It could be argued that Silicon Valley has benefitted the most from the California taxpayer. This proposal doesn't sound too bad as long as Old California's debt is distributed to the new states in a equitable way. The problem would be defining equitable.

There is a really small but similar sentiment in Illinois too. The people who live in rural Illinois feel like the people who live in Chicago and the suburban areas surrounding Chicago disproportionately affect Illinois politics. They feel that the state would be better without Chicago.

As someone that runs NoScript, almost all of the websites on the modern Internet just don't work without JavaScript. They aren't even written to fail gracefully if JavaScript support isn't detected.

Then you illustrate my point exactly. If you were already independently wealthy you would do it. But would you have chosen that career path straight out of college or after a few years in industry?

Also $75K isn't much if you want to live in Chicago, home of the 12%+ sales tax. I recently lived in Chicago and as a single guy I could be pretty comfortable on $75K but I wouldn't want to support a family on that. If $75K is the average then thats probably for a teacher with 10+ years of experience and some advanced education. You are not going to draw away talent from the private sector or draw talented graduates out of university for a starting salary below $50K in a high cost of living area. The teachers union won't allow you to pay talented professionals more than a teacher with more years in the district, so someone out of industry will start in the bottom range of salary.

They feel good, blah blah blah, ect... I knew several people who did Teach for America and I know 2 teachers who left CPS, one for a suburban district and the other to go back to school. Teaching in CPS and other inner city public and charter schools sucks. Its exhausting, thankless, low paying, and sometimes dangerous. You might think you are "changing the world, making a difference, impacting someone's life", but you aren't and that has a huge affect on young teachers moral when they realize it. You are babysitting the students, you will have no professional support, no supplies, no budget, and some really old and outdated books. You might be lucky if your students are only a few years behind the curriculum of the actual grade they are in. Fuck that.

CPS has a big budget problem, just like the rest of Illinois. CPS also has a very poor relationship with the public teachers union, the teachers went on strike last year and shut the district down.

Where exactly is CPS going to find people who are passionate and knowledgeable about CS who also want to teach in a public district in Illinois? Stipends and training are nice but I don't feel like forcing students to take a CS course, taught by a teacher who may have no real experience in CS, is going to encourage anyone already not determined to go to university for CS to change their mind. It may actually dissuade potential CS majors.

While legality might be relevant to you in determining the level of asshatery, legality is not relevant in determining if a person or group is an activist.

I understand what you are saying, you don't like Anonymous and you think they are asshats because they go on DDOS rampages against anyone who makes them upset, much like children throw fits when they don't get what they want.

I still don't think you can say they aren't activists because you don't agree with their goals and methods. Well you can say whatever you want, but it doesn't make it so.

Who are you arguing with? Who is going to backpedal?

Based on your comment it seems that you don't support the idea that the courts act in the best interest of the corporations. That's my stance too. Pretty sure thats the stance of everyone in this thread. I'm not sure who your comments are directed at.

Does a teller at JP Morgan think about the ethical implications of their work?
Does a cashier at WalMart think about the ethical implications of their work?

In both examples a person that is in no way responsible for the overall direction of the company is facilitating the daily operations of the company that will commit unethical acts.

We cant just ask Engineers to sacrifice their careers because some whiny Journalist/Engineer is having a moral crisis. Our entire society is unethical. We buy clothes that were made by people working for less than $100 a month, living in concrete rooms smaller than most jail cells, who were forced into that labor by their parents. We shop at companies who are lobbying to oppress workers rights. We use electronics made by children and people who would rather kill themselves than continue working at Foxconn.

Get off of your fucking high horse and stop acting like an Engineer is any different than a Banker or a CEO or a cashier. We are all players in the same fuckedup game.

Just because they do things you don't agree with doesn't mean they aren't activists. Being an activist, criminal, and "asshat" are not mutually exclusive and depending on your viewpoint a lot of activists are asshats. I'm sure that in the US there were some white southerners who considered MLK Jr. to be an asshat. Lot's of people consider Greenpeace and PETA to be both activists and asshats. Lots of people consider the ACLU to be activists and asshats. Lots of people dont.

I don't assume that the prosecutors and judges are overreacting because they don't understand technology. I think they understand completely that it is in the corporation's best interests to have disproportionate penalties for online activism compared to meatspace activism. They already lost the fight in meatspace, protests get a lot of coverage and it is really bad PR to see police pepper spraying protesters. I think they have the clear goal of establishing that online protests/activism will not be tolerated and the penalties will be much more severe than a meatspace protest.

Imagine if online protests become an accepted form of civil disobedience? It would be much more difficult to control the masses because they could participate anonymously from their couch. Compare that to an old fashioned protest where people have to miss work and travel and stay outside and sometimes tolerate brutal police action. The masses complaints might actually be addressed instead of ignored.

The objective here isn't to punish anyone proportionally to the crimes they committed. The whole point of online activists having the book thrown at them is to deter future activists.

The corporations already feel like meatspace activists have too many rights, so it is imperative to set a precedent that online activism will be dealt with harshly.

Because it isn't clear from TFA: The US was in control of the sub when it was scuttled by Hawaii. It had been captured when Japan surrendered.

This is really cool because it's a piece of history and an engineering accomplishment but the only reason it was 'lost' was because the US sank it and then pretended that they forgot where they sank it so that they didn't have to give it back and have the Soviets study it.

The cause is that society emphasizes success in your career, whether it be academic or professional, over your personal relationships and life. The effect is that test scores are high and the amount of "scoring" is low.

Most people consider Japan's population growth to be an issue compromising their economic future. There is a fear that there will not be enough young workers to pay into the social safety net programs for the old. The growth problems are usually attributed to the pressures of Japanese society. There is a lot of pressure to study, get into a good school, study, get into a good university, study, and then get a good job then work your ass off. Where is there time to develop relationships and social skills? I have heard Japanese people say "There isn't time to have a relationship with someone from the opposite sex, we are working too much."

Lots of studying seems to pay off in terms of excellent test scores. Does it encourage personal happiness? What are the unintended effects of emphasizing academic performance so much?

South Korea has the highest suicide rate of any developed nation.

Japan is on track to experience negative population growth.

What do all these wonderfully educated youth have to look forward to besides leaving their native country to go find somewhere they can actually live

My point is that in the scenarios I listed the Seller is disingenuous and it has become normal for the Seller to be disingenuous. It is common and accepted for a seller to exploit a lack of domain knowledge of a customer to gain a favorable bargaining position. If it is a core tenet of the buyer/seller relationship to be accurate then most of our interactions with companies are in violation of the tenets of the relationship.