What's wrong with the Rod From God idea anyway?

Because it reinforces the mindset that the only way forward is military superiority, which is suicidal.

when somebody considers himself justified to do anything other than talk back in response to whatever speech he may find offensive.

I think people are willfully misconstruing the sort of thing the EFF is talking about. They certainly don't appear to be talking about things that are generally offensive, but specific, targeted harassment against individuals where they are hounded everywhere they go.

But since people are getting killed over comics, you shouldn't worry about the torrent of abuse directed towards you on every site you visit. Right? Just suck it up and be glad you're not dead?

But you certainly have the right to offend them.

Indeed, you have the right to stalk them from website to website and deliver a constant stream of abuse. They take offense? Oh, that's their problem. So long as you don't physically harm someone, you're OK! Emotionally harming and constantly harassing someone until they break is a-ok though!

At least, if I understand ShangahiBill and the above post by fyngrz.

Are we to assume that because France is having trouble, the EFF should stop and we should just not bother?

"Oh, they're dealing with something terrible, I suppose I should just be quiet and accept the abuse I suffer because, hey, at least I'm not being murdered!"

— Dr Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger, Conspiracy

No I am tired of that argument it might have been legit 20 years ago but history in the mean time has proven its horse shit.

So basic logic was legit 20 years ago, but now it's invalid?

One religion in recent history has been responsible for the vast vast majority of religious inspired violence.

You mean a subset of people who consider themselves to be part of a religion.

I am not saying governments ought to step in an stop people from practicing their faith but I do think the rest of society might do well to express a little less religious tolerance and acceptance.

But only against those you choose to be intolerant again. And when you are intolerant, you express blanket intolerance. Great way to make enemies and end up like Europe.

A little social exclusion would probably lead lots of younger folks to drop it

Or it would make them feel oppressed and alienated, leading them to lend an ear to the extremists. Oh wait, this is exactly what is happening. You are your own worst enemy.

If noting that Isaac Newton was born on Dec. 25 would turn religious people away from science, they're too buried in their dogma and myopia to ever accept reality.

That doesn't mean it's a good movie. Most of the sold out showings are because of the hype surrounding this incident. The reviews are pretty uniformly bad.

People aren't flocking to it because it looked good, or because it is good. They're going mostly to spite the group that hacked Sony and North Korea.

The attempt to imply that the FBI said they were investigating pro-Gamergate people has already been destroyed in the comments (thank fuck users are still in control of the discussion here).

Destroyed in the comments? Mealy-mouthed arguments and claims of "false flag" (what the fuck is this, Infowars?) don't make a convincing argument.

there still hasn't been a single /. thread about the Gamergate scandal itself

Sure there has. Oh you mean the journalism aspect, which was never a relevant part and the actions of the gamergate horde ensured that out of the gate.

Never mind that the journalism angle that sparked the whole thing was shown to be a bullshit basis to start.

the universal news media blackout and user forum/comment censorship

Universal? Not really. It's been observed for the horrible harassment campaign it's shown itself to be (omg false flag, false flag!) And people have been basically scrubbing forums of this stuff because it tends to be a drag and largely unproductive.

the still-ongoing coordinated smear campaign that was launched on August 28 with the "Gamers are Dead" shotgun blast of hit pieces.

Yeah, yeah, giant conspiracy. Not a reaction to the torrent of abusive behavior that erupted from the gaming world once they realized there was a much wider, and diverse audience for games than their narrow worldview let them conceive of.

But please, keep banking on the misbegotten persecution complex.

There was a bit of a conspiracy, because, while there's no concrete evidence

So your claims are baseless and hollow.

it appeared that a few of the 'victims' were working really hard through the use of sockpuppets

IT'S A CONSPIRACY (even though we haven't a shred of evidence to prove it)! A giant conspiracy that suddenly sprung up, not a bunch of people deciding that they'd somehow been wronged by an indie developer because her boyfriend made some (apparently incorrect) claims and some blog author and deciding to go nuclear.

You'll have to forgive me if I'm massively skeptical about apologetics for gamergate.

Slashdot is devolving into a geek version of Fox News.

Irony, given how many gamergate apologists sound like right wingers after viewing Fox News for extended periods.

So in other words, IT'S A CONSPIRACY!

I hope this because I know damn well GamerGate did not make these threats.

Given that there's nothing resembling membership rolls or a roster for gamergate, much like occupy and anonymous, anyone can claim they're part of gamergate and say whatever they want. And given that the birth cries of gamergate were basically textbook misogyny and harassment, it's pretty much impossible to separate the two.

The entire case against GamerGate is built of press pushing talking points off of empty claims made by professional victims.

Has it? So what's more believable:

It's a giant conspiracy by media types to set up false harassment fronts against professional victims to make gamergate look bad.

or

Gamergate was full of assholes who continue to act like assholes and don't like it when their targets push back rather than simply accept being harassed into silence.

By far one is much simpler, and hews much closer to the truth despite gamergate apologists denying and deflecting.

Thank you, I'm quite flattered by the comparison.

You are making a strawman argument. Never did I suggest doing any such thing.

You can attempt to draw all the offensive comparisons you want while ignoring the fact it isn't a terribly challenging problem to solve when your wall isn't right through the middle of a major city and isn't easily climbable and isn't the only line of defense. Look at what happened when they put in a complex fencing system in the San Diego zone in the mid 90s: suddenly crossing attempts dropped by over 90%. Nobody got through there, so they all went into the mountains to go around the system.

Simply extend the San Diego system across the rest of the border and have heavy patrols. Anyone damaging the system is imprisoned for a period, then deported to their country of origin. Those who manage to make it through the system are quickly rounded up by the regular patrols and immediately deported to their country of origin. Most will stop trying. The few that remain will be far more easily managed.

Pardon me, but that's bullshit.

Let's just take the forces we already have today. We have 1.4 Million in active duty military personnel and 850,000 reserves. Obviously we can't take every single one, so let's take half: 1.1 Million people. Now stick them on a 3-man rotation minus 1/3 for duty rotations and leave and spread them out across the 1,954 mile border with Mexico. That puts 125 people plus their equipment per mile of border, plus all their R&D budget going into technologies to increase protection. Those personnel aren't just idle all day; they're building fences, digging trenches, laying sensor grids, and basically doing all the stuff that completely shut down the San Diego zone for crossings and they're doing it 24/7/365 at 125 per mile or one person every 14 yards.

I think that's all way overboard for what we'd need to actually secure (~99% reduction in successful unauthorized crossings) that border, but in any event, don't try to say it's impossible to do. Say we lack the political will. Say we choose not to do it. Say we just aren't interested enough in the problem to do what's necessary to solve it. But don't say it's impossible; that's absurd. I'm not even getting terribly creative here; just sticking boots on the ground and a whole lot more boots than we'd ever actually need at that.