If you thought the DMCA was bad...

[armadaender]

The difference is if you start planning a civil war you will be arrested as a terrorist even though you are wanting to fight for the freedom that has been taken away from you by the government that claims to preserve freedom... talk about irony.

Very true. That's what I love about the American government. Take for instance college student demonstrations. These are often portrayed as 'radical' and 'misdirected' and therefore whenever one gets broken up by the government and reported of by the news, the students are looked upon as anarchists and terrorists when in reality, they were doing the same thing the founders of America did almost 250 years ago. Minus the guns. This can be seen all around the world in china, korea, etc. But for them, the governments are simply squashing the demonstrators (tiananmen square anyone?) and no pregress is made.

I like your ideas VaKo, but the human race has just come so far. In today’s world, the haves would control such governments with iron fists and we might as well be living in North Korea, China, etc. Power, greed, money and everything along those lines still run the lives of the majority of humans in the world. The ones who are the most educated and/or have the most money will be the ones taking over the masses. Because of the global network we now live in, computer geeks and hackers like us would become top property for running the world (Where's my "geek shall inherent the earth" t-shirt?) .

Well, My own opinion is that changing to a "utopian" society would be worst for the masses than democracy already has been. What I believe should occur is what a Swiss economist believed back in 1800. Simone De Sismondi believed in the profit motive, he believed in capitalism and freedom of businesses to run as they wanted....but with restrictions. I don't want to spell out everything he researched and believed but he's defiantly an interesting person to read about since he wrote his work during the industrial revolution and most of his work still applies to today.

[W4RP3D]

The political system in pretty much every contary who is democratic will stay the same for a very long time, although they are many laws that hundreds of people disagree with. For a civil war to break out would nead the support of (i think) more than 30% of the population and the army which is increadbly unlikly unless there is a huge ecomonic crash, simlar to the one that caused the 2nd world war. Even if there was a civil war it wouldnt last long cause of the goverments forgein allies.

I think that the democracy is the best political system that is currently used through out the would, dictators are just power crazy lunitics who control the lives of millions of people (and if aposed bruterly murder people) and any without freedom of speech (which isnt userally a right in dictator controled contarys) things like Hak.5 could never be show.

[Sparda]

I think Sauron had the right idea ^^

[Shaun]

I can't see demarchy or meritocracy working. Demarchy seems to rely on the fact the regular people from the population will have the country's best interests at heart. I don't think that is the case. What will happen is people will make laws that represent their own interests. Another problem is that most people are stupid, or rather they aren't stupid but they are uninformed/misinformed and don't really have a desire to inform themselves. A scarily large portion or the population gets their opinions from whatever shitrag tabloid newspaper they read. I reckon you'd get a lot of laws discriminating against groups that are used as scapegoats for the problems in our society (muslims, asylum seekers and other immigrants, etc).

I think someone pointed out the problem with meritocracy. Who decides who has the best ability to rule? Who decides the criteria that people are judged under? The people chosen through the demarchy part of the government? Well then you'll just get people chosen who have the same views as the group that is randomly chosen. In fact what you'll have done is reinvent democracy, but with only a randomly chosen group voting. The examples of meritocracy in that article seem to be based upon a despotic leader assigning people based on merit, it which case you basically have a totalitarian (possibly oligarchic) government since those people will be chosen because they have the same beliefs as the leader.

W4RP3D: That may be the case, but isn't peak oil either here or rapidly approaching? In my opinion we aren't going to have viable alternatives for all the things oil is used for before the econimy is seriously hit by oil prices constantly rising much faster than we've seen before. That could easily cause a revolution.

[degoba]

According to plato an oligarchy is the best form of government. Its rather funny but in his republic he analyzes 5 fomrs of government. He rates democracy as the worst form of government. According to marx communism is the best form of government. I tend to agree with marx. And I dont care what fucking government officials are reading this forum. Marx on paper has the best form of government ever thought of.

On another note these changes to the DMCA is really fuckin scary. Vako there will be a revolution. Maybe the revolution wont come in the form of guns but it will be fought over the web in binary between hackers for freedom, and the corporations controlling our government.

That all being said, I am prepping for that day.

/me kicks over the bookcase and starts pumping shells.

[calking]

I personally think the internet (and the billions of computers consistenly connected to it) should be considered foreign soil and that the Government should have zero control except in certain exceptions. Make that happen and all the RIAA/MPAA/SIIA lawsuits will go down like a landslide.

Unless of course our world govts find a way around it.

[cooper]

The machine from which you distribute the files (call it bittorrent, P2P, FTP or whatever newfangled thing) will always reside somewhere. While the network itself may be considered foreign soil, you're destributing from a specific place (a concept that is reinfoced by the fact that if you unplug the machine from the network, those files don't magically disappear) without a legal right to distribute (which is part of what copyright was meant to govern). So what you're doing IS without a doubt illegal no matter how you look at it. As popular as it may be to dream up some reason to defend your actions, that doesn't change the fact that you ARE breaking the law by engaging in these activities. If you disagree with that, you're either just kidding yourself or completely oblivious to the law.

Sweden has thepiratebay, but the only reason that's legal is because distributing the TORRENT isn't illegal (there). The sharing of the file in question using that torrent, on the other hand, IS illegal, even in Sweden.

[Neod101]

This is a very interesting discussion. The government should stop trying to stop us so-called "terrorists" and start stopping the REAL terrorists.

[calking]

The machine from which you distribute the files (call it bittorrent, P2P, FTP or whatever newfangled thing) will always reside somewhere. While the network itself may be considered foreign soil, you're destributing from a specific place (a concept that is reinfoced by the fact that if you unplug the machine from the network, those files don't magically disappear) without a legal right to distribute (which is part of what copyright was meant to govern). So what you're doing IS without a doubt illegal no matter how you look at it. As popular as it may be to dream up some reason to defend your actions, that doesn't change the fact that you ARE breaking the law by engaging in these activities. If you disagree with that, you're either just kidding yourself or completely oblivious to the law.

Yeah I know, it's a crack dream. I'm not oblivious to the law I just think the US should FOR ONCE side with the people and not the frackin corporation who continually bribes them for their vote.