Stilgherrian » neocon

Links for 21 November 2008 through 22 November 2008

del.icio.us — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:37:29 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 21 November 2008 through 22 November 2008, after being tickled with a feather duster:

Danger Room Debrief: How to do Defense, When the Money’s Gone | Danger Room from Wired.com: “The current global economic and financial meltdown may yet become something worse: a protracted global depression. As with the last century’s Depression, which spawned fascism and WWII, it could recast the world at a fundamental level. As such, it may soon represent our biggest security challenge in over 50 years.”
The Power of Nightmares | YouTube: The 2.5-minute introduction to The Power of Nightmares, to give you a flavour of the full 3-hour documentary series.
The Power Of Nightmares (DVD) | Internet Archive: This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today: “Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today’s nightmare vision of a secret organized evil that threatens the world, a fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.” The full DVD image is free to download.
Irrelevant Al Qaeda | Jon Taplin’s Blog: Is it time to declare Al Qaeda irrelevant and downgrade the War on Terror a police action that’s just mopping up the stragglers?
Mother Earth Mother Board | Wired 4.12: A massive 1993 feature article in which Neal Stephenson toured six countries following the roll-out of fibre optic cables. It introduced me to his writing and it remains an excellent read today.
The End | Flickr: A collection of classic “The End” title cards from a wide variety of films.
Fiscal Conservative vs. Tax & Spend Liberal | Be the signal: Another variation of an infographic pointing out that the Republicans don’t have the best track record for the US economy.
Opinion graph | Junk Charts: On average, the US stock market does much better under Democrat Presidents than Republicans, as this graph shows.
How Twittering Critics Brought Down Motrin Mom Campaign | Advertising Age: A groundswell of opinion on Twitter caused Johnson & Johnson to pull an adverting campaign.
Thesis Theme for WordPress | DIY Themes: A high-quality but not-free theme framework for WordPress. While I currently use the free Tarski theme for my website maybe this is worth a look at some point.
NSW Parliamentary Research: Mandatory ISP filtering is not what it seems | Internet Industry Association: Research by the NSW Parliamentary Library shows that Senator Conroy’s claims about other nations’ compulsory Internet censorship regimes are wrong.
Kerr's curse | ABC Unleashed: If nothing else, I love this essay for the phrase “cardboard cutout think tanks”. But there are many other reasons to like it.
Internet Censorship and the Irukandji Jellyfish | First Dog on the Moon: Only First Dog on the Moon could successfully combine Senator Conroy’s Internet censorship plan and jellyfish in one cartoon.
PG Nation | ABC Unleashed: An interesting essay about the neo-wowserism of the Rudd government.
Europa Film Treasures: An archive of European cinematographic treasures. It looks like there’s a lot of material here.
The Trojan Horse | Business Spectator: “The current government policy of forcing ISPs to offer their customers a so-called ‘clean feed’ has the overt intention of helping parents to protect their kids while surfing the Internet. It is, we are told, all about child protection. However, the use of content filtering to make the Internet ’safer’ for kids is already available, to the extent that any statistically significant real demand exists to solve it.”
Failing hard drive sounds | Datacent: A collection of the sounds made by dying hard disc drives. Yes, they can be used in music provided you contact these guys first.
19-year-old Commits Suicide on Justin.tv | NewTeeVee: Abraham K Biggs committed suicide on Wednesday while broadcasting himself on video site Justin.tv. Apparently the 19yo Floridian was egged on by commenters on Justin.tv and forum users on bodybuilding.com. The article canvasses some of the legal and ethical issues.

5 Random Semi-Related Posts

Clive Hamilton doesn’t quite win “Cnut of the Week”

Stilgherrian — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:21:19 +0000

I’m surprised. I thought that given Senator Conroy’s three-in-a-row victory as “Cnut of the week”, this week’s winner would be Clive Hamilton for his irrational rant in favour of Internet censorship in Crikey yesterday. But no.

Hamilton is certainly Cnutworthy, trying to hold back two strong tides of change: the change of the Internet, which will deliver whatever people want to send down its pipes, whether you try to block it or not; and the tide of rationality which increasingly renders shrill fear-mongering and name-calling irrelevant. But no.

The winner was Qantas for continuing to resist a tide of public opinion which clearly shows their reputation slipping thanks to unreliable service — which appears in turn to be the result of cuts to maintenance processes.

Last night’s episode of Stilgherrian Live is online for your viewing pleasure, though it’s not the same without the live chat.

But Clive Hamilton… Two hints, Clive.

First, in a hyperconnected world, we can see that your depiction of the opponents of censorship is a lie, because we can just look up their words directly. We can see that you’re continuing this crap about “They want to flood the world with dirty, dirty pornography”, Conroy’s grubby name-calling tactic. No, Clive. The arguments are really about ISP-level “filtering” being a total waste of money because it’s easy to circumvent and detrimental because it degrades Internet performance and blocks legitimate material.

Second, just wanting something doesn’t make it possible — or even desirable when you think through the ramifications. Even if we take at face value the assertion that “93% of parents of teenagers… [support] automatic filtering of internet porn” — and I must admit I’m sceptical of that figure because Newspoll has form — that doesn’t mean it can actually be done. Unlike fear-filled parents, Internet technology’s behaviour can’t be changed by telling it scary stories about “Net videos of a woman having sex with animals” or “Watching someone being raped”.

You can assert all you like that…

Independent expert opinion appears to be that filters can sharply reduce the availability of material deemed offensive or unsafe at the cost of a small degree of degradation of the system…

… but it isn’t true.

We’ve linked to the actual report before. We’ve read past the government-pleasing Executive Summary and looked at the actual numbers. We’ve seen that deceptive people have cherry-picked the numbers, always using the best of the best score for effectiveness and the best-of-the-best score for speed degradation when they were for two different filters. We’ve read how none of the filters can deal with peer-to-peer traffic. We know from network engineers that just encrypting the traffic and sending it through anonymous proxy servers defeats central filters.

This. Has. All. Been. Done. Before. And. Wishing. Really. Really. Hard. Will. Not. Change. It.

What’s truly appalling about Hamilton’s rant is that the man trained as a mathematician. He should be well aware that computers do not respond to rhetoric. He should have more respect for numeracy, and respond to the numerically and technically literate arguments which point out that ISP-level Internet filtering simply will not achieve the aim of “protecting the children”.

This. Has. All. Been. Done. Before. And. Wishing. Really. Really. Hard. Will. Not. Change. It.

We have dismantled your lies before, yet you keep repeating your lies. Why is this?

A quick visit to Clive Hamilton’s website reveals that immorality is his current bête noire.

[T]he paradox of modern consumer life is that we are deprived of our inner freedom by our very pursuit of our own desires. [Hamilton] turns to metaphysics to find a source of transformation that lies beyond the cultural, political and social philosophies that form the bedrock of contemporary western thought.

His search takes him to an unexpected conclusion: that we cannot be truly free unless we commit ourselves to a moral life. The implications of this conclusion are profound, and they challenge many deeply held beliefs in modern secular society.

Now a man may certainly choose a moral path. Morals can be debated, though, and morals change and have changed over time. Merely claiming that one has morals doesn’t give one the right to slur others.

“Logic without moral clarity is no logic at all,” says Hamilton. Alas, Dr Hamilton, you are wrong. They are two different axes of measurement. More to the point, Logic without logic is no logic at all.

Hamilton, like Conroy, has slurred those criticising the government’s poorly-thought-out and technically useless plan to “filter” the Internet. Hamilton has, like Conroy, simply avoided addressing the coherent arguments being put forward and has instead resorted to name-calling, fear-mongering and outright lies.

Hamilton may think he’s taking the moral path, but he’s wrong. He’s behaving unethically. He’s being a hypocrite. In my view that’s truly filthy.

5 Random Semi-Related Posts

William F Buckley is dead

Stilgherrian — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:03:11 +0000

William F Buckley is dead. Given that “Mr Buckley’s greatest achievement was making conservatism — not just electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas — respectable in liberal post-World War II America. He mobilized the young enthusiasts who helped nominate Barry Goldwater in 1964, and saw his dreams fulfilled when Reagan and the Bushes captured the Oval Office,” I should probably know more about him, even though I’ll probably hate him. Perhaps you should too.