It's really not a cheap shot there bub... On the very day of 9/11, reporters were already asking what rights would we be willing to give up in order to feel safe? My answer? None. Not a single one. If the agencies that we had in place at the time had done their jobs, the trade center buildings would never have been hit.
Home land security.... you know, Germany had one of those once.. it was called the SS. Back during the cold war before the Berlin wall fell, the East German secret police were regarded as the most notorious in the world, even above the KGB, for gathering data on it's citizens. Seems like we have an agency that is following suit.
What was once illegal wire tapping is now, according to the president, legal and justifiable. Why? Because he said so. Our elected ruling body cannot even get details on the extent that survailence has been taking place. And he took an oath to uphold the constitution?
So now I ask you, what kind of country are we living in? People here have been saying "1984", and I personally believe that is the way that we are heading. Back during the second world war, a lot of good people died so that we could live in a free country. Free from opression, free to choose our own leaders, free to live our lives under the constitution. This is being taken away from us daily. We live in a country where big business dictates how we live. It dictates government policy. It obviously dictates the flow of information to the American people.
Our country is going down a socialistic crap hole, and until the American people stand up and say "ENOUGH!!" it will continue it's downward spiral.
Do you actually read the posts or do you just skim over and take EVERYTHING out of context? Also, how much do you know about the history of China? From some of your statements, not a whole lot.
"China is not a free society, your statement not mine - and once freedom has been taken it's not a simple matter to restore it."
China was never a free society to begin with. Throughout their history they have been under the rule of an emperor or some other sort of dictatorial ruling body. Therefore, they haven't had anything taken away that needs to be restored.
"I'm not being arrogant, a person can typically choose not to assimilate information, but a person has no right to refuse others that opportunity."
You speak of rights as if you yourself have any rights what so ever in THEIR society. You do not. You are not a citizen of China. The Chinese make their laws, regardless of the fact if we like them (the laws) or not. They don't make them to please US (the western world), they make them to run their own society in what ever manner they see fit. Since you speak of rights... that is THEIR right.
"For the most part I like my government, but I don't destroy my future or my family when I choose to tell foreigners that it has problems, the people you talked to in China do not have that luxury that you and I take for granted."
The people that I spoke with were VERY aware that I would see differences between their country and mine. Some of them had actually lived here in the USA for over a month prior to my trip to their country. I not only asked those questions while overseas, but I asked those questions while they were here and VERY free to speak their mind. They had access to our news, radio, television, etc... Nothing was kept from them.
"Your opinion that we do not have a right to change things is a poor one because we do have a right to change or try and change them, and a right to resist change."
Read my post.... I said that we do not have the right to try to CIRCUMVENT THE LAWS OF ANOTHER COUNTRY. Notice that I said "ANOTHER COUNTRY", not ours. If you don't like the way things are run here, fine... lobby for a change. You have EVERY right to do that. What you do NOT have is the right to help a national of another country break the laws of THEIR country.
"I have the right to help a homeless person, but not in your view, in your view the homeless person is happy and I'm an arrogant bastard for offering help."
That statement was simply moronic. Get some glasses and read what I actually wrote over and over and over again.
Why is it that this concept is so hard for you to understand? If this is how the majority of our people feel, that we have the right to dictate policy and impose our beliefs on the entire world, we are in for one hell of a shock. Believe it or not, there are countries out there that could give a crap what we think and what's more, really don't need us. Does China really need us? No. Again I will say this just to be perfectly clear... Does China really need us? NO. They have their own industry, they grow their own food, and have their own natural resources. THEY DON'T NEED US. So what makes you think that they will respond well to us trying to circumvent their laws with their people?
If you are so hot on freedom of information for everyone, why didn't you mention having the ban on porn lifted in the middle east? Interesting twist that is isn't it?
Like I said... I have lived over there. I spent a LOT of time with their people. They struggle in their every day lives just like we do. They punch a clock at work just like we do. They laugh at pretty much the same things, raise kids, grow old. For the most part, they are happy with their lives. Are you going to have those that are not satisfied? Sure. Remember, to a lot of the world, America is the land of milk and honey where money grows on trees and the streets are paved with gold. How true is that in reality?
Yes but the Chinese have been taught from birth that the government will take care of them. Do I think that my government will take care of me when I get old? Hell no. If I thought that way I would also expect to see pigs fly... lol. But they believe it whole heartedly.
Something that surprised me when I was there was that the people that I worked with were part of a union. I asked them what the union did for them, benefits, higher pay, etc... they said "it really doesn't do anything. You just get a card saying you belong." That's how the whole conversation about the government taking care of them came about.
To a degree I can agree with that statement (from the doctor). Injustice... slavery, apartheid, genocide, etc... should be delt with. But in this case, we are looking at making Chinese society a mirror of our own. Or rather looking at them through an "American filter" if you will. They are not us. What works in their society for the most part would not work in ours. Would I like to live in a society where information was limited? No, I would not. But that's my point of view. I don't feel that I have the right to dictate to others how they should conduct their business.
My whole point here is that we have to respect the laws of other countries no matter if we agree with them or not. It is not our place to try to circumvent those laws. Censorship is not abuse, it's not murder, it's not genocide, it's not starvation. If we do business there, abide by their laws or leave. It's as simpel as that.
Let me ask everyone here a question... say a foreign country provided a way for our citizens to access information that was deemed harmful. Mmmmm... lets say that the information was how to create some bio weapon and it was something pretty easy to make. I am obviously using an outlandish scenario here, so bare with me..... Ok, information has just become available that we didn't have before. Everyone can get it using some tool found on the internet. Now, to our society what would be the benefit of this information and what would be the harm?
Now lets take a look at China.... 1.7 billion people (give or take). In a society like that you MUST have order. Fertile land is at a premium and has to be managed or people will starve. The legal system has to work, and work well, or you will have rampant crime. Now, lets say that you have an influx of information where you slowly but surely become disgruntled with your government and your way of life. The only recourse that you have to make any sort of change is to start a revolt because they don't have free elections. What would happen then? Chaos? Famine when things break down? You would end up with a lot of dead people either way.
China is coming into the 21st century, there is no doubt about that. They have to do things in moderation and at the right time. You can't force things on them and expect their society to be status quo, it just doesn't work like that. In this case, too much information can be just as harmful to them as no information.
Tell me a country that will allow you to do business there while having a disregard for it's laws. Yahoo, Cisco, Microsoft, etc.... have to obey the laws of the country they are operating in. Foreign companies have to do the same here... get over it. If you don't like the laws of a country you are doing business in, then don't do business there. But don't try to circumvent their laws simply because you don't agree with it.
Those companies didn't just arbitrarily censor information, they were told to do so or they could leave. Period. Now, if they leave, will the censorship just magically go away? No, it won't. They didn't create it, but to do business there, they have to cooperate with the Chinese government and abide by their laws. It's a pretty simple concept here folks, just wrap your brain around the fact that not every country in the world is like us and for better or worse, we have to accept and respect that.
I never said that they didn't care about freedom. I said that the Chinese people that I worked with and talked to were happy with their government. Notice the statement "I talked with".... as in sitting in a restaurant and having dinner, as in working beside for weeks on end. My statements didn't come from reading a blog, but actual face to face conversations with the natives. I also said that our trying to circumvent their laws was improper, which was the entire point of my post. Read a post in it's entirety before you blurt out comments like that. Don't just skim over it picking out the parts that you want.
A foreign mouthpiece fo the government... now that's just funny. I worked in telecom as a unix admin, not for the government. I will have to give you this, that part of your reply did make me laugh.
I wasn't a tourist. I was living and working there. And yes, the many that I asked like their form of government.
Here is an example... I asked about the laws there concerning one child per couple because some of the people that I was working with had brothers and sisters. The agree with the reasoning behind the law. I asked them how they felt about only having one child instead of many to take care of them when they get old and was told "oh it's ok.. the government will take care of us". You see, they trust their government to do what they think is the right thing for them. That is their mindset and I really can't fault them for that. If they are happy, leave them alone.
Lets take as another example the exploration of the Americas back in the 15 and 1600's. The Spanish set up colonies and because the natives weren't like them, they decided to 'convert' them. A lot of times at the point of a pike. The natives were happy the way that they were before the Spanish arrived. They worked, married, gathered food and hunted just fine. They practiced their own culture without outside intervention. They may not have known anything about the european culture, but that doesn't mean that they "NEEDED" to change because the outsiders said so. It didn't make them better people, and in most cases caused problems.
All in all we have taken it upon ourselves to try and change what is not familiar and comfortable. We do so in ignorance and arrogance because we feel that everyone should be like us. It doesn't seem to matter to us that we don't have the right to do so. I am not talking about trying to help people who are being put into physical danger, female circumcision being a good example, but specifically our seeming need to change the benign laws of another country. The censorship in China isn't really "hurting" the people there. They work, marry, have children, and enjoy life much as we do here. So taking that into account, why do we have a problem?
As I said in my original post... we look at the world in a particular way and think we have the right to change things. My point is that we do not.
To say that their laws are wrong is a VERY arrogant statement. It might not be right for you, but that doesn't give you or any outsider the right to change it.
"All people have a right to knowledge, it's a basis of a free society"...interesting statement....China is not a free society. They have a government that they themselves put in place, and for the most part they like their government. I asked when I was living there.
I think that most people who rant about China filtering the content of their internet users are forgetting one thing.... China is not our country. They have the right to run their society any way they see fit. We tend to look at the world in a particular way, and if it doesn't match our ideal of the way things are supposed to be, we think we have the God given right to change it. Do we really have that right? How would we feel if an outside interest group decided that we needed to be changed and that our laws should be circumvented?
When Yahoo stated that they would obey Chinese law and filter content, that's the price they had to pay to do business in that country, just like any foreign company would have to follow our laws when doing business here. I don't blame them for that, they want to make a profit like everyone else.
The bottom line is this... China has it's laws and their citizens have to obey those laws, just as we must obey the laws in our own country. Giving the average Chinese citizen the ability to circumvent those laws is not doing them a service since the Chinese government turns dissidents into organ doners.
MMM.. ok. Boycot the card makers, I doubt that they will feel any hit if you do. Linux is still a fringe OS when compared to the number of Windows machines in the home and business world. Hopefully it will become fully mainstream in the future. I myself have been using it since the.8 kernel and prefer it for certain things.
Most hardware makers don't "HAVE" to write drivers for Linux. Linux isn't their intended audience. Windows is their intended audience. Your average teen who cons his folks into spending $300 and up on a new whiz bang video card so he can frag his neighbors is going to be running his game on what? Not Linux..... Windows. Thus it makes more sense for the hardware developers to get the windows drivers working correctly first and foremost.
Some of the posters on here really remind me of the Amiga users back in the early 90's.....
The bottom line is this.... if you can live with certain issues, run the driver from nVidia. If not, use the open source drivers. Pretty simple solution. In the end you are responsible for the security of your machine, not nVidia. And yes yes yes, I agree that testing of code should be done before it is released. But read what I wrote about who their target audience is... it isn't Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
It's really not a cheap shot there bub... On the very day of 9/11, reporters were already asking what rights would we be willing to give up in order to feel safe? My answer? None. Not a single one. If the agencies that we had in place at the time had done their jobs, the trade center buildings would never have been hit.
Home land security.... you know, Germany had one of those once.. it was called the SS. Back during the cold war before the Berlin wall fell, the East German secret police were regarded as the most notorious in the world, even above the KGB, for gathering data on it's citizens. Seems like we have an agency that is following suit.
What was once illegal wire tapping is now, according to the president, legal and justifiable. Why? Because he said so. Our elected ruling body cannot even get details on the extent that survailence has been taking place. And he took an oath to uphold the constitution?
So now I ask you, what kind of country are we living in? People here have been saying "1984", and I personally believe that is the way that we are heading. Back during the second world war, a lot of good people died so that we could live in a free country. Free from opression, free to choose our own leaders, free to live our lives under the constitution. This is being taken away from us daily. We live in a country where big business dictates how we live. It dictates government policy. It obviously dictates the flow of information to the American people.
Our country is going down a socialistic crap hole, and until the American people stand up and say "ENOUGH!!" it will continue it's downward spiral.
Do you actually read the posts or do you just skim over and take EVERYTHING out of context? Also, how much do you know about the history of China? From some of your statements, not a whole lot.
"China is not a free society, your statement not mine - and once freedom has been taken it's not a simple matter to restore it."
China was never a free society to begin with. Throughout their history they have been under the rule of an emperor or some other sort of dictatorial ruling body. Therefore, they haven't had anything taken away that needs to be restored.
"I'm not being arrogant, a person can typically choose not to assimilate information, but a person has no right to refuse others that opportunity."
You speak of rights as if you yourself have any rights what so ever in THEIR society. You do not. You are not a citizen of China. The Chinese make their laws, regardless of the fact if we like them (the laws) or not. They don't make them to please US (the western world), they make them to run their own society in what ever manner they see fit. Since you speak of rights... that is THEIR right.
"For the most part I like my government, but I don't destroy my future or my family when I choose to tell foreigners that it has problems, the people you talked to in China do not have that luxury that you and I take for granted."
The people that I spoke with were VERY aware that I would see differences between their country and mine. Some of them had actually lived here in the USA for over a month prior to my trip to their country. I not only asked those questions while overseas, but I asked those questions while they were here and VERY free to speak their mind. They had access to our news, radio, television, etc... Nothing was kept from them.
"Your opinion that we do not have a right to change things is a poor one because we do have a right to change or try and change them, and a right to resist change."
Read my post.... I said that we do not have the right to try to CIRCUMVENT THE LAWS OF ANOTHER COUNTRY. Notice that I said "ANOTHER COUNTRY", not ours. If you don't like the way things are run here, fine... lobby for a change. You have EVERY right to do that. What you do NOT have is the right to help a national of another country break the laws of THEIR country.
"I have the right to help a homeless person, but not in your view, in your view the homeless person is happy and I'm an arrogant bastard for offering help."
That statement was simply moronic. Get some glasses and read what I actually wrote over and over and over again.
Why is it that this concept is so hard for you to understand? If this is how the majority of our people feel, that we have the right to dictate policy and impose our beliefs on the entire world, we are in for one hell of a shock. Believe it or not, there are countries out there that could give a crap what we think and what's more, really don't need us. Does China really need us? No. Again I will say this just to be perfectly clear... Does China really need us? NO. They have their own industry, they grow their own food, and have their own natural resources. THEY DON'T NEED US. So what makes you think that they will respond well to us trying to circumvent their laws with their people?
If you are so hot on freedom of information for everyone, why didn't you mention having the ban on porn lifted in the middle east? Interesting twist that is isn't it?
Like I said... I have lived over there. I spent a LOT of time with their people. They struggle in their every day lives just like we do. They punch a clock at work just like we do. They laugh at pretty much the same things, raise kids, grow old. For the most part, they are happy with their lives. Are you going to have those that are not satisfied? Sure. Remember, to a lot of the world, America is the land of milk and honey where money grows on trees and the streets are paved with gold. How true is that in reality?
Sorry about using bold.. I was trying to add breaks between paragraphs.
Sorry about using bold... I didn't mean to. I was trying to add breaks in the paragraph.
Yes but the Chinese have been taught from birth that the government will take care of them. Do I think that my government will take care of me when I get old? Hell no. If I thought that way I would also expect to see pigs fly... lol. But they believe it whole heartedly. Something that surprised me when I was there was that the people that I worked with were part of a union. I asked them what the union did for them, benefits, higher pay, etc... they said "it really doesn't do anything. You just get a card saying you belong." That's how the whole conversation about the government taking care of them came about.
To a degree I can agree with that statement (from the doctor). Injustice... slavery, apartheid, genocide, etc... should be delt with. But in this case, we are looking at making Chinese society a mirror of our own. Or rather looking at them through an "American filter" if you will. They are not us. What works in their society for the most part would not work in ours. Would I like to live in a society where information was limited? No, I would not. But that's my point of view. I don't feel that I have the right to dictate to others how they should conduct their business. My whole point here is that we have to respect the laws of other countries no matter if we agree with them or not. It is not our place to try to circumvent those laws. Censorship is not abuse, it's not murder, it's not genocide, it's not starvation. If we do business there, abide by their laws or leave. It's as simpel as that. Let me ask everyone here a question... say a foreign country provided a way for our citizens to access information that was deemed harmful. Mmmmm... lets say that the information was how to create some bio weapon and it was something pretty easy to make. I am obviously using an outlandish scenario here, so bare with me..... Ok, information has just become available that we didn't have before. Everyone can get it using some tool found on the internet. Now, to our society what would be the benefit of this information and what would be the harm? Now lets take a look at China.... 1.7 billion people (give or take). In a society like that you MUST have order. Fertile land is at a premium and has to be managed or people will starve. The legal system has to work, and work well, or you will have rampant crime. Now, lets say that you have an influx of information where you slowly but surely become disgruntled with your government and your way of life. The only recourse that you have to make any sort of change is to start a revolt because they don't have free elections. What would happen then? Chaos? Famine when things break down? You would end up with a lot of dead people either way. China is coming into the 21st century, there is no doubt about that. They have to do things in moderation and at the right time. You can't force things on them and expect their society to be status quo, it just doesn't work like that. In this case, too much information can be just as harmful to them as no information.
Tell me a country that will allow you to do business there while having a disregard for it's laws. Yahoo, Cisco, Microsoft, etc.... have to obey the laws of the country they are operating in. Foreign companies have to do the same here... get over it. If you don't like the laws of a country you are doing business in, then don't do business there. But don't try to circumvent their laws simply because you don't agree with it. Those companies didn't just arbitrarily censor information, they were told to do so or they could leave. Period. Now, if they leave, will the censorship just magically go away? No, it won't. They didn't create it, but to do business there, they have to cooperate with the Chinese government and abide by their laws. It's a pretty simple concept here folks, just wrap your brain around the fact that not every country in the world is like us and for better or worse, we have to accept and respect that.
I never said that they didn't care about freedom. I said that the Chinese people that I worked with and talked to were happy with their government. Notice the statement "I talked with".... as in sitting in a restaurant and having dinner, as in working beside for weeks on end. My statements didn't come from reading a blog, but actual face to face conversations with the natives. I also said that our trying to circumvent their laws was improper, which was the entire point of my post. Read a post in it's entirety before you blurt out comments like that. Don't just skim over it picking out the parts that you want. A foreign mouthpiece fo the government... now that's just funny. I worked in telecom as a unix admin, not for the government. I will have to give you this, that part of your reply did make me laugh.
I wasn't a tourist. I was living and working there. And yes, the many that I asked like their form of government. Here is an example... I asked about the laws there concerning one child per couple because some of the people that I was working with had brothers and sisters. The agree with the reasoning behind the law. I asked them how they felt about only having one child instead of many to take care of them when they get old and was told "oh it's ok.. the government will take care of us". You see, they trust their government to do what they think is the right thing for them. That is their mindset and I really can't fault them for that. If they are happy, leave them alone. Lets take as another example the exploration of the Americas back in the 15 and 1600's. The Spanish set up colonies and because the natives weren't like them, they decided to 'convert' them. A lot of times at the point of a pike. The natives were happy the way that they were before the Spanish arrived. They worked, married, gathered food and hunted just fine. They practiced their own culture without outside intervention. They may not have known anything about the european culture, but that doesn't mean that they "NEEDED" to change because the outsiders said so. It didn't make them better people, and in most cases caused problems. All in all we have taken it upon ourselves to try and change what is not familiar and comfortable. We do so in ignorance and arrogance because we feel that everyone should be like us. It doesn't seem to matter to us that we don't have the right to do so. I am not talking about trying to help people who are being put into physical danger, female circumcision being a good example, but specifically our seeming need to change the benign laws of another country. The censorship in China isn't really "hurting" the people there. They work, marry, have children, and enjoy life much as we do here. So taking that into account, why do we have a problem?
As I said in my original post... we look at the world in a particular way and think we have the right to change things. My point is that we do not. To say that their laws are wrong is a VERY arrogant statement. It might not be right for you, but that doesn't give you or any outsider the right to change it. "All people have a right to knowledge, it's a basis of a free society"...interesting statement....China is not a free society. They have a government that they themselves put in place, and for the most part they like their government. I asked when I was living there.
I think that most people who rant about China filtering the content of their internet users are forgetting one thing.... China is not our country. They have the right to run their society any way they see fit. We tend to look at the world in a particular way, and if it doesn't match our ideal of the way things are supposed to be, we think we have the God given right to change it. Do we really have that right? How would we feel if an outside interest group decided that we needed to be changed and that our laws should be circumvented? When Yahoo stated that they would obey Chinese law and filter content, that's the price they had to pay to do business in that country, just like any foreign company would have to follow our laws when doing business here. I don't blame them for that, they want to make a profit like everyone else. The bottom line is this... China has it's laws and their citizens have to obey those laws, just as we must obey the laws in our own country. Giving the average Chinese citizen the ability to circumvent those laws is not doing them a service since the Chinese government turns dissidents into organ doners.
MMM.. ok. Boycot the card makers, I doubt that they will feel any hit if you do. Linux is still a fringe OS when compared to the number of Windows machines in the home and business world. Hopefully it will become fully mainstream in the future. I myself have been using it since the .8 kernel and prefer it for certain things.
Most hardware makers don't "HAVE" to write drivers for Linux. Linux isn't their intended audience. Windows is their intended audience. Your average teen who cons his folks into spending $300 and up on a new whiz bang video card so he can frag his neighbors is going to be running his game on what? Not Linux..... Windows. Thus it makes more sense for the hardware developers to get the windows drivers working correctly first and foremost.
Some of the posters on here really remind me of the Amiga users back in the early 90's.....
The bottom line is this.... if you can live with certain issues, run the driver from nVidia. If not, use the open source drivers. Pretty simple solution. In the end you are responsible for the security of your machine, not nVidia. And yes yes yes, I agree that testing of code should be done before it is released. But read what I wrote about who their target audience is... it isn't Linux.