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If you can read this you are very lucky

ahumanright.org

21–30 of 36 posts

Re: If you can read this you are very lucky

#21
Tries to be anonymous, but Google knows better. Looks like this is mostly a Deutsche Telekom AG project. Someone has to make money providing this "right".

Currently, ahumanright.org is designing a pilot program for a developing country to roll out 10,000 end-user devices and ground stations to test the feasibility of such an idea using pre-existing satellite infrastructure. On their board, the organization has had people like the late Senator Gaylord Nelson, principal founder of Earth Day International; Lon Levin, founder of XM Satellite Radio; and Simon P. Warden, Director of the NASA Ames Research Center. So far, ahumanright.org has secured funding from Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) and are looking for volunteers.

[ https://www.stanford.edu/group/sdg/cgi-bin/dev/liber/?q=node... ]

Palomar5’s main sponsor has been Deutsche Telekom AG, one of the world’s leading telecommunication companies.

[ http://www.gaffta.org/tag/palomar5/ ]

EDIT: As if to prove my point:

As the CTO of Deutsche Telekom Thomas Curran advised us: “You’re evangelizing for access, expanding it. That can only help the industry.”

[ http://www.blog.ahumanright.org/2010/10/buy-that-satellite/ ]

Re: If you can read this you are very lucky

#22

Not lucky so much as able to Select All and then stand about 4' back from the screen. What a horrible design.

Readability[0] handles it ok. [0] http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

Although it doesn't do so without complaint. I wish you could suppress that warning.

Re: If you can read this you are very lucky

#23
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is a mistake to make something a human right that has to be provided by somebody else. So you don't believe in property rights; the right to an attorney; the right to a trial by jury; the right of a speedy trial; protection from unreasonable search and seizure; the right to confront your accuser? All of these things require someone else to do something they might not be paid to do or would be paid by the…

Everything that you just mentioned is a limitation on what a person can do to another person. They are fulfilled by people doing less , not more , except for the right to an attorney. Free attorneys are only provided in criminal cases (which are brought by the state at great expense), and so you could say that this right is also merely a limit on the state's ability to punish individuals. Usage of the term "right" as…

> Everything that you just mentioned is a limitation on what a person can do to another person. They are fulfilled by people doing less, not more

Simply not true.

Property rights require someone to enforce them; police don't work for free.

Jury's require jurors who very often don't want to be there.

Speedy trials require judges and jurors to work efficiently, and again, not free.

Protection from unreasonable search and seizure requires someone to enforce it.

The right to confront your accuser requires the accuser to testify.

> The "right to use the Internet" is absurd.

I never implied otherwise. I was objecting to your conclusion that rights shouldn't require other people when the facts are, many of your existing rights do.

Re: If you can read this you are very lucky

#24

Not lucky so much as able to Select All and then stand about 4' back from the screen. What a horrible design.

You're not supposed to be able to read the majority of the text. That's the point, analogous to the majority of the population which doesn't have access to broadband. It's supposed to feel frustrating and exclusionary.

As nice as the concept sounds, they probably should have pointed it out. It's too subtle, seeing as most of us missed it. Even something like "You think this is hard to read? Imagine being..." would make it work better.

Making your entire message a pain to read seems like a bad idea, either way.

I sat there expecting a background image to load but ended up closing the tab, assuming the page was broken.

Re: If you can read this you are very lucky

#25
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything that you just mentioned is a limitation on what a person can do to another person. They are fulfilled by people doing less , not more , except for the right to an attorney. Free attorneys are only provided in criminal cases (which are brought by the state at great expense), and so you could say that this right is also merely a limit on the state's ability to punish individuals. Usage of the term "right" as…

> Everything that you just mentioned is a limitation on what a person can do to another person. They are fulfilled by people doing less, not more Simply not true. Property rights require someone to enforce them; police don't work for free. Jury's require jurors who very often don't want to be there. Speedy trials require judges and jurors to work efficiently, and again, not free. Protection from unreasonable search a…

Property rights require someone to enforce them;

No, property rights and enforcement of property rights are separate things.

Jury's require jurors who very often don't want to be there. Speedy trials require judges and jurors to work efficiently, and again, not free. Protection from unreasonable search and seizure requires someone to enforce it. The right to confront your accuser requires the accuser to testify.

The inability to confront your accuser, produce jurors and promptly render a verdict results in the inability to prosecute, not the inability to have your trial heard by jury.

Protection from unreasonable search and seizure requires someone to enforce it.

This someone is the judicial system, which is (likely) the same system conducting the searches. It is again a "safe by default" system.

I was objecting to your conclusion that rights shouldn't require other people when the facts are, many of your existing rights do.

It is true that you never implied that the right to the Internet was absurd. That was a comment on the discussion at large. However your arguments that rights require the actions of others is unconvincing. My argument is that rights are a limit on the actions of others, and paid for by the agressor. When they are paid for by idle bystanders (likely through taxation), they are a form of socialist benefits and not "rights".

Re: If you can read this you are very lucky

#27
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything that you just mentioned is a limitation on what a person can do to another person. They are fulfilled by people doing less , not more , except for the right to an attorney. Free attorneys are only provided in criminal cases (which are brought by the state at great expense), and so you could say that this right is also merely a limit on the state's ability to punish individuals. Usage of the term "right" as…

> Everything that you just mentioned is a limitation on what a person can do to another person. They are fulfilled by people doing less, not more Simply not true. Property rights require someone to enforce them; police don't work for free. Jury's require jurors who very often don't want to be there. Speedy trials require judges and jurors to work efficiently, and again, not free. Protection from unreasonable search a…

Property rights are based on the premise that I cannot take what you have. Police are there to enforce this limit.

Jury trials prevent unfair convictions being levied by the government. Jurors enforce this limit.

Speedy trials prevent unjust imprisonment without trial being forced upon an individual.

The right to protection from unreasonable search and seizure is there to limit the government's invasion of a citizens property and life.

The right to face your accuser limits people's ability to make false accusations against others.

All of these are obvious limitations upon others. Yes, they require people to enforce them, but the net result is less action, not more.

Providing internet access or clean water is adding something not previously inherent to the system as opposed to preventing what is not part of that system (theft, false imprisonment, etc.)

I'm surprised that this difference need be pointed out.

edit: As a side note, anybody that avoids jury duty or regrets the necessity of safeguarding a fellow citizen's rights should be ashamed and spend some serious time in reflection on why we conduct jury trials.

Re: If you can read this you are very lucky

#30
Their campaign to try to equate internet access with a human right is unfortunate.

It takes whats a very sensible overall idea that almost everybody agrees with (increasing the unhindered flow of information) and immediately makes it sound bad or controversial to a large and influential part of the technical community.

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