John Citizen suffers, maybe never knowing his expectation of privacy has been shredded.
So let me get this straight: John Citizen gets spied upon because he is in the unusual position of being suspected (mistakenly) for a crime that warrants cyber-snooping from the government, who look at his files, find he's not the one they're after, John has no idea this has gone on? OK, fair enough, but how does he suffer?
But I suggest you get it quickly. I believe that as soon as some "killer" encryption app that is user-friendly(for non-techies) and secure comes along, we will see efforts to outlaw private, personal use of encryption.
Nope, I'm not buying it. It's a question of incentives, and there really isn't incentive enough to outlaw it now. It's not like the government gets anything out of spying on people; they do it to show they're serious about security, to appease a frightened population. If everyone starts using encryption, sure they won't be able to say they've foiled as many terrorist plots, but at the same time it would show that no-one would care that much. They've really got nothing to gain from flatly opposing the people.
If there was going to be an anti-encryption law, it would've been passed by now. When everyone is wound up, and only a few people use encryption, so only a few people would be inconvenienced (i.e. now), that's when it should have been proposed.
I was thinking about including that one, but I figured there'd be some/.ers out there who'd read it as anti-elitist (which is a no-no when speaking to the self-proclaimed elite). Judging by the differences in our moderations, I'd say that's what happened.
But of course, people have this misguided believe that all they have to do to change the world is place a vote. Why, if you place a vote, it will ALL change. Bullshit candidates will somehow become viable, despite shirking the establishment and they'll stay true to their word and everyone else will side with them, even though they don't push the agreed upon religious or union agendas. Of course, that's why things will never change. You and I are taught from birth that the bullshit which has been constant for generations is somehow only a vote away from changing. That we have the true power. That, why, one vote can suddenly stop the massive waves of people on the left and right who want to control every aspect of our lives and our thoughts.
I was taught to vote for who I wanted, and to expect the instatement of the person who the people wanted. I was never taught that my vote would rock the foundations of society. What I also wasn't taught, and I had to figure it out myself later, was that I could persuade others that there's a problem, and that's the real power of democracy. If you don't like who the people want, change what they want.
Its all wasted. The average IQ of Nigeria hovers around 60 points or so. IQ is innate, so the laptop will not change it.
1. That's all the more reason to have better sources to information, to attempt to fill gaps in knowledge and ability. 2. As soon as you enter education into a society, then intelligence becomes a major factor in who becomes successful or not, so cultural and biological evolution should not-too-slowly follow (and then, of course, promotion of higher IQs etc). 3. IQ test results won't necessarily measure true potential, since most of the more intelligent people will be under-stimulated. 4. I doubt any significant IQ testing was done anyway, considering we only have your cheap-as-dirt AC word for it, and that the funds for such testing would be best spent on other things.
Sure, but even the fund managers have to decide whether dropping or digressing from their motto will harm or benefit their profits. For every evil they do, they lose face and ultimately customers. That's exactly why we largely permit corporate greed, because it's supposed to work out in the consumer's favour. Of course, that doesn't always happen, but usually it does. It'll be interesting to see what proves to be the rule or the exception.
Seriously, that's just lame. It was smile-worthy at first, gaming the domain display, but now it's old. Besides, it's always so obvious, and goatse just doesn't shock me anymore.
On the other hand, "do no evil" provided them with the success necessary to make the shareholders rich, and their customers may be coming to them only for that motto. Some shareholders, perhaps, only invest in Google because of that motto. "Do no evil" will always play a part in resolving the wants of the Google shareholders.
I was just about to post something similar about the flood of comments that claim respecting court orders is somehow evil. I have a feeling this'll be a mighty flame war. Speaking of which, where are the flamebait mods when you need them?
I never said I liked his methods or his message, I just thought it was a refreshing change of pace to see someone who publicly and proudly holds beliefs that isn't just what he thinks others want him to believe.
Yeah, you're paranoid. No-one's out to get you. Even if you decide to entrust your information to Google, there's by far no guarantee the government will read it or store it, and even if they do, use it in a way that detriments you. They really don't gave a motive.
Thompson seeks to impose his values on others through malicious, frivolous litigation, slander, and harassment. That's evil, even if he himself believes otherwise.
Yes, but people who seek to cut through the deeply laid foundations of sin by any means necessary are not evil, even if you believe otherwise.
Of course, I don't actually believe that, but then again, I don't truly believe yours either.
Note the 'l' there. I was speaking of the artists, not the audience.
Whoops! My bad!
Yes, I agree with you, there will always be artists who will play for the hell of it. There probably won't be too many people who record, distribute, or play concerts for the hell of it.
Do concerts need to be held in flashy arenas?
I never said they did, but I think they do if you rack up a large dedicated following. Even just playing in pubs is an effort. It's hard work to get the recognition, and you have to have the spare time, but I grant you that it happens and that it's perfectly feasible (at least, if your music can be played live). It's just kind of unfortunate that even if the band has a world-wide following, they can only make a tiny fee from small gigs. It's certainly enough to deter most people.
Sorry, I had no idea that there are people out there who can't do anything other than entertain.
I have no idea how you managed to read that into my post, but I can assure you I didn't mean to say that. Those two points you connected are unrelated. The first refers to the fact that we tend to take art (among other things) for granted under a copyright system. The second was in response to your statement that entertainers want to be recognised, and that entertainers, being of the category "life form", want to survive first and foremost.
Look, it's not just the problems with piracy, it's also the lack of inherent problems with copyright. If artists want to release into the public domain under copyright, they can. If artists want to make a decent buck, or control the distribution of their work (e.g. the GPL) without copyright, they can't. All you're doing is cutting down the options available to artists, thus cutting down the number of artworks produced distributed, and thus cutting down the options available to the consumer. Everything you could possibly want from a free-copying culture is already there or at least possible, just with added copyright options as well. The only thing spoiling this is this feud between the publishers and the pirates.
Yes! Just because you don't like someone, doesn't mean you can kill them. You're similarly not allowed to kill a company. You can refuse its sustenance, but if others feel like sustaining it, you aren't allowed to take matters into your own hands.
There are still those who play for the sake of it
Not many, if all their music "shopping" were to migrate to the P2P networks. Even if they have an impulse to pay, just for the hell of it, they must go to the trouble of looking up the artist and researching an address or other avenue that they can send money through. It's a lot of effort for an impulsive action.
there are still those who prefer attending concerts even though they already have the album
Assuming your favoured musician can do concerts, assuming the price for tickets won't sky-rocket in response to dismal sales, assuming the musicians can afford to tour (with so little spare capital), assuming there are any left who haven't declared bankruptcy or started jobs at McDonalds.
there will always be people who find themselves morally bound to pay if they like something.
Don't be so sure. That supply of people will have to contend with the hassle of paying (as I described before). As they get access to more and more free music, that's more and more they feel they have to pay, and more and more artists they have to hunt down. As time goes on, the concept of someone "owning" a piece of music will start to fade, and so will their resolve. Eventually, it will only be a handful of people who donate to their favourite musicians.
I'm not saying I support piracy, but things seem only slightly less viable without the middleman.
We can't just allow the undermining of copyright out of vengeance for the music industry. I may not like the republican party in the US, but that doesn't give me permission to nuke the US. If you don't like the music industry, then stop supporting them. Don't buy their stuff, and don't pirate it. If you pirate it, you just make the debt that society owes to the labels/studios/publishers even larger.
I've always thought people became entertainers for recognition, rather than riches.
That's a pretty general statement. I have no idea how you arrived at that conclusion, but I suggest you check your reasoning. Besides, most artists aren't playing for riches, they're playing for a living. Before recognition, they want to survive. I'm sorry, but hard-coded biological imperatives trump hazy, overgeneralised entertainer imperatives.
for a start, no one is being killed, and they are doing far more then just crying.
What the hell's the point of an analogy if you not allowed to introduce any differences? Of course I realise no-one has been killed. That's also the case in my analogy. There is, however, the life of an entity at stake in both the analogy and reality. The music industry is under serious threat, and there are people out there who actively want to kill them through unfair and illegal means (as distinct from those who want to kill it with fair competition). I also realise that they haven't just complained, but the point is, whatever they're doing, it's annoying and we want it to stop. You've managed to do what so many copyright knee-jerkers have done before you, which is to build a strawman out of the analogy, conveniently side-step the argument, immediately assume that the analogy refers to morality, and claim that the analogy is invalid because it isn't identical down to the most irrelevant details.
I just added you to the list of people i'm smarter then.
I guess now, not only is it extremely short, but wildly inaccurate.
I don't know what it is I find so repulsive about your post. I can't quite put my finger on it.
Perhaps it's presumption that you know the majority of all teachers out there (implied by your support of the phrase, and the emphasis on your personal experiences), which is completely impossible and... well... presumptuous. Perhaps it's the arrogance of claiming your teaching is better than the peers around you, only having your own biased perspective to go on. Perhaps it's the combination with the even more fallacious and insulting "Those that are confident do; those that are not, bitch". Perhaps it's the fact that you substituted the word "try" with "pretend", implying that your fellow teachers not only don't try (which is deeply insulting from the outset), but also deceive others into thinking that they do teach when they really don't (neither of those are true).
Whatever the factors, your post makes you sound like an asshole who feels so insecure about his work that he needs to bitch about his colleagues in order for him to feel good about himself. Hey, it's your reasoning, not mine.
They don't really need to cost us anything. They're a self-autonomous entity, capable of earning the money to sustain itself off people who like what they do, and because there are many people out there who do, they are very valuable. The only reason they're having any significant impact on the rest of society is because of piracy. I would have thought that piracy itself would be the liability here.
An analogy: a man keeps getting assaulted by assassins, and cries foul murder over and over again. Everybody is sick of him screaming. Would the sensible approach be a) dispatch with him, or b) dispatch with the assassins?
Slashdot Mirror
If there was going to be an anti-encryption law, it would've been passed by now. When everyone is wound up, and only a few people use encryption, so only a few people would be inconvenienced (i.e. now), that's when it should have been proposed.
We aren't finished ripping off the first Vista!
F*****g corrupt governments. Taking a company's money, and as soon as the people make one little complaint, they stab 'em in the back!
For everyone who, when confronted with the video game violence argument, said "show me a decent study that shows that to be true", this is it.
*ducks*
I kid, I kid! I'm sorry!
I was thinking about including that one, but I figured there'd be some /.ers out there who'd read it as anti-elitist (which is a no-no when speaking to the self-proclaimed elite). Judging by the differences in our moderations, I'd say that's what happened.
2. As soon as you enter education into a society, then intelligence becomes a major factor in who becomes successful or not, so cultural and biological evolution should not-too-slowly follow (and then, of course, promotion of higher IQs etc).
3. IQ test results won't necessarily measure true potential, since most of the more intelligent people will be under-stimulated.
4. I doubt any significant IQ testing was done anyway, considering we only have your cheap-as-dirt AC word for it, and that the funds for such testing would be best spent on other things.
Sure, but even the fund managers have to decide whether dropping or digressing from their motto will harm or benefit their profits. For every evil they do, they lose face and ultimately customers. That's exactly why we largely permit corporate greed, because it's supposed to work out in the consumer's favour. Of course, that doesn't always happen, but usually it does. It'll be interesting to see what proves to be the rule or the exception.
Seriously, that's just lame. It was smile-worthy at first, gaming the domain display, but now it's old. Besides, it's always so obvious, and goatse just doesn't shock me anymore.
On the other hand, "do no evil" provided them with the success necessary to make the shareholders rich, and their customers may be coming to them only for that motto. Some shareholders, perhaps, only invest in Google because of that motto. "Do no evil" will always play a part in resolving the wants of the Google shareholders.
I was just about to post something similar about the flood of comments that claim respecting court orders is somehow evil. I have a feeling this'll be a mighty flame war. Speaking of which, where are the flamebait mods when you need them?
Yup, that's what I did. Now could you please explain it? This oh-so-subtle innuendo (or lack thereof) is absolutely killing me!
I never said I liked his methods or his message, I just thought it was a refreshing change of pace to see someone who publicly and proudly holds beliefs that isn't just what he thinks others want him to believe.
Yeah, you're paranoid. No-one's out to get you. Even if you decide to entrust your information to Google, there's by far no guarantee the government will read it or store it, and even if they do, use it in a way that detriments you. They really don't gave a motive.
Of course, I don't actually believe that, but then again, I don't truly believe yours either.
... it'd be a shame to see a public figure with genuine ethical convictions leave the public spotlight.
Yes, I agree with you, there will always be artists who will play for the hell of it. There probably won't be too many people who record, distribute, or play concerts for the hell of it.I never said they did, but I think they do if you rack up a large dedicated following. Even just playing in pubs is an effort. It's hard work to get the recognition, and you have to have the spare time, but I grant you that it happens and that it's perfectly feasible (at least, if your music can be played live). It's just kind of unfortunate that even if the band has a world-wide following, they can only make a tiny fee from small gigs. It's certainly enough to deter most people.I have no idea how you managed to read that into my post, but I can assure you I didn't mean to say that. Those two points you connected are unrelated. The first refers to the fact that we tend to take art (among other things) for granted under a copyright system. The second was in response to your statement that entertainers want to be recognised, and that entertainers, being of the category "life form", want to survive first and foremost.
Look, it's not just the problems with piracy, it's also the lack of inherent problems with copyright. If artists want to release into the public domain under copyright, they can. If artists want to make a decent buck, or control the distribution of their work (e.g. the GPL) without copyright, they can't. All you're doing is cutting down the options available to artists, thus cutting down the number of artworks produced distributed, and thus cutting down the options available to the consumer. Everything you could possibly want from a free-copying culture is already there or at least possible, just with added copyright options as well. The only thing spoiling this is this feud between the publishers and the pirates.
I don't know what it is I find so repulsive about your post. I can't quite put my finger on it.
Perhaps it's presumption that you know the majority of all teachers out there (implied by your support of the phrase, and the emphasis on your personal experiences), which is completely impossible and... well... presumptuous. Perhaps it's the arrogance of claiming your teaching is better than the peers around you, only having your own biased perspective to go on. Perhaps it's the combination with the even more fallacious and insulting "Those that are confident do; those that are not, bitch". Perhaps it's the fact that you substituted the word "try" with "pretend", implying that your fellow teachers not only don't try (which is deeply insulting from the outset), but also deceive others into thinking that they do teach when they really don't (neither of those are true).
Whatever the factors, your post makes you sound like an asshole who feels so insecure about his work that he needs to bitch about his colleagues in order for him to feel good about himself. Hey, it's your reasoning, not mine.
Why?
They don't really need to cost us anything. They're a self-autonomous entity, capable of earning the money to sustain itself off people who like what they do, and because there are many people out there who do, they are very valuable. The only reason they're having any significant impact on the rest of society is because of piracy. I would have thought that piracy itself would be the liability here.
An analogy: a man keeps getting assaulted by assassins, and cries foul murder over and over again. Everybody is sick of him screaming. Would the sensible approach be a) dispatch with him, or b) dispatch with the assassins?