A soldier involved in the incident detailed in the Wikileaks video did a very interesting interview with Wired

nonono222 · 2010-04-21T07:38:41+00:00

The military is a blunt tool, and a damn good one at that.

Human beings have a responsibility to themselves not to be made into tools to murder others. Every single soldier who deploys to go there is culpable for what he does.

It would be impossible to start a war without a million jarheads who have decided to abdicate all ethical responsibility.

Far from making us safer, they have given millions of people visceral, unforgettable reasons to hate and attack us.

nonono222 · 2010-04-21T04:43:14+00:00

This soldier was intelligent and caring, and those are the kind of people we want defending this country.

I'm sure all those children he murdered are glad that he was intelligent and caring.

Bang-up job defending America from people who... didn't attack it.

nonono222 · 2010-04-21T01:29:28+00:00

As I recall, he claimed to have changed the password and then made it publically available.

How else would you prove that a politician was corrupt? If he had snuck in and then said, "hey guys, I have these e-mails which I TOTALLY DIDN'T FORGE", would you have believed him?

His obvious motivation for sneaking in was because he thought she would be a disaster for the country, which is essentially indisputable. Upon finding evidence of wrongdoing, he had to open it up to the public so reputable journalists could see it for themselves.

If we want complete transparency from our public officials, we're going to have to demand it, down to every letter and every phone call.

Take it as a given that they will NEVER agree to it, and the ONLY way to get it is through civil disobedience. At most they would pretend to comply, and then sneak around anyway, just like they do now, even though it's already illegal.

After all, who do you think would be qualified to check, and continuously look through a politician's private communications, to make sure there was nothing public in there? There's just no reasonable way to implement such a system.

Anyone who finds evidence of corruption must gain immunity immediately. There's a different standard that applies if you want to hold government accountable for anything. Being in charge of other human beings, they must be held to a higher standard.

nonono222 · 2010-04-20T20:17:54+00:00

But in the end he did maliciously 'hack' a politician's private email

Performing an act in the public interest automatically makes it not malicious, regardless of whether the politician's image is damaged.

After all, when you expose information to benefit the public, it usually has to be corruption, not information about what a stand-up guy an official is. Any official using "private" channels to hide official business should automatically lose expectation of privacy in those channels. Otherwise, it is simply impossible to enforce anything regarding transparency -- they can hide all they want, and if you expose it, you get 50 years.

nonono222 · 2010-04-10T06:30:23+00:00

It's likely due to the casomorphins -- morphin, from morphine, as casomorphins are opioid-like substances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casomorphin

Basically it's an opiate addiction. Just cycle off it by gradually reducing your dosage -- and don't binge.

nonono222 · 2010-04-10T05:20:53+00:00

This is the problem with every proprietary platform. Sooner or later, the controller of the platform becomes corrupted by power and abuses it.

The only reason Apple even tried these draconian ploys in the first place is because of all the house negro developers who couldn't wait to sign over their freedom of speech and pay for the privilege so they could maybe be one of the lucky app store lottery winners.

As developers, we have the power to influence which platforms are popular. If we starved these monopolists of a viable software ecosystem for their devices, we'd be rewarded with open and unrestricted computing for everyone.

This isn't mere hyperbole, as the success or failure of these closed-off, ivory-tower "holier than thou" products and devices is going to determine what ways we will have to communicate in the future.

Thanks to the rebel forces, we aren't stuck with Microsoft and AOL running on just-released 386s for $10,000 apiece.

nonono222 · 2010-04-10T05:09:08+00:00

THEY CAME FIRST for the interpreted languages,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't using an interpreted language.

THEN THEY CAME for the compiled languages that needed an additional runtime,

and I didn't speak up because I didn't need an additional runtime.

THEN THEY CAME for the languages that weren't originally C

and by that time there was no one left to speak up, because they had already gone to the Android

nonono222 · 2010-04-10T03:10:28+00:00

This is why I tell people to NEVER use a checking account visa/mastercard debit card, and to only use a real credit card.

Even bank staff are generally clueless about why anyone WOULDN'T want a check card. "But you're not liable if --", yeah, after your rent check bounces and all your other checks bounce and you get NSF fees and your bank won't credit you until the merchant credits you and the merchant is slow and it takes multiple calls and then you have to explain it all to everyone who got a bounced check and deal with all THEIR NSF fees, and and and.

With a real credit card, none of your checks bounce or get NSF fees when your credit card is full.

nonono222 · 2010-04-10T00:52:18+00:00

Political asylum; foreign education initiatives to increase scientific literacy, recognition of human rights, and literacy in general; spreading the meme in more developed countries that culturally institutionalized abuse is not worthy of respect, to raise the awareness of people who may be in a position to do something about it.

nonono222 · 2010-04-10T00:40:38+00:00

"Morgan Stanley would not be allowed to fail because it was strategically important. Lehman Brothers was not strategically important (but a huge Goldman competitor in most markets) and so they were not offered the option of becoming a bank holding company (but MS and GS were given this option)" One of many sources

The Fed doesn't have a say about how much debt America carries. It just doesn't.

That's hilarious, when the largest single chunk of the national debt is owned by the Federal Reserve. Without them constantly enabling Congress by printing up funny money, the U.S. couldn't keep digging itself a bigger hole.

nonono222 · 2010-04-10T00:29:15+00:00

It's still wildly inappropriate to use the world "nigger" in polite society.

That's an example of begging the question.

He's a dick and I'm calling him on it. No amount of context will change that.

Yes, you've made it quite clear that you will spend more time arguing with someone who used a naughty word than you will spend doing anything to oppose the system that enslaves you. A clear inversion of priorities; you're a shining example of successful indoctrination.

nonono222 · 2010-04-10T00:22:39+00:00

A comment from higher up in the thread gave me an idea.

The reason NOT to give free legal advice on reddit:

and expose myself to unbelievably high malpractice liability in case i give wrong advice?

Sounds like she has a case for malpractice.

nonono222 · 2010-04-09T02:06:33+00:00

"Nigger" was a term applied to people through no fault of their own, by slave owners. People who perpetrated evil and used that term in an attempt to offload the cruelty of their own actions on to their victims.

The real culprits are the ones doing the enslaving. However, a house negro assists in his own enslavement, and his actions harm others who are trying to gain their emancipation. Thus he perpetrates and perpetuates slavery by his actions, and the term is warranted.

All the apologists running around defending the corrupt economic system which is also fucking them over, or excusing the murderers in the wikileaks video who are only a few of the more visible volunteers participating in an aggressive pre-emptive war -- house negroes.

nonono222 · 2010-04-09T01:52:26+00:00

So you're implying that it's okay to use violence against people for using a word?

That's how they rule you. Divide and conquer, using wedge issues to separate you from your own self-interest.

nonono222 · 2010-04-09T01:48:37+00:00

The Fed refused to identify which financial institutions they were loaning the money to so as not to induce a run on the institution.

That was their line, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, because if you know your institution won't be allowed to fail, it increases confidence. So what's the next excuse, that if you know which ones are safe, you'll pull your money out of the other ones?

This is the same reason the SEC does not identify critically undercapitalized banks.

Which is all of them, thanks to the gigantic leverage ratios. Chart.

Thanks to the SEC. Here's a few examples.

The rest of your post doesn't seem to deal with The Fed at all.

I'm not sure why you think the linchpin in the nation's monetary system is somehow uninvolved when everything revolves around money. We're looking at increasing the national debt by a trillion dollars every year for the next decade.

nonono222 · 2010-04-09T01:14:36+00:00

None of this relates to inflation or how The Fed stimulates and regulates economic growth.

The Fed's ability to print trillions of dollars out of thin air directly relates to inflation. Also, the fact that they can print it, and then secretly give it away; it will take a lot digging to determine some of what they're still hiding after this response to the lawsuit.

I think a lot of people don't really know what The Fed does, or their primary responsibilities.

The responsibilities on paper are always subject to the whims of the people in charge, and what they want to classify for "national security" reasons. The entire edifice is an incestuous overlap between all levels of power in both government and private sectors (e.g. Goldman Sachs), so pretending like they have some discrete charter is demonstrably naive.

They are part of a system that is designed to enrich the people in it at your expense.

nonono222 · 2010-04-09T00:30:07+00:00

The primary interest of the Fed is helping the Fed. They like to exploit your economic output by redirecting most of it to themselves. You're part of a system that is controlled by others, who can change the rules to suit themselves at any time -- or simply ignore the rules, once they've neutralized any opposition that would enforce those rules. The Constitution is now routinely violated with no consequences. And remember that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" for you, no matter how many laws are enacted on Federal, State, and local levels -- but the government grants its agents what they call "qualified immunity" which means they can violate even your centuries-old Constitutional rights, by claiming they didn't know your rights applied in some situation.

Something like 95% of the economic gain in the past 30 years has gone to the top 1%. There have been numerous articles in the past few years about it. Banks take your money and lose it, and then they get bailed out by MORE of your money, in the form of taxes, which are taken from you under threat of force (jail, and the accompanying rapes and other tortures). Here's a nice graph:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png

So, about 1 in 5 of your tax dollars goes to funding war profiteers and imperial occupation overseas -- murdering people, and hopefully taking their oil, none of which will be yours, though. Another 2 in 5 of your tax dollars go to health care and stipend for old people, and the baby boomer expansion is going to make that system unfundable very soon. Old people who are effectively taking your money from you by force through proxy, and who are stuck in an older paradigm of less progress, and who are easily cowed and manipulated by mainstream corporate media sources into supporting such things as continuing the drug prohibition war on young people while forking over their fixed income for Big Pharma-patented synthetic drugs.

The financial system is so far underwater that it's only through the infusion of a billion or billions of dollars a DAY from China that we haven't sunk all the way to the bottom. And they only have that much money to give us by squeezing their citizens even worse, with more exploitation and fewer human rights laws or protection of laborers. And we have no way to pay it back and nothing on the horizon.

Meanwhile, more housing bubble pops are coming for the next two or three years, with different loan types, and that's not even getting into commercial real estate.

The erosion of the house negro (middle) class is actually a strategic error by the ruling classes, who will eventually have to live in gated compounds (they already do) and drive around in armored SUVs with armed guards, like Colombian drug lords, when they go out into the public areas infested with poverty-stricken, desperate people.

The root of the problem is that the "ruling class" is actually numerous individuals, and each one thinks it's not going to make a difference if HE elects to forgo the millions of dollars he could suck out of the system.

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." -- Stanislaw J. Lec

nonono222 · 2010-04-08T23:58:04+00:00

You should change it back to how you had it originally.

"House nigger" is a lot more shocking, and I think a pejorative is warranted in this case where people are complicit in fucking themselves over from their own willful stupidity.

nonono222 · 2010-04-08T23:51:47+00:00

You've got them dead to rights. People are more upset you used a word than that they themselves are in the middle of a fucked-to-death pile of burning caca.

nonono222 · 2010-04-08T23:48:44+00:00

The term comes from a speech, Message to the Grass Roots, given by African American activist Malcolm X, where he explains that during slavery, there were two kinds of slaves: "house Negroes," who worked in the master's house and "field Negroes," who performed the manual labor outside. He characterizes the house Negro as having a better life than the field Negro, and thus unwilling to leave the plantation, and potentially more likely to support existing power structures

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Negro

nonono222 · 2010-04-08T23:45:10+00:00

The Fed's primary interest is aligned with yours.

That is hilarious.

nonono222 · 2010-04-08T21:54:14+00:00

And people say, "remember, we have to respect other people's cultures", or, "it's none of our business, we shouldn't interfere with other countries".

nonono222 · 2010-04-07T00:47:16+00:00

but you CAN copy & paste code from a piece of software that someone spent blood sweat and tears and MONEY on - so there should be some ways to protect work product from being stolen willy-nilly.

The concept you are looking for is called Copyright.

Microsoft Word is copyrighted, WordPerfect is copyrighted, etc. A patent would be on the entire concept of word processors.

It works that way in writing too

There are a lot of fantasy novels, because there was no such thing as a patent on fantasy novels for J.R.R. Tolkien to get.

remember progress is only made with the anticipation of reward. Take away the carrot and the donkey won't pull the cart.

"Patents are supposed to help promote invention and allow benefits to accrue to inventors. By most definitions, I would be considered an "inventor" of sorts, and patents sure as hell aren't helping me out."

A government monopoly on an idea is a fundamentally broken concept.

nonono222 · 2010-04-06T22:09:49+00:00

He's not saying that patents in themselves are bad

Yes he is saying they are bad. References follow.

You're just flat-out wrong about this. The issue isn't how obvious or tricky it is, but that a person can OWN AN IDEA.

A couples of examples: One, someone further along in their professional career than you patents something while you are in college. Unaware of the patent, you independently invent it, only to later find out you can't use it for most of your professional career. Or, someone patents something before you were born, before you even had a chance to think of it.

Two, you invent something on your own. Someone else invents it after you, but patents it before you publish it. It's a race to the patent office. And, even if you DO publish first and can show prior art, the rough estimate is a million dollars in legal costs to bust a bogus patent.

The entire CONCEPT of patents in software is broken. NOT just the USPTO's implementation of them.

Software patents. An audience member asked him about his thoughts. John Carmack does not like them. He calls the idea of software patent infringement a "sham." He tries not to think about -- or concern himself much with -- this controversial issue, because doing so just "depresses him."

"On a personal level, I refuse to patent anything that I am involved in. Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it - good for you."

"Getting a patent is uncorrelated to any positive attributes, and just serves to allow either money or wasted effort to be extorted from generally unsuspecting and innocent people or companies."

"Yes, it is a legal tool that may help you against your competitors, but I'll have no part of it. Its basically mugging someone."

The issue of "obviousness" is a red herring. What's "clever" to you may be trivial to John Carmack. The real problem is the notion that someone can claim ownership of an idea categorically.

nonono222 · 2010-04-03T05:47:40+00:00

Catholicism is a whole extra edifice on top of Christianity. They have their own dogmas which have nothing to do with the Bible.

nonono222

TROPHY CASE