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Technology has made so many things possible. From freeing the human race of the shackles of the hunter/gatherer fight for basic needs. To being able to communicate with you by this medium. In my effort to stay somewhat aware of what is going on I surf a number of websites. In doing so I come across a number of stories about how the U.S. Government is using technology against its citizens. As you can see for yourself on my links page I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories or frequent anti-government sites. I want to be optimistic but seeing these stories causes me to be deeply concerned and truthfully somewhat scared.

I don't know who this person is. I happen to read the post in a Slashdot thread. I looked at a couple of other posts by this user and did not think much of them. Oh, well. We all have our moments. In any case I liked this one.

by Veteran on Thursday September 14, @08:02PM MST (#56) (User #203989 Info)

Let us see if Hanlon's Razor is applicable to the DMCA. For those who don't know, Hanlon's razor is : "Never ascribe to malice that which may be adequately explained by stupidity."

To see if the DMCA is simply an act of stupidity we need to think about the people who created the DMCA in the first place. If these are generally stupid people we are safe in assuming that the act was the result of stupidity and we may safely discount it as not being malicious. If however, the people who created the act are not generally stupid we need to show how otherwise intelligent people were confused into creating something out of momentary stupidity in orger to judge the DMCA as non malicious.

By far the majority of people in the House of Representatives and the Senate in the US are lawyers. The vast majority of lawyers follow the conventional path of graduating from college with superior scholastic records, then going into a post graduate law program which awards them with a 'Doctor of Laws' (Juris Doctor) degree; which is the equivalent of a Ph.D. in a technical subject. After obtaining this degree the average lawmaker then passed a difficult bar exam to become an attorney. After successfully becoming a lawyer these people engaged in significant networking to build up their political prospects.

Most people who enter the political profession emerge as significantly wealthier when they leave the profession than when they enter into it.

The argument that the DMCA was created by people who are generally stupid appears to lack plausibility. Now let us examine the idea that the act was created by normally intelligent people who were acting in an aberrant stupid fashion.

Reading the DMCA fails to give evidence of misspelling, poor grammatical structure, ill thought out sentence constructs, or other evidence of stupidity which might be brought on by the heavy use of intoxicating drugs or spirits or wide spread occurrences of stroke or other neurological damage. When tested against the standards of writing in other laws passed by these same legislators there does not appear to be any obvious fall off in the quality of expression in the DMCA.

In short, the evidence that the DMCA is the result of temporary stupidity on the part of otherwise intelligent people is very poor. Perhaps the claim could be made that the authors of the DMCA did not understand the consequences of their actions in writing this law and were thus being stupid. However, that argument fails upon further thought. The consequences of the DMCA appear to be carefully designed - the law appears to accomplish exactly what the authors meant it to achieve.

Here is an example of a stupidly constructed law for comparison. "Anyone who picks his nose in public shall be guilty of an offense. Persons who violate this law will be punished by being forced to have sex with an attractive person of the offenders' choosing."

The conclusion is that the DMCA is not the result of stupidity, and that Hanlon's razor is not applicable to it. We therefore MAY conclude that the DMCA is the result of malice; it is deliberate, it is intentional, and it is no accident that it is written the way that it is.

July 14, 2000
The American Civil Liberties Union is raising a red flag over the FBI's Carnivore computer system. Wired News article
The top weasel to look into whether the other weasels are violating American's rights. Wired News article
Robert Cringely (on PBS Online) sees more to this Carnivore then most others are seeing. TECHNOCRAT.NET adds a few more links in their coverage (this link is broken)
For a "shut up and take your lumps" view see Jerry Pournelle's column on Byte.

The below text was written in 1998.

The War on Drugs

An outgrowth of the disease model of drug/alcohol abuse, which asserts that pleasure-producing substances, like aggressive micro-organisms, actively infect people who then threaten society. Addicted people are viewed as victims of a disease that renders them unable to refuse drugs, while society views itself as a victim of an imported epidemic. A national quarantine has been enacted, with the domestic production, distribution, possession, and use of pleasure producing drugs made criminal offenses, and with the military and police activated to enforce it, and with the taking of citizen's rights in the name of this "war."

Additional thought based on this concept is that "diseased" drug users, willing to pay large sums of money (to feed their "habit"), demand drugs and create an attractive market for domestic sales representatives of economically depressed countries willing to fill orders for drugs. The vibrant drug trade creates domestic and international tension, thus providing internal and external enemies to divert attention from the self-indulgent behavior of addicted people.

Another result of the war on drugs is a prison population explosion. Over 50% of the people in prison are there for drug-related charges.

Alcohol/drug use is a choice made by the individual. If the individual in question is simply using alcohol/drugs for their effect, which is physical comfort or pleasure, he or she is merely chemically dependent. Whether or not the homeless user wants to discontinue using cannot be known except by asking him or her. If he/she doesn't want to quit using and accepts the reality of homelessness there is no reason or effective way to interfere with that person's choice. If the answer is, "Yes, I do want to quit using but I can't get stopped and stay stopped," then that person is addicted and that, my friends, opens up a different can of worms.

Sometimes words of wisdom can be heard from the most unlikely sources. The unlikely source I am thinking of right now is a fellow named John S. The last I heard of John he had gone on a crack cocaine binge and robbed 27 7-11s one night. That does not make what he said any less valid:
"A closed mouth does not get fed."
Yes, John, but be careful what you stick in your mouth.

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It is time we Americans stop kidding ourselves about how good we are. Good compared to what? History is the most ignored subject here in the U.S. Why? Because a historical perspective would show us just how shallow, rude, and arrogant we are.

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Sites that may change the way you think.

"The Free Thinkers Network"

Quentin Smith on Atheism, Theism and Big Bang Cosmology
An excellent rebuttal to those who would use the Big Bang theory as proof that God exists.

www.Evolvefish.com/
Yeah, it's an on-line store. Sorry. The reason I include them is that these are the people who make those Darwin fish with the feet.

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