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Stop the E-Parasite Act

wwws.whitehouse.gov

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Re: Stop the E-Parasite Act

#21

Post by jbooth »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #18
nroach wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I think it's a bit more than: "pretty please take away people's freedom to protect our profits". That's the only thing they have the power to do." More along the lines of: "Pretty please take away people's freedom and here's a huge bucket of cash set up as an anonymous corporate shell donor. If you don't support us we'll give this huge bucket of cash to your opponent. kthxbye." But I agree that a lack of term l…

"Pretty please take away people's freedom and here's a huge bucket of cash set up as an anonymous corporate shell donor. If you don't support us we'll give this huge bucket of cash to your opponent. kthxbye." Ok, more precisely: "pretty please take away people's freedom or else we might tell everybody that you're a poopy head."

It's not "tell everyone you're a poopy-head", it's "run saturation-level advertising claiming that you voted to take away medicare, raise taxes and make it illegal for people to visit certain websites", unless you agree to our bill making it illegal to visit certain websites.

Advertising works. I've canvassed the last 4 or so national election years and every single time I hear a lot of people echo the latest attack ad as truth, or say "I just don't know who to believe".

Re: Stop the E-Parasite Act

#22

Post by jbooth »

dhimes wrote: post #12
JadeNB wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how easy it is to sign it, does it matter?

If it fools people into thinking they actually did something when in fact they didn't, then it could be detrimental to the cause. For instance, my father was under the impression that his will was totally legal and everything was taken care of. His misinformation led him to look no further, and as a result, when he passed, things were messy because the will wasn't valid.

It's still less effort than writing a comment on HN.

Re: Stop the E-Parasite Act

#26

Post by _delirium »

jterce wrote: post #14
yummyfajitas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To stop this madness, we have to attack and bring down the people who cause this retardation - the content industries. The content industries don't cause this. They go to politicians and say "pretty please take away people's freedom to protect our profits". That's the only thing they have the power to do. Politicians are not helpless babies who have no choice but to give big content what it wants. They are intelligen…

Agreed. It's the same as the "occupy" movement saying that corporations shouldn't influence government. It's true, but it's the politicians who are the problem. Everyone, the content providers included, should be representing their best interests to politicians. The burden is on the politicians to remain uncorrupted and to represent the best interests of their constituents to the fullest degree possible under law.

If, after several hundred years of trying, we haven't yet found the mythical race of "uncorruptible politician", it might be time for a plan B, like systemic changes to reduce the effects of corruption on the very-human politicians we do have (and are likely to continue having). That's essentially the campaign-finance-reform argument, that the problem isn't going to be solved by hoping that the next crop of politicians, unlike just about every crop throughout human history, will be selfless saints who don't respond to incentives; rather, the solution is to change the incentives.

Re: Stop the E-Parasite Act

#27

Post by ugh »

lukejduncan wrote: post #23

Is anyone talking about the concerns of having people store a password with the whitehouse? Most people use the same password everywhere. IANL but this could easily be a huge phishing scam...

Because … the White House is interested in phishing?

What?

Re: Stop the E-Parasite Act

#28

Post by InclinedPlane »

nroach wrote: post #17
yummyfajitas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To stop this madness, we have to attack and bring down the people who cause this retardation - the content industries. The content industries don't cause this. They go to politicians and say "pretty please take away people's freedom to protect our profits". That's the only thing they have the power to do. Politicians are not helpless babies who have no choice but to give big content what it wants. They are intelligen…

Well, I think it's a bit more than: "pretty please take away people's freedom to protect our profits". That's the only thing they have the power to do." More along the lines of: "Pretty please take away people's freedom and here's a huge bucket of cash set up as an anonymous corporate shell donor. If you don't support us we'll give this huge bucket of cash to your opponent. kthxbye." But I agree that a lack of term l…

In reality it's more like this:

Step 1: Use bucket of cash to gain access to and develop a rapport with a politician, increase the rapport and dependency with campaign contributions

Step 2: Convince said politician of your perspective, namely that the works of art your company has struggled to create are threatened by people who want to "steal" them without paying.

Step 3: Convince said politician that it's necessary to go to special measures to protect content from being "stolen" because it's such a big and growing "problem".

In many cases these steps can be quite natural and good seeming. The biggest problems are that the MPAA/RIAA have a lot more access to politicians than and a much more well honed "pitch" than any organization seeking to defend individuals.

Re: Stop the E-Parasite Act

#29

Post by canes123456 »

jbooth wrote: post #22
dhimes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it fools people into thinking they actually did something when in fact they didn't, then it could be detrimental to the cause. For instance, my father was under the impression that his will was totally legal and everything was taken care of. His misinformation led him to look no further, and as a result, when he passed, things were messy because the will wasn't valid.

It's still less effort than writing a comment on HN.

You are missing the point.

Re: Stop the E-Parasite Act

#30

Post by amurmann »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #13
slowpoke wrote: post #8

While I definitely support the notion of this petition, it's time that people realize that things like these won't do shit, to put it bluntly. To stop this madness, we have to attack and bring down the people who cause this retardation - the content industries. They won't somehow come to their senses and stop pushing for insane laws and regulations. It's a very dangerous illusion that petty petitions will change anyt…

To stop this madness, we have to attack and bring down the people who cause this retardation - the content industries. The content industries don't cause this. They go to politicians and say "pretty please take away people's freedom to protect our profits". That's the only thing they have the power to do. Politicians are not helpless babies who have no choice but to give big content what it wants. They are intelligen…

It's more of a systemic problem with how democracy (if you want to call it that) works in this country. The costs of running a successful, political campaign are unbelievably high and contributions from corporations and lobby organizations play a major role in it. For all practical purposes, you only get the choice between two huge parties. Not only is a large segment of the population pretty much bound to one party, since they would never ever vote for the other party, but for those people who actually might swing their vote, there are even more issues at hand. Even if you wanted to use corruption as your single decision criterium, the choice would be hard. Both parties managed to stay pretty en par in that and that's all they needed to do. The brain washing that the campaign contributions pay for also work really well. It's astonishing what unimportant tiny events change in the polls before a presidential election. There is a complete decoupling from reality, once the race nears the finish.

If we want a better working system, we need a better democratic process. Sadly the US was a pioneer in that and is still stuck with a system, that was brilliant for its time, but needs updating. We need a system that allows more than two parties to participate and we need better campaign funding regulation.

That's the only way we can permanently stop BS like this

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