Technology moves on, always advancing. The internet, to use a bad analogy, is like a series of tubes, much like the sewer system we now have. Before the sewer system, people took a dump into a pot and then poured the contents out into the streets from their window. That is, if they had a chamber pot to use. Otherwise, it was go to the backyard (which was easier to do back then) and pretend to be like any other animal.
But technology moves on and we (the government, really) built, or required building onto, the sewer system. Now, we're all better off for it. Now, we can fit 800,000 into San Francisco without it stinking to high heaven. We can fit 8 million people into NY without the effluent causing thousands of terrible diseases.
So the internet was born in the late 60s and over time became much like a sewer system. It's everywhere and (almost) everyone is connected to it. (Hard to believe, but there are places in the US not connected to either the internet nor the sewer system, but I digress.)
Today, the internet is as crucial and essential to daily living as a well-run sewer system. Yeah, twenty years ago, if you didn't have internet access, it wasn't the end of the world. Nor was access to a sewer system 200 years ago. But technology moves on, always advancing.
Today, it is essential to have internet access, not just for Facebooking or watching porn or instantly messaging friends, but for all sorts of activities that cannot possibly be done without the thing called the "internet". One most important and unique capability of the internet is the crowd-sourcing ability. How else can 10-thousand to 10-million people contemplate and discuss or vote on or evaluate something at the same instant?
Well, I can go on about the utility of the internet, but the galling problem is the two bills -- SOPA in the House and PIPA in the Senate -- that wants to bring us back from a sewer-system society to a chamber-pot society. SOPA/PIPA will require that you can only use your own toilet. You can't use someone else's toilet, and no one can use your toilet. And not only that, you can only put your own shit and piss in that toilet. You can't toss in illegal toilet paper or maybe yesterday's soup that has spoiled. If someone took a dump in your toilet, your sewer system access could be turned off. If you barfed in that toilet, your sewer system access could be turned off. Heaven forbid if someone else decided to barf in your toilet.
Worse, the alleged point of SOPA/PIPA is to prevent piracy. But it won't. Someone wishing to get a sniff of your wonderful shit has only to go find the sewer line and pop a hole there. He can extract whatever he wants and he can put in whatever he wants. People wanting to pirate some shit will still be able to, and still do it illegally.
SOPA/PIPA allows for punishment without due process. You take a dump and an undigested corn drops through. Bang, your sewer access is closed. And you don't even know it happened, until things start blocking up and you can't get access.
But technology moves on and we (the government, really) built, or required building onto, the sewer system. Now, we're all better off for it. Now, we can fit 800,000 into San Francisco without it stinking to high heaven. We can fit 8 million people into NY without the effluent causing thousands of terrible diseases.
So the internet was born in the late 60s and over time became much like a sewer system. It's everywhere and (almost) everyone is connected to it. (Hard to believe, but there are places in the US not connected to either the internet nor the sewer system, but I digress.)
Today, the internet is as crucial and essential to daily living as a well-run sewer system. Yeah, twenty years ago, if you didn't have internet access, it wasn't the end of the world. Nor was access to a sewer system 200 years ago. But technology moves on, always advancing.
Today, it is essential to have internet access, not just for Facebooking or watching porn or instantly messaging friends, but for all sorts of activities that cannot possibly be done without the thing called the "internet". One most important and unique capability of the internet is the crowd-sourcing ability. How else can 10-thousand to 10-million people contemplate and discuss or vote on or evaluate something at the same instant?
Well, I can go on about the utility of the internet, but the galling problem is the two bills -- SOPA in the House and PIPA in the Senate -- that wants to bring us back from a sewer-system society to a chamber-pot society. SOPA/PIPA will require that you can only use your own toilet. You can't use someone else's toilet, and no one can use your toilet. And not only that, you can only put your own shit and piss in that toilet. You can't toss in illegal toilet paper or maybe yesterday's soup that has spoiled. If someone took a dump in your toilet, your sewer system access could be turned off. If you barfed in that toilet, your sewer system access could be turned off. Heaven forbid if someone else decided to barf in your toilet.
Worse, the alleged point of SOPA/PIPA is to prevent piracy. But it won't. Someone wishing to get a sniff of your wonderful shit has only to go find the sewer line and pop a hole there. He can extract whatever he wants and he can put in whatever he wants. People wanting to pirate some shit will still be able to, and still do it illegally.
SOPA/PIPA allows for punishment without due process. You take a dump and an undigested corn drops through. Bang, your sewer access is closed. And you don't even know it happened, until things start blocking up and you can't get access.
So please, don't be so anal retentive and get our legislators to end SOPA/PIPA. It's some bad shit.
Let's now talk about the people who are advocating for the legislation. I'm not talking about Lamar Smith. He's just a congresswhore who takes other people's money and their 90% completed legislation and lets others use his name and position to further their interests. What's the analogy for the pro-SOPA/PIPA people? Well, they would be the ones who scraped the sidewalk clean of shit and sold them to people who would use the shit (presumably, back in the days, that would be farmers who'd use the shit as fertilizer, or people who would make gun powder). It wasn't their shit and they didn't use the shit. But they had a lucrative business being the middleman. The advent of the sewer system essentially killed off the shit-pickers. And for good reason. They're full of disease and stink to high heaven. And I'm sure they really didn't like what they were doing, even if they made good money doing it.
When technology advances, someone or some entity lose out. Those technological roadkills are precisely the entities that the technology is supposed to pass by. The RIAA/MPAA are exactly the shit-traders that we no longer need or use. They can be the roadkill as we move forward and have a copyright system that is fruitful to the creators and not onerous on the consumers. The RIAA/MPAA should, as some politicians tell the unemployed, go learn a new trade.
Let's now talk about the people who are advocating for the legislation. I'm not talking about Lamar Smith. He's just a congresswhore who takes other people's money and their 90% completed legislation and lets others use his name and position to further their interests. What's the analogy for the pro-SOPA/PIPA people? Well, they would be the ones who scraped the sidewalk clean of shit and sold them to people who would use the shit (presumably, back in the days, that would be farmers who'd use the shit as fertilizer, or people who would make gun powder). It wasn't their shit and they didn't use the shit. But they had a lucrative business being the middleman. The advent of the sewer system essentially killed off the shit-pickers. And for good reason. They're full of disease and stink to high heaven. And I'm sure they really didn't like what they were doing, even if they made good money doing it.
When technology advances, someone or some entity lose out. Those technological roadkills are precisely the entities that the technology is supposed to pass by. The RIAA/MPAA are exactly the shit-traders that we no longer need or use. They can be the roadkill as we move forward and have a copyright system that is fruitful to the creators and not onerous on the consumers. The RIAA/MPAA should, as some politicians tell the unemployed, go learn a new trade.