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Jonathan James

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Re: Jonathan James

#61

Post by philwelch »

qxcv wrote: post #50
philwelch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets not give thirteen year olds the vote.

I disagree. Whilst I don't think that voting rights should be taken away from the elderly, I do think that giving a greater range of ages the ability to vote (say, optional voting between 13 and 18) could be beneficial to society. That extra 5 year gap isn't a large enough number of people to reshape the political landscape in most Western nations, but it is sufficient to stimulate a healthy interest in politics at a…

I think the best way to have informed voters is to exclude uninformed schoolchildren from voting, personally.

Re: Jonathan James

#62

Post by jlgreco »

philwelch wrote: post #61
qxcv wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Whilst I don't think that voting rights should be taken away from the elderly, I do think that giving a greater range of ages the ability to vote (say, optional voting between 13 and 18) could be beneficial to society. That extra 5 year gap isn't a large enough number of people to reshape the political landscape in most Western nations, but it is sufficient to stimulate a healthy interest in politics at a…

I think the best way to have informed voters is to exclude uninformed schoolchildren from voting, personally.

And I think the best way is to exclude people who haven't been inside a school for decades.

Re: Jonathan James

#63

Post by rwmj »

afterburner wrote: post #53
rwmj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gonzalez stole real money, I'm sure causing many people a great deal of trouble and distress. He said in chat logs that he aimed to steal $15 million and retire. It's really not that much different from pickpocketing or bank robbery, except on a much larger scale, and I'm quite happy if pickpockets, bank robbers, insurance scammers, and other criminals get serious time. This is quite different from Aaron Swartz who w…

Pickpocketing, really? You want pickpocketing to get the same "serious time" as bank robbery?

If you were somehow able to pickpocket thousands of people en masse, aiming to make $15 million out of all that distress, then yes, I'd like you to go to prison.

Re: Jonathan James

#64

Post by smsm42 »

w1ntermute wrote: post #3
byoung2 wrote: post #2

"I have no faith in the 'justice' system. Perhaps my actions today, and this letter, will send a stronger message to the public. Either way, I have lost control over this situation, and this is my only way to regain control. I die free." That is a sad and powerful statement.

It is a testament to how control of this country has been completely wrested from the hands of the middle class since the 60s and 70s and taken over by megacorporations, the military-industrial complex, and the ultrawealthy. I recently read about this phenomenon in the book Who Stole the American Dream? , by Hedrick Smith[0]. I highly recommend it. The first signs of change appeared in the 2012 election, as the young…

It has nothing to do with fashionable fable about ultraweathy ruining everything. The numbers of ultrawealthy are vanishingly small. They are not those who vote current political class into power and keep them there. They are not those who, knowing about politicians instituting mandatory minimum sentences of tens of years for victimless crimes, did not come to these politicians with tar and feathers but instead gave them their wholehearted support and their money to continue their campaigns. Blaming the vague alien group - being it the wealthy, Jews, Catholics, Christians, Muslims, black, white, whatever - for all problems, being behing the scenes and pulling all the ropes - is bullshit. It is your beloved middle class who has overwhelming voting power in this country. Those are the people who elect those politicians and enact those laws. Nobody is doing it to the innocent nation, the nation is doing it to itself and it is nowhere near innocent. The nation allows the current prosecutorial system where you either plead out or get a chance to fight 200 years in prison sentence with overworked public defendant that would have couple of hours to review your case if she'd sleep 4 hours a day. The nation allows the Congress to create 56 new federal crimes every year. US now has about 5000 different federal crimes, and who knows how many local too. Ultrawealthy have nothing to do with it - I'm sure if you ask random people on the street, overwhelming majority would support it with gusto.

No ultrawealthy can prevent the middle class to vote all these guys out. If they keep instead voting them in - it's time to stop blaming the aliens and start realizing who the real guilty party is.

Re: Jonathan James

#65

Post by philwelch »

jlgreco wrote: post #62
philwelch wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best way to have informed voters is to exclude uninformed schoolchildren from voting, personally.

And I think the best way is to exclude people who haven't been inside a school for decades.

Shall we euthanize them and harvest their bodies for food, as well? You're coming across as quite the bigot.

I don't know about you, but I learn more every year, so I imagine by the time I'm 75, I'll know at least three times as much as I know now. I'd give my 75 year old self the vote long before I'd give my 13 year old self the vote.

Nor do I think being in school adequately prepares or informs anyone to be a citizen.

Re: Jonathan James

#66

Post by smsm42 »

jlgreco wrote: post #43
w1ntermute wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that the elderly are living longer than ever, and continuing to vote. At the same time, the birth rate is not too high. However, the internet has proven to be a very effective way of getting people to go to the polls, and you can target your campaigns much more specifically, so as to include young people and exclude the elderly (who don't use the internet much anyway). This is an important thing to kee…

You know, I honestly think we should hack a few years off one side of the voting population and slap it onto the other. Let people start voting 5 years earlier, and forbid people from voting once they are five years younger than the current average life expectancy. A vote in our system is a vote for what should be. The concept of a vote is inherently tied to the future; the young have the most to win or lose because…

Seriously, people should start voting at 13? So the next president would be Justin Bieber?

Re: Jonathan James

#67

Post by smsm42 »

jlgreco wrote: post #49
philwelch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets not give thirteen year olds the vote.

I have more faith in the average 13 year old than the average 75 year old. Worse case scenario we'll (continue to) have no coherent or thought out economic policy, but I really don't see such a shift being anything but good for social policy. The only real issue I see with it is that it could allow conservative religious parents who pump out kids to add a multiplying factor to their own vote. Efforts would need to be…

You think matters can't be worse, but they can. But the idea of disenfranchising part of the nation because you disagree with political views of significant part of it is really what is appalling. The goal justifies the means, right? So when I say matters can be worse, I mean, for example, if people like you gain majority and it would be OK to deny people rights because they think wrong thoughts - it would be much worse. At least now everybody has a chance to vote.

And if it doesn't work to disenfranchise those old stupid bastards, should we maybe put some arsenic in their food, so they leave us alone faster? If they don't deserve to have a vote, maybe there are other things they don't deserve too... Just kick the bucket already and free the road for the fresh 13-year-olds, eh?

>>>> The only real issue I see with it is that it could allow conservative religious parents who pump out kids to add a multiplying factor to their own vote. Efforts would need to be taken to ensure parents could not influence the votes of their children (improved voter privacy, and improved education).

Yeah, so the elderly is not the end. Let's get rid of all that disagree with you. Let's make it so they can't have kids, of at the very least - so that they can't poison kid's brains with their incorrect opinions. The only opinions the kids should be having are the right ones - yours. And with improved education it is of course exactly the opinion they would be having - because any person educated enough agrees with you. Or he isn't educated enough. Brilliant!

Re: Jonathan James

#68

Post by smsm42 »

GuiA wrote: post #55
cremnob wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely was sincere. I'm not sure why you think they are "diametrically opposed". In both cases it is victim blaming.

Except that what grandparent was pointing out what not a case of victim blaming at all; rather, that the response was completely disproportionate to the act. If you have a really nice sports car and I open the hood to see what engine it has and how it works, yes, I am in the wrong for not asking your permission first. However, if you then try to sue me for $100k because you claim that you had to have expensive mainte…

Securing top-secret facility after a beak-in (where we know keyloggers and such were installed) is a bit more expensive than popping the hood of the car. At minimum, whole OS and all software packages have to be reinstalled from known clean media, and whole software stack needs to be recreated from scratch, without using backups (which could be compromised too). If you're properly paranoid, add new hardware too (most of the current hardware is programmable at some level, i.e. needs to be replaced after a breakin). And then you need to invalidate all passwords on all the systems and have everybody to reset their passwords. And not only user login passwords - all router passwords, domain passwords, service logins, everything.

I can easily see how such work can take, for multiple systems, several weeks and 41K is not an outrageous sum for completely recreating the system. Especially when something controlling life-preserving equipment is involved - which means additional testing, etc. - it's not a website that you can just push into production and if some page glitches the user would tell you.

Re: Jonathan James

#69

Post by jlgreco »

philwelch wrote: post #65
jlgreco wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I think the best way is to exclude people who haven't been inside a school for decades.

Shall we euthanize them and harvest their bodies for food, as well? You're coming across as quite the bigot. I don't know about you, but I learn more every year, so I imagine by the time I'm 75, I'll know at least three times as much as I know now. I'd give my 75 year old self the vote long before I'd give my 13 year old self the vote. Nor do I think being in school adequately prepares or informs anyone to be a citiz…

Yeah, cannibalism is totally the sort of thing that I am suggesting.

Re: Jonathan James

#70

Post by jlgreco »

smsm42 wrote: post #67
jlgreco wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have more faith in the average 13 year old than the average 75 year old. Worse case scenario we'll (continue to) have no coherent or thought out economic policy, but I really don't see such a shift being anything but good for social policy. The only real issue I see with it is that it could allow conservative religious parents who pump out kids to add a multiplying factor to their own vote. Efforts would need to be…

You think matters can't be worse, but they can. But the idea of disenfranchising part of the nation because you disagree with political views of significant part of it is really what is appalling. The goal justifies the means, right? So when I say matters can be worse, I mean, for example, if people like you gain majority and it would be OK to deny people rights because they think wrong thoughts - it would be much wo…

Because I disagree with their views? No, not just that. Because they don't have a proper stake in the outcome.

What hyperbolic strawman bullshit.

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