Not trolling. I will not lower my life standards to spending my work life in a Windows environment.

Not the whole reason, but at least part of it was put well by someone recently:

"using a windows pc is like having someone at work who wants to whine at you about an unrelated personal issue when you ask a quick question"

I worked doing manual labour, and really heavy stuff at that, for maybe five years in my late teens, early twenties. It was, on balance, just as enjoyable, if not perhaps more enjoyable at times, than being a programmer. It just doesn't pay well enough.

I've worked in various different physical labour jobs, and I'd pick them any day over sitting inside at a Windows computer cranking out .NET code.

Hell, I'd pick them over sitting inside at a Mac cranking out C++ or Java or PHP any day too, if they paid better. But those dev environments at least are tolerable. Living in a Windows world is not tolerable, and crosses the line for acceptable work conditions.

I'm paying around $1135 USD a month in rent, including all utilities, furnished, and serviced.

Yeah, doesn't fall into the range you class as cheap, but it's half the price of what I was paying in Sydney. Although admittedly my Sydney place was pretty luxury, in the best building in town. But this place aint too shabby either.

The rent I'm paying here is still on the cheap side for Tokyo though. I could easily be paying two or three times as much for just a one bedroom/studio.

Anyway, back to the point: fibre to the building is very common in Tokyo, and very cheap. If you weren't getting it as part of the package, I suspect you'd be paying around maybe $30 USD a month for better than what I'm getting (probably something nearer 100mbit up and down, no limits).

I'm living in Tokyo at the moment, and my (rather cheap) apartment comes with broadband (fibre) bundled as part of the rent. I just did a speed test and I'm getting 52mbit down, 10mbit up. Absolutely no monthly limits.

Pretty much every apartment I looked at when picking this place had broadband (often fibre) bundled in to the rent cost, and all would be unlimited data.

Look, there's really no point in me continuing this discussion with you. You're not listening, and you're already convinced you know much more about love and relationships than you actually do.

When you've grown up a bit more, lived a bit more, and learnt more about how guys work (if you ever do), come back to me and have this conversation if you like. But right now, there's no point. I'm not your emotional coach. You've got a whole lot more naivity and ignorance to live through, a whole lot more experience to gather (again, if you ever do).

A broken heart doesn't come from a lack of nookie you insensitive bastard.

I never said any such thing. You've completely misunderstood. What's missing is the reciprocated love, but casual sex takes that pain away. It's a medicine, not a replacement.

Sex is not going to fill that hole if you have any kind of heart, okay? Every man seems to think it will and they go on a massive f*ck-fest. It doesn't work.

Actually, yes, it does. It's nothing like being in a loving relationship, but it fills the hole and takes the suffering away. It's the medicine that heals.

And please, don't condescend to me. You're way out of your depth here. You clearly do not understand how men work. We're built fundamentally differently from girls when it comes to emotions. What the emotional world looks like to you has no relation to how it is for guys.

I'm an old man who's lived a full life. There's really no point in schooling me on relationships, because I've lived through a whole lot more of them than you. Don't teach your grandmother how to suck eggs, as the saying goes.

Those are the two things I applied a year ago (and am still applying) to get over a broken heart. I left my country, started travelling and kept travelling, and have shagged lots of different lovely girls along the way. It really works. And I've met some great people.

That's probably because you suck at sex ;)

I'm only half kidding. For sex without love to be worth it it really helps to get it right. Crap sex with love is still worth having; crap sex without love is often just crap.

That's not the point. There's plenty of things we can observe as apparent fact. The research is to work out the how and why.

Sometimes that research confirms what we hold to be self evident truths while providing an empirical description of the functioning of the phenomenon, and sometimes it shows the truth to be false, based on misconception or otherwise.

The research is important; knowledge and understanding is important.

They just reported *another* record quarter. Yes, they are doing well. Very well.

However, I believe (as did the founding fathers) that it is generally healthy to critique closely any attempt to restrict personal freedom.

There's a difference between critique and outright refusal to consider. Almost all of the backlash I see is of the latter, with no pragmatic consideration for whether it will improve or diminish quality of life.

I strongly disagree. Perhaps you would care to illustrate some of the "meaningless" freedoms you refer to?

Something that people regularly get upset about is a surveillance society. But whether computers (or even humans, on occasion) are watching you walk down the street or not is entirely meaningless to your quality of life. It is only an insult to ideology, not to normal experience.

That's just one example of many. Again, almost all of the backlash I see are to do with privacy issues or liberty issues which are meaningless to their actual quality of life.

It's your prerogative not to believe him, but the way I see it, if this person wants to move out of his country, something must be pushing him to do it.

Yes. Ideology.

You seem all about trading that which is of little value for that which is of high value ... it seems to me that this guy is doing just that. He is looking to see if he can find an environment which will give him a reasonable degree of comfort and security without unduly infringing on his rights and freedoms.

He'll be giving up high value liberties for what will ultimately turn out to be low value ones. Although, of course, as is the case with those blinded by ideology, he'll probably be oblivious to his degraded condition.

You have conducted an exhaustive search of "all such claims on the internet"?

All that I have seen. Yes.

You have ascertained that "almost" all of them come from "libertarian minded ideologues"?

Yes. Almost always American youths who've been swallowing the steady stream of libertarian propaganda that you get through sites like Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, etc. What is niche in the greater populous is mainstream amongst technologically enabled American youth.

Are you positive that their ideas don't correlate with real world benefits?

Quite positive. The arguments are almost always non-existent when it comes to here and now impacts of the privacy/liberty restrictions (except for arguments based purely on ideology), and the only arguments of strength are based on the premise that the government will turn on the people and use these things against them. Which doesn't bear out as rational when you're talking about countries that are highly ranked for political transparency and stability.

You're obviously exaggerating here, whether you're conscious of it or not.

No, I'm not. I've been observing these arguments for going on ten years now. I'm not an American and don't live in a world where these sorts of beliefs are shared or are common, so they stand out starkly and clearly. They and their character are easy to see. An essay on their constructivist makeup would be an easy write.

I'll wager they're very much not so easy to see or understand from the inside. For an American youth it'll be a case of not seeing the wood for the trees.

You're as much of an ideologue as the "libertarians" you attack. Since your views seem to be those of a modern liberal, it would follow that you would perceive much of the rest of the world to be libertarian by comparison.

Not at all. The rest of the world is largely similar to the balance I perceive as working best at present. The US is also mostly similar to that balance. The libertarian youth of America are the standouts.

You can accuse me of being ideologically driven if you like. I'm not fussed. I'd be a little perplexed if you grew any certainty about which ideology were driving me though. As a pragmatist I draw what I see as useful from a broad range of western political thought.

And to authoritarians, "positive liberty" is an excuse to enforce their will on others because they say they know best.

And sadly, they do know better than libertarians. Were we to have actual libertarian states, we'd be in a sad state of affairs.

Infringing the negative liberties is the first step of a repressive government to suppress dissent, whether the beaten marchers are in Birmingham or in Tehran. If you can't accept that as wrong, I don't think we're going to find much common ground here.

A knife in the hands of a criminal is a weapon, but in the hands of a chef it's a tool to make great food. The intrinsic quality of these things is neutral. The libertarian arguments that they are always bad, will always lead to bad, or open the door to bad are weak when you're talking about trustworthy states.

If you have a corrupt, untrustworthy government, then by all means, try and restrict their power over you. If your government is trustworthy, transparent, and stable, as is your society, then by all means use it as part of the complete functioning system in whatever ways that will improve the lot of the people.

That's a false choice. Living without a gun (or any guns, anywhere) does not equal living without fear, and living with a gun does not mean living with fear.

The gun statement was meant as a caricature. I've no interest in debating the intricacies of gun politics.

By "the ideologically driven" you seem to mean "those who are driven by an ideology different than mine".

Nope. You don't even know what my ideology is. And there are plenty of ideologies that I do not strongly object to (although, of course, I always object to people basing decisions on ideology rather than pragmatic consideration).

I do, however, have a strong objection to the libertarian ideology, as it has the most potential to cause harm, were it ever applied broadly. Even repressive, authoritarian, religious ideologies will ultimately provide better quality of life (until they collapse in flames) than libertarianism if used to govern.

Ensuring privacy and freedom does not need to conflict with pragmatic governance.

Some societal improvements come at the cost of privacy and freedom. The point being that those privacies are meaningless ones and freedoms provided no great quality (except to the ideologically driven).

Lose things of no value and replace them with things of high value. Of course, again, the values are different (and not relating to real life measures) to the ideologically driven.

Well, obviously it is having a adverse effect on this person.

I don't believe that. Almost all such claims on the internet are from libertarian minded ideologues who are fighting for ideas, not real world benefits.

A government that does not recognize it's citizens' rights to freedom is not worthy of their trust.

Freedom and liberty are only simple, one dimensional words to libertarians. They encompass much more than basic negative liberties to normal, everyday people (whether they consciously realise it or not). What good is the freedom to own a gun when it is at the price of the freedom to live without fear.

Calm down. I'm not arguing against government, I'm arguing that unfettered government and unprotected individual rights is a recipe for trouble, and history - as well as current events - bears the proof.

You see what you want to see, not what is really there. Current events? Not Iran, as much as people like to believe. Maybe China though. And not a concern in the UK, for other more complex reasons (stable, long running democracy, institutions, military, etc).

What good is ideology if not put into practice?

It depends where the ideology came from. If it came from pragmatic intentions, then it'll have some real world applicability. What this person is describing doesn't sound that way.

Do you propose that infringing on personal rights to privacy, liberty, and self-defense does not have an *actual* effect on people, either as individuals or together as a whole?

Yes, I'm saying that. There's nothing that's been done in the UK that's having any negative impact on peoples' quality of life. Just because someone's privacy or liberty is being limited, does not automatically mean it is hurting them. Judge each one on its practical merits, not on whether it conflicts with your ideology.

Consider this - the abuse and repression of Iranians by their government is being facilitated [slashdot.org] by technology and infrastructure that didn't *actually* seem to hurt their quality of life until now, when it is too late to do anything about it.

So? It's not the technology or infrastructure that's at fault, but the ideology. The same technologies and infrastructure exists in all modern societies. Throwing them away would be lunacy.

It's the same old libertarian logical failing as always. "Anything the government does might go bad! So don't do anything at all!"

Get real.

Choosing comfort over freedom sounds like a poor choice to me.

Then move to an anarchy and live a shit life, every day until you die, just so you can be sure that the government isn't going to do anything that they might be able to use against you if they turn bad.

Or alternatively you could live somewhere where you have a decent level of trust in your government and the country's political systems, and from there allow growing and evolving social and political systems to continue to improve your quality of life.

Indeed. Sounds like the original question asker is ideology driven, not reality driven.

Are the privacy invasions *actually* hurting their quality of life? I seriously doubt it. They're letting ideology override their actual life experience.

Foolish.