Yes, I know. I was just illuminating the fact that it is indeed censorship. It's a difficult beast to handle. You can't just liberate yourself from it in an instant either. You wouldn't fit in society. However, for change to happen people really need to not fit in so much too. There are always casualties in the front row of battle.
About that mother and her son, she could teach him without spanking. If she doesn't want the boy to have mixed feelings for her I mean. I regard spanking as old-fashioned, something parents most often do in anger, not out of love as they claim. If they're really so cold-hearted as to do something like that over "love" (humiliation, suffering and confusion), I really start questioning their love or their judgement..
The same goes for verbal abuse. Often neglected in today's society, but it will start to come more into the spotlight too. Parents really shouldn't look at their kids as their property anymore. Oh well, I'm rambling and it's easy to criticize without having kids yourself. Sorry. Good night!
But certainly I don't want my kids whipping it out in front of their teacher and saying "suck my fat one" or something... that seems a bit over the line, since I don't want myself to do it either. But my kids should be able to say anything that I can say.
What can you say and what do you want to say? These are two separate issues, and you're obviously pro-censorship on children since you want to apply it on your own offspring. So you're really ambigous here. You can't be against censorship in one moment, and stamp down "unapproved" speech in the next.
Wouldn't it be possible to use a strong moving magnet to wipe out the disks, or would this destroy the harddrive altogether/have no effect/not be cool enough etc? d;*)
So you say I should unwillingly subsidize those films I never went to see, and you call that a free market? Don't get me wrong, you've got a good point, but I still don't think it justifies much. It's not like I couldn't live without the MPAA or RIAA. In fact, the world would probably be much better without. Both the movie- and record industry in the USA is wildly successful and have lost all ground-contact. That's not something I'm willing to sponsor through stiff prices and commercialisation.
- Steeltoe
Re:Do they stream the patches, too?
on
Gaming On Demand
·
· Score: 2
Most countries have laws that allow you to swap products of purchase within days, for instance 10 days in Norway. In cases of REALLY bad games, eg Wing Commander 2 looked nothing like it did on the package, I've returned the game and gotten another. If you've broken seals, you're at the mercy of the store though, unless the game is really unplayable on your computer. Some lame kids use this to pirate games, so your mileage may vary from store to store. However, too many people accept too buggy and unplayable games without returning them IMHO. I suspect it has relation with too much money in their pockets, or being afraid to assert their rights in person.
B&W was a huge disappointer. Maybe I'll continue it later, but I will never buy into hype of this magnitude again. I said so about Ultima 9 too, so maybe I should shut up *bonks head really hard*;*)
I thought I explained this. Of course I don't take the extreme view to call it no loss at all. However, to paint the picture as 100% loss like the industry does is ridiculous.
You cannot have change without some sort of destruction.
wtf?
Change in society will inevitably favour some, and disfavour others. Let's hope the trend of favouring the already favoured discontinues.
Yeah, and, IMO, rightly so when you're sharing other people's stuff.
Good point. However, the current hopeless situation of music makes it a necessity. When the industry realizes what the market wants, hopefully for them they will learn to adapt instead of trying to force the market. Generally, most people will happily pay a fair price for good service and content. What I won't support is the stranglehold of the market that is the status quoa.
Maybe bands like Metallica. Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favour of getting something for nothing, but what about up-coming bands that don't have massive record sales who are losing money because people are distributing their material free of charge?
I have nothing against Metallica. At least they had the guts to come out of the woodwork and say what was on their heart. Most artists are totally blank on this issue, powerless against the RIAA which they are on contract with.
For upcoming bands services like Napster is probably a good idea. If their music is great, people will share and buy it so that it becomes popular regardless of what plans the RIAA has for next month's charts.
Are you for real? Hmm. I think I am. Hope I haven't offended you, but two posters saying "coz" after one another just made me flip;-)
Hehe. Well, not everyone have the same taste. You seem to only like what is "musical", while I like what I hear when I hear it regardless of other factors. Especially when it's something new or with a new twist. Sort of the same thing as with literary people disliking LOTR, and "commoners" loving it.
Btw, I didn't say every melody/song by Alice Deejay, Enya, All Saints, Garbage, Moby and Bryan Adams(!) is good (far, Far, FAR from the truth;). Maybe I should clarify that. It's just my default mode to download music and only keep those pieces that move me in some way (or moved me), regardless of who's singing, playing or what genre it is. But I guess that's pretty uncommon? You're right Tribal Trance isn't generally very good either, so I'll probably remove that and put in those tribal trance mixes that I think are good.
If I could, I would produce the full list of just songs that I like (doubt there's much point though;). However,/. has a limit on the length of User Bio. Btw, this shows that the article is pretty correct (apart from the "coolness"-factor). There's no point in just rating music since everyone's flavour differs. You need a bit more complex system that can compare "taste" with other people.
Bryan Adams - WTF? Hehe, I know, I know, but "Don't give up" is pretty good IMHO. Especially when you've just awoken from sleep and are pretty drowsy.
If I were to "sell" some of these, it'd probably be Ayla. Try it, you might like it. Or maybe it's not musical enough for you?;-)
Right on! I for one would be interested in good music according to my tastes, not "cool" music. What's "cool" anyways? There are alot of different groups of people that define their own culture. Not everyone listens to Brittney Spears and N'Sync and think they're cool.
If anyone's interested in good music, I heavily recommend to check out my User Bio. I don't let anyone tell me what good music is, I listen.
I had an idea once to make a very cheap coordless LAN. It's so simple it's stupid. You just hook up speakers and microphone on all the nodes and cover your ears. Sure you'll get some complaints from the neighbours, and it'll be hell trying to sleep at night while downloading pr0n/MP3s. But it's ultra-cheap and the ancient age of C64 will come back to you!
Too bad it didn't work well because of feedback. LOUD feedback.
- Steeltoe
Re:Creating a World vs. Literature
on
Lord of the Geeks
·
· Score: 1
Right on. I'm even having trouble with Sauron == Satan, because he is embodified and conquerable while Satan is not really someone you can just meet in town. Satan is more like a symbol of all evil, or embodified in another plane of reality. It'd be more accurate to say Sauron turned very, very bad;-)
IMHO, people that absolutely have to try to analyze what the author really meant, are just trying to limit the work into their own interpretation. Which can be bad because more often than not, the author didn't really mean that. Just because you can draw parallells, doesn't necessarily make them true. These analysts are really analysing our society and the human psyche, not the work itself. But they're too afraid to admit that openly (where would they get their grants from then?);-P
Don't think so. Not in any particular scale anyways. You have DCC, fileservs and ftp-links last time I checked (looong time ago), but to make something like napster to work you can't really broadcast your requests to all your peers frivolously. It would be like Gnutella on crutches, slow as sirup.
You *could* make bots that act as "napster-servers", even make them query eachother. But by then, you might as well create your own infrastructure instead of relying to be able to use your bots on the IRC-network. You sure as hell would need a custom IRC-client to match the usability.
I assume when you say "code" you actually mean a string of bits. There's no running software today that is actually "uncrackable". Software crackers usually use debuggers, not decryption algorithms.
I'm in the IT industry myself and don't really recognize these figures. Are new programmers in the US making $45,000? Or is this for experienced programmers, people that have worked for atleast 10 years (which seems more on par). Sure, you can whore yourself as a consultant, but that's not really just a programming job. Some people actually work "9-5" in IT, independent on age and experience. I'd say a beginners wage would be $30k-$40k, depending on education, but that's in Norway. With those wages, do you get extras for overtime?
I said what I said because I meant it. If public companies aren't beneficial, but is stealing mindshare from the public by inventing the wheel over and over again or having monopolies on the wheel, maybe the system should be revised? Nowadays, it seems like the stockmarket is crumbling at its core with the increase in greed and (dis)information throughput on the Internet. It was never designed for that, and alot of it is basically illegal. But who cares about the stock as long as you make a quick buck? Hopefully.. Whenever someone wins, someone else loses, except when REAL value is being produced - but that takes time and effort. That was why the stockmarket was created in the first place - to pay people to find the "correct" price. Tell that to the thousands of newbies creating havoc, or the "analysts" that misinforms the public to earn on their own stocks.
Btw, I don't make alot of karma and few people shout "amen Brother!" to what I post. Maybe I get 1 karma point per 20 posts or something. It's stupidly low because I happen to have a pretty controversial view as opposed to a few others on here. Just that we disagree or something, doesn't mean I'm a troll or a zealot. I believe in change, you obviously believe in justifications and keeping status quo.
However, with the apathetic political climate we have today, what politician dares to really make a difference? I don't believe in revolution, but it seems like somethings bound to happen if we don't get our act together soon.
Btw, I started a political program on sourceforge. It's really nice, with some nifty ideas. I don't have any code yet, but that'll be coming soon. I just have to work full time first. Join me and help shape the future of politics!;*)
Oh yeah, and we should share everything we have. Even underwear!
If every human being on this planet jealously `protects' `their' `IP' and knowledge, our society would stop to a screeching halt (this is hypothetical of course). Think about it for a second.
Why should anyone inform their colleagues of what they know when it can give you an advantage not to? By keeping information to yourself, you may become invaluable to your company. Clearly, this has already become a problem in the IT industry. Why bother fix bugs when you can get paid to do it later? Why make good documentation when you know the whole system and want contracts? Why teach the new guy, when you can get "his" salary?
This mindset is elitist, foolish and inefficient. It comes from an individualistic view, that if followed to its extreme would dissolve society and its development. Note that I'm not saying that is a plausible scenario. I'm just saying these companies' battle over IP is not good for society as a whole. It's not good for us, the people. What is more important? Government-granted monopolies or free sharing of what can be shared with abundance? If you disagree on this, you could just as well argue for keeping the 3rd world illiterate and enslave them: It would produce alot of so-called wealth for us. All in all, this is a question of what you really value.
Our society is not built from the mindset of many bits of pieces forming a big puzzle. It's from the perspective of a puzzle where you try to put the best pieces in correct place. Failing to understand this (I know I didn't explain it very well), will just make us alienate us from ourselves even more. Our society exists because we have created it as a concept and as an admirable one to contribute to. When we stop that, society will become anarchistic and violent. Violent may mean intellectually violent too.
So what if today's companies have IP they think they must protect in order to survive. Nothing is cast in stone yet. We mold society to our needs. The need is there, and it'll just become greater and greater.
Please note that code for device drivers is hardly great IP since it will only work with said hardware. I know we can't just dissolve IP laws overnight, I'm not proposing that either. Btw, you didn't answer my question.
So you condone physical beatings of cheating kids who have become way too immersed in online gaming. Kids that may get hold of a gun to get revenge in lack of physical strength and numbers? Don't think you quite thought that one out.-)
If you read the article, you would have seen it was about kids "leaving their room" to beat up other players they didn't like. Especially scammers and cheaters.
And your point regarding the GPL was what? I can't see any connection in your post that connects GPL to the problem that isn't already a problem with public domain, good ol' copyright or IP laws in general. In short you blame GPL, when you should've blamed nvidia for using 3rd-party code with various different license limitations. Unless I got the whole thing wrong? What I gathered from the post was that you hate GPL for some reason, but not why.
Unreal Memory Leak was funny though. What few people know, is that Unreal got a very sophisticated Crash-Probability-Drive(TM) too;*)
Your solution is the opposite of a good solution. To stay alive and well we have to cooperate, educate and help eachother. With the many number of people living today, we have to maintain high technology and efficient infrastructure to support society with all its needs. No revolution is going to save us from ourselves.
Take a moments pause. Just think over your own life. Don't pity yourself. Realize how well you really are, how much you have and how many choices you really do have. Mostly, it's yourself that is limiting your choices - your so-called freedom that you think others can hand over to you. It's yourself that is doing what other people expect of you, or blaming yourself when you fail to meet them. It's yourself that is pitying yourself, even though on the other side of the globe, or even a few blocks away, many people have a really shitty life. Have you ever said "Thank you" for everything you have? If other people around you had abundance of wealth and goods, wouldn't you wish they would share with you? Especially if you were dying of hunger while eating garbage?
Take another moment. A deep breath. Think about what really matters in your life. What you would really miss if it were to go away FOR EVER. Don't stop at material things. Think friends, education, health, community, cleanliness, food, family and pets for instance. Find your own answers, you can even try to rate what is most important and what is not on a scale. Writing it down helps focus, and if you find the paper after a few years you will always discover something important about yourself.
The problem you seek to right, is not in others, but within yourself. In all of us, but noone can force an involuntary positive change in others. That would be pointless; without any meaning. Some would say it would even be a crime. Aside from that, fact is that we in the western world, as a population, are better off than most people ever were in known history. But we aren't grateful, because we want MORE. That is the whole problem. We're like a black hole, our biggest fear being ourselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I know. I was just illuminating the fact that it is indeed censorship. It's a difficult beast to handle. You can't just liberate yourself from it in an instant either. You wouldn't fit in society. However, for change to happen people really need to not fit in so much too. There are always casualties in the front row of battle.
About that mother and her son, she could teach him without spanking. If she doesn't want the boy to have mixed feelings for her I mean. I regard spanking as old-fashioned, something parents most often do in anger, not out of love as they claim. If they're really so cold-hearted as to do something like that over "love" (humiliation, suffering and confusion), I really start questioning their love or their judgement..
The same goes for verbal abuse. Often neglected in today's society, but it will start to come more into the spotlight too. Parents really shouldn't look at their kids as their property anymore. Oh well, I'm rambling and it's easy to criticize without having kids yourself. Sorry. Good night!
- Steeltoe
But certainly I don't want my kids whipping it out in front of their teacher and saying "suck my fat one" or something... that seems a bit over the line, since I don't want myself to do it either. But my kids should be able to say anything that I can say.
What can you say and what do you want to say? These are two separate issues, and you're obviously pro-censorship on children since you want to apply it on your own offspring. So you're really ambigous here. You can't be against censorship in one moment, and stamp down "unapproved" speech in the next.
- Steeltoe
Wouldn't it be possible to use a strong moving magnet to wipe out the disks, or would this destroy the harddrive altogether/have no effect/not be cool enough etc? d;*)
- Steeltoe
So you say I should unwillingly subsidize those films I never went to see, and you call that a free market? Don't get me wrong, you've got a good point, but I still don't think it justifies much. It's not like I couldn't live without the MPAA or RIAA. In fact, the world would probably be much better without. Both the movie- and record industry in the USA is wildly successful and have lost all ground-contact. That's not something I'm willing to sponsor through stiff prices and commercialisation.
- Steeltoe
Most countries have laws that allow you to swap products of purchase within days, for instance 10 days in Norway. In cases of REALLY bad games, eg Wing Commander 2 looked nothing like it did on the package, I've returned the game and gotten another. If you've broken seals, you're at the mercy of the store though, unless the game is really unplayable on your computer. Some lame kids use this to pirate games, so your mileage may vary from store to store. However, too many people accept too buggy and unplayable games without returning them IMHO. I suspect it has relation with too much money in their pockets, or being afraid to assert their rights in person.
;*)
B&W was a huge disappointer. Maybe I'll continue it later, but I will never buy into hype of this magnitude again. I said so about Ultima 9 too, so maybe I should shut up *bonks head really hard*
- Steeltoe
Nothing beats security through unusability!
- Steeltoe
Pure logics always fails in the real world. For instance, there are many men that have XX-chromosones. Perfectly normal and healthy men I might add.
- Steeltoe
This is the excact reason I haven't bought a DVD-player yet. It's good to see I was right.
- Steeltoe
Can you provide proof of this?
;-)
I thought I explained this. Of course I don't take the extreme view to call it no loss at all. However, to paint the picture as 100% loss like the industry does is ridiculous.
You cannot have change without some sort of destruction.
wtf?
Change in society will inevitably favour some, and disfavour others. Let's hope the trend of favouring the already favoured discontinues.
Yeah, and, IMO, rightly so when you're sharing other people's stuff.
Good point. However, the current hopeless situation of music makes it a necessity. When the industry realizes what the market wants, hopefully for them they will learn to adapt instead of trying to force the market. Generally, most people will happily pay a fair price for good service and content. What I won't support is the stranglehold of the market that is the status quoa.
Maybe bands like Metallica. Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favour of getting something for nothing, but what about up-coming bands that don't have massive record sales who are losing money because people are distributing their material free of charge?
I have nothing against Metallica. At least they had the guts to come out of the woodwork and say what was on their heart. Most artists are totally blank on this issue, powerless against the RIAA which they are on contract with.
For upcoming bands services like Napster is probably a good idea. If their music is great, people will share and buy it so that it becomes popular regardless of what plans the RIAA has for next month's charts.
Are you for real?
Hmm. I think I am. Hope I haven't offended you, but two posters saying "coz" after one another just made me flip
- Steeltoe
Hehe. Well, not everyone have the same taste. You seem to only like what is "musical", while I like what I hear when I hear it regardless of other factors. Especially when it's something new or with a new twist. Sort of the same thing as with literary people disliking LOTR, and "commoners" loving it.
;). Maybe I should clarify that. It's just my default mode to download music and only keep those pieces that move me in some way (or moved me), regardless of who's singing, playing or what genre it is. But I guess that's pretty uncommon? You're right Tribal Trance isn't generally very good either, so I'll probably remove that and put in those tribal trance mixes that I think are good.
;). However, /. has a limit on the length of User Bio. Btw, this shows that the article is pretty correct (apart from the "coolness"-factor). There's no point in just rating music since everyone's flavour differs. You need a bit more complex system that can compare "taste" with other people.
;-)
Btw, I didn't say every melody/song by Alice Deejay, Enya, All Saints, Garbage, Moby and Bryan Adams(!) is good (far, Far, FAR from the truth
If I could, I would produce the full list of just songs that I like (doubt there's much point though
Bryan Adams - WTF?
Hehe, I know, I know, but "Don't give up" is pretty good IMHO. Especially when you've just awoken from sleep and are pretty drowsy.
If I were to "sell" some of these, it'd probably be Ayla. Try it, you might like it. Or maybe it's not musical enough for you?
- Steeltoe
Right on! I for one would be interested in good music according to my tastes, not "cool" music. What's "cool" anyways? There are alot of different groups of people that define their own culture. Not everyone listens to Brittney Spears and N'Sync and think they're cool.
If anyone's interested in good music, I heavily recommend to check out my User Bio. I don't let anyone tell me what good music is, I listen.
- Steeltoe
You know, that post tells more about you than about Gracenote. Btw, what is "soulless" and is messing up badly a trait not having a soul?
;-)
I know, I know. I'm just messing with your head
- Steeltoe
I had an idea once to make a very cheap coordless LAN. It's so simple it's stupid. You just hook up speakers and microphone on all the nodes and cover your ears. Sure you'll get some complaints from the neighbours, and it'll be hell trying to sleep at night while downloading pr0n/MP3s. But it's ultra-cheap and the ancient age of C64 will come back to you!
Too bad it didn't work well because of feedback. LOUD feedback.
- Steeltoe
Right on. I'm even having trouble with Sauron == Satan, because he is embodified and conquerable while Satan is not really someone you can just meet in town. Satan is more like a symbol of all evil, or embodified in another plane of reality. It'd be more accurate to say Sauron turned very, very bad ;-)
;-P
IMHO, people that absolutely have to try to analyze what the author really meant, are just trying to limit the work into their own interpretation. Which can be bad because more often than not, the author didn't really mean that. Just because you can draw parallells, doesn't necessarily make them true. These analysts are really analysing our society and the human psyche, not the work itself. But they're too afraid to admit that openly (where would they get their grants from then?)
- Steeltoe
Don't think so. Not in any particular scale anyways. You have DCC, fileservs and ftp-links last time I checked (looong time ago), but to make something like napster to work you can't really broadcast your requests to all your peers frivolously. It would be like Gnutella on crutches, slow as sirup.
You *could* make bots that act as "napster-servers", even make them query eachother. But by then, you might as well create your own infrastructure instead of relying to be able to use your bots on the IRC-network. You sure as hell would need a custom IRC-client to match the usability.
- Steeltoe
I assume when you say "code" you actually mean a string of bits. There's no running software today that is actually "uncrackable". Software crackers usually use debuggers, not decryption algorithms.
- Steeltoe
20 years from now we'll probably talk about that bloody "War on Warez".
- Steeltoe
I'm in the IT industry myself and don't really recognize these figures. Are new programmers in the US making $45,000? Or is this for experienced programmers, people that have worked for atleast 10 years (which seems more on par). Sure, you can whore yourself as a consultant, but that's not really just a programming job. Some people actually work "9-5" in IT, independent on age and experience. I'd say a beginners wage would be $30k-$40k, depending on education, but that's in Norway. With those wages, do you get extras for overtime?
- Steeltoe
Haha, you're funny :-)
;*)
I said what I said because I meant it. If public companies aren't beneficial, but is stealing mindshare from the public by inventing the wheel over and over again or having monopolies on the wheel, maybe the system should be revised? Nowadays, it seems like the stockmarket is crumbling at its core with the increase in greed and (dis)information throughput on the Internet. It was never designed for that, and alot of it is basically illegal. But who cares about the stock as long as you make a quick buck? Hopefully.. Whenever someone wins, someone else loses, except when REAL value is being produced - but that takes time and effort. That was why the stockmarket was created in the first place - to pay people to find the "correct" price. Tell that to the thousands of newbies creating havoc, or the "analysts" that misinforms the public to earn on their own stocks.
Btw, I don't make alot of karma and few people shout "amen Brother!" to what I post. Maybe I get 1 karma point per 20 posts or something. It's stupidly low because I happen to have a pretty controversial view as opposed to a few others on here. Just that we disagree or something, doesn't mean I'm a troll or a zealot. I believe in change, you obviously believe in justifications and keeping status quo.
However, with the apathetic political climate we have today, what politician dares to really make a difference? I don't believe in revolution, but it seems like somethings bound to happen if we don't get our act together soon.
Btw, I started a political program on sourceforge. It's really nice, with some nifty ideas. I don't have any code yet, but that'll be coming soon. I just have to work full time first. Join me and help shape the future of politics!
Oh yeah, and we should share everything we have. Even underwear!
- Steeltoe
If every human being on this planet jealously `protects' `their' `IP' and knowledge, our society would stop to a screeching halt (this is hypothetical of course). Think about it for a second.
Why should anyone inform their colleagues of what they know when it can give you an advantage not to? By keeping information to yourself, you may become invaluable to your company. Clearly, this has already become a problem in the IT industry. Why bother fix bugs when you can get paid to do it later? Why make good documentation when you know the whole system and want contracts? Why teach the new guy, when you can get "his" salary?
This mindset is elitist, foolish and inefficient. It comes from an individualistic view, that if followed to its extreme would dissolve society and its development. Note that I'm not saying that is a plausible scenario. I'm just saying these companies' battle over IP is not good for society as a whole. It's not good for us, the people. What is more important? Government-granted monopolies or free sharing of what can be shared with abundance? If you disagree on this, you could just as well argue for keeping the 3rd world illiterate and enslave them: It would produce alot of so-called wealth for us. All in all, this is a question of what you really value.
Our society is not built from the mindset of many bits of pieces forming a big puzzle. It's from the perspective of a puzzle where you try to put the best pieces in correct place. Failing to understand this (I know I didn't explain it very well), will just make us alienate us from ourselves even more. Our society exists because we have created it as a concept and as an admirable one to contribute to. When we stop that, society will become anarchistic and violent. Violent may mean intellectually violent too.
So what if today's companies have IP they think they must protect in order to survive. Nothing is cast in stone yet. We mold society to our needs. The need is there, and it'll just become greater and greater.
Please note that code for device drivers is hardly great IP since it will only work with said hardware. I know we can't just dissolve IP laws overnight, I'm not proposing that either. Btw, you didn't answer my question.
- Steeltoe
So you condone physical beatings of cheating kids who have become way too immersed in online gaming. Kids that may get hold of a gun to get revenge in lack of physical strength and numbers? Don't think you quite thought that one out .-)
- Steeltoe
If you read the article, you would have seen it was about kids "leaving their room" to beat up other players they didn't like. Especially scammers and cheaters.
- Steeltoe
Wow! A free trial account for 5 days. No wonder this game is a hit.
- Steeltoe
And your point regarding the GPL was what? I can't see any connection in your post that connects GPL to the problem that isn't already a problem with public domain, good ol' copyright or IP laws in general. In short you blame GPL, when you should've blamed nvidia for using 3rd-party code with various different license limitations. Unless I got the whole thing wrong? What I gathered from the post was that you hate GPL for some reason, but not why.
;*)
Unreal Memory Leak was funny though. What few people know, is that Unreal got a very sophisticated Crash-Probability-Drive(TM) too
- Steeltoe
Your solution is the opposite of a good solution. To stay alive and well we have to cooperate, educate and help eachother. With the many number of people living today, we have to maintain high technology and efficient infrastructure to support society with all its needs. No revolution is going to save us from ourselves.
Take a moments pause. Just think over your own life. Don't pity yourself. Realize how well you really are, how much you have and how many choices you really do have. Mostly, it's yourself that is limiting your choices - your so-called freedom that you think others can hand over to you. It's yourself that is doing what other people expect of you, or blaming yourself when you fail to meet them. It's yourself that is pitying yourself, even though on the other side of the globe, or even a few blocks away, many people have a really shitty life. Have you ever said "Thank you" for everything you have? If other people around you had abundance of wealth and goods, wouldn't you wish they would share with you? Especially if you were dying of hunger while eating garbage?
Take another moment. A deep breath. Think about what really matters in your life. What you would really miss if it were to go away FOR EVER. Don't stop at material things. Think friends, education, health, community, cleanliness, food, family and pets for instance. Find your own answers, you can even try to rate what is most important and what is not on a scale. Writing it down helps focus, and if you find the paper after a few years you will always discover something important about yourself.
The problem you seek to right, is not in others, but within yourself. In all of us, but noone can force an involuntary positive change in others. That would be pointless; without any meaning. Some would say it would even be a crime. Aside from that, fact is that we in the western world, as a population, are better off than most people ever were in known history. But we aren't grateful, because we want MORE. That is the whole problem. We're like a black hole, our biggest fear being ourselves.
- Steeltoe