I noticed the questions on 3-D printers were immediately after questions about the Boston Marathon bombings. I wonder if that affected the responses. Excerpt from the questionairre at http://reason.com/poll/2013/05/17/reason-rupe-may-2013-national-survey

I'd've been interested in seeing responses to a hypothetical "Q37.5: Have you ever seen or used a 3-D printer?" and "Q37.6: Please rate your level of knowledge in 3-D Printer technology (none, low, medium, high, don't know, other)?"

Oh, for the want of mod points. That would've been simply perfect as a post-credits easter egg. :)

Someone else has already mentioned the "first mover advantage".

But it's kind of funny you should mention bigger and richer competition copying your work.

(1) Want to know when the USA ignored foreign copyright and patents? Way back when it was trying to grow and improve its own local economy, and compete with the big well-established European markets.

(2) As far as cheap mass-produced knockoffs go, China has been something of the current "poster child" and doesn't exactly have a shining track record of paying attention to foreign patents (at least within its own borders). What does it also have in common with the early USA? Trying to grow its own local economy and compete with the big well-established European and American markets. Japan did much the same thing post-WW2.

So if patents are all that good, why do entities historically ignore other entities patents when they want to grow their own economy? Answer: because the true purpose of patents is to protect an established market (the big fish) from newcomers (the little fish).

This being the internet, for the sake of argument I'll presume you're not just being funny. ;)

Maxwell's equations are "a set of partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electrodynamics, classical optics, and electric circuits."

So if by turtles we actually meant math, it really does seem to be turtles all the way down. :)

I know I'm being idealistic and picky here. I am reading your links in full before I post. First, "some". So, not "all", not "most", not "half". Second, "pressuring". If this is in the form of "peer pressure", i.e. non-physical persuasion, is that particularly unexpected in a harsh "us" vs "them" environment? I refer you to the Stanford prison experiment and its UK counterpart as to how quickly that "us" vs "them" mentality can form even amongst random Western civilians, including hunger strikes. Third, "alone with medical personnel". So, however momentarily, they weren't in that "us" vs "them" environment?

Second set of key words being capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment.

So we have almost 100 mentally ill people being kept in an extra-territorial maximum-security military prison instead of a (military, even) mental hospital?

Um. This might be a stupid question, and feels quite surreal, but: if they truly want to kill themselves, but this time without killing anyone else, and the only alternative (that we're willing to do) is - by our ethical standards - to perform torture upon them, why are we lowering our standards?

But to go on. From your link, "None of the five detainees believed to have killed themselves at Guantánamo Bay have any mental health issues noted within the files. However, all have a record of alleged disruptive behaviour and non-compliance. Most are among the 25 detainees who the files say went on hunger strikes." So we apparently have - had - at least five detainees potentially "capable of forming unimpaired and rational judgements" who killed themselves rather than submit to prison authorities.

Furthermore, "Yasser Talal Zahrani, one of three prisoners who killed themselves on 10 June 2006, was noted to be of low intelligence value", (note "value", so it's referring to military intelligence not personal psychology), "with "unremarkable" exposure to jihadist elements." So are we sure it's just the "hardcore" ones that are "willing to give their life"?

This is the country - the US, I mean - that has both a strong democratic tradition (CIA World Factbook) and the world's highest incarceration rate (International Centre for Prison Studies). What exactly does that say about us? (and yes, I know I keep using "us" and "we" and such, despite not being an American citizen, but the jokes about Australia/Canada/other being the "51st State" exist for a reason, and I was named and raised by a family that likes Westerns, so I associate even though I'm foremost Australian).

"Give me liberty, or give me death!" - attributed to Patrick Henry, in a speech he made to the Virginia Convention that is "credited with having swung the balance in convincing the Virginia House of Burgesses to pass a resolution delivering the Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War. Among the delegates to the convention were future US Presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington." (Wikipedia) Have we decided that while it was good enough for America, there's an exception when we're asked to allow it to our enemies and our prisoners?

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist (1821 - 1881).

Is the reason we want to see Guantanamo in a positive light because it reflects our own?

The American Medical Association, the World Medical Assembly, etcetera, etcetera, disagree with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Tokyo and http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/c18/index.html

Have you ever been intubated? Against your will? Infant, elderly or otherwise, if they or their next of kin are capable of informed consent, refuse, and then are shackled, restrained and operated on anyway, then yes, they are being tortured. If my word isn't enough, I refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Tokyo and http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/c18/index.html

Why yes it is a damned if you do, damned if you don't - but is that any surprise when you're "indefinitely detaining" people extra-territorially to avoid those pesky "habeus corpus" laws? There's no "get out of consequences free" card just because you allege a higher moral ground than your enemy. And it seems to me it's not a "get out of jail free" card either, unless you mean "free" as in dead. But they're not even allowed that. And no, the probability that most of them are evil terrorists does not excuse torture.

[snips quoted links] I too have some links too if you want them. There's one in particular with video of Rumsfeld and Saddam shaking hands in 1983, around the time US administration decided to look the other way for a while whilst Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran.

How much has really changed since then? Has the government really done anything to truly show those allies that it's much nicer now and they have no reason whatsoever to be suspicious despite the long US habit of funding coups against democratically elected foreign governments that don't bend to its demands?

Also from that article, "Because on one hand the drone attacks are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and it is also a violation of international law. But at the same time, they have a certain tactical utility in the sense that Pakistan has lost control over these areas and if the American drones help in containing these forces and also killing some of the militants, specially their top leadership, then it will facilitate Pakistan's fighting against the militant forces," Masood states.

How's that old rationalization go? "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs"?

If that's how it is, how about telling the truth? "This special session of Congress is to declare an official state of war exists between the United States and its allies, against Al Quaida and its allies, to prevent the violent overthrow of the world's democratic states by religious madmen [which is ironic, because that's what we did to Iran in 1953]. ... In the long course of America's foreign relations after World War 2, we succumbed to a path of amoral decisions for selfish reasons, and one of the consequences is that Al Quaida gained a lot of strength and support they otherwise wouldn't have had. Strength they used to war on the freedoms we took for granted. We placed our wealth and position ahead of our international standing and ahead of lives foreign and domestic. That changes today. ..."

But I don't think there's a President alive with brass ones that big.

Although sometimes the torture is indeed deliberate policy. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/13/guantanamo-bay-hunger-strike-forced-feeding

On a related note, can you post any facts on whether the CIA had or has a policy of followup drone strikes on rescuers/funerals and/or of treating multiple civilian casualties as acceptable if it means another dead terrorist? E.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/world/asia/19pstan.html?_r=1&ref=world

I'm more than beginning to have the disturbing sense that the US government/military has stared too long into the abyss. Yeah, we know the bad guys are evil. Flying airliners packed with civilians into buildings is pretty damn obviously evil. But it's becoming less obvious how good those claiming to be the good guys still are.

That raises a question: if a corporation can throw sufficient money at an election to dominate the associated "airtime", complete with hiring PR firms that have centuries of collective experience in manipulating human psychology for commercial gain, what chance does an individual human brain with its limited attention span and processing capacity actually have in filtering out the trickery and subversive ideas?

Hmm. Effectively, the Democrat and Republican parties would become proxies for corporate voting blocs. Unaligned humans will need to form/join non-profit orgs such as the EFF, ACLU, NRA, etc, simply to retain any political power at all. Er, wait...?

"Maybe just a hint as to why they don't think that people who join together to spend their money more efficiently should have free speech rights after all."

So if the board of directors decides to fund Politician Bob (tax cuts for corporations) from the corporate treasury while the majority of their employees, who also happen to be on minimum wage, would rather fund Politician Joe (minimum wage increases), whose speech is it?

If the company is majority foreign-owned, whose speech is it?

(I am also reminded that the guillotine was once considered a marvel of humane efficiency).

Why am I reminded of Pyrrhus: "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."

By old, he means "before it was decided that you could patent inventions that can reproduce" or "before we had the technology to invent things that could reproduce".

And frankly, if you're selling a thing with the inherent ability to produce copies of itself? What's the difference, patent-wise, between a seed and a zygote? How blasted arbitrary are the patent laws going to have to get so that companies can extend patents to every living thing other than "humans"? And if they do, what would prevent patenting "humans", too?

Never underestimate the ability of people to read something other than what you wrote. :)

You also said, "[...] the general right of search with a warrant." (emphasis mine). Warrants (in the US) grant a specific right, not a general one. And you do still retain (at least some of) your general right to privacy even then; for example, the police can't simply hand a copy of the contents of your phone to the local press or upload your collection of daffodil videos to their youtube channel.

Furthermore, there's nothing special about mobile phones that says you can't encrypt them, or buy one with better encryption than others, just because a police officer might one day obtain a warrant to search it (or if you're in a part of the world where you cannot trust your local police, exactly because).

You may think I'm being picky; I think we need to be very clear on what the police - since they are granted extra-ordinary legal powers - are allowed to do. The police I've personally met and known may be good citizens but, as even a brief websearch will demonstrate, the aphorism "power corrupts" does not have an "except police officers" clause.

There is such a right. The specific right to search with a warrant is an exception to, not a removal of, the general right to privacy. You have a general right to secure what is yours (e.g. your phone). The police have, with a duly processed warrant, a specific right to pierce that security in a specific manner. They cannot legally, for example, hit you with a five dollar wrench until you confess the password.

At least in this country. Other posters may not be so lucky.

And that is why rkhunter, clamav, encrypted partitions including swap, well configured iptables and well defined policies are so important.

Nice fucking product if you need third party software just to keep it secure.

Did you see what you did there? :)