January 18th is ‘Freedom of the Internet’ day: remember Aaron Swartz

January 18, 2013 — xanthippa

Unless you are plugged in to the ‘geek’ community, chances are you have never heard of the brilliant Aaron Swartz, his activism or how he was hounded to death by malicious US prosecutors who wielded the power of the broken US justice system as a club.

I have been racking my brains for days how to write this story, because it is an important one and it needs to get out.  But, I also wanted to make sure that I connected all the dots that, in my never-humble-opinion, need connecting.  I still don’t know how…so I’ll take the brutally honest approach, simply sketching out the ‘skeleton’ and then supplying the links to flesh it out, because otherwise, this post would be a book, not a post…

1.

When you ‘steal’ something, you deprive its rightful owner of its use.  As in, if someone steals your car, you can no longer use it for transportation.  But, if you make a copy of something, you are not depriving anyone else of the use of the original.  Sure, you may potentially limit their ability to monetize it in the future and laws covering that may be necessary.  But, it is not the same action and must not be treated as equivalent.

2.

In the past, the way a person monetized their ideas was by charging for the ‘vessels’ or ‘containers’ which were the only means of distributing the ideas themselves.  As in, a person would not be paying for the ideas themselves but for purchasing the book in which these ideas were contained. In the digital world, this system is not functional and it is unreasonable to attempt to cripple the internet in order to superimpose the outdated means of monetizing ideas onto it.

3.

It is my philosophical position that ideas are not ‘owned’ by anyone – that their existence is independent of us and that to ascribe ‘ownership’ to them in any manner is immoral.  As such, I think that all – yes, all – copyright and the very concept of ‘intellectual property’ are fundamentally wrong and any laws on this very subject are immoral and must be fought against.  Yes, I suspect I am more extreme in my position on this than most people and am rather in line with the ideas of the Church of Kopymism.

Aside:  Not finding what religions are ‘officially recognized as religions’ in Canada on our government’s website, I’ve called around to the relevant government departments and talked to many of the civil servants in the ‘appropriate’ departments.  I know they were the ‘appropriate’ departments because the other civil servants bounced me there…  And, the most informed civil servants on this issue have told me that the Canadian Government does not itself ‘officially recognize’ individual religions:  rather, if something is officially recognized as a religion anywhere on Earth, it is automatically recognized as a religion in Canada.  That means that since Sweden has recognized ‘The Church of Kopymism’ as an official religion, it is legally recognized as a religion in Canada.  This means, of course, in no uncertain terms, that all Canadian laws that restrict the free sharing of information are in direct conflict with our freedom of religion laws.

Why?

This position may seem extreme, but it has taken me many years and much thinking to arrive at it…and the ‘why’ is, perhaps, the most important reason for me taking such an extreme position…

So – why?!?!?

Because it is precisely by the use of laws – any laws – which assign ‘ownership’ to ideas, by enacting and then protecting these laws that our freedom of speech will be limited in the age where most of our communications are internet-enabled.

Please, think about it – I will not go further into this because I consider it self-evident.

In other words, I consider freedom of speech to be a necessary pre-condition (not the only pre-condition, but an essential one) for a free society.

Societies are built through communication.

The most powerful tool of communication ever build is the internet.

Therefore, communication over the internet MUST be free.

It is a pre-condition for us to live is a free society.

Which brings me back to Aaron Swartz.

I think that most people truly and honestly do not understand the salient point he was attempting to make…

Please, bear with me because I think this is very important.

Older scientific papers were in the public domain:  that means that the information they contained was ‘public’ and no longer copyrighted.  Spreading the information contained in these articles was 100% legal.

The problem was that this information was contained in physical journals – the ‘vessels’ I ranted on above.  So, a company decided to digitize them.  Perfectly legal.  They digitized them, housed them on their servers and made them searchable, so that the information contained therein would be easily accessible.  All this work of digitizing and storing and managing the ‘free information’ costs money – and so that company charged money to access their database of this ‘free information’.

They charged different organizations different amounts:  so, an educational institution in Africa would have free access while universities and colleges in richer countries would have to pay. But, once the college or university paid the fee, all its students and staff would automatically be lawfully allowed to access this information for free.

Aaron Swartz was one such person:  he had full free access to all these articles, because he was affiliated with an educational institution that subscribed to this database.  So, he had full, lawful access to this database and all the information in it.

So, he accessed it.

But NOT through the ‘regular’ path.

Instead, he went to a different educational institution, one which also had prepaid access to this database, and downloaded the articles through them.

Consider the implications:  a person who has legal access to public domain information downloaded it through an organization that had legal access to this public domain information – he just did not do it through the organization he belonged to.  (Important point – once an organization paid for access, they no longer had to pay ‘per article’ – so nobody was monetarily disadvantaged by this action.)

This, apparently, is a crime so severe, the prosecutors were seeking to put him in jail for 35 years!!!

This is not a joke!

The company that had digitized the information and from whom Aaron Swartz downloaded it did not want to press charges:  they may have been annoyed, but they did not think any crime had occurred.

Yet, this apparently merited longer jail sentence than rape, murder and terrorism would have earned him.

And people wonder why hactivists are trying to bring attention to just how misguided our laws are?!?!?

Also, if you take the time to read the links below, note not just what is being reported, but how…

OK – that was the ‘skeleton:  here are links to some of the articles about Aaron Swartz.

Federal justice and Aaron Swartz’s death

Aaron Swartz: Idealist, Innovator—And Now Victim

Was Aaron Swartz stealing?

Aaron Swartz’s reckless activism

I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for

Law Professor James Grimmelmann Explains How He Probably Violated The Same Laws As Aaron Swartz

There’s more, much more….

So, today, on what OpenMedia terms ‘Freedom of the Internet’ day, please, do take a moment and think about it all..

UPDATE:  US Senator Cornyn Questions Holder Over Death of Reddit Co-Founder Aaron Swartz

 

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CATO Institute: The Second Amendment in 2013 (David B. Kopel)

January 12, 2013 — xanthippa

A few points…

I do not think placing armed guards in school is a good idea – I believe each and every teacher has the responsibility to protect the children we entrust to them.  Therefore, each and every teacher MUST be fully trained and qualified in the use of guns and be armed at all times while on school property.  Loose your gun certification, loose your teaching job, just like a cop.

My reasons for this is threefold.

First, the teachers are already supervising the children.  There is no need to have a second person in each classroom to protect them from potential gun violence:  this is wasteful and unnecessarily raises the anxiety level of the students.  Simply put, it would be costly, inefficient and fear-mongering.

Second, people tend to fear that which they do not understand.  Currently, the vast majority of the teachers I have encountered have never handled a gun in their lives…especially urban teachers.  And, these are the same people who tend to be unreasonably afraid of guns.  (I do not mean that all fear of guns is unreasonable – simply that some peoples’ fear of guns goes beyond what it should reasonably be.)  Urban teachers tend to come from social circles where anti-gun hysteria is at its shrillest:  and this prevents them from reacting reasonably should they find themselves facing a gun.  Forcing teachers to become familiar with guns would go a long way towards minimizing their unreasonable fear, educate them how to behave under threat, and thus would lead to a more constructive reaction  should they ever be in the unfortunate position of having to face an armed assailant.

Third, and perhaps most important, is the lesson of self-reliance this would teach the students.  Yes, the police is there to help solve crimes and catch criminals, but once you become an adult, you are not a ward of the state but a sovereign human being responsible for your well being and for the well being of your dependents.  While it is good to accept help when you need it, it is YOU – and you alone – who bears responsibility for yourself.

This third reason would be completely reversed if the people who carried arms in school were special armed guards and/or extra police officers.  Rather than teaching students – from a young age and by example rather than through flowery speeches – independence and self reliance, putting armed guards into schools will only further deepen the chasm between ‘armed people’ and ‘the rest of us’.

Putting armed guards in schools will teach children that only those who represent ‘the authorities’ are permitted to be armed and the rest of us must cower in fear.  It will normalize the dangerous notion that carrying gun is a job in and of itself and that it is wrong for ‘normal people’ to be self reliant.

And that, in my never-humble-opinion, is a lesson each and every tyrant would like its populace to be taught from a very young age!

It is not a coincidence that prior to every major government-purpotrated massacre or genocide or pogrom, gun control laws were enacted and private arms were widely confiscated.  Learn from the mistakes of others or perish, like they did…

I’ll go even further than that:  I have very grave reservations about licensing and registering guns at all.  If the government and/or ‘authorities (or even unscrupulous civil servants – remember, weakest link, human failings and all that) know who owns guns and where they are kept, they have the ability to overpower and disarm these citizens – one at a time.  Having lived under a totalitarian system where this very thing happened, I deeply believe this is not a risk worth taking.

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January 11, 2013 — xanthippa

I have said this many times before, in many places:  the only way to protect our kids from gun violence in schools is to require – yes, require – each and every teacher to maintain high proficiency in the use of firearms and to be armed at all times while working.  Even with the best possible response time, a police force cannot beat the efficiency of having a well trained, well armed teacher in each and every classroom!

After all, our kids are worth it!

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Do you want to become a Mars colonist?

January 9, 2013 — xanthippa

Volunteers are needed for a 1-way trip to Mars – really!

Sounds tempting…

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So, how about a thought for Mrs. Warman?!?!?

January 6, 2013 — xanthippa

Jay Currie raises some very important questions – ones everyone ought to demand answers to:

… In other words, the nature of her job meant that she did very much the same sort of thing as her husband except, of course, she was prosecuting actual internet criminals under the Criminal Code. (And good for her say I.)

However, it does raise some interesting and, I suspect, important questions. First, did Mrs. W. have a computer at home for work or simply because she was a wired up kinda gal? Second, did the Warmans trade tips on how best to engage their respective prey? Third, why have none of the defendants in the assorted Cools related defamation cases sought to examine Mrs. W’s computer (assuming, rather plausibly, she had one) to determine if hubby might have been using it as a back up/cut out machine? …

I’m afraid I am nowhere as nice and generous as Jay Currie….

The questions that get raised in MY mind are much more sinister:  did Richard Warman subvert his wife’s integrity by his ideas and methods?

After all, he is on record as saying that people who are actively evil, people who commit crimes and are hateful, ought to be treated the same way as his political rivals and/or people whom he simply finds ‘annoying’ – like Connie and Mark Fournier of Free Dominion – and that ‘maximum disruption’ methods ought to be used to make their life a living hell!

Now, this is all bad and tragic when it occurs in the civil courts sphere and downright despicable when it occurs in the ‘Human Rights Commission/Tribunals’ sphere…but people know that these are the ‘softer’ courts.

But – what if Warman has convinced his wife to apply his tactics against people in the criminal courts?

After all, if she loves him, shares a child with him and continues to be married to him, she must – on some level – respect him as a person, with all that he does.

And if she respects him as a person, she must not think his professional conduct is in any way ‘wrong’/’immoral’/’unethical’…

Richard Warman believes it is justifiable to use any methods to persecute and discredit his political opponents, in what he terms ‘maximum disruption’ doctrine.

Mrs. Warman prosecutes pedophiles.

Any accusation of pedophilia, even without a conviction, is enough to ruin peoples’ lives and careers in so many intangible, non-provable and thus non-prosecutable ways…

How can we possibly be sure that his wife is not just another tool in Richard Warman’s arsenal to discredit his political opponents?!?!?

Please, do think about it…

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Thunderf00t: Why ‘Feminism’ is poisoning Atheism

December 31, 2012 — xanthippa

 

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A Christmas story…

December 25, 2012 — xanthippa

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Can having Asperger’s make someone a murderer?

December 24, 2012 — xanthippa

Today, I received a question which deserves a post-long answer:

The question:

I am curious to know how other ‘Aspies’ think about this article.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/19/wyo-college-killer-suicide-note-blames-asperger-for-troubles-life-as-bottom/?intcmp=obinsite

My answer:

My personal opinion is that there are troubled people from all walks of life, from all races, of all religions, in all socioeconomic groups and all that. It would be surprising if, every now and then, there were no troubled people who also have Asperger’s.

That was the ‘general’ answer. This article, however, was about a person who considered himself victimized for having Asperger’s – for having been born an Aspie. So, I will go a little deeper into this specific case.

The troubled young man wrote of his ‘right not to have been born’…I think that bit tells us a lot about him: he may have had Asperger’s, but what crippled him was depression.

Unfortunately, it is not all that uncommon for Aspies – especially adolescent and young adult Aspies – to suffer from depression. This is – and I am guessing here, not making a medical diagnoses – likely because in that stage of our lives, we learn to grow apart from our parents and begin to form our individual identity. All young people who perceive themselves to be somehow stigmatized and thus not valued by society, for whatever reason, are at at increased risk of depression during this process.

This is because they may perceive their ‘differentness’ as a serious flaw which will prevent them from having a healthy self-image…which is where the depression sets in.

That is why it is essential that Asperger’s is not treated as a disease or a disaster.

I’ll illustrate what I mean by contrasting two examples:

My friend has three kids. When her middle daughter was diagnosed with Asperger’s, the whole family took the diagnosis as a disaster. The older sister came to talk to me and was crying about the ‘horrible sentence’ her sister was dealt. The father turned more religious, and spent a lot of time praying to God to ‘fix’ his daughter and take that curse off of her….

Needless to say, the Aspie daughter took was devastated by all this and spun into a depression…would not get out of bed, flunked out of high school and lost all interest in just about everything. It took two years before she started going to a special school to try to finish her high school.

She considers herself as being victimized by having Asperger’s.

On the other hand…there is my younger son. My husband and I had been diagnosed with Asperger’s when our older son was and they did a battery of tests on all of us and all three of us came up Aspies… In addition, many of his cousins are also Aspies – including his favourite one whom he has always identified with and emulated.

So, years later, when he was ALSO diagnosed an Aspie, he was thrilled!!!

He said ‘Finally, I’m one of you guys!’

And, I even got a call from his teacher to please ask him to tone it down with his Aspie pride, because he was making the other children feel inadequate for not having a diagnosis of Asperger’s…

I suspect that the difference in attitude towards the diagnosis of Asperger’s is what makes a huge difference in how people will cope in life.

Because, cope is what we must all do – Aspies or not.

Each one of us has personal traits which are positive and negative, which make it easier and harder for us to succeed in whatever we do and how we live. It is up to each and every one of us to maximize our positive traits and minimize our negative ones – or even find a way to make them work for, instead of against us. The attitude with which we approach this will make a very real difference.

If we lament our negative attributes ans feel ourselves aggrieved and victimized by them, if we wallow in self pity, we will grow into bitter and unpleasant losers.

If we accept ourselves for who we are, but think we cannot change our selves – including our negative qualities, this will become a self-fulfilling prophesy and we will not improve ourselves.

But if we accept ourselves for who we are and understand that, for whatever reason we got our traits, each one of us is now an individual who is responsible for all of ourselves, and for what we do with our traits, we can utilize both the good and the bad to our best advantage and improve ourselves. We can develop coping mechanisms to overcome the bad traits and capitalize on our good ones.

And, we will be able to take pride in who we have become because we will understand that we have maximized our potential!

Asperger’s is not a disease or an illness – it is a set of personality traits that require specific strategies to properly integrate into society. Some Aspies despise the expression ‘being diagnosed with Asperger’s’ as they consider it stigmatizing. They prefer the term ‘being identified as an Aspie’. Perhaps this difference in attitude is more important than we know: you don’t get ‘worse’ because you were diagnosed – you will be exactly the same, except that now, you will have identified some of the tools that may be helpful to you to overcome your negative traits and maximize your positive ones.

But, I digress…back to the example at hand.

This man said he was self-diagnosed as an Aspie. This suggests that he never received specialized help in how to overcome his difficulties. Perhaps that is why he could not maximize his potential: he did well in a highly structured environment, like school (he had master’s degree in engineering – they don’t hand those out for just showing up), but could not cope with the unstructured world outside of academia. His father and his father’s girlfriend were also academics – so they would not have been particularly useful in helping him integrate into a non-academic world, which is very different indeed.

In fact, there is very little in our school system to prepare people for the non-academic world, but that is a different rant. Suffice it to say, a person who has difficulty with social integration, but who had successfully (masters in engineering) integrated into the academic world would indeed have terrible difficulties adjusting to the non-academic one…and without help, he might indeed ‘crash-and-burn’. If, in addition to this great disappointment in himself, he also has the attitude of wallowing in self-pity and not taking responsibility for himself (which are personality flaws not associated with Aspergers – they occur across all of our species), such a person might indeed commit a horrendous act…

But blaming his dad for passing on Asperger’s genes is just scapegoating, nothing more!

Posted in Aspergers, education, society. Tags: , , . 3 Comments »

LET US START 2013 THE RIGHT WAY. BLAZINGCATFUR NEEDS OUR FULL SUPPORT

December 24, 2012 — xanthippa

The Jewish Defense League Calls On Our Supporters To Attend An Emergency Fundraiser For Blogger Blazingcatfur

Radical Muslims are attempting to shut down Blazingcatfur.

Monday January 7TH, 7:30 PM

Toronto Zionist Centre, 788 Marlee Avenue

For additional information call JDL at  416-736-7000

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Merry Xmass!!!

December 24, 2012 — xanthippa

 

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