SOPA (Please read!)

[Zenanor]

    So it is agreed then: We are all moving. Dreaker or Zenanor, you guys like where you live? Given the current turn of events, a change of local may be in order. My friends have already agreed to take off if things get worse, if we can get out of the country. Huh, that may be an issue...

Denmark is great if you have a little socialist in you but still want liberalism and democracy. The language is nuts though.

But if things really are as bad as it seems, we might see the UN trying to correct/fix/replace the US government if things continue. Hopefully. A revolution is not the best way to reform a country, probably because the transition of power goes too fast for everyone involved.

One the main subject: SOPA. It won't work, the concept, the tools and methods that will be used doesn't work on piracy.

[DC]

The thing that's most frustrating is that this only has the potential to hurt legitimate sites and act as a tool for censorship.  It will do nothing to stop piracy.  There's already a firefox plugin, Soapy, that gets around it.  And it isn't even implemented yet.  Talk about useless.

link: http://mashable.com/2012/01/12/soapy-kills-sopa/?replytocom=17940945

The mere fact that this plugin exists (or will exist) is a harbinger towards what will happen if the SOPA bill gets passed. We've all seen it before and I can explain it here: Humans as a species are born to persist and will find ways to survive or persist through great challenges. A person on their own isn't a huge threat... but imagine if 4chan, for example, had a bunch of coders and generally intelligent people that could make bypass programs to this SOPA thing? I mean, we've heard / seen stories of 4chan making sure things happen on the internet (or off it, in some cases) and despite the bad rap it gets, 4chan can be efficient in some ways for the greater good. My point is... if a group of people, who were capable of coding, were unhappy with what SOPA was doing... these people would create a program and distribute it... then other programmers would get their hands on a copy and make a new / better version of their own, then people who can't will be mass distributing this program to their friends and ya de ya. Ultimately, even if SOPA gets passed, people on the Internet will find a way to continue doing what they do.

It's like if God / Buddha / Hades / etc. were to suddenly say "Hey Humans, guess what! Here's a flood that will wipe out half the Earth!", the remaining humans that survive the initial flood will find a way to survive with the small bits of land that they have. SOPA is the flood and the Internet is the Earth.

[lyfibringer]

Denmark is great if you have a little socialist in you but still want liberalism and democracy. The language is nuts though.

    I just wanna live in peace and quiet so I can dream and write. That is all I want. As for language, I could try to learn. Or just run around screaming jibberish at the top of my lungs. Bound to say something, right?

But if things really are as bad as it seems, we might see the UN trying to correct/fix/replace the US government if things continue. Hopefully. A revolution is not the best way to reform a country, probably because the transition of power goes too fast for everyone involved.

    Never thought of that. All it would take is ripping the people in power out and putting new, less corrupt ones in. The principles that founded this place are solid enough and paired with the documents the founding fathers left behind, running a country should not be this freakin' hard.

One the main subject: SOPA. It won't work, the concept, the tools and methods that will be used doesn't work on piracy.

    It is not about piracy and I doubt it ever was.

It's like if God / Buddha / Hades / etc. were to suddenly say "Hey Humans, guess what! Here's a flood that will wipe out half the Earth!", the remaining humans that survive the initial flood will find a way to survive with the small bits of land that they have. SOPA is the flood and the Internet is the Earth.

    Giving up is not in our nature unless something so insane happens on a worldwide scale as to break the collective will of people. SOPA is not that. People are angry and scared at what this means for the future and so the muck is being stirred. Who knows what is hiding under all this mess...

[Russ]

I try not to pay attention to politics because of all the bad stuff that happens... not because I don't like bad stuff (which I don't), but because I'm prone to anxiety attacks... and too many bad things I know about will cause me to flip my lid.

Things I'm noticing, folks... please tell me if anyone else has this thought:
- I think America is on the verge of going from a Democracy to a Dictatorship.

Why?

Aside from this SOPA bill that's getting voted on... there's that new bill that passed recently where you can get hauled out of your house and taken to a camp somewhere by the feds because they assume you're a terrorist. No warrant needed... they'll just take you, put you in this camp, and let you stay there because they think you're dangerous. What was that one movie where those psychic people would whisper "murder" and the police would go arrest potential murderers... then those potential murderers would only become potential murderers if they were hauled away because the police thought they were potential murderers?

If you're confused, don't be ashamed. The point I'm trying to make is... America has become so paranoid and so focused on defense that they're just tightening the grip around US Residents so much that people are starting to feel threatened within their own country.

Minority Report.

[Dreaker]

Come to Hungary. We maybe galleon slaves on a vessel heading to its doom with a mad man at the wheel but we have the hottest women on the continent beautiful cities and landscape.
But we have a big downside. Our language would make your eyes bleed if you try to learn it.

[lyfibringer]

Come to Hungary. We maybe galleon slaves on a vessel heading to its doom with a mad man at the wheel but we have the hottest women on the continent beautiful cities and landscape.
But we have a big downside. Our language would make your eyes bleed if you try to learn it.

    Sold. There is nothing, NOTHING, than can top what you just said. Sorry Zenanor. Anyone one else coming along for the ride?

[Russ]

    Sold. There is nothing, NOTHING, than can top what you just said. Sorry Zenanor. Anyone one else coming along for the ride?

Sure.

Half ancestry from that region (Budapest), and live for Paprika and garlic.... 

[Draque]

So it seems like SOPA is most likely dead at this point!  Now we just have to worry about PIPA, the senate's version of the bill.  With any luck, that will be hamstrung as well.

[lyfibringer]

    Color me shocked at the turn of events. The DNS blocking is being written out and more support is coming out of the woodwork. At the very least, it will not pass in it's current form, which is good. If they return to the drawing board and figure something else out and rename the bill, more may come of it. As it stands, this is a good metric and wake up call for what widespread awareness can do for the American government.

    And yes, death to PIPA next.

[joshofspam]

Yeah, Sopa's dead for now.

Now all we need to worry about is it's little Daemon child little brother Pipa. Should I be even more afraid their trying to pass two bills that are probably pretty much the same thing?

They certainly don't think much of are intelligence if they're trying to pass stuff like this. Though I must admit I'm rather angry that I never heard of it until people started talking about it on the Internet. Hurts my feelings that they try to sneak something this important and destructive by me. I know its easy to do, but still....that's low.

[FlyingSquirrell]

I had heard that the U.N., and I'm not entirely sure it's true, had said the internet is considered a human right. If this is true, and I hope it is, SOPA has no grounds to stand on.

[Zenanor]

I had heard that the U.N., and I'm not entirely sure it's true, had said the internet is considered a human right. If this is true, and I hope it is, SOPA has no grounds to stand on.

Found an article about it here: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/
And a link to the report quoted: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/17session/A.HRC.17.27_en.pdf

The part that is interesting is following:
"The Special Rapporteur considers cutting off users from internet access, regardless of the justification provided, including on the grounds of violating intellectual property rights law, to be disproportionate and thus a violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

And if I understood it correctly: "You can't ban pirates"

Edit: SOPA is back

http://www.webpronews.com/sopa-is-back-resume-february-2012-01

[DC]

Heads up, folks.

Wikipedia, along with a number of other sites, will be shut down @ Midnight tonight (Wednesday 12 AM) to protest the SOPA bill.

So if you need to use those sites, use them tonight.

[Noben]

Hey look, here's how out of touch some people can be about this subject...


https://twitter.com/#!/herpderpedia

[Draque]

Hey look, here's how out of touch some people can be about this subject...


https://twitter.com/#!/herpderpedia

Crackerbarrel christ, the people making posts there are blindingly stupid... each posts is demanding to know why Wikipedia is shut down, or what SOPA is, or what WP has against SOPA... when the blackout page leads directly to a verbose and well written explanation of just that.