I wasn’t surprised that you didn’t post a lot of info here about SOPA/PIPA, for the reasons that you mentioned. I was more surprised that there was not more circulation of information about ACTA, which DID pass in a lot of countries already, and is almost as bad. It’s a strange and crazy world that we live in.

@ Luke Maciak:

I’d read that.
Although I for one can’t wait for AI’s to take over.

@ Liudvikas:

I would say reverse Anathem. In Anathem the political gaggle of anti-intellectuals (the panjadrums) kept the educated caste of thinkers and philosophers sequestered and suppressed, mostly because they did not trust themselves to govern these people and the resources they bring well.

My monk-politicians would not be cut off from the world though. They would be expected to live active public lives assisting, listening and advising their constituents.

@ Luke Maciak:

So it would be something like in Anathem.

@ Liudvikas:

True, but I also had in mind a complete role reversal. The politicians don’t have an office – they have a cell, with a cot and a small desk, just like monks do. Anyone may demand an audience at any time, and they must oblige if possible. Then they must personally bring you a comfy chair, and attend to your needs while they sit on a bare stool or on the floor.

Furthermore politicians would have limited personal liberties – for example, they would have no right to personal privacy of any kind. They would not be permitted to receive gifts of any kind, and would receive no salary – their modest needs for shelter and food would be provided by the state while in office. If married, they would have to leave their family home and live in the monastic setting for the duration of their campaign and their term to emphasize that their public service takes priority over matters of personal life.

After serving their term they would not be permitted to take up employment in the private sector for a set number of years, to prevent the revolving door syndrome.

There would also be memes established to make the public view politicians as their humble servants and advisers rather than rules. The measure of politician would be how well he serves the constituents, rather than how well he “governs”.

@ Zac:

That’s because these media groups cheat and game the system. DMCA is horribly broken, and Youtube follows it to a tee, preferring to err on the side of caution. Their filters are imperfect, but they use “if in doubt, block” policy to cover their asses. The performances you uploaded are perfectly legal, and should not be blocked but the system we have is already stacked against us.

@ Mitlik:

Thank you! This is very true. I usually keep adblock on most of the time, but I disable it for blogs and sites I like. For example I have most of the stuff in the sidebar whitelisted so that I at least view their ads. If I remember, I try to click on adds on favorite blogs from time to time. I never actually bought anything from an add, but clicks do generate a bit of revenue so I feel like I’m helping.

Latching onto a side topic from this post: I think more people that use ad blockers need to be made aware that they are denying content providers that they enjoy the ability to collect funds for the advertising on their site. I white-list sites that I frequent, and to be honest in a well done site like terminally-incoherent or gentoo.org it doesn’t detract from why I am there. And then, if the ads prove to be too annoying then turn it back on. A great example is on Youtube. I would like to give the people made partners a chance to collect something for their time, but until Google takes out all the annoyance in the advertising (putting adds over where text is most likely to go wtf?) I will just have to keep ABP up. Do you use a general rule for when you disable ad blocking for a website?

I recently filmed an international school’s wind ensemble concert, and decided to upload all the clips to youtube. I didn’t expect there to be any problems with copyright, as all the songs in question were traditional, composed around 1848, and there were only a few arrangements thrown in here and there (albeit they granted public performance and recording rights, so long as it was non-commercial and was performed from reading only original copies).

Yet 60% were content matched by a “music rights holding group”, even though I could quickly locate copies in the public domain.

Radetzky Marsch – a Strauss from 1848 – owned and copyrighted. A Chopin piano piece performed from memory – taken.

Something’s incredibly wrong here.

@ Luke Maciak:

Write a book with that setting. Anyway it’s not a bad idea, but even then with poverty vow, they still have power.
What we need is to elect those who don’t want to be elected. :D

@ Alphast:

Well said. The two party system is indeed quite broken – especially when you realized that while the two parties can’t agree on taxes or social issues, both have the same love for big business, special interest, wars and military spending and neither one cares much about personal liberty of the individual citizens.

I think someone posted an interesting graph some time ago on reddit that compared campaign budgets in the last 5-6 elections and how without fail the candidate who collected more money always won. It’s a correlation, yes, but still – if we assume it is an actual trend then Citizens united might have been the last nail in the coffin of our democracy.

I had this idea once for a fictional setting where democratic society set up a system in which anyone running for a public office must take a vow of poverty for the duration of their campaign and their entire term if elected, wearing identical hooded monk like attire to hide their body shapes and faces so that people can pick them based on their platform and not secondary characteristics, or amount of funding. I guess my idea was that a political position ought to be a burden and a sacrifice you make to serve your country, rather than a pedestal for your ego.

@ Liudvikas:

Yeah, you would think that EU ought to be making a big stink about this, demanding an equal share in governance of the internet. They should. Most of the keys to a global network should not be held by a single nation – even if it happens to be “good guy super-power” right now.

@ Matt`:

Heh. My problem with NoScript is that it breaks all my bookmarklets. I use quite a few of them actually.

– One for posting things to Tumblr
– One for posting things to Pintrest
– One for Googe Bookmarks
– One for bit.ly to shorten links for Twitter
– Etc..

Oh, and yes – the bannana is bound to your email.

Also, experimenting to see if changing the email I put in the box brings back my little “Terminalist” banana