Chilling effect is a real thing. Even if you don't believe things are bad.

Whether or not someone is actually going to receive retribution for speaking their minds is not the point.

A real problem exists when people start to question whether or not they should say X against Y for fear of having negative consequences.

I don't know anyone who has pirated music since Spotify and the similar companies came about. Which means the companies are surely making more than before, at least in ad revenue.

Let them pull their catalog and watch piracy go up even more. The days where media companies get to pretend there is a finite supply of their product is over. The market knows that it costs basically nothing to distribute now. They're attempting to charge more than when there was a need for a physical product which needed a theater/cinema, packaging, shipping to a store, and to take up floor space in that store. Their product does not hold the same scarcity it once did. If they can't accept that, they're going to go out of business..

If they want to compete now, they need to price accordingly. These media companies can scream death of creativity due to piracy all they want, people created and performed art long before these vampiric companies existed and they will create and perform long after they're gone.

PS: If I were them, I would buy up the distribution channels which at home people use to access my product and put a chokepoint there in order to make my product scarce again.
Oh, wait, they're doing exactly that... Comcast and TimeWarner are both owned by massive media companies.

What should scare us even more is: Those same companies are the ones buying up the companies that deliver your internet to your home. Comcast, Time-Warner, etc... What are they going to do once they control that distribution medium is the big question we should we all be asking.

I should elaborate on the our inability to influence: We can not make informed choices anymore about who we wish to have represent us, because, so many important things are being hidden from us. It is impossible to use our vote to fix things that we don't even know are happening until the info is leaked. And once it is leaked, the game of misinformation starts at which point it becomes impossible to tell a truth from a lie.

It is bad because we find out about programs through leaks or once they are implemented. The public is now taken completely out of the debate. The govt stonewalls us everytime we try to get information. The govt outright lies to us and our congressmen over and over again. At a very fundamental level our system is broken. Our ability to influence our govt is gone. We can not choose our leaders based on factual information anymore. Our govt is treating us, its people like the enemy. Our govt treats our questions about fundamental issues with derision and blocks us anyway it can. Considering those facts, these types of programs being implemented with no public discourse rightfully irritates.

It baffles me that we allow these things to happen on phones. This would be almost unthinkable in the Windows or Linux environments. Is it because we use 'app' and 'market'? Does that somehow make it ok? Could you imagine if MS introduced the 'Approved Programs You Can Install On Your Computer!' store? Would be laughed/sued out of existence.

I'm not trying to sound combative I promise. Just genuinely curious how far in general people would allow the government to push.

So until soldiers come directly to stay in your home, you're cool? Do you think it would be possible to have a dystopian society with clean water, streets, and air?

Again, I am genuinely curious. Particularly because dystopia looks so different to each person. But I feel like there has to be a line somewhere where everyone would throw their hands up and say "Alright. Enough already." Maybe not though, considering creep-effect, general apathy, and historical cases of oppressive regimes where people are too busy living their daily lives to really care.

I feel like you must really have your head buried deep in that sand to believe this. You don't even have to dig very deep to see the government actively fighting us. How bad does it have to get before we call it a dystopian government? That is not a rhetorical question. Where do you personally draw the line?

The solution will actually need to be a multi-pronged approach and yours is certainly one method we'll need to use. However, the first step is for people to realize this isn't a Democrat vs Republican issue. Once we realize this, we can stop placing blame, work together and take the appropriate measures to put our government back in check.

This is an issue of a State that is actively deceiving us, actively fighting us, and actively stonewalling us at every turn. The quicker we stop blaming past and current political parties the sooner we can take whatever actions necessary to fix our country.

this one, while not related specifically to homan square is still appropriate to the topic at hand: The UN just recently condemned the Chicago police department for torture.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/ne...

the quicker we realize and admit the dismal state we are currently in, the sooner we can take appropriate actions to fix it.

http://www.theatlantic.com/nat...


http://www.theguardian.com/us-...


http://www.theblaze.com/storie...

from TFS: "...you want to foster an open, welcoming, and empowered community." it is completely appropriate to say "the topic at hand is how to deal with group dynamics while keeping the inclusive nature of the open source community."

every older generation says this about the newest 20 something generation. "when i was a kid i walked 20 miles over broken glass up hill barefoot! because we were men!" "these damn kids!" "lazy fuckin kids"

its ok, the kids are alright. the country isn't going to spin off its axis because things are changing. things change over time. we learn new things. we apply our new knowledge to tweak and fix things that need it. it happens every generation and will continue to happen. dont let the creepy man in the moving picture box scare you. things change. accept it or become that bitter old man who is always mumbling about the damn kids.

now, back to the topic at hand. these group dynamics from the article are not new. groups throughout history have had to deal with ego maniacs, narcissists, whiny, and entitled people. even the open source aspects don't make these problems unique. volunteer organizations, churches, charities, neighborhood groups, etc.. have had to deal with these problems forever. they are not some left wing inspired issue. they are human psychology issues.

the topic at hand is how to deal with group dynamics while keeping the inclusive nature of the open source community. you proceeded to take the opportunity to reduce it to a left vs right issue.

you act as if group dynamics didn't exist before the "aging and nouveau hippies" even existed.

or if you prefer, you behave as if "over-inflated cases of self esteem" didn't exist before "aging and nouveau hippies"

i think its safe to say, you are one of those people who would rather somehow blame this on a political ideology rather than actually contribute anything useful to the conversation.

maybe you'd be better off if you didn't attempt to think about complex systems. your "over-inflated self esteem" has obviously made you think you were smart enough to discuss complex topics. you should get back to debating which short stop would make your favorite football team score more baskets.

Ultimately this fight, if we want this behavior to change, is the peoples fight. We need a resurgence of the "We write code." mentality of the 90s cypherpunks. The ISPs aren't going to stand up and fight, the UK govt looks to be as bought and sold as the US govt, and the muggles of the world don't really care as long as they get their sports and other mind numbing escapes in prime time television.