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[LoSboccacc]

Communism is inherently flawed because it forgets that humans are naturally and generally power-hungry.

I'd rather say that Statism is inherently flawed, because humans are not naturally anything personality-wise.  Therefore there will be those who are power-hungry and those who aren't.  When there are centralized institutions of power available, they will be occupied by those who are power-hungry, who are mostly not the people we want having such power.

I'd say that the human nature is flawed, and we passed the last millennia just repeating the same history again and again. society needs organization, organization needs delegation, delegation grant power, power hungry people search a way to exploit society, society doesn't really care until it's too late, power hungry try to keep power putting restraint on society, and ultimately revolution smashes the old organization scheme creating a new one.

you can find the same scheme almost everywhere, from large empires to small social groups. not all revolution are carried shooting and not always power delegate try to hold on until the very last, but you get the idea.

[MagmaMcFry]

Let's hope that this revolution will not contain physical violence.

[Jerick]

Let's hope that this revolution will not contain physical violence.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that if it is to succeed, if we're to get rid of this lot currently in power we'll need to resort to force and violence in the end.

[kaijyuu]

The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution... will be streamed.



In seriousness I doubt it'll come to armed revolt. Once consumers get their heads out of their asses, they'll push for legislation to nuke the big corporations, much like trust busting of old. That might take a while, and it'll probably take more oppression than we got right now, though.

Alternatively we'll be stuck in an apathetic corporate dystopia where most people don't care about being oppressed so long as they're not totally miserable.

Either way no real violence.

[Jelle]

Any system that requires people not to be selfish and exploit/harm his fellow man is flawed, no matter how perfect it would be if the condition were actually met.
Ideal=/=Reality

[Aklyon]

Isn't that why utopia means nowhere?

[Frumple]

One of those other bits I picked up elsewhere: This, the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011." Here's the "fun" part, from what I can see:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(h) Retention of Certain Records-

 `(1) A commercial provider of an electronic communication service shall retain for a period of at least one year a log of the temporarily assigned network addresses the provider assigns to a subscriber to or customer of such service that enables the identification of the corresponding customer or subscriber information under subsection (c)(2) of this section.

 `(2) Access to a record or information required to be retained under this subsection may not be compelled by any person or other entity that is not a governmental entity.

Illusion of privacy? Shit, you don't even get that anymore. Excellent example of trying to slip something frakking horrible through the cracks? Yup!

An aside, but total honesty: Whoever allowed something -- anything -- to be titled like that needs to be flogged, fired, and then kept at least 100 yards from, and completely incommunicado with, any decision making process for the rest of their lives.

[LoSboccacc]

An aside, but total honesty: Whoever allowed something -- anything -- to be titled like that needs to be flogged, fired, and then kept at least 100 yards from, and completely incommunicado with, any decision making process for the rest of their lives.

"so you are saying that you're in favor of letting poor little children run freely on the internet, where they are easy prey of sexual predators or worse?"

sadly, the "think of the children argument" is quite easy to abuse to squash rational debate into a name yelling contest.

we'll see a lot more of it, as the terrorist argument is waning in strength and the war on drug is not that popular nor enough black and white to be used as hammer against rational arguments.

[YetAnotherStupidDorf]

There are a few things where something like this could actually be useful.

Nope. Nothing that abusable is useful for anything. There is reason why nations with very large police and secret service privileges are totalitarian police states, not utopian happyland without crime.

Particularly to provent counterfeiting

What this have anything to do with illegal copying of copyrighted information, called piracy?

[Montague]

I don't like the government selling out our freedoms for any reason, let alone corporate profits. What really bothers me about this latest attack on the internet is that it was only persued by the government because of lobbying by corporate interests. It's completely undemocratic when it's done for the interests of some tiny wealthy minority at the expense of absolutely everyone else.

I would think this would be the worst possible time in recent history for something like this to be done, with the OWS protests, bad economy and attention devoted toward the wealth disparity in the country, the last thing they would want to do is try to pass a bill bluntly gutting people's freedom for the benefit of this top 1% everyone is raging against. It's almost like they are actually trying to provoke people and make them even more pissed off.

sadly, the "think of the children argument" is quite easy to abuse to squash rational debate into a name yelling contest.

we'll see a lot more of it, as the terrorist argument is waning in strength and the war on drug is not that popular nor enough black and white to be used as hammer against rational arguments.

I'd say the "think of the children" argument is nulled by the "blame the parents" argument. As in "parents are responsible for what their children have access to and what they do, it's not the government's responsibility" which worked for gun control.

[GlyphGryph]

Wait, are you arguing that parents aren't and shouldn't be responsible for their children?

[Frumple]

Other way around, Glyph. Saying that 'protect the children' needs to be something the parents do, not the government. At least with opt-in stuff like the internet, anyway. It is absolutely a parental failure when children get access to illicit/explicit material or are exploited by individuals online.

[GlyphGryph]

Thinking Montague is saying the opposite of what he's saying is not uncommon for me. I think I get it now - he was arguing that the best defense against it is the blame the parents argument. Ok.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Personally, I'm not scared about America's censorship issues. I just think that America is just entering the final stage that most Empires go through. Corruption and Fall. Eventually all this censorship and corruption will begin to destroy our economy even further, because these bills only really just help a small part of the industry. America will likely cease to exist some time within the next 50 years or so. I'm not worried about that, because its pretty much the natural order of things. What I'm worried about is the fact our Imperial successor is China.

[olemars]

One of those other bits I picked up elsewhere: This, the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011." Here's the "fun" part, from what I can see:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(h) Retention of Certain Records-

 `(1) A commercial provider of an electronic communication service shall retain for a period of at least one year a log of the temporarily assigned network addresses the provider assigns to a subscriber to or customer of such service that enables the identification of the corresponding customer or subscriber information under subsection (c)(2) of this section.

 `(2) Access to a record or information required to be retained under this subsection may not be compelled by any person or other entity that is not a governmental entity.

Illusion of privacy? Shit, you don't even get that anymore. Excellent example of trying to slip something frakking horrible through the cracks? Yup!

That's just a tiny part of what was rammed through as the EU Data Retention Directive in 2006
I live in a country that isn't even a EU member, yet this directive has been enacted here as well this year since the "dominant" parties love them some surveillance. I'ma bit of a privacy and data protection activist, and we're still trying to fight this crap. At this point that means going to court.

Scope of the directive

Spoiler: Scope of the directive (click to show/hide)

Article 5

Categories of data to be retained

1. Member States shall ensure that the following categories of data are retained under this Directive:

(a) data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication:

(1) concerning fixed network telephony and mobile telephony:

(i) the calling telephone number;

(ii) the name and address of the subscriber or registered user;

(2) concerning Internet access, Internet e-mail and Internet telephony:

(i) the user ID(s) allocated;

(ii) the user ID and telephone number allocated to any communication entering the public telephone network;

(iii) the name and address of the subscriber or registered user to whom an Internet Protocol (IP) address, user ID or telephone number was allocated at the time of the communication;

(b) data necessary to identify the destination of a communication:

(1) concerning fixed network telephony and mobile telephony:

(i) the number(s) dialled (the telephone number(s) called), and, in cases involving supplementary services such as call forwarding or call transfer, the number or numbers to which the call is routed;

(ii) the name(s) and address(es) of the subscriber(s) or registered user(s);

(2) concerning Internet e-mail and Internet telephony:

(i) the user ID or telephone number of the intended recipient(s) of an Internet telephony call;

(ii) the name(s) and address(es) of the subscriber(s) or registered user(s) and user ID of the intended recipient of the communication;

(c) data necessary to identify the date, time and duration of a communication:

(1) concerning fixed network telephony and mobile telephony, the date and time of the start and end of the communication;

(2) concerning Internet access, Internet e-mail and Internet telephony:

(i) the date and time of the log-in and log-off of the Internet access service, based on a certain time zone, together with the IP address, whether dynamic or static, allocated by the Internet access service provider to a communication, and the user ID of the subscriber or registered user;

(ii) the date and time of the log-in and log-off of the Internet e-mail service or Internet telephony service, based on a certain time zone;

(d) data necessary to identify the type of communication:

(1) concerning fixed network telephony and mobile telephony: the telephone service used;

(2) concerning Internet e-mail and Internet telephony: the Internet service used;

(e) data necessary to identify users' communication equipment or what purports to be their equipment:

(1) concerning fixed network telephony, the calling and called telephone numbers;

(2) concerning mobile telephony:

(i) the calling and called telephone numbers;

(ii) the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) of the calling party;

(iii) the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) of the calling party;

(iv) the IMSI of the called party;

(v) the IMEI of the called party;

(vi) in the case of pre-paid anonymous services, the date and time of the initial activation of the service and the location label (Cell ID) from which the service was activated;

(3) concerning Internet access, Internet e-mail and Internet telephony:

(i) the calling telephone number for dial-up access;

(ii) the digital subscriber line (DSL) or other end point of the originator of the communication;

(f) data necessary to identify the location of mobile communication equipment:

(1) the location label (Cell ID) at the start of the communication;

(2) data identifying the geographic location of cells by reference to their location labels (Cell ID) during the period for which communications data are retained.

All this stored between 6 months to 2 years depending on how draconian the country is.