Meetings, Usual Life Stuff, News

[tcpip]

Tomorrow evening I am speaking at the Melbourne Existentialist Society on "Autonomy and the Phenomenology of Nature and Property", which relates to an interest some fifteen years old in my persective; developing a political and economic outlook to existentialism. Next week (same location, same time) is the Melbourne Atheist Society, with Russell Blackford speaking on "Religious Vilification and Freedom of Speech", on which I've already stated my point-of-view in various forums (simply put: many racial and religious practises and beliefs and the people who espouse them are deserving of ridicule, contempt and even hatred; I encourage and incite others to express the same).

Work has mainly consisted of more server hardware builds and Xen installs along with transferring sites and mail to a new server. Jon Oxer is back onboard giving presentations and tutorials at OsCon. Social life has struggled a bit with caseopaya not being the most well critter this week. Played Ars Magica Festival of the Damned courtesy of Michael and ran Stormbringer Rogue Mistress.

Well-paid stupidity: Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, says terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment, using weapons that are identical to real-world armaments (from begedel). Paid users now can't avoid "ads" in livejournal (just call it 'sponsorship'. Welcome our new (armed) robot overlords in Iraq (from mundens). Russia is getting very serious about claiming the North pole (with some justification I may add). Finally, vale, Dr. Ellis, another hero of the human species.

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Russell is a very smart guy, who I'm sure is up on the nuances.

Festival of the Damned is a true classic. I'm quite fond of it. I've run it, and one of the things is it can easily set itself up for the start of a whole campaign theme.

The idea of terrorists training with WoW is hilarious. As a regular player, its true that it requires a high degree of cooperation and coordination -- but its also true that high powered WoW combat is more like synchronised swimming or jazz improvisation than like actual fighting...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm getting that impression about Russell the more I read of him. It'll be very entertaining.

As for Festival of the Damned, it's probably going to be a one-off as it's part of our Friday night group, which playes a half-dozen sessions of a game and then moves on to something else... Still, I'll see if I can convince Michael to turn it into something larger.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Russell is a good friend of mine, as well. He is both a lawyer, a philosopher, and an SF fan and futurist, so he should have some interesting thoughts.

Festival of the Damned works great as a one off as well (I chose to run the prequel scenario the Ghoul of St Lazare first, but Festival is the real gem). Just a great bit of RPG writing.

My problem with Ars Magica is that for me it just begs for long, complex, and in depth games, which I seldom have the time to follow through on.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'll send my regards. The research I've done on him suggests we have a fair amount in common.

I have to say, I'm not even sure whether it's my copy of the module or not... I have a small mountain of Ars Magica material, and I've loaned some to the GM to the point I'm not sure what's mine and what isn't...

I really need to make a list.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I have at least two different editions of the module.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, says terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment

At least, a Murdoch newspaper says that's what Zuccato says; I'm waiting for tonight's Mediawatch to see which of those two is the point of failure. (I've never heard of Zuccato before, but going by the rest of the article, I feel pretty safe in suspecting the Oz has misrepresented him here.)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

What?!? A Murdoch paper being cavalier with the truth? And the Australian at that? Surely you jest!

My favourite was The Australian suggesting that Hussein's use of chemical weapons against his own population in the eighties was actually caused by swarms of honey-bees shitting everywhere. Not kidding (March 30, 1984, p7)

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

Your desire to transform Existentialism into a sociopolitical-economic system is intriguing to me.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'll be sure to post the presentation in my next post. Part of it will be derived from the following:

http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/lafayette-lev_metaphysics-and-political-economy.html

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

Appreciated. I think this will be my overnight reading.

[angel80.livejournal.com]

I'm at a loss to know what's going on with LJ. I presume you can still avoid ads by not using the sponsored layouts and/or mood icons and then having your friends page display in your own layout?

There's also some crap going on with Harry Potter and so-called 'child porn'. Apparently in the US the age of consent is 18.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I believe the community linked is still engaging in custom-layouts that effectively block ads, although iirc such things are technically breaches of service.

The crap you refer to was a witchhunt and journal banning by the lj-authorities, on the behest of some white supremicists (of all people), against fan-fiction (amateur sf, fantasy etc) which included sexual content which incorporated under-18s.

I saw a couple of epic lists of famous literature which includes such material (including the Bible of course) which were rather pointed in their comments. A couple of law enforcement agents had some rather unkind comments to say as well.

The whole horrible mess can be read here:

http://news.livejournal.com/99159.html

As for the age of consent in the U.S., it varies according to State (yeah, real smart that)

http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

No, that was the saga, but round 2 is now in progress. After the apology and reinstatement from that flap, LJ have now banned a couple of users for HP porn.

Australia has the same problem with age of consent. Which has lead to the odd, and somewhat ridiculous situation, where in many states two 17 year olds can legally perform all sorts of sexual acts on each other, but if one of them whips out a camera phone to record the moment they technically become a child pornographer liable for serious jail time. Or, for that matter, technically if they write a story about it.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I was not aware at all of round 2.

WRT to your second point it's true enough; there is a set of rules that seems to say that individuals can perform and act but not record it.

Which as far as moral ontology goes is just a whole new degree of stupidity; the law is often an ass and the more complex and more fragmented it is, the more prone to pressure groups which leads to rational inconsistencies, such as what you describe.

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

White supremacists? That's an angle I hadn't heard before. I thought it was just a group of fundies who feared that HP was going to turn their kids into amoral, "Crucio!"-spewing Satanists.

At any rate, the latest round of suspensions seems to be the final straw for the HP fandom; I understand they're going to move en masse to friendlier climes. Unfortunately, with the child porn laws in the U. S. being what they are, I don't know what service they'll find (unless it's off-shore) that won't be immune to the same kind of pressure.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

IIRC the livejournal news link has someone pointing out the connection on the first page of comments.

Livejournal is being very daft. A fund should be establish to buy it off Six Apart. They have amazing levels of incompetence.

[angel80.livejournal.com]

Brad Fitz has now departed too.

And springheel_jack linked to a post yesterday on declining numbers. They now have only 200,000 people posting within the last day, a little more than half of the average number when 6A took it over.

As for other services, there are several using the LJ code - insanejournal, greatestjournal, deadjournal - and blurty. But there's hardly anyone on them.

It seems that 6A also owns typepad, which is also rumoured to be in trouble.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

LJs strength is the critical mass they have. Their loss is their managment.

The new places with lj's code will be fighting among themselves for the critical mass; whereas SA, apparently, will continue to alienate the customer base.

It's a rather depressing scenario.

[darviz.livejournal.com]

"(simply put: many racial and religious practises and beliefs and the people who espouse them are deserving of ridicule, contempt and even hatred; I encourage and incite others to express the same)."

It's been a long time since we used to get into various raves and debates in the early hours at Apocalypse. After reading that, I'm starting to hang out for the old days. lol!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fustian/]

Indeed: what an outrageous piece of agitprop! Are you in the pay of the PNAC, or have you somehow mistaken the militant arm of New Atheism for good sense?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

PNAC couldn't afford me; and whilst I am not overly fond of the new atheists, this does not advocate their position. It is simply advocacy of moral universalism over cultural relativism and advocacy to call ridiculous propositions, and the people who espouse them, for what they are.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fustian/]

It is simply advocacy of moral universalism [...] to call ridiculous propositions, and the people who espouse them, for what they are.

It's certainly not "simply advocacy" to "encourage and incite others to express" "ridicule, contempt and even hatred" for "people who espouse" "many racial and religious practises and beliefs". One can simply advocate an ethical position without attempting to harm those who hold otherwise, much less bring them into personal danger. No, what you're advocating is far from simple: it's complex, it's belligerent and it's frankly uncivilised. It's simply hate speech.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Do you hate people who practise and advocate involuntary female genital mutilation or not? Do you encourage others to have the same position?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fustian/]

Do you hate people who practise and advocate involuntary female genital mutilation or not?

Hate is a sickness. I pity people infected with such broken memes, but I don't wish them harm.

Do you encourage others to have the same position?

I regularly encourage others to think the way I do—which is always the way of thinking I contemporaneously consider the optimal way to think (otherwise, I would think otherwise). Look: I'm doing it now.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hate does not imply that you wish to harm a person. Hate means that one has an extreme aversion, animosity, loathing etc. It is not advocacy towards violence against speaker or actor.

[(Anonymous)]

Hate does not imply that you wish to harm a person.

How is advocating that people ridicule and express contempt for someone not harming them? That's completely disingenuous, and smacks of self-deception.

You are engaging in hate speech, and are thus part of the problem. End of story.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Please read with greater care.

Harm can often be justified. If someone engaged in a violent murder and I accuse them of such an action, the statement harms their reputation. However it is also true and therefore of net benefit.

Also being shown and told that a person is being ridiculous can be beneficial to a person. I really shouldn't need to elaborate on this.

You are engaging in hate speech, and are thus part of the problem. End of story.

And you wish to protect people from criticism who advocate and engage in acts which are ridiculuous, untrue and physically damaging towards others. That is a much greater problem.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you feel strongly enough about it lodge a complaint about my behaviour to the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission. I'd love to take their laws through the public eye.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I acknowledge I was ambigious in the comments prior to your response. To clarify; harm does not mean you advocate violence against a speaker or actor. It may, as you suggest, bring harm to their reputation.

And damn straight the evil people deserve it who suggest that it's OK to cut up young women's genitals because it's "their culture" or the morons who think stones can turn into camels because it says so in their 'holy book'. Such people deserve harm of this nature. They deserve to be called evil or stupid, as the case demands.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

You realise that said statement is actually illegal in Victoria?

[ser-pounce.livejournal.com]

Woot! I welcome our supreme robot overlord leaders!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

So does Samsung.

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/samsung_develops_machine_gun_sentry_robot_costs_200k.php

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

tcpip:

simply put: many racial and religious practises and beliefs and the people who espouse them are deserving of ridicule, contempt and even hatred; I encourage and incite others to express the same.

Amen to that.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Apparently it's becoming a meme. Feel free to repost. :-)

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Anti-democracy+A+letter+from+Russia/1135223214214

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh I agree entirely; the current political context is authoritarian and nationalistic in Russia and I'm sure that their claim is not for benevolent reasons (which is part of the reason I linked the article... this is serious stuff, even if a quite distant to me!).

The justification of the Russian claim (continential principle) in my mind has slightly stronger justification than the sectoral principle which is also sometimes used. The debate over the Timor Sea was a similar issue.

Wikipedia has a neat summary of the various claims:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_claims_in_the_Arctic