Or Perhaps jansonerik@ymail.com? Unfortunately you’ve been the target of a scam.
Was he supposed to send you some money for helping his stranded son from Greenland? If so, I’m sad to say that you’ve been the target of a con praying on people who are nice enough to try and help a stranger in distress. Disgusting I know. This is why I need you to help me track These scum.
At the moment of writing, I’ve been contacted by 2 different people that fell for the same scam. Both of them students who couldn’t afford it. Obviously this bastard doesn’t care who’s life he fucks-up as long as he gathers enough money to move to another country and do the same thing all over again to some other poor guy or gal trying to help.
He’s all over Europe at the moment. He scammed me in Frankfurt on February, then a Belgian 5 days later and now I heard from a Spaniard that was scammed 5 days ago. If this fucker manages to do this once per week, it means there must be at least 4-6 more people, and that is assuming he started this February which is not likely.
These guys are also prepared with fake IDs and everything. The picture on the top, is the ID they sent to the Spanish student who asked for far more evidence than I did, and still fell for it. It’s an obvious fake but while being distracted by a professional conman, it’s easy to take it for real.
Please help us discover the identity of the scammers
These guys prey on some of the most vulnerable members of society. They target explicitly young looking people, students more likely, and Dennis then pretends he is a fellow student down on his luck. By abusing the feelings of camaraderie, they make life difficult for those who are not in the best situation anyway.
What can you do? Post, retweet, email and discuss the info we have. The more widely we spread those photos, the more likely someone who knows him IRL recognises him.
I’ll be posting updates on any new information that comes up. If you want me to provide you with details so you can do some more in-depth investigation, fire me an email.
The funny thing about WalterBlock’s quote defending sexual harassment in the workplace is that the nature of the argument and its unfortunate compatibility with right-libertarian principles can serve as a very easy way to make those espousing said principles get in a very tight ethical conundrum. When this quote is presented to someone (something especially effective when someone is a Block disciple) they either have to find a way to distance themselves from this argument (much like Walter Block himself has done) and thus risk cognitive dissonance, or they must bite the bullet and admit that Block was right.
It’s amazing, not only how often you’ll find them defending sexual harassment in the workplace in the name of liberty but also how often and easily they will trip on their own argumentation and put their foot firmly in their mouth.Oh, they won’t call it “harassment” of course, they’ll dance around the words until it can sound like some kind of normal human relationship, but functionally they will be defending the exact same situation and the right of the employer to make sexual advances to his secretaries under the guise of voluntarism.
Witness this latest example in reddit, where a commenter took the opportunity to defend Block’s argument and give us gems like this:
In a society of private property, there is no inherent reason whatsoever why a woman will be compelled to accept a job that contains sexual advances that she does not want. If a job does not specifically contract against it, then the employer can engage in that behavior. If it does, then he can’t.
(emphasis mine)
How about a woman that does not have enough money to feed herself and her family? A very rare scenario I know…
And this:
If I have $50,000 say, then I do not owe anyone that money. It’s mine. If I want to pay a woman to help me with my paperwork, then I can offer them that money. If they are so destitute that they are willing to accept my sexual advances, then I can follow the non-aggression principle and not once harass her. She is not obligated to stay with me. If she wants to quit and find money somewhere else (the number of potential jobs are numerous), then she can. If she stays, then that’s her choice that you must respect. If she stays because she accepts it, then how can you say that I am acting improperly? I am not doing anything she doesn’t want me to do. I will not harass her because that violates the NAP. If she accepts, then she must want it. That’s how relationships work.
This is the common fetishism of voluntarism that AnCaps do all the goddamn time. Here in all its ugly glory for all to see. A rich boss hiring a destitute girl and advancing sexually on her? No problem. She must want it or she would have left. You can easily see how much they need to assert that in a AnCap society there would be no unemployment which flies against all logic as this would make such a society immediately implode in a capitalist crisis. But as long as we can assume that no unemployment will exist, we can sweep all such contentions under the blanket.
But the best quote is this:
If you condemn this because she is only sleeping with me because she wants my money, then does not reflect poorly on me or her? It’s not me. I’m not the one sleeping with somebody else because I want their money. It’s her moral failure. Nobody is destitute enough in a private property society that they must resort to prostitution. Prostitution is a choice, just like every other occupation. You can’t change that.
I won’t even try to point out how disgusting this paragraph is on it face. How much it flies in the face of reality and women’s plight. I will only point out how one small Walter Block quote led this AnCap to say something like this.
Seriously, this thing is like an instant way to make right-libertarians say something so absurd or reprehensible that they will automatically lose all credibility and leverage in the eyes of those not already convinced of their ideology. Use it with abandon and make them face up the ugly consequences of their ideology.
Are you looking for janson.erik@hotmail.com or janson.denis@live.com? Did you help Denis go back to Greenland? I’m afraid you’ve been scammed.
Warning: Scammer!
So one month ago, I was scammed in the streets of Frankfurt. I hadn’t been in the mood to write about this until now but I think that slowly I should get around to doing it. I am also less angry about it now so I can write about it in a less charged way. So this is how it happened.
The Setup
A youngish looking guy calls me and my girlfriend over while we were walking down the street. He asks us if we speak English. When we confirm, he starts talking about how he is from Greenland, how he is passing through Frankfurt on the way to his country and unfortunately had his backpack stolen from him, including most of his student’s equipment and some of his studies. He introduces himself as Denis Janson.
He claims he’s been to the police to report the theft but as a result he lost his flight and there’s no other one leaving for at least two month and this will lead him to losing his current university year. Knowing how far Greenland is and how it’s still winter, this makes some sense. He claims his ambassador has helped him find an alternative route through Canada which would allow him to reach his country in time and his father, Erik Janson, has booked everything for him but unfrtunately there’s a ferry he needs to take which cannot be booked online. The ferry costs 250 Eur.
The story is elaborate. He keeps talking for about 10 minutes before he even comes around to the point of asking for our help. This gives us a very detailed story that convinces both me and my girlfriend by its sheer complexity and detail, that it’s true. Furthermore he has had a lot of preparation for this. He shows us the sms from the “ambassador”, he arranges a phonecall with his dad to which he speaks in some Scandinavian accent which my girlfriend confirms is authentic (she is in a profession which has a lot to do with linguistics so I trust her judgement). We speak to the “dad” who “wants to confirm I’m trustworthy”.
The plan is that the “dad” sends the money Dennis needs to me via a direct bank-2-bank transfer. He needs to do it this way because Greenland does not have a Western Union branch and the son has had his Debit & Credit cards stolen. Once he does this, he will send me the receipt that the money is on its way and I will then give the money directly to Denis.
If this was proposed from the get-go, I would have refused, however the detailed story, the preparation and the very god acting of “Denis” as a traveller in distress convince me. Both me and my girlfriend think “How would we feel in that situation? Wouldn’t we want someone to help us?”. We feel sorry for all the sudden problems he’s had to face and the fact that he’s stranded in a foreign country. We agree to help.
The Handover
I provide my bank account number and my name for the money transfer and Denis sends them to his “Dad” who will go to the local bank, do the transfer, scan the receipt and send it via email to me to confirm it’s done. While he is doing this, we start looking for an internet cafe to use to see this. While we are doing this, Denis is telling us the story of how his stuff was stolen (it involves him being too trusting) and the flak he received from his Dad when he told him. He explains what kind of personality his dad has, how he had to move away from home and become self-dependent.
Shit is detailed yo.
At around the same time we find an internet station in the Hauptwache, his dad sends an sms confirming that the transfer is done and the email is sent. I check my emails and see an email from Erik Janson that has this transfer receipt (detailed removed to protect the innocent). On a quick look, it looks legit. Denis made sure that I didn’t pay as much attention to it as he continued talking during this time and quickly asked to show us some pictures of his house in Greenland by using google image search.
It was here that I should have caught the scam. Had I paid a bit more attention I would have noticed the hotmail address and this would have sent alarm bells ringing. I would have then noticed the obvious photoshop of the receipt. But hindsight is always 20-20.
15 minutes later I’m satisfied that this seems legit. I escort Denis to the nearest ATM and I take out 350 Eur and give 300 to him. His “dad” gave us more and suggested we have a lunch with a friend. We dedide to use it to take Dennis to lunch.
We take him to a tavern in the Romer which is fucking expensive without realizing it. As a result, we end up ordering one dish for all together (think Tapas). He continues telling us stories of his life. Guy was convicing and I believe some of the stories must have been actually true. Once we finish lunch, we take some pictures together and this is how I have the one above and the this one. We paid for the lunch with the last 50 Eur that his “dad” gave us.
We then walk to the station and each of us goes on his merry way. We had already exchanged emails and skype usernames and said we’d keep in touch. He even suggested that he invites us to either Italy or Switzerland when he moves to either of them for studies.
The Aftermath
The scam happened on Saturday on the 20th of Feb (it was the only way to claim that he could not take money out of the bank normally) We were convinced that he was telling the truth until Monday, by which time I had not received anything yet. I decided to double check the evidence he had sent me. Doing so depressed and angrered me. It was obvious I had been conned. I could find no online profile connected to either his name or his given email address janson.denis@live.com . I could find nothing for his “dad’s” email either janson.erik@hotmail.com. Looking closer at the receipt, I could not see that it was an obvious shop. The parts with the transfer numbers where obviously written over it as it was missing the normal background. They must have taken this froms somoene and reused it for this scam. Looking even closer, I could see that the email from Erik, originated from Spain and the email address was obviously set up by some Spaniard.
And of course, the money never arrived.
Once I was certain this was a scam, I was disheartened and upset. I posted online hoping people might help but instead of that, I mostly received hostility. I was obvious I wouldn’t receive much help there. I also contacted the police. Yes I know this is not the most optimal option but given that I am stuck in a foreign country with very few direct action oriented friends and online help was not forthcoming, I felt that this was better than nothing. I didn’t expect them to achieve anything but having this guy’s picture on file, well, you never know.
Finally, I did my own investigation on this issue. I still have not tracked “Denis” but I am closer to tracking “Erik” and I believe he’ll feel the heat soon enough.
I was also contacted lately by a Belgian student who was also scammed by Denis 5 days after I was. This means that Denis left Germany immediately and moved to another country to play his con. The Belgian found out my reddit post by googling for Denis’ email and then contacted me directly for more info. He could at least use the pictures I put up to give to his own police. It seems thus that our scammer is quite the traveller and he is doing this act all over Europe.
Conclusion
I am not angry about the money. I am angry about the betayal of trust and the erosion of my feelings of mutual aid this scam has led to. It made me less willing to trust and help people and this angers me. It angers me that while I will control myself to retain them but also be more cautious, others will discard them altogether. Other people scammed in this way will not forever shut down all cries for help, even if they are legit, because they’ve been burnt by this asshole.
I wouldn’t mind if Denis played on greed to con people. Greed is something that should be attacked and if he had tried this with me, I wouldn’t have complained. However abusing people’s goodwill and thus making the world a more hostile place is inexcusable in my mind. He needs to be stopped.
How can we stop him? There’s no easy way. Police are useless, especially for catching a two-bit crook like him. We need to do it ourselves. We will possibly not “catch” him in any meaningful sense but we can certainly discourage him from doing this in the future if we found out his true identity. But finding that out is the difficult part. I was hoping to use the six degrees of separation to find him but very few people even tried to do the small effort of re-tweeting or asking their friends to ask their friends and so on.
You never know, perhaps this blog might prove me wrong.
So once we know his real ID, what do we do? There’s a few ideas in my mind but I think the only one which can actually do anything is social pressure.Drop his dox. Find out his friends and relatives and inform them of what “Denis” is doing. Make him feel the heat so to speak. Perhaps this won’t work. Perhaps this is a crook for life and has likewise friends who won’t care. Who knows unless we try though.
In any case, someone who lives from con to con cannot be the most happy guy. His own psychology will be his own worst enemy as he keeps getting to know people and then stabbing them in the back. I doubt anyone can sustain this kind of lifestyle for long. Perhaps this was a short-lived conjob that he tried for a bit of extra cash before going back to his normal and legit life. If so, all the more reason to uncover his IRL identity.
However sad a life this “Denis Janson” lives however, the sooner he is stopped from doing this scam, the better for all as less people’s feelings of mutual aid will be spoiled. And that to me is enough a reason to track him down. If you agree with me, then try to spread the word.
Francois Tremblay opines once more on the flawed concept of “Self-Ownership” and accurately describes the underlying flaws within this idea. This only further drives the nail in the coffin of an idea which you will see utilized by almost every pro-capitalist (“Anarcho” or not) in order to justify private property. This is in fact why all the arguments against it are ignored even by those claiming that rationality is on their side.
I have not weighted in on this issue as I feel that others have made enough decisive arguments already, but Kinsella’s first argument reminded me of a recent lengthy discussion I had on this issue in reddit, and since Francois decided to counter only the second one while briefly touching thr first, I think I might point out why the whole thing is flawed. But first, here’s Kinsella’s argumen:
Why do we say “this is my body”? For this a twofold requirement exists. On the one hand it must be the case that the body called “mine” must indeed (in an intersubjectively ascertainable way) express or “objectify” my will. Proof of this, as far as my body is concerned, is easy enough to demonstrate: When I announce that I will now lift my arm, turn my head, relax in my chair (or whatever else) and these announcements then become true (are fulfilled), then this shows that the body which does this has been indeed appropriated by my will. If, to the contrary, my announcements showed no systematic relation to my body’s actual behavior, then the proposition “this is my body” would have to be considered as an empty, objectively unfounded assertion… On the other hand, apart from demonstrating that my will has been “objectified” in the body called “mine,” it must be demonstrated that my appropriation has priority as compared to the possible appropriation of the same body by another person.
I’ve highlighted the relevant parts which show how much of Kinsella’s argument rests on the use of words themselves. Francois mentions in passing:
In plain language, it is clear what Hoppe means, because our language evolved within the context of a belief in the soul as a separate entity which controls the body[…]
And that is indeed the larger point of how this whole argument from linguistics starts. In my reddit discussion, my opponent, Sage_Advice was claiming that I was already conceding the argument against “Self-Ownership” by trying to explain the reasoning by saying “I am my body”, where the “my” in this case means an ownership claim. This is very similar to what Kinsella is doing where he starts from the linguistical reasoning of how we speak about ourselves and our actions and then trying to see if he can justify this use via logic.
But there’s two flaws in this. One is that “my” does not always constitute a direct ownership claim as can be seen by phrases such as “my family” or “my doctor” or even “my dreams”. We understand intuitively in those uses that my has a simple meaning of relationship and not of ownership and we don’t use this way of language to try and claim such. The propertarians though find it very handy to ignore that there are different ways by which “my” or “mine” can by used because it can then be used to justify the rest of their ideological construct.
However there’s also the point that we may simply use different ways to speak about the same concepts without invoking the use of words that might imply property. For example, I don’t have to speak about “my body”, I can speak about “me” and I would mean the same thing. I can speak about me doing this or that instead of my hand doing this or that. As such. there’s no need to imply and accept a claim of ownership before I can take any action if I don’t use a particular phrasing to express this.
Unfortunately, the misleading way the language is formed is grasped and expanded in order to assert otherwise meaningless concepts. But fortunately it’s not language which defines reality but rather the other way around. And if the use of language fails to accurately descibe reality, then our only option is to modify the former, not redefine reality.
Intellectual property laws have shifted with the winds of history to justify specific interests. Countries that exported intellectual property favored the notion of authors’ natural rights, while developing nations, which were mainly importers, insisted on a more utilitarian interpretation that limited copyright by public interest. During the 19th century, American publishing companies justified their unauthorized publication of British writers on the utilitarian grounds that the public’s interest to have great works available for the cheapest possible price outweighed authors’ rights. By the beginning of the 20th century, as American authors became popular in Europe and American publishing companies became exporters of intellectual property, the law conveniently shifted, suddenly recognizing the natural rights of authors to own their ideas and forgetting previous theories of social utility.
This example should nicely show you how the laws of capitalist states are always modified to help the resident bourgeoisie make as much profit as possible. It was the same thing with tarriffs and corporate laws. They just paint them in a thin coat of populism and let the suckers who still believe that the common law is for the benefit of the common peopl, support them.
Anyway, read the whole thing. A very interesting take about the way the copyrights developed and what their real purpose has always been. Hint: It was never to promote creativity but to preserve existing monopolies and facilitate the exploitation of artists.
I just think back to my earliest times of hanging out with friends, organizing baseball games, and working on group projects, and the utility and convenience of creating hierarchies seems like a part of the “natural order”
The hierarchies you speak of are, in many ways biological. Packing orders of other primates (baboons for example) also have hierarchical social systems. This doesn’t mean that they are desirable or unavoidable.
There are many natural symbiotic systems (bees and flowers for example) which are purely cooperative, with no top-down, pyramid hierarchies. They are complex systems and each entity needs to maximize it’s own natural abilities to take advantage of the others’ but in taking advantage of one another, neither entity is put at a disadvantage.
Even in primate packs there are no artificial governing rules that the individuals follow, they evolve naturally based on genetic predispositions of strength and intellect as well as factors like age and sex.
But one of the major evolutionary stepping stones on the way to becoming homo sapiens sapiens was the evolved ability of homo erectus so-called beta pack members to band together and form units that were, through strength in numbers, able to overpower individual alpha male “rulers” to form egalitarian hunter-gatherer communities that could successfully fend of warring packs and hunt large mammals without aid of alpha males or single centralized leadership.
This particular trait precipitated many evolutionary milestones in communication and technology. Coordinated hunts, for instance, require linguistic ability which in turn breeds technological advances.
That is not to say they didn’t have leadership or complex social structures it’s just that the responsibilities of leadership were divided amongst many and the social structures naturally evolved from that. This made homo erectus one of the most successful and long-lived species of hominid of all time, as well as, gave rise to the most successful branch of the homo genus and the entire Animalia kingdom – modern day humans.
And while modern day humans retain the tendency for hierarchical pecking orders inherited from primate orders that are still visible today, that tendency is, in fact, a primitive feature, like the opposable thumb.
Cooperation and egalitarianism are derived, advanced features, like the opposable pinky.
This a very succint explanation of what people like Engels was writing about in the Origins of the Family. This is a very good explanation on why humans have a far greater attunement with cooperation and egalitarianism than we have with hierarchies and competition, even though for some (not all) of our closest cousins, this is not the case.
It seem to be quite a common phenomenon that detractors of Free software will attemp to bring up Richard Stallman and specifically something he might have said at one time or another, most usually quoted out of context and with the most uncharitable intepretation possible. This is then used as some kind of proof for the sinister motive of Free Software. Here’s one such example:
Stallman has repeatedly said that he thinks that programmers are overpaid and that skilled laborers should do their jobs for free or for a pittance (and therefore unskilled management is the only way to justify large salaries from technology), and it isn’t too hard to draw the inference that the GNU license, the philosophy of which makes it much harder for coders to get paid for their work, is his way of acting on his opinions.
Notice how we do not get to see exactly what Stallman said or in what context. Rather, we get the quoter’s personal interpretation which basically asserts a specific set of outcomes which looks to be the worst possible. It furthermore inserts a sinister motive behind the GPL which is really requires a huge stretch of the imagination.
This is pure rhetoric people, and it’s the kind that displays intellectual dishonesty which rivals the Barefoot Bum. I can’t avoid getting annoyed when such a stunning amount of bullshit is said with a straight face because I can immediately, subconsciously even, see the logical fallacies and attempts at misdirection.
However it is important to counter the basic point of anti-Free Software tirade.
Stallman’s words are not infallible
Even if we accept the absurd intepretation such as the above as being true, even if we accept that Richard Stallman has some sinister motive behind the conception of the GNU Public License, it would still not make it the driving idea behind Free Software. The reason for this is simple: Richard Stallman is not a Messiah. Yes, he is a very influential figure in the free software movement. Yes, he is the one who can be said to have started it all. Yes, he does really follow what he preaches. But that’s it!
The arguments that Stallman makes, stand on their own accord and not because Stallman said them. However the rhetoric above tries to imply exactly that: That because he said it, it must be a part of the free software movement. But we are not a pack of sheep. We do not blindly follow what Stallman or RMS or Torvalds says (atlthough you will certainly find some individuals who are like that, same as with any public figure). We look at the arguments each of them presents, judge them and then espouse or reject them.
Thus even if Stallman’s secret plan was indeed to “eliminate independent coding as a profession”, the people would modify and implement his core idea in a way that it wouldn’t achieve this result. This is because such a result would be against the best interests of the coders that embrace it. Of course such a sinister plot is absurd on its face and the free software ideology is embraced on its merits as one promoting greater freedom for users and developers.
It is then that people with an axe to grind against FOSS imply that we’re simply being naive and being led like lamb to the slaughter by promises of freedom. There is not argument to back this up however, only shaky correlation and misunderstood economics. But this serves only as a handy personal delusion for those who make these arguments as they are incapable of explaining why people would embrace an idea that they consider obviously evil. It can’t be that they’re missing something, it must be that everyone espousing it is either stupid or evil.
The ironic part is how the people making such accusation have a double standard when public figures from the SW development paradigm they support say obviously wrong stuff such as wishing to take all the fun out of making video games. But it’s ok to quote mine and misinterpret Free Software figures because, after all, you have a point to prove.
To summarize, Stallman says a lot of things, some of the objectionable. I disagree with a lot of what he says, much like I disagree with a lot of what Torvalds or Raymond say. I may disagree with less things that Stallman says than any of the previous two figures, but this very far from deciding that the uncharitable interpretation of a paraphrased quote mine is representative of the whole free software movement and its purpose.
A new commenter has opened a new vector of attack against Free Software in the comments of my article about manager’s dislike for IT Pros. There he tries to argue that the proliferation os Free Software and the GPL is harming the IT profession as a whole because now that anyone can write software and the combined efforts of thousands can create as much of a quality software as any capitalist company, the demand for expensive proprietary software is decreasing and thus less programming jobs can exist as there’s less opportunity to use state granted monopolies (i.e. copyrights) to make money.
The argument relies on what makes one a “Professional” and in the words of the commenter:
As for “giving many more people the opportunity to take part in the IT profession” — that’s just an outright lie. If you ain’t gettin’ paid, you ain’t a professional — and that’s by definition; go look up the word “profession” in a dictionary if you don’t believe it. All those coders putting stuff out for free? They aren’t professionals. Even if they lived up to what are laughingly known as professional standards (which they certainly do not), they wouldn’t be professionals.
This arguments sounds very much like the classic anti-piracy rhetoric from the Recording Mafias about how file-sharing is killing the music industry. But instead of file-sharing, the author here replaces it with Free Software. But the principle remains the same. When people can get something for free (whether that is free software or free music), they will not pay for it, therefore companies will not make enough profits, therefore there will not be enough jobs for people being paid explicitly to write proprietary code for sale.
But much like the music industry argument, the software industry argument is also flawed: Just because people cannot make money via the previous business models does not mean that nobody will ever make money. The Free Software business models are some of the newest experiments in money making, much like giving your music away for free is also a new experiment in making money. Both of them are not mature yet and there’s a lot of testing and trying to make them work, but there’s certainly a lot of people who do make money out of them and even better, there’s a lot more stuff being made.
And that’s the clincher really. When people complain that an industry is “dying”, they don’t really mean that less stuff related to that industry is being made but rather that those who were already using a particular business model cannot continue doing so. The original commenter’s problem is that those who were earning a lot of money by selling software cannot continue making as much or more. Why? Because free software outperforms them for a lower cost. In short the argument is that some people cannot continue selling less value for a higher price.
Of course they set it up so that it seems that it’s the poor wage-slave coder who is taking the hit by not being able to find a job or having their wages reduced. They completely forget to mention that it’s the consumers that benefit by being able to use a better quality product for a fraction of the price. In fact, the wage-slaves of the IT world have far more to fear from the Indian outsourcing companies than from Free Software which at least, when given enough critical mass, will allow far more people to work independently rather than in a wage-slave position.
Becuase this is the main way people can make money out of coding via free software. They do not have to sell their code, they only have to sell their services as a coder. They don’t build a program and then sell it, they are contracted to build and improve an already existing product which then everyone can enjoy. Taking a holistic view, this is overwhelmingly a positive result since rather than having people rediscover the wheel every time they want to sell something (and thus end up with many different programs offering basically the same functionality), you get people improving on what came before them; standing on the shoulders of giants and improving things for everyone that comes after them.
Another common argument to this point point that is brought is how people currently work: They build a program and try to sell it. by then pointing out that free software is gratis they assume that people will simply not build programs anymore. This is usually used in conjunction with games and to show why people don’t write free software games. This argument is simply taking the current system and asserting that this is the only way it can be. They ignore that the way people work is because of the way the rules of the game have been set which make one particular path, “build and then sell”, as the most optimal to make money. But the rules of the game have not been set in stone and we can and should challenge them directly when they stop making sense.
If copyrights weren’t enforced on us from the dawn of IT, the current business models would not have built themselves around them. There would certainly be a demand for software and games and that would certainly have been fulfilled, only it would have been done in a different way. To take the way the software system has evolved because copyrights existed and assert that this is the only way it can ever work and the end of the world is nigh if we challenge this is simply absurd. Free Software proves this wrong.
Sure, the biggest software companies who are sucking at the tit of the state would suffer from it and possibly some programmers earning currently absurd salaries would have to scale down their demands to be in line with everyone else in the world, but everyone else would benefit. Better software for a fraction of the cost and a far wider tail for people to make a living on. The IT Profession would go nowhere as long as a demand for it exists.
In closing, one has to ponder how completely misaligned the ethical compass of scomeone can be, when they consider the voluntary act that thousands do for free – and for the benefit of everyone else – as something wrong, because it harms the greedy and for-profit acts of a few which are based on state violence and privilege and lead to a result where most can’t even possess the results. It shows how the way the system works can become so ingrained in the mentality of someone where they cannot even look externally at it and notice that if because of the way Capitalisms works a good act can be considered “bad” while a bad one becomes “good”, perhaps there is something inherently broken in the system itself.
UPDATE:Redditors have been providing some excellent arguments to support my point as well. Take a look.
I got a new PC and a new Netbook which quickly drove me into an installation hell, two-hit-combo for Windows and GNU/Linux
My Gawd, it’s not often that I can get annoyed at both a Windows and a GNU/Linux system at the same time but I managed to do it this weekend. You see, me and my girlfriend bought some new toys this Saturday: She got a new Netbook (Acer Eee 1001HA) and I got a new compaq PC (This time I didn’t build it myself). Both systems came with Windows (XP and 7 repsectivelly) which meant I had some tasks on my hands.
Specifically I needed to bring my Windows 7 system up to date to a gaming standard and then install my normal GNU/Linux workplace while I needed to wipe the XP from the Netbook and replace them with some netbook friendly GNU/Linux flavour.
I started with the Netbook and chose the Ubuntu Netbook Remix initially since I’ve lately been playing most with the Ubuntu distros. The installation went pretty smoothly to the point that the girlfriend could do it herself. However the problem appeared as soon as we tried to connect to the wireless. As always, the fucking wireless curse struck again and the card was not recognised. After some futile attempts, I ended up trying to the old favourite of searching around the nets for info on this. *Sigh*. I hate it that still not at the point where one ends up doing google searches to get a basic functionality from their PC. I knew what I was doing and I knew what to look for but by the Gawds, someone with less knowledge or patience than me would have given up far sooner.
Why is it so goddamn hard for the system to point out that a wireless card has been found but there’s some problem with it? Why do we still expect users to guess what the hell is going on or go to fora and ask. This is so fucking backwards! Can’t the system put a notice saying something like “A wi-fi card has been detected but we can’t get it to work: See Help (Insert link here)”. Something ffs! It’s better than pretending that nothing exists at all.
I recognise that this is mainly the fault of the hardware manufacturers die not giving any drivers but who do you think a user is going to blame? At least put some awareness out there!It’s even more annoying when looking at the Ubuntu Netbook Remix Hardware compatibility page I saw my model as working perfectly out of the box. My Arse!
And of course, after I looked around for some solution, I did find a forum thread linking to another forum thread linking to a ppa-launchpad package for a new driver for this. Ok then, lets install this package and get this working. Repository Added. Trying to update my package lists…404. Repository not found. Aaaaaargh! Fuck that! Wipe Ubuntu, Lets try Mandriva (which I saw has a Moblin interface available)
Mandriva behaved a bit better. At least it recognised that I had a wireless card even though it was not able to use it but at least during the wireless setup wizard it asked me if I wanted to use the windows drivers (ndiswrapper) with it. Seeing at it wouldn’t work any other way I didn’t have an option. Unfortunately an online search returned crappy results (mostly the launchpad entry which didn’t work). Fortunately the Asus Eee came with a CD (which is weird because the Netbook has no CD drive) from which I copied the drivers to a USB disk and then loaded them up using the wizard for ndiswrapper. Score for Mandriva.
Unfortunately they’re very flaky. Wireless keeps dying at random (mostly if I try to logout or if it goes to sleep) and can’t be restored without a reboot. Then when you try to reboot, the system hangs just after halting and can only be restored with a manual power-off. Then I tried to create a new user for me in English, but I can’t install or activate the english language (it’s not even an option anymore). And finally the Moblin interface simply doesn’t work at all which is the most annoying part. At least my girlfriend is satisfied with a gnome interface so it’s not all bad.
Still though, the experience has left me a bit sour. But not as sour as the Win7 one did.
You see, my own PC came with Windows 7 Home Premium in German, which means I couldn’t navigate worth a shit and all programs insisted on installing themselves in a language foreign to me. There’s not way to switch the system language like you can in GNU/Linux, because MS expects you to pay 220$ for the privilege (You need to buy Win7 Ultimate). Fuck that!
Ok, I can live with crappy navigation. Maybe it will help me improve my German. But noooo, it couldn’t be that easy…
The first thing I tried to do was upgrade my Nvidia drivers. Seeing as the system was 64bit, I downloaded the appropriate package from Nvidia. However during the install progress, I noticed a weird warning about my new driver’s kernel (It was in Deutsch so I couldn’t parse it). Oh well, system seemed to work and I tried to play a game to check my new Power.
Queue Blue Screens of Death.
By one driver update, I ended up with around 4 BSOD. In desperation I tried to quickly replace it with the international version of the nvidia driver (just in case that was the problem). It wasn’t. After a few more BSOD, I tried to uninstall and reinstall. Only as soon as I tried to login and install the drivers that came with the PC, Microsoft tried to be helpful by automatically reinstalling the broken drivers without any prompts. Queue hair pulling.
Remember, during all this time I’m trying to nagivate a German language system and can’t figure out almost anything.
In the end, the drivers were stable enough to play Half-Life 2 and I left it at that, as I started downloading an English version of Win7 Home Premium Super Awesome Aqua Force. Next day, I tried to install this using my current serial which fortunately worked. Unfortunately I didn’t notice it was a 32 bit one. I have no idea what the difference is between a 64 bit windows 7 and a 32 bit windows 7 running on a 64 bit processor. Most apps are 32 bit anyway so I have no idea if I’ll be missing anything. Nevertheless, I started a download for the 64 bit of Win7 home premium and still waiting. I fully expect that I will then have to pass through an activation hell.
Of course that doesn’t mean that the system is currently stable. I just had a BSOD when simply trying to open Computer Management…
There was also the sharing hell I had with Win7 which steadfastly refused access to my GNU/Linux boxes, forcing me to pull stuff instead of push as I wanted. The byzantine sharing settings did not help at all. And not to mention other annoying things like Electric Sheep not working, endless security confirmation dialogues and the like.
So here I am at the moment. With a Netbook which has a flaky wireless connection because RaLink can’t write drivers worth a shit and a WiP new PC because fucking MS wants to milk money for a simple language change. Hopefully soon enough things will settle down and I’ll at least get to enjoy my old PC as an XBMC.
But as always, things just couldn’t stay simple could they?
Executive flight is the corporate world’s only effective form of self-regulation: those who are too selfish to pay what they owe to society send themselves into voluntary exile. It’s an act of self-sacrifice for which we should all be grateful. It’s hard on the Swiss, but there’s a kind of mortal justice here too: if you sustain a crooked system of banking secrecy and tax avoidance, you end up with a country full of crooks and tax avoiders.
And for a 2-hit combo:
International attempts to close down tax havens remain half-hearted. But if by some miracle these measures were to succeed, one haven – let’s say St Helena – should be kept open. It should be furnished only with rudimentary homes. All who chose to could live there in peace. Every penny they possessed would remain safe from the taxman, as long as they never set foot in another land. They could sit in their cells and count their money for the rest of their lives. Parties of schoolchildren would be brought to the island to goggle at these hermits, and learn some lessons about the follies of wealth.
On a related note, we need more humor in the anti-capitalist movement.
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Was he supposed to send you some money for helping his stranded son from Greenland? If so, I’m sad to say that you’ve been the target of a con praying on people who are nice enough to try and help a stranger in distress. Disgusting I know. This is why I need you to help me track These scum.
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