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[Valid_Dark]

yeah, that made me chuckle,

but in all honesty he didn't really "kill" Micheal Jackson, I mean it wasn't like murder or anything.
He just sold him drugs he wasn't supposed to (probably because Micheal Jackson was famous and he didn't want to say no)
and mr. Jacksons misuse of said drugs lead to his demise.

[SalmonGod]

So wait, people are only just hearing about ACTA? That's more terrifying than the treaty itself. It's been major news on a wide swath of the internet since at least 2008 and realistically 2006 when it was first proposed. During the peak times there were at least two stories a day in my RSS feeds about it.

Hell, there have been concentrated actions that have delayed and even temporarily blocked it a few times. Two years ago there was even an Early Day Motion entered in Parliament voicing concerns about the treaty, signed by 81 MPs from pretty much every party.

Holy shit, I just got around to reading these forums today and was horrified that apparently no one here had heard of ACTA until today.  Yeah, it's seriously old news, even though it's still relevant.

The thing is, stuff like SOPA/PIPA/ACTA have been getting introduced and shut down constantly in governments around the world for several years already.  For whatever reason, people just haven't been paying attention until this past year. 

It's a strange world where crackpot consipiracy theorists raving about shadow governments and secret conspiracies to steal away our freedoms seem ever more correct with each passing day.

I've been regarded as one of these people for a long time.  It's really good to see issues like this finally getting broad recognition and concern.

And I do think the world is headed for a massive conflict of some kind.  The U.S. this past year has felt like cultural and ideological tensions are pushed to the limit, and the nation is on the verge of civil war.  Beyond that, I think the whole world is in the process of a struggle between two fundamentally opposed ways of life -- centralized and de-centralized.  Everybody is participating one way or another.  Everybody has a preference.  Most people just aren't aware of how real and heated this conflict currently is.  Global social structure is organically evolving to be less centrally controlled.  Very few people are engaging in this because of any conscious ideological belief.  It just makes sense within our current context, mostly due to changes in technology.  Traditional establishments of centralized control are very consciously aware of these changes, scared shitless about it, and very deliberately organizing to usurp or destroy the process.  There are plenty of easy examples of how this is manifesting.  Random schmuck doesn't download music because he sees himself as participating in some ideological conflict with the existing media industry establishment.  They do it because it's convenient and fairly safe.  It's an action that just makes sense for them within their context.  But the music industry executive is acutely aware of how that random schmuck is contributing to a degradation of the power they've enjoyed for decades, and is going to organize exclusively with other establishments of centralized control to prevent random schmuck from doing that.  The thing is, the examples and implications go faaar beyond music downloading, to pretty much every aspect of how we live our lives.  Ordinary people need to put a lot more thought right now into the kind of future they want to live in, because we're at a powerful inflection point that could throw the future into any direction.

[Frumple]

Which is kind of a "Yaaaay... shit. What now?" thing. I'm not exactly willing to start killing people over this shit at this point, but it seems like that's the ultimate end point. Those in power aren't willing to compromise or adapt and are willing to resort to using the physical enforcement organizations (police, military) already in place to force through their wishes, while the other side is either unable or unwilling to go to those lengths. Those in power don't give a shit who dies (so long as it's not them) or suffers (so long as it's not them), so how the hell can the more moral individual (who refuses to cross those lines) do anything about it? There's currently more than enough industry and physical power centralized to completely destroy any attempts by decentralization advocates to advance their position and we're seeing them do exactly that.

So what hell do, yanno'?

[Solifuge]

Pain and conflict are a necessary part of growth. The idealist in me wants to think that this regression is just a backlash; some part of the death throes of business models and paradigms that are becoming obsolete as we approach something new. Maybe these are just necessary growing pains, as the world sees the fledgling start of a Global Human Society that works in concert, instead of against itself.

I want to be part of that generation; along with other young folks now stepping into the world stage, I want to help lay the groundwork for something bigger than this succession of larger and larger tribes our species has been forming for the last few thousand years. The technology that allows the necessary level of global communication, trade, and cooperation is here. We just need to find the wisdom and will to see it through the present, and make it happen.

[Angel Of Death]

Good fucking god, not another "WAAAAH PIRACY" thing. Why does ACTA have to exist?

[LoSboccacc]

Pain and conflict are a necessary part of growth.

society in general is divided by those that have power, those that want power and those that doesn't care.

the struggle between the first two groups goes on as usual, until the first group, in the tentative to control the second, starts to erode wealth from the third group. people from the third group starts migrating in the second group, until the second group gains enough momentum to overthrow the first group.

rinse, repeat. this has been the driving factor of all revolutions, wether cultural or armed.

ACTA/SOPA/PATRIOT and all other stuff from less famous countries is just one step of this. People is getting poorer on average by the day and the first group is trying to prevent the information flow hoping it would hinder the people from working all in the same direction.

and it works, temporarily.

they probably failed to notice that revolutions happened well before mass media.

but I've to admit that controlling major tv networks has provided pretty effective.

[Luke_Prowler]

There are a few things where something like this could actually be useful. Particularly to provent counterfeiting, which China companies are notorious for selling knock offs because they know the government has their back

[olemars]

The chilling effect from the MegaUpload shutdown just reached Filesonic. They're disabling all filesharing from their services, you can only download files you've uploaded yourself from now on.

[MagmaMcFry]

I know what I'll vote for from now on.

[Montague]

Pain and conflict are a necessary part of growth.

society in general is divided by those that have power, those that want power and those that doesn't care.

the struggle between the first two groups goes on as usual, until the first group, in the tentative to control the second, starts to erode wealth from the third group. people from the third group starts migrating in the second group, until the second group gains enough momentum to overthrow the first group.

rinse, repeat. this has been the driving factor of all revolutions, wether cultural or armed.

ACTA/SOPA/PATRIOT and all other stuff from less famous countries is just one step of this. People is getting poorer on average by the day and the first group is trying to prevent the information flow hoping it would hinder the people from working all in the same direction.

and it works, temporarily.

they probably failed to notice that revolutions happened well before mass media.

but I've to admit that controlling major tv networks has provided pretty effective.

Er, so you're saying they want to stop internet piracy and influence mass media in order to prevent the proles from launching a Marxist revolution or something?

[LoSboccacc]

No. But you're free to assume otherwise.
If you have an opinion behind the snarky comment I'll be glad to hear it.

[MagmaMcFry]

Er, so you're saying they want to stop internet piracy and influence mass media in order to prevent the proles from launching a Marxist revolution or something?

That's the feeling I got too.

[Doomshifter]

I felt it was more 'a revolution' than specifically 'a Marxist revolution'. The world has already suffered through and seen the issues with Communism in general. I doubt (read: hope) that any sensible revolution would simply go towards Communism as the ultimate tool of decentralised power. The problem with Communism is that everyone needs to work together and it's very simple for someone to step up and start 'requesting' that everyone work together for that individual's own ends. Communism is inherently flawed because it forgets that humans are naturally and generally power-hungry.

The whole world is in a state of upheaval. Things are getting heated and there's no way to go but to throw the world on its side for a moment for it to cool.

[SalmonGod]

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.

[GlyphGryph]

But history has shown that when there are no institutions of power to oppose them, the power hungry will manage quite effectively to create their own institutions of oppression.

It's a tough situation.