Giving the government credit for creating the current internet is like giving Abner Doubleday credit for Henry Aaron's home runs.

Now I'm confused. If baseball hadn't been invented, how would Hank Aaron have hit home runs again?

Maybe we need to work on your similes.

Government will fuck this up - it always does.

Right. If private enterprise had been in charge of the space program, we might have sent a man to the moon by now.

I'm not complaining.

That's exactly what you're doing.

So any male that cracks a dick joke subconsciously wants to suck cocks all day and either can't or won't admit it to himself

I agree.

So water hitting your car causes risk.

Yes, it certainly does. A sudden splash that opaques your windshield and/or distorts your view -- which a water balloon can most definitely do -- can startle and disorient the driver, leading to dire consequences. Throwing water balloons at vehicles is not a harmless prank. It is a thoughtless act that can directly endanger others. It is shortsighted and naive to characterize it any other way.

I guess you never drive when rain is predicted.

First of all, rain is an act of nature. Consequently you're going to have trouble equating it to voluntary human action. Secondly, rain can indeed endanger drivers. As can sudden splashes from puddles, clouds of spray from passing trucks and so on. Mitigating these risks is a big part of why cars have windshield wipers, why companies sell products like "Rain-X", and why sane people drive differently when rain interferes with their view of the road and/or the vehicles on it. And yes, absolutely, if rain is predicted, it is factored into my driving plans. Likewise snow, hail, high winds, or sandstorms.

I think your logic is flawed.

You have not demonstrated this in any way. You may, of course, continue to attempt to try. :)

So I'm trying to identify the edges, if any.

There aren't any when offense is the metric. There certainly are where incitement is concerned, though. You put your finger right on one of them: when incitement is directed at someone who is not competent to take responsibility for their own actions -- such as your putative mentally ill minor.

Offense is real, and measurable. It can be measured with medical tools, like you can see a bruise on someone's nose when you hit them. Yet the nose is sacred to you, and the ears aren't.

Pleasure is real and measurable with medical tools as well. So is itching, the length of your fingernails, and the salinity of your tear ducts. The point is that measurement is not the determinant. The determinant is, is it harmful, and with offense, the answer is no unless you undertake self-caused harm entirely on your own.

For your benefit, from my other writings:

What offends you may not offend me. And vice-versa. What serves no purpose for you, may serve a purpose for me. Be it intended offense, or otherwise, or both at once.

No one in the USA (or anywhere with sane law) 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 particular group; it varies due to your moral conditioning, your religious beliefs, your upbringing, your education; what offends one person or group (of any size) may not offend another, nor a person of another grouping; and in the final analysis, it is also flawed in that 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 -- any more than you can guess what is offensive to me, or 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. It does not rely on the idea that we "must not cause offense." It relies on the idea that we must not cause harm.

Law that bans something based upon the idea that some individual or group simply finds the behavior objectionable is the very worst kind of law, utterly devoid of consideration of others, while absolutely permeated in self-indulgence.

That's good stuff. I'm glad I asked and I'm glad you shared those links.

Oh, I get that. But don't you think it's a little bit insulting that the only way they could make it interesting to Slashdot readers is to make references to bad 1970s sci-fi?

My problem is not with the new technology. My problem is that someone thinks we can only be interested via dumb fictional references.

.... don't you think it's about time to retire the stained glass window in favor of the real Windows logo?

The gag was never particularly original, clever or funny --- and what passes for geek humor isn't known for aging well.

Of course it was. The entire comment was a way to get that joke in. I've been saving it for just such an occasion.

Oh, you poor thing. You're just a victim of oppression, aren't you?

And I bet a big believer in ethics in game journalism, too.

The top two stories on Slashdot right now are a working Tricorder at SXSW and Boeing patenting "Star Wars Style Force Field Technology".

I get that it's "News for Nerds" but can we please try to appeal to a readership that doesn't think the holocaust is the name of the new VR headset from Samsung?

I know how the story goes. I name people, then you say that is exception, so I name 3 more, you say that means nothing,

I promise not to do that. Please name some names, if you really believe what you say.

I am willing to accept the Risks to our safety so we can have our liberty.

I don't know where the fuck you been, but people have been saying that since the Patriot Act was rammed through congress and signed by Bush.

Take a look around you. People are over 9/11. They've internalized the fact that you're more likely to die of auto-erotic asphyxiation than by the hands of a terrorist. Hell, you're way more likely to be killed by a conceal/carry goofball who thinks more guns equals less crime or some half-bright "Oath Keeper" with more ammo than brains than you are by some Muslim extremist. People put up with the militarized barneys every fucking place because they've got fucking guns. But every time I fly or go to a basketball or hockey game, I hear plenty of voices say, in no uncertain terms, that this is bullshit and they're tired of this phony security theater. Yeah, we'll take the risk.

Further, they're also tired of the phony security theater that says that having a bunch of US military propping up a corrupt drug lord in Afghanistan or rattling sabers at anybody who represents a political inconvenience to Bibi Netanyahu is in any way keeping the US safer. People got the memo that the entire security/intelligence/military apparatus of the United States exists only to perpetuate itself. We haven't fought a war for US security or liberty in the lifetime of anyone alive today.

Maybe somewhere, there's some huddled neo-con think tank where they're quaking in their boots over every brown person who resides in an oil producing region, but other than that, yeah, we'll take the risk.

They want government intervention to change the system for them.

Please give an example of how this story indicates a desire for "government intervention" to enforce a radical feminist agenda.

Otherwise, just stop whining. I can't stand a great big crying man baby. How were you raised that you have this problem with real meritocracy instead of just keeping your job because you've made the environment toxic for anyone but those who look and act just like you. Nobody's oppressing you. Nobody's censoring you. How pitiful you "men's rights activists" appear to the rest of the world. Act like a man, for chrissake.