Oh, please. Leave the mysticism of "energy" out of this. Comparing "social problems" to "energy", in the sense of conservation of energy, is idiotic. I find totally appalling that your comment was moderated insightful.

It's easy to show that guns and alcohol are a direct cause of some social problems.

Imagine a person who is frustrated about is place in society. That's his problem and only his. Now imagine that person has a gun, decide to go on a rampage and kill several people. Suddenly, you don't have only one person with problems, but several others also with problems, simply because of a gun. And please, don't say that without a gun the same thing would happen with a knife. That's plain hypocrisy.

Same thing for alcohol. If someone is depressed for whatever reasons, that's that person problem alone. But if that person decides to get drunk, take his car and kill a father going back home, that suddenly creates a major social problem for all his family.

You may say I'm selfish for not caring for that poor frustrated person who can't deal with his problems (and saying it's all the fault of governments and institutions is another stupid idea), but you can't deny that access to guns and alcohol, create more social problems.

To use your idiotic idea of social problems as "energy", I'd say guns and alcohol amplify that "energy". They directly create more "energy". Remove them and you end up with less "energy".

Or someone in that poor family could, once in a while, take a bike and go to a decent grocery store to buy potatoes, carrots, onions, rice, all kind of peas, lentils and beans (mainly for proteins since there is no meat), some cans of tomato paste, some spices, maybe some cheese and butter, some apples (I mean the fruit, not iPhones and iPads), some bananas, as well as some oatmeal and milk for the morning. To compensate for the lack of fruit and green vegetables, you can add some vitamins supplements. So for about 70 to 80$ a week you can feed a family of four.

For a family which is not that poor (and anyone who can afford a car is obviously not that poor), you can add all kind of frozen vegetables, add flour, eggs, cocoa and sugar to make pastries, fruit juice for breakfast, twice a week you can buy some beef, pork or frozen fish fillets, and finally you can buy some bread from time to time. Basically, for 110 or 120$ a week you can feed a family of four quite nicely.

I know there is no bacon and egg with pancakes and corn syrup in the morning, no 12 ounces steak in the evening, nothing but water to drink, but that's precisely the point.

I agree healthy food doesn't cost much more than junk food (only luxury food cost more), but... you consider peanut butter as healthy food?

ONE really intelligent species

There is one really intelligent species on this planet? Where?

> only a fool would criticize privacy

Privacy is about hiding what we do and who we really are. I guess there are two main reasons we may want to do that. The first is to avoid being a victim, which I think is fair enough. The second is to avoid punishment after doing something reprehensible, from a simple lie in order to obtain something we don't deserve to a serious crime, which I find hard to justify.

What's interesting is the reason we need privacy in order to not be a victim is because there are people who will use their privacy in order to avoid punishment after making us their victim. Privacy looks to me like an arms race.

I wonder... What would it be like if we stopped this arms race and lived in a world where there was absolutely no privacy? On the plus side, it would be a world with no (unpunished) crime and no (unpunished) abuse of power. There would be absolutely no reward to commit a crime or abuse one's power. No more bullies in school, no more abusive managers at work, no more cheaters, thieves, crooks or corrupt politicians. No more lies. Everyone would be judged exactly for who they are and what they do. It would be a world perfectly fair.

What would be the negative side of a society without privacy?

And even in if we can't totally suppress privacy, wouldn't it be a good thing to live in a world where there was less bullies, less abusive managers, less cheaters, less crooks and less corrupt politicians? Wouldn't it be a good thing to live in a fairer world?

Why do you want privacy so much?

I'm 44 years old. I drive quite a lot. The number of situations while driving which required "human intelligence" and which a computer could not solve in my 25 years+ of driving? I can't think of any. Some would require communication possibilities between vehicles, for example to give priorities to an ambulance, but that can easily be achieved with current technology.

A car can't do a lot of things and driving doesn't require a lot of intelligence. The only difficult thing is pathfinding and that's a thing computer are able to do. Walking is more difficult to master as the environment is less structure than roads. Are you saying no robot will ever be able to walk anywhere? That's idiotic.

This video (the first part) is a great demonstration of rhetoric, but in the end, it's just that : rhetoric.

Of course, if you're guilty, don't talk. That's obvious. Otherwise, I'll ask you again, why I should help a criminal get away?

Can you give me one reason why I shouldn't help the police catch a criminal?

Cosmic irony. Look it up.

The only market it destroys is an illegal market. The law grants copyright owners exclusive distribution rights. It's their products, so it's their rules. Unless the copyright owners specifically grant you the right to create an alternative way to distribute their contents, it is illegal for you to make one. I can understand you don't like the law and would like it to be changed, but I don't think you can blame Firefox for not promoting your personal political agenda.

Does it damages the interests of users? I guess, but in the end it's of little interest. We're talking about superficial entertainment here, not some kind of fundamental human rights.

My personal pet peeve is against Steam. I find they're one of the most abusive company and I view their EULA as totally unacceptable. Unfortunately, most video games now require Steam. So what did I do? Well, I just moved on and stop playing video games. It is as simple as that.

There are a lot of things bad in this world and a lot of political fights to choose from. I'm sorry if I'm blunt, but I find fighting for "entertainment rights" to be quite shallow.

I remember the 80s, when not having a cell phone made travelling so dangerous that very few ever left their house. I also remember about all those daily horror stories of people who died in a horrible ways because they couldn't call 911.

Idiot.

You are completely delusional about yourself. In the end, it's always you who is the ultimate arbiter. You are the one who judge everything. The only difference is the mental process you use to judge things. In your case, you base your judgement on authority.

Following an authority to judge is basically the mental process of a kid. His mental abilities are too low to have an understanding of himself and the world around him, things doesn't make sense for him, so he acts mostly by imitation.

At first he imitates everyone. This means his understanding of good and evil will be a direct result of what people around him do. If someone else do it, if his imitation is successful, then it means, for him, his action was good.

A few years after, he begins to realize not everybody is equal and most importantly his hierarchical instinct begins to kick in. The result is he begins to seek an authority to imitate instead of everyone. He begins to discriminate. His view of good and evil is still based on his success to imitate others, but he begins to add his personal touch by deciding who to imitate.

The first authority a kid begins to imitate is obviously his parents, but when he understand a bit more about society, he realize his parents are not a true authority for everything, so he begins to follow different authorities based on their perceived places in society.

When the kid becomes a teenager, he begins to understand abstract ideas like "contracts" and "justice". More importantly, he begins to understand people hidden motives and that everyone is flawed. Because of that, he begins to realize there is no true authority. That's when his mental process to judge change from simply seeing if his imitation was successful to something more complex and a lot more personal. He begins to judge based on his own understanding of human relationship and how society works. His moral system is not only about deciding who should be imitated and who should not, but it begins to be about creating a set of value which satisfies his instinctive sense of good.

For a few people, it will go even farther than human relationship and the society they live in. They will begin to consider very abstract ideas about the universe in general.

Of course, the evolution I described is not black and white. We do not go from one mental process to completely another. Even the most advanced person will still be influence by authorities for his day to day judgement. Thinking about complex abstract ideas is a difficult mental process, so it's something we rarely do. We never completely cease to imitate, but we becomes able to reject our first judgement based on imitation when we think about it. We do understand that imitation and following an authority is not a valid basis for a moral judgement.

In your case, you never pass the point of imitation. You still seek an authority to follow. You became adult, but you never really grew up. You realized you can't follow the authority of your parents anymore, you also realized no one in society is a true authority, you realized everyone has flaws, but instead of beginning to construct your own set of values based on abstract ideas, you tried to seek another authority. That's why you want to believe in a god. Your god is nothing more than a personal tool in order for you to be able to judge.

Do you notice it?

There are people who do not like me because of my opinions, the same way I don't like some people because of theirs. I certainly did suffer indirect punishment because of who I am, the same way I never hesitated to "punish" someone for being who he is (mostly stopping any kind of relationship with that person).

Can a vigilante harm me? Where I live (Montreal) the risk is insignificant. Can I lose a job because of an overzealous boss who do not like my opinions? Certainly, but I'll just find another one (BTW I'm self-employed).

As for the law, again in the context of where I live, actions can be punished, but we can't be jailed for ideas (I'm open to examples showing the contrary). There are rules which limit what we can say, but in my mind they are reasonable as most of the time they only limit the form of the expression, not the expression of the idea by itself.

Overall, I certainly do not feel I have to hide, even though my views on a lot of things are significantly different compared to the majority (like my views on this subject).

Having said that, I agree anonymity and privacy are useful. Yes, corruption need to be exposed and, yes, knowledge is power. On the other hand, their usefulness if pretty much a consequence of themselves in the first place. Without anonymity and privacy, you couldn't have corruption and if your "enemy" has as much knowledge of you as you do of him, then your knowledge doesn't give you artificial power.

For me, fighting for anonymity and privacy is like an arms race. What if we stopped arming ourselves instead?

I'll show you mine... if you show me yours.

Anyway, you have already my name and if you take a bit of time to do a little search on the Internet you'll find my address and even my phone number. Yep, it's in there and I don't care. Maybe it's because Canada (Montreal) is mostly a free country with a low crime rate, thanks to gun control, so I don't live in a state of paranoia.

So nice try, but your argument just falls flat.

As far as I'm concerned, the only real problem I face in my day to day life, both personal and professional, is not political oppression, it is people who are lying or at least hiding who they really are to get an advantage. So for me, the complete end of anonymity would be a good thing.

Why a lack of anonymity is a nightmare to you? Is it because you don't live in a free country and the only way you can express your ideas without going to jail afterward is with anonymity? Is it because you want to be able to lie to people around you in order to look better than you really are? Is it for another reason?