But let's be honest, if the NSA is interested enough in you to install extras on your hardware, they probably already know your favorite porn, your underwear size, and what you had for breakfast.

Because there's nothing more competent than a government bureau safe from inspections. Which, apparently, is intercepting your shipments just because, seeing how it already knows everything. It wishes you to see it as omnipotent so you won't even try. In reality, it couldn't even hold the loyalty of one of its own.

All the Powers That Be are funny like that: godlike when unopposed, but once their subjects begin fighting them, their fall is just a matter of time.

... so far, and there's not one Bitcoin defender.

What would Bitcoin need to be defended against, exactly speaking? Someone looted the coffers and disappeared. Remove the "and disappeared" and you get what happened to dollar and euro economies.

I have to point out that if the government wasn't fighting the drug trade they would be free to openly sell the risk.

If the government wasn't fighting some drugs the users would simply buy them from their local booze store with little if any risk to anyone.

really??? so the HEAD of NASA says that the single most important thing he has been tasked to do is muslim outreach... and all you can say is yawn and make up excuses???

Do you want NASA to be accountable? Then it needs to do PR to win the approval of the people it's accountable to. Do you want to remove that need? Then it'll take your money and ignore your wishes.

Outreach programs are the price you pay for living in a democracy, rather than a dictatorship. And they are the most important thing the leader does - he doesn't design rockets, he doesn't fly rockets, he ensures that the people who do get what they need, and also that the public gets what its money's worth.

Basically, the head of NASA is a manager, and like a good manager, they seek to ensure their team gets the resources it needs - even if that means advertizing the teams existence and importance at every opportunity.

This is the kind of thing that makes it hard to be altruistic.

Do nothing, but give lip service to social action, and everyone loves you.

Do something, and be endlessly criticized for not doing more.

Do something that seems altruistic on the surface but is in reality a thinly disguised power grab, and be defended by the same kind of useful idiots who once praised the Soviet Union.

People might be better off with Facebook-net than nothing, but it has consequences beyond that - for example, real Internet providers have harder time to compete, thus leaving a lot of people who's view of the outside world will be effectively controlled by Facebook.

It seems lately, for some reason, so many out there are treating wealth as something evil and bad.

Not necessarily evil, but something that's almost alive in its own right. Wealth has a logic all of its own, and makes demands to its nominal owners which tend to be destructive to other people. Few would break into someone's house and throw the occupants out, but one wealthy person closes a factory, rendering all the employees unemployed, and then a bank owned by another repossesses their homes. Neither of them sees anything wrong with this, and in fact claim they have no choice in the matter. And they are right: other choices would spread wealth around, making theirs worth less. You don't so much own wealth, as you serve it, like an idol, and this particular "god" doesn't care about mere mortals except insofar as they can be used to make more money.

So in a way, wealthy people are high priests receiving power from their idol in exchange for willing slavery. And, sadly, their god happens to be one that demands human sacrifice. And that doesn't go too well with the pool of potential victims, even if they're typically adepts of the same cult themselves.

Wealth isn't evil, but it's also not moral, and mere mortals keep on proving they don't have the strength to force their own will over its internal logic, but are overwhelmed and become captive servants instead.

This is typical of all totalitarian regimes.

It is typical of all regimes. Every regime falls short of the image they want to project. That means they depend on the mercy of their citizens, their willingness to forgive imperfection. Or they can cheat: ensure loyalty through deception - propaganda and censorship - or by turning patriotism into an outright cult that worships the nation. Sometimes this gambit works, the regime escapes control of its citizens, and usually begins lumbering from one disaster to another.

Totalitarianism is simply the extreme form of this flaw, where the state's need for absolute loyalty overrides all other concerns. If religion is opium for the masses, then totalitarianism is heroin for their nations.

No, it's death set into motion by the deliberate actions of the murderer suffering the consequences of his own actions. It's consequence.

Running with scissors and accidentally stabbing yourself is a consequence. You punishing someone for running with scissors is not, it's your deliberate action. You aren't a blind force of nature, you're a sapient creature making deliberate choices.

Your moral relativism is pretty sickening, actually.

He's a moral absolutist, actually. "Moral absolutism is an ethical view that particular actions" - in this case killing - "are intrinsically right or wrong."

I wonder if you'd snap out of it if someone, say, raped your wife (or mother, or daughter, or best friend) to death after torturing her for fun. That might allow you to distinguish between that act of premeditated murder and the consequences.

Trauma can certainly cause otherwise rational people to develop irrational beliefs. The fact still remains that you actions are your responsibility, even if they're a reaction to someone else's. You don't get to kill people, and then claim you didn't, regardless of whether this killing was justified or not.

You don't get to disown any action. If someone kills your wife, they're a killer, and if you kill them for that or for any other reason, then so are you. Live with that or stay your hand, those are your choices. Pretending someone else made the call is mere self-deception.

There's nothing wrong with removing an individual guilty of a certain level of harm from society permanently.

Which incarceration already accomplishes. Ethics of death penalty aside, pretending the choice is it or letting murderers walk free is dishonest.

I do not support the death penalty nor any result handed out by the justice system when it is handed out as vengeance. What I do support is rehabilitation with amends where feasible and appropriate and removal of particularly destructive individuals from society on a permanent basis. To that end, humanely execute all murderers and others beyond redemption.

Does this mean that contract killers should get leniency because, after all, they're not killing people for revenge but as mere business? Especially if they use a clean method - which, as the summary noted, is what "humane" really means in this context?

If these individuals cannot live within the society the rest of us do why is it our responsibility to support them for the remainder of their natural lives?

You do realize that killing someone to save a buck is even worse than killing them for revenge, right?

But hey, if you insist that your state should have the right to kill you if it sees fit, good for you. I don't trust mine with that power, but maybe that's just me.

They have made their choice, so why do some people feel this odd need to "save" them like they are a stray dog but then insist that the rest of us help pay for it?

Because they aren't a dog, no matter how much some people like the idea of "subhumans" who can be terminated at will.

Your error is thinking the Ukraine conflict is between Putin & Ukraine. One does not negotiate with the house servants.

Then they'll leave for those who will, and the house goes unmaintained. Political power doesn't actually grow from the barrel of the rifle, it grows from the fear of being shot, which becomes brittle when the victim has nothing to lose but their chains. And Putin, having grown up in a country born of just such revolution, should had known that.

It's a pity, really: Russia has natural resources, land, and tough people. All it'd need to soar is competent leaders. And what it gets instead is cleptocrats, drunkards and the occasional complete monster.

Beijing (not Peking)

"Beijing, sometimes romanized as Peking"...

is full of amateur hour mistakes, particularly in its diplomacy. I laugh when Beijing whines "Why are my neighbors allying against me? It must be the machinations of the United States, not when I make diplomatic seizures of all the ocean territory up to their coasts".

China's ruthless, not stupid. And blaming everyone but yourself unless forced to is how every nation behaves; what this tells about them I leave as an excersize for the reader.

As to the "brutal US war machine"... Is there an "effective' war machine that isn't brutal? That's sort of the whole point.

In the Age of Information, can a war machine be both brutal and efficient? You need to whip up nationalistic frenzy to get your population to accept mass civilian - or even military - casualties, but doing so risks a demagogue seizing power and looting the country - and that's assuming they're just a cleptocrat, rather than a homicidal maniac.

US Army realizes this, even if you don't, which is why they're so interested in automated weapons systems. An unmanned vehicle can be sacrificed. You can take more risks with them in unclear situations - precisely the kind US forces keep on finding themselves nowadays - because if someone walking towards it turns out to be a suicide bomber rather than just stupid, it means pork for an arms factory rather than military funerals.

Furthermore if you really want to start judging the US, I'm going to insist that you compare us against a peer nation and show that we are worse then them in some respect.

So... that would be hegemonic powers.

How do you justify such demand? Nothing forces the US to be a hegemonic power. It can make do just fine - indeed, would probably be much better off - with ignoring the world outside its borders. Why would you get to disown the consequences of your choices?

And it's not Slashdot that will judge US, but history. Slashdot can provide a running commentary on how that judgement seems to be turning out, and tips on how to perhaps improve performance, but that's all. And history doesn't care about "rhetorical landmines"; only choices, consequences, and the pattern that emerges from these determine US's destiny. US is effectively judging itself, just like British Empire, Soviet Union, Roman Empire, etc. did.

"Judgement" is simply a function of reality that determines what things continue being a part of it. Human capacity for morality reflects it, and give possibility to take corrective action before it's too late. A nation that ignores morals is like a ship that ignores sea charts; it will run into a rock and sink, it's just a matter of how much damage it'll cause first or as it sinks.

You can compare us against the British Empire, the Soviets, the Holy Roman Empire, the ancient Roman empire, the old Chinese Empire, the Moguls, the Ottoman Empire etc. Big powers only please.

I wonder if the citizens of these old powers also perceived discussions about their flaws as battles that had to be won, rather than as opportunities to identify weak spots, repair them and thus save their nations. And I also wonder if John "But I drink less than Ted!" Smith ever looked back and regretted all the times he said that as he laid dying in the gutter.

Too many of the moral comparisons are apples and oranges in that they'll try to compare the US against Switzerland or something. That's silly.

Why so? If anything, the Swiss would have more of an excuse to go war-mongering, due to having a smaller home market and less resources.

Word to the wise, I've had this discussion many times and I don't lose it.

Neither did John. He did, however, lose his career, wife, liver and life. Even if he really did drink less than Ted.

And rising food prices in economically depressed countries is a recipe for big fucking problems.

Which, in turn, would cause big fucking problems - a flood of refugees and general instability in the area - for China. Putin's error with Ukraine was not giving Ukrainians any good options; I doubt Peking will make such amateur mistake.

"Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across." - Sun Tzu

Most people realize that God isn't going to protect them against things that they can protect themselves against.

Such as a long and horrible death from illness?

Killing, however, is a one-way street, whether it's of self or others.

As is browsing Slashdot. You can't get back the time you spent reading this message. Who knows what great things you could had accomplished with it, if only you'd made different choices. You surrendered this time out of boredom, yet are arguing against those who would do it due to pain.

God both can kill and resurrect - at least so we're told. People are only half that capable, as Gandalf once noted.

As it happens, dying at will and seeking what's beyond the world was originally the "special gift" Iluvatar (God) gave to humanity in Tolkienverse. It was Morgoth (Devil) who corrupted that to fear of death. So, it might not be the best quote for your cause.

I'm sure no one will use it to punish people, alter their behavior at will, or to try to change rebellious people into get-along types.

As opposed to using social pressure, propaganda/advertizing and the legal system to do the exact same thing? It's just business as usual for any being living in a society.