GasBandit
Staff member
Internet, we hardly knew ye.
- Thread starter GasBandit
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Spread the word. Make it a problem.
Necronic
Staff member
I for one would just like to thank all the asshats out there who spent the last decade pirating stuff.
I'm not just blaming them, but it's hard to blame the politicians for acting in a knee jerk and self-destructive way. That's like blaming a bear for being dangerous. I prefer to blame the people who continued to poke the bear until it broke out of the cage and killed the family of four that were picknicking nearby.
But I will be contacting my congressment about this.
I'm not just blaming them, but it's hard to blame the politicians for acting in a knee jerk and self-destructive way. That's like blaming a bear for being dangerous. I prefer to blame the people who continued to poke the bear until it broke out of the cage and killed the family of four that were picknicking nearby.
But I will be contacting my congressment about this.
GasBandit
Staff member
No matter how much crime there is, there is never enough to justify going Demolition Man. Frankly, what you just said is basically tantamount to "I just want to thank all the people who went 8mph over the speed limit as a habit" if congress were to demolish random sections of all the interstates in the name of improving driving statistics.
Dave
Staff member
The biggest problem is that the politicians don't have the knowledge necessary to make the call on this sort of thing and are getting their information from industry "experts" who are terribly skewed in favor of the mega-corporations - who are very, very smart and make this more about "stopping crime" than what it's really about, which is making more and more money while exerting their total control over what we consume for media.
Politicians are incredibly short-sighted when it comes to technology and this frequently leads to the law of unintended consequences.
Politicians are incredibly short-sighted when it comes to technology and this frequently leads to the law of unintended consequences.
Maybe more like the police arming the Automatic Radar Display Trailers with .50 caliber machine guns.
C
Chibibar
totally agree. But even with corporation lobbying, in the long run, it may end up hurting them too and probably fragment ISP as we know it (or go under one monopoly)
It is funny. This system is basically would kill the market that the internet have today.
If they ever fine people every time they swear, I will be living on the streets, or jail for inability to pay fines.
I am glad we that we got a political party in government whos biggest goal is to keep our internet free.
I hope your politicians will soon see the light.
What is the average age for your politicians? From what I see in TV most of them seem to be Dave-ageish.
I hope your politicians will soon see the light.
What is the average age for your politicians? From what I see in TV most of them seem to be Dave-ageish.
Necronic
Staff member
I think there are two sides of the coin here. Definitely it is true that politicians are being led by the nose, quite idiotically, by corporate lobbyists, and the fact that google/yahoo/etc are being cut out is attrocious. The legislation that is coming is poorly thought out and truly dangerous.
But on the other hand, too many people have been making it too clear for too long that the current state of affairs is untennable. When a population refuses to do the right thing on its own it is effectively inviting governance. It is no different than corporate regulations. If you can show that you will do the right thing without us making you, then we'll let you do as you please. We, and by we I guess I mean the internet generation, have thoroughly failed that test.
We may not have wanted intervention, but you can't say that we weren't asking for it.
Dave
Staff member
Average age of House of Representatives: 55.9 years old
Average age of Senate: 61.7 years old
Dave's Age: 46 years old
GasBandit
Staff member
We might be veering too far into philosophy here, but if an entire population refuses to do the "lawful" thing, does that mean that the law is in the wrong?
Necronic
Staff member
It's a facile question because there is no such thing as a consensus in a population this large. There will be dissenters. So does the argument become solved by argumentum ad populum?
No. Delving even further into the philosophy, I don't believe in moral relativism, at least, not in the sense that morals can change without a massive change in environment (like, if we were living in the 40k universe you really couldn't operate under our system of morals. Because, you know, death to the heretic and all that.)
But really it doesn't have to be a deep philisophical debate, or, at least it can be one with very solid grounds: The Federalist Papers. One of the key arguments of the Federalist Papers (specifically Fed 51), is that man is incapable of governing themselves, and that gives the government moral justification for removing some freedoms to protect others. In many places we all agree with this, like murder. In others, though, we don't, like in the "take a penny/leave a penny" trays.
It is SUCH a fundamental question though. Look at the OWS protests. Them getting raided/shut down boils down to this same issue. As long as these guys weren't creating a hazardous environment for themeslves and others the local government let it pass. But when they showed themselves incapable of policing themselves they shut it down very quickly.
When we are capable of governing ourselves we are more able to justify the preservation of our freedoms and the absence of governance. Otherwise we get intervention.
So, I guess my point is that you can't complain about the intervention itself. That was guaranteed thanks to a generation of asshats who think that they have a right to anything they can get their hands on. But, that said, I guess it is perfectly acceptable to complain and criticize the nature of the intervention.
And, like I said, I completely agree that the nature of the intervention is extreme. I'm just pissed at the people that necessitated an intervention in the first place. That is truly the foundation of the current problem. Without the intervention we would not be concerned about it's nature.
Edit: Actually....after thinking about it.....if the intervention were not so extreme I probably wouldn't care. So, maybe the nature of the intervention is the key issue for me.
No. Delving even further into the philosophy, I don't believe in moral relativism, at least, not in the sense that morals can change without a massive change in environment (like, if we were living in the 40k universe you really couldn't operate under our system of morals. Because, you know, death to the heretic and all that.)
But really it doesn't have to be a deep philisophical debate, or, at least it can be one with very solid grounds: The Federalist Papers. One of the key arguments of the Federalist Papers (specifically Fed 51), is that man is incapable of governing themselves, and that gives the government moral justification for removing some freedoms to protect others. In many places we all agree with this, like murder. In others, though, we don't, like in the "take a penny/leave a penny" trays.
It is SUCH a fundamental question though. Look at the OWS protests. Them getting raided/shut down boils down to this same issue. As long as these guys weren't creating a hazardous environment for themeslves and others the local government let it pass. But when they showed themselves incapable of policing themselves they shut it down very quickly.
When we are capable of governing ourselves we are more able to justify the preservation of our freedoms and the absence of governance. Otherwise we get intervention.
So, I guess my point is that you can't complain about the intervention itself. That was guaranteed thanks to a generation of asshats who think that they have a right to anything they can get their hands on. But, that said, I guess it is perfectly acceptable to complain and criticize the nature of the intervention.
And, like I said, I completely agree that the nature of the intervention is extreme. I'm just pissed at the people that necessitated an intervention in the first place. That is truly the foundation of the current problem. Without the intervention we would not be concerned about it's nature.
Edit: Actually....after thinking about it.....if the intervention were not so extreme I probably wouldn't care. So, maybe the nature of the intervention is the key issue for me.
I jest,I jest.
Average age of House of Representatives: 55.9 years old
Average age of Senate: 61.7 years old
Dave's Age: 46 years old
But seriously,a bunch of old coots who know nothing bout the internet other then that it is a bunch of tubes deciding on the fate of the internet?
Yeah...that is gonna end well.
GasBandit
Staff member
I can respect your bringing in the Federalist Papers here, and since we're going old school, I'd also like to bring in a founding principle - the name of the 12th century judge who first said it escapes me, but the principle of "better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent is convicted unjustly" was part of the very identity of the nation as conceived by the founders - they themselves having suffered tyranny from a distant monarch, wanted the burden of proof to be heavily on the state and for all to err heavily on the side of presumed innocence. SOPA is the very model of presumption of guilt - and it goes one further, allowing "justice" to be meted out entirely on the insistence of a private entity rather than by verdict of a trial. Often, the wrongly accused won't even get the chance to defend themselves since depriving them of their lifeblood will make it impossible for them to afford their own defense - and even if they do successfully defend themselves, the damage would all to often already be done. This would bring a heavy toll upon the "openness" of the internet that made it great, and make it a very discouraging place to try to be an entrepreneur when an established, entrenched, monopolistic competitor has the tools to adjudicate you instantly out of business.
And it won't even stop piracy. You can fudge DNSes all you want, but pirate hosts files will easily circumvent that. Just for starters. Darknets will be unaffected. At its very most effective, it would still do nothing to the bastion of 90's piracy: IRC DCC transfer bots.
Furthermore, as with most things, the marketplace is already starting to adjust - musical piracy is much on the decline. Some would have you believe it's because of crackdowns on P2P software like limewire, but there's still tons of music available via bittorrent. The real reason that music isn't pirated as much as it used to be is because the marketplace for music has changed to become more easy and reasonable. iTunes, Amazon and other services make it easy and fast to get the particular song you want inexpensively, legitimately, and in many cases DRM-free. And beyond that, any time you want to hear a song but don't want to buy it, you can easily stream it from VEVO's youtube account (which is a joint venture of the big name labels themselves). In short, the marketplace has made piracy unneccessary, and made legitimacy convenient and inexpensive. THAT is how you kill piracy - not by tightening your grip and refusing to stop clinging to an outdated business model.
And it won't even stop piracy. You can fudge DNSes all you want, but pirate hosts files will easily circumvent that. Just for starters. Darknets will be unaffected. At its very most effective, it would still do nothing to the bastion of 90's piracy: IRC DCC transfer bots.
Furthermore, as with most things, the marketplace is already starting to adjust - musical piracy is much on the decline. Some would have you believe it's because of crackdowns on P2P software like limewire, but there's still tons of music available via bittorrent. The real reason that music isn't pirated as much as it used to be is because the marketplace for music has changed to become more easy and reasonable. iTunes, Amazon and other services make it easy and fast to get the particular song you want inexpensively, legitimately, and in many cases DRM-free. And beyond that, any time you want to hear a song but don't want to buy it, you can easily stream it from VEVO's youtube account (which is a joint venture of the big name labels themselves). In short, the marketplace has made piracy unneccessary, and made legitimacy convenient and inexpensive. THAT is how you kill piracy - not by tightening your grip and refusing to stop clinging to an outdated business model.
C
Chibibar
but such an intervention to fight against the Few warrant such an action? Yes there are pirates, but there are also legit people out there who ARE buying (hence making millions of dollars) there will always be people who will take advantage of the system.
Maybe the social nature should change to back in the days of old. You steal, we chop off your hand, steal again, you die. So if you pirate, we chop of a hand, pirate again? then you die. I'm sure pirating and crime will go down REAL quick.
If you are guilty of murder and after 3 appeal still guilty? then off you go, no more death row.
It is a bit extreme? yea, but I thought we, the people, have grown from the dark ages and can exist in the new.
Maybe the social nature should change to back in the days of old. You steal, we chop off your hand, steal again, you die. So if you pirate, we chop of a hand, pirate again? then you die. I'm sure pirating and crime will go down REAL quick.
If you are guilty of murder and after 3 appeal still guilty? then off you go, no more death row.
It is a bit extreme? yea, but I thought we, the people, have grown from the dark ages and can exist in the new.
Hey now, no fair coming up with an example which hits close to home!
C
Chibibar
I agree with you Gas. By making product available and affordable, people WILL pay for it. Now of course there will be people who will never pay for it. These people you can't really set laws that punish the masses and won't effect these people at all.
GasBandit
Staff member
That was my first thought reading about it, too... heh. Might as well call this the "Death to all internet forums" bill.
Necronic
Staff member
I don't think that piracy and gay marriage are in the same moral basket. Because one is innocuous and the other is unethical.
However, your previous point was well made. It still doesn't remove part of the blame from the pirates themselves, but it does a good job of illustrating the innefectual nature of the policy as well as the supremely unethical nature of it.
Keeping with "ye olden politik" it's kind of like an internet Alien and Sedition Act.
Average age of House of Representatives: 55.9 years old
Average age of Senate: 61.7 years old
Dave's Age: 460 years old
Totally agree. They're way off comparing you to them.
GasBandit
Staff member
But such concerns don't necessarily govern legality. And I guarantee you I can go outside this office and find a large number of people who don't find the legalization gay marriage, or gays in the military, innocuous or moral, simple creatures though they be. That's why it was illegal to begin with. The laws are now beginning to change after decades of loud public dissent.
But just to keep the argument rolling, let's look at the federal crackdown on pot in california - the federal government is putting dispensaries in California out of business that are legal under California law.
Living in Texas, you and I can surely both rattle off a vast number of examples of how our government (in our case, even our state and local governments) can perpetrate all kinds of reprehensible acts all in the name of enforcing the letter of the law... or perhaps even going a bit further. Like the time Texas DPS officers went into a hotel bar and started arresting people because they MIGHT drive home drunk. Even the ones who had rooms at the hotel for the night.
GasBandit
Staff member
Oh no it didn't. Operation Last Call ended in 06... the TABC went on to beat the shit out of some homos at the Rainbow Lounge in 09.
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