA workers in Boston typically made 40-50k/year - more than what I made working in finance and actually graduating from college
So to "prove" that NYC transit workers, who unlike Verizon workers are public employees, don't "make that little," you cite the salaries of Boston transit employees (who are also public employees), then complain about how you do not make as much money working in "finance." Sounds like you have an undeserved sense of entitlement, since you went to college and feel like you need to be repaid for those years spent studying.
Of course, your finance job does not entail any danger to your life or health, or even a danger of getting your hands dirty. College is not a meal ticket, and I know plenty of people who did not go to college or who only received an associate's degree who make boatloads more money than I do, which does not bother me a bit (I like what I am doing despite not being paid much). Perhaps you should have gone to a vocational school instead, which would have given you a two year head start on graduates of four year colleges and which probably would have resulted in a higher salary for you.
In particular, this:
The fine for striking is an additional day of pay for each day of a strike, totaling two days' loss for each strike day.
If people were known by their real identity then suddenly one part of the greater internet fuckwad theory falls away. Suddenly everyone can see just what a pimple on the ass of humanity you really are when you troll a forum.
Unfortunately, if online anonymity goes away, free speech will suffer. You may not agree with his views, but Ward Churchill had every right to publish those views -- and then lost his job when the article was dug up years later.
Unfortunately, a large number of people are relying on online services to communicate, which has undermined many of the anonymity technologies that were developed in the 90s. The network effects of systems like Facebook and Google+ should not be ignored -- people who want to stay off of those systems may be forced to use those systems just to stay in touch with their friends.
You seem to be confused. After the strike, the workers had to work at no pay for every they were on strike. To follow your analogy, it would be as if every time you hit yourself in the head, I came along and hit you in the head again.
Or how in 2005(?) Union workers halted NYC public transportation, significantly affecting the entire economy
Yeah, and the workers were punished for it: every day on strike was matched by a day without pay.
Are they also planning to have pat-downs in major cities? Pretty soon, everywhere you go you will either have to go through an X-ray or get patted down, all for "security."
They're also specifically considering those communications used to support violence, disorder, or criminal behavior.
So what happens when someone goes here:
http://www.erowid.org/
We are trained to think that "criminal behavior" means "violence or theft," but the reality is that there are plenty of non-violent/victimless "crimes" that would almost certainly fall under the scope of this sort of censorship law. Additionally, it is not clear what constitutes "supporting" criminal behavior -- does giving people accurate information about drugs that contradicts government propaganda count?
Freedom of speech does not mean "freedom of speech as long as it meets certain criteria."
You seem to be confused about the difference between using Tor and running a Tor exit node. A simple way to think of Tor is as a system that automatically sets up a chain of proxy servers for you, and then builds a new chain periodically (your connections to each proxy are encrypted, so there are many layers of encryption surrounding your connection -- hence "onion routing"). As a user, you connect to an "entry node," and use that node to connect to a "relay node" and ultimately to an "exit node," and from the exit node you connect to whatever it was that you wanted to anonymously connect to. Running an exit node entails the risks that you described, although I hear that the EFF will defend any American citizen who is caught up in such a situation.
What about using Tor bridges?
https://www.torproject.org/docs/bridges
This is assuming, of course, that simply using encryption will not put you under suspicion.
OK, so China says the accusations are groundless. Obvious question: why were the accusations made? Is it just because of China's reputation, or is there a real reason to think that China is involved?
The Internet is currently a little bit like the American Wild West.
Indeed: long ago, it was inhabited by tribes who had their own culture, traditions, and laws. Then the corporations came in, and the US government began to impose its laws and regulations on the land, bringing in armies to quell whatever resistance the tribes could offer. Soon the tribes were outcasts, and all the US citizens thought that the land was theirs and had no concept of the customs and cultures that had existed there in an earlier generation, and expected their government to pass laws that would make the land a safe place for their children. The tribes fell into obscurity and decay, relegated to communities where the US citizens dare not go, and were often referred to as the bad guys who made the land unsafe (especially for children).
Anonymity will be the standard, since the laws of humans are no match for the laws of mathematics.
Which in turn are no match for apathy. Most people are not worried about being anonymous, and are not concerned about the ability of others to be anonymous.
Funny, because Ben Franklin published a book anonymously, "Abridgment of the Book of Command Prayer." Anonymity was probably easier to achieve back then, since forensic science was not developed and one could send anonymous letters or publish pseudonymous articles in newspapers.