If you're not satisfied with his answer, I can provide another for you. I don't think you really need to have this explained to you. I think you just wanted a simple, lazy, effortless slam-dunk "victory" so you can congratulate yourself for ending the thread. Continuing...

For one, mentioning Nazi Germany is perfectly valid when the topic is government power and how it incrementally escalates beyond control. It's just a fact that forcing gun owners to register their firearms made it a simple matter for Hitler's government to confiscate them. It's also a fact that dictators commonly take guns away from law-abiding citizens prior to becoming despotic. Most (all, I hope) people don't want to live under a brutal dictatorship, dictators know this, therefore dictators want the citizens to be as helpless and powerless as possible.

From Wikipedia:
Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis. The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of Nazi Germany such as genocide, eugenics or racial superiority, nor, more debatably, to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies, if that was the explicit topic of conversation, since a Nazi comparison in those circumstances may be appropriate, in effect committing the fallacist's fallacy.

"Genocide, eugenics, racial superiority ..." would reasonably include how a government becomes powerful enough to implement such horrifying policies.

Also from Wikipedia:
This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's law. It is considered poor form to raise such a comparison arbitrarily with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized corollary that any such ulterior-motive invocation of Godwin's law will be unsuccessful.

That would apply to you.

The US wants to have a heavy influence (which is a form of power) over the rest of the world. It also tends to act like the world's police.

Maybe, just maybe, increased power, influence, and prestige actually should come with increased responsibility and scrutiny.

It's not necessarily "anti-US" sentiment.

If we still keep failing to learn from history (continue using fiat currencies for one example*) then it really would make you feel hopeless.


* All of them, without exception, have ended with hyperinflation. Perhaps we think we're special?

That's not what some are pretending.

They're pretending that the emotional feel-good sentiment of saying "but but don't blame victim!" and the sense of superiority they get from feeling like you're a bad guy for having done so, is more important than the facts of the matter. It's the position of the faint-hearted who cannot cope with reality anytime that reality is even slightly unpleasant. They seldom dispute the facts of the matter or suggest alternatives because they are generally not interested in solving the problem. They just want to look good and feel better about themselves. Ergo, when you suggest adults should learn the most basic precautions, they view it as an opportunity to twist your words into evil, dirty, sinister victim-blaming.

When people like this make important decisions, you get the bankrupt nation we know today. But at least everyone feels good and pats themselves on the back right up until it all collapses. That's what matters, right?

Let's not do this with computer security.

I appreciate the succinct, eloquent manner in which you stated that.

I may just quote you on it (with attribution of course) the next time discussion degrades into another one of these weak "but languages evolve over time" bullshit episodes.

Of course, "languages evolve over time" is almost always code for "I can't be bothered to learn to do things correctly, besides everyone is a winner and no one is ever wrong or mistaken if they just weasel out of admitting it". Perhaps that phrase has been used legitimately by someone who is not too prideful/weak-hearted to admit error, but I've never personally witnessed it.

If that's what you think the decay of a nation is about, your perspective is incredibly shallow and self-limited.

There was a time when it did mean that. Ask your grandparents or your oldest living relative about that, maybe they will be old enough to remember. It was definitely a long time ago. Now we in the "Western nations" do the very same things we used to look down on "Communist" countries for doing. That includes things like imprisonment without trial, secret FISA courts, summary executions of citizens, etc.

This is a great idea -- use their own system against them. I hope that clever dude makes millions because that would encourage others to do the same!

It's not the glass that is transparent. It's the person looking through it.

Only the most biased reading possible could have led you to believe I was talking about the spectrum licensing function of the FCC. While it could probably be implemented better, that idea is sound in principle and I have no problem with it.

You may have noticed that nowhere in my post did the word "license" appear in any form. That's because I was not talking about the licensing of scarce EM spectrum. So, in typical Slashdot fashion, you decided to go for what you thought was a cheap-shot slam-dunk "victory" but only managed to miss the entire point being made. This is known as making an ass of yourself by being too eager to be right.

What I *was* talking about, which you would know if you made an effort to comprehend my post, was the FCC's regulation of the speech that said license-holders may put on said airwaves. That's an entirely different matter and you know it.

It's getting more and more difficult to have adult conversation on this site because it's become overrun by people like you. Honestly, grow up.

Consumerism and the way mass-media is done* has bred a dominant culture of intellectual and emotional babies. They're stuck at an infantile mentality and the surest sign of it is the unwillingness to take personal responsibility. A form of this personal failing is like this: "it's not good enough that *I* don't engage in an activity I disagree with - no one else should do it either!" This pathological inability to be satisfied with anything less than such options not being present at all is a complete rejection of even the slightest self-determinism. It's like these people don't even trust themselves not to watch, read, listen to, or engage in something they find distasteful.

They demand some authority to do this selection for them, and of course authorities are only too happy to find another growth area for their power. They look for it the same way businesses look to expand into new markets. Power instead of money is just a different form of currency. Usually "for the children" provides a good excuse, which again goes back to personal responsibility; it is a rejection of the idea that parents should actually be parents and be involved in what their children are exposed to. Soon enough the whole concept will be deemed absurd and wishful thinking, despite the generations before who did exactly that.

It's scary to consider that we are rapidly becoming a culture that conceives of freedom as being too bothersome. After all, real freedom means that other people might do things you wouldn't do yourself. Allowing consenting adults (and only those) to do such things would mean, most of all, believing in the power of your own counter-example if you really find some thing (drugs, curse words, whatever) so offensive. It would also mean having the emotional maturity to let go of the need to control other people, to be content living your own life as you see fit and giving others the tolerance and space to do the same.

This is what we're losing. It's no bargain because I have yet to see what we're gaining.


* Mass media doesn't inherently influence people to be shallow and stupid. It's one of those "corporations make more money that way" sort of deals. Governments also find it more convenient to rule over a population that won't question anything too deeply. Then the candidate who wins is usually the one with the most money to spend on advertising.

It's okay. Really. Corporations don't have feelings.

I appreciate the thougtful responses I always receive from you.

The world is not only a stranger place than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. It is some incredible arrogance to pretend that we can declare with absolute certainty that anything cannot be. The very best science we have is merely the truth as we know it so far. Science has repeatedly found that its ideas of "impossibility" sometimes turn out to be wrong. Sadly, this usually only happens when the old guard dies off because they refuse to change their minds.

It reminds me of the Electric Unvierse theorists. I find their site to be fascinating. It's updated every weekday and it's the sort of material that makes you think because it comes from a rational non-mainstream perspective. But just try mentioning it around here. People won't just tell you "I disagree with that theory" or "I think they're wrong". They'll tell you how much of a moron you must be, that you should go fuck yourself, that you probably go to witch doctors too, etc. That's how small-minded people deal with anything too far outside the comfortable worldviews their cowardice clings to.

The funny thing is, you don't normally see that level of vitriol and invective used agianst an idea unless there really is something to it. This is the only service the small-minded provide by being the way they are: they let you know when you're onto something.

Even if the Electric Universe theory turns out to be completely false, their critique of how modern astronomy is done is invaluable. It shows the ways that science isn't terribly different from the religious institutions it has come to replace. It still has an orthodoxy and you're still a sort of heretic if you deviate very much from it. You won't be allowed telescope time and your papers won't be published. One would think that open analyis and peer review would quickly reveal any falsehoods, but that is the position of secure people. What you actually see is a sort of irrational fear.

If you're up for it, you would probably appreciate this page and especially this one. Whether you agree with them or not, it will quickly become obvious to you that these are free thinkers. I love seeing that anywhere I find it.

I'll never understand why simply saying "I really don't know, but it may be possible" is so damned difficult.

It seems to me like another silly ego game to declare something false when it has not been falsified, (ab)using the concept of positivism by taking it to an extreme just so you can tell somebody else that they're wrong. Yes, the burden of proof is indeed on the person making a claim, but hiding behind that to smugly declare that something "is false" is a roundabout way to make a claim yourself (that something is false) while excusing your own burden of proof (falsify it or admit you don't know). It's an attempt to put the other person at a disadvantage to "get even with them" for having a different inclination.

If you look deeply at human behavior, you will see for yourself that most people have a desperate need to feel superior in some way to another human being. It is not enough that someone be right; someone else must also be wrong. It is not enough that someone explains their opinion; someone else's must be bullshit. It's not enough to disagree with something; the other person must be put down or mocked or denigrated in some manner. Always there is an attempt to hide this by giving it the appearance of legitimacy.

Yes, in hard sciences positivism is a good thing. It prevents a lot of pseudoscience and weeds out a lot of false notions. But there is a distinction between "we're going to treat this as though it were false for now, but if you have other evidence please show me" and "this absolutely is false and I'm closing my mind now".

As far as it concerns Slashdot, I wish people would grow up, get some emotional maturity, deal with their petty little insecurities, and realize that the only real sense of worth human beings ever find comes from within yourself. It does not come from the relativity of making another person look worse than yourself and the attempt to do that is completely childish. Sadly it's also accepted as normal because it is so common.

That's a related concept properly called positivism.