nope, more complex than that in USA. for example, condomless porn not protected either, even if there was that old ruling that "porn is speech".

No. Offense can surely be given. But trying to magically legislate it away is a horrific, cowardly, hubris-ridden mistake. Offense arises because of difference in opinion and grasp of fact, intentional or not.

Because of this, it can and will always arise, no matter how narrow you choke down the channel of discourse, unless or until all have the same opinions and grasp of facts, which, one hopes, will never, ever come about.

The most productive course is to try not to give offense, and if received, to assess it and take value (warning, insight, stance, new information) from it if possible — otherwise, let it go.

Restricting opinion by legal means is one of the worst ideas ever. Offense is not a legitimate mitigating factor for censorship and repression. When enacted into law as justification for anything, what it tells us is that we need new legislators, because the ones we have demonstrated fundamental incompetence.

No, reality proves you're confused.

that was a court ruling on "extreme porn", not on anyone speaking. Right or wrong, porn in the United States and its legality is often seperate matter than "free speech".

you have stereotypes that may not stand up to reality. Plenty of slashdotters and IT geeks exercise. Even more important than the weight training is cardiovascular health: power walk, jog, run, or swim, etc.

No one has the "right to not be offended." Being offended is subjective. It has everything to do with you as an individual, or as part of a collective, or a group, or a society, or a community; it varies due to your moral conditioning, your religious beliefs, your upbringing, your education; what offends one person or group (collective, society, community) may not offend another; and in the final analysis, it requires one person to attempt to read the mind of other persons they do not know in order to anticipate whether a specific action will cause offense in the mind of another. And no, codifying an action in law is not in any way sufficient... it is well established that not even lawyers can know the law well enough to anticipate what is legal, and what is not. Sane law relies on the basic idea that we try not to risk or cause harm to the bodies, finances and reputations of others without them consenting and being aware of the risks. Law that bans something based upon the idea that some group simply finds the behavior objectionable is the very worst kind of law, utterly devoid of consideration or others, while absolutely permeated in self-indulgence.

Conversely, when people are truly harmed (not just offended) without their informed consent (and legitimate defense is not the cause), then the matter is one that should arguably be considered for law. Otherwise, no.

Oblig/meta: Orwell was an optimist

It sure as hell is the property of the person who created it.

No. It's not. I can prove it.

You think of X. You're happily sitting there thinking it's your "property." But Joe also thought of this. Do you imagine you now own "half" the "property"? Or that you both "own" all of the "property"? What if it's so obvious that everyone thinks of it at the same time? Whose "property" is it then?

You see, it's not property. It's an idea. A flux of neural activity that you cannot prevent from happening in someone else's head. You can certainly pretend it's property, but none of logic or the legal system or the constitution supports that position, so I really don't see any reason to take your position seriously.

And why should they get a chance?

Because it's just an idea. It's not property. Also because that's the ultimate intent of our system. Patent owners get a short-term monopoly, society gets the idea after that. I'm trying to formulate a way that the benefit to society arrives sooner, as does at least some of the reward for the inventor -- without in the process creating a coerced monopoly at all.

To your perceived actual value of the invention?

No, not mine. I am suggesting first as an estimate by a group of people who understand the technology and the relevant market(s) at the moment, pre-release, then later on, after its actual value has been demonstrated by adoption, in a much more precise manner.

That business that starts ABCs is a complete strawman. I didn't say anything about legality. I'm proposing an alternate means of reward than monopoly. Also, the intent of patents was not at all what you say. The intention of patents was to obtain the benefits of invention for all of society, and in order to do that, a temporary monopoly on some rights in granted. Learn your history. Lastly, don't think to lecture me about business. I've run a few, still own three, and actually know a thing or two about profit, market and invention, among other things. From the constitution:

[The Congress shall have Power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is the point. Not your nonsense about "the person who invented the product or sold the invention to makes the profits and not someone who had nothing to do with it." Profit is used as the motive to get people to invent, so society (in other words, yes, people who had nothing to do with it) will benefit. Invention isn't protected in order that individuals profit. That's ass-backwards.

Are you willing to share 10% of your salary with homeless people?

Income, not salary. And we (the SO and I) do. Except it's more than 10%. And the majority of that is consequent to my own creative output, none of which was facilitated by patent monopoly. Presently, I give away *all* of my new creative output. Some of which is quite sophisticated; but none of which is anything someone else could not have done, either. I don't pretend to own ideas, even the ones I had first as far as I've been able to determine. I enjoy invention; I don't think invention confers ownership. I respect invention; I think it represents a great force for good. Monopoly, in my opinion, does not. Monopoly seems to me to be a force for retarding progress.

Try reading some old dragnet scripts for a feel of what it used to be like.

I think they used "citizens" sometimes in the bits before the show talking about the city and more often they used "people" but also used "the public" and "man" and "woman".
I don't recall "civilian" being used.

http://www.otrr.org/FILES/Scri...

There's a blog from 2009 about this
http://pl.atyp.us/wordpress/in...

It looks like the international definition of civilians includes police officers. ("A civilian under international humanitarian law (also known as the laws of war) is a person who is not a member of his or her countryâ(TM)s armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants." )

I've been unable to google when the police started using "civilian" widely. Most states still advertise for "civilian police force" jobs. So the police are explicitly civilian in the state's eyes.

Exactly my point. How things "are" is entirely dependent upon what your own challenges and successes are, and whether they are increasing or decreasing.

Nothing I said in any way denies the advance of technology or the shift of cultural values. My point is, what that means is relative to the individual. Your world view is not mine, and vice-versa. It's just ridiculous for me to say the world is better, or worse, for you. Only you can say that.

One person will rave about the positive aspects of kids having cellphones. Another will mourn the childhood exploration and freedom that the face-in-device, helicopter-parented youth culture has lost. One will rave about television, next person points out that the "gift" of Fox News and the rest is no favor to accuracy, education or sanity. A hundred years ago, the pledge of allegiance hadn't been suborned by the religious in violation of the 1st amendment. A hundred years ago, female and male roles were very different. Some of those changes may seem positive, some quite negative. A hundred years ago, you could buy a home on the wages of pretty much any job. Today, it is difficult to do without very, very expensive loans from third parties. 100 years ago, one could make many personal choices that are forbidden today. Marijuana, cocaine, etc. Just over a hundred years ago, the state began interfering with the choice to enter into a polygamous relationship, and we're still stuck with that coercion. You mentioned jury nullification, and you did so as if less of it was a good idea -- but to me, it's about the only power remaining that can save citizens from an overzealous and out of control justice system.

Many things have changed, and everyone can have an opinion on every change. It's all very much relative and personal. There's no way to say "things are much better overall" because you can't obtain or synthesize an "overall" viewpoint.

They are out protesting in large numbers because the video evidence of the obvious unwarranted and undeserved death motivated them more than simple hearsay.

The police department is changing its training policies as a result. The police department lost a lot of political capital even tho the two police officers were nobilled.

The city and the police department are spending a lot of extra money and going thru a lot of unpleasant times because of the video which will hopefully encourage them to be more careful next time they might want to illegally choke someone to death.

And two officers may have been killed* which is really terrible. But hopefully the police will work on community relations to regain the trust and support of the citizens.

*Or it may have just been a whacko who would have shot the police officers anyway.

Do you realize that american police officers kill united states citizens at over 50x the rate UK and German police officers kill their citizens?

Do you realize that american police officers kill more children each year (including 7 year old girls) than UK and german police officers kill all citizens (including adults) combined? And basically at an infinitely higher rate.

United states police have reported* killing over 400 citizens per year since 9/11. Meanwhile, germany and uk have killed reported killing under 4 citizens per year in the same time period.

*United states police forces are NOT required to report citizens killed and many do not so the actual number of citizens killed in the united states is higher than reported.

Go back a little before that and the average temperature was 12c higher than now for hundreds of millions of years at a time.

http://geology.utah.gov/survey...

http://geology.utah.gov/survey...

Basically, we are still in the middle of an ice age that peaked 20k years ago and started about 65 million years ago.

In farenheit terms- we average 58 degrees globally today (and rising) and we averaged 72 degrees globally from 65 million years ago to 185 million years ago.

The largest place I see ei playing out is in things in limited quantity.

Most the population is being priced out of things which used to be generally free or affordable.

In texas, the beaches were always free but now some stretches are being locked up. On the east coast, large stretches of beach are "private".

Amusement parks are grossly over crowded but if you have money (5x the standard price), you don't have a line.

Collectables that used to be affordable if you saved up are now going for more than your entire life income because when a person has a billion dollars they can afford to drop a million dollars on a comic book.

Likewise, there are private ski resorts, special "extra money" ski privileges in areas that used to be affordable to all and equally open to all.

Likewise for the front rows at concerts, opening nights for shows.

When the wealthiest made 52x what the rest did, their spending was constrained. They could have anything but they couldn't have everything. Now at 350x to 452x, they can pretty much have everything special and unique.

The balance of wealth between the richest and poorest in society determines how we share rare things in our society. Currently, we've reached a point where the richest get everything and even the "non-rich" get a lot less than they did in the past.

"Person."