SOPA

A while back, I was surfing reddit when I saw a young petition attempting to stop the SOPA bill from being passed. I researched a bit, agreed with the petitioner, and signed. I was signature #83 (or so I recall). In the weeks that followed, reddit all but exploded in its frustration at this bill. In fact, you might say it did explode. Reddit decided to turn itself off for a day to bring awareness to the horrors of SOPA. For the unaware, SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. This is an impossible act. I mean that. Piracy cannot and will not be stopped. In fact, the fear that this act created has ensured that. Many people have started fighting for their right to a free internet. Some of them have gone so far as to create their own, independent, uncontrollable "darknet". So, the Act was an attempt to stop online piracy by giving copyright holders the right to take down any web site that published their content without any form of a trial. The large issue here is that many of your favorite websites (like youtube) are only able to function because they are not held responsible for the content that their users post. SOPA would have changed that and altered our internet. That is why so many large websites (like google and reddit and wikipedia) censored themselves to to demonstrate what kind of internet SOPA would create. The day following that protest, SOPA had been stopped, and MegaUpload was taken down. This proves that whoever is out there "fighting piracy" needs no more tools than they already have. If anything, they need a lot less. If something must be legislated, that is it. MegaUpload may have been participating in some illegal activities, but they also participated in a LOT of legal ones. The sudden disappearance of their website was a shock. Many people, including copyright holders, LOST their files. I emphasize "lost" because all internet "piracy" that occurs does not involve taking anything away from anyone. It is constantly referred to as theft and piracy, when it is actually called infringement. However, I would argue that what the FBI did to MegaUpload and its users is actually theft. They took everything in the night. It is gone, and unless the thieves have a change of heart, it is not coming back.

So. I signed a petition. It got over 50,000 signatures. Once it got 25,000, it was guaranteed to get  a response from the white house. That response was a typical political response, with one caveat. It said it would invite a few of the signers to a conference call regarding how to move forward. The issue, is that they still believe they must do something... and they want us to tell them what. I ended up being one of the hundred people on that call... it lasted 37 minutes, and about 5 people got to say something to the three officials available. As I stated in my first post on this blog, I judge people based on what they produce, not on how great their title is. And thus, 5 incredibly intelligent civilians articulated the opinions of the people quite well, while 3 idiotic politicians did damage control.

The issue I am getting at, is free speech. Yes, we all have the right to free speech. However, our government has the right to pretend to listen while blatantly ignoring you and doing whatever it wants. I applaud the Obama administration for creating the petition website and actually making that conference call happen. It is the first step in a good direction. However, it only further pointed out the flaw in their system to me. The flaw that, once overcome, will let them take the second step. The flaw is that their is no conversation. On the petition website, 25,000 people come together to get an official response to something they care about. The response they receive is always titled quite differently than the petition, and normally skips all the points made in the petition. This is exactly what we see in the Republican candidacy debates. They do not answer the question. I was hopeful that a conference call may play out differently. Instead, it confirmed the flaw. The first person to speak conveyed how any legislation of the internet is is hurtful to the people they are trying to protect, and innovation has been the driving force for dealing with the issue. (He said it much more eloquently...) The first response to the first civilian to talk on this call began somewhat like this "let me take this time to talk about how certain actions have been able to affect change..." I'm sorry, but what? You invited all of us to a conference call so that you could hear our opinions, and then vehemently defended your own positions by tangentially talking about other topics? How political. Another thing. This terrifies me. They condescendingly used the word "broad" to refer to the views that people were providing. I wish they would have told us what they were looking for, but if they dismiss everything as being too "broad", then how the *Expletive Deleted* do you run a country? We don't have broad views. We have incredibly individualized views. However, as competent civilians trying to make a difference, we intentionally attempt to portray the views of ourselves and our peers. I believe this is a quality that is missing from most politicians, and the fact that it is viewed in such a poor light makes it obvious as to why our country is in shambles.

So, I mentioned this happens on television and on the official petition website... Conversation (as in, two parties exchanging more than a single message) does not not occur on conference calls with our officials. So. If anyone from the government reads this, take step 2. Be open to more than receiving a message and sending a response. Make an avenue for the original sender to respond to that. And please, make your responses pertain to the original message.

When 50,000 people say "STOP SOPA", and you say "COMBATING ONLINE PIRACY WHILE PROTECTING AN OPEN AND INNOVATIVE INTERNET", we get confused when you ask us to tell you how to fight piracy. Because we don't want you to. Especially if you're going to spend my money to do it. In this debate, one party doesn't care about piracy, and one party does. The party that does has no idea how to fight it, and so they ask the party that gave up fighting a long time ago what to do... and they ignore us when we tell them to leave it be.

-K

Super Bowl

Today is the super bowl... so I'll be talking about sports. I won't be watching the sensationalized ad-fest that is occurring this evening. I'll be watching the puppy bowl. It is vastly superior television.

When I was a small child, I said to my parents, "If the good guys think that they are the good guys, and the bad guys think that they are the good guys, then who are the good guys?" A few days ago I realized how well this is depicted by sports competition. The giants want to win this game. The patriots want to win this game. The fans of the two teams want their team to win the game. Only one will win, and so half the people involved will lose. I'd like to think that the players understand that it is just a game, but sportsmanship is not what it used to be. I'd be surprised if no fights occurred regarding the outcome of this game. Personally, I've never understood how anyone can side with any particular team. Perhaps its because I've spent my life traveling, and whenever you are in a new area... people demand that you support their team. I pretend to... as that is the best way to gain favor with them, but picking a team is hebetudinous. I've "supported" a variety of teams as I've lived with roommates that are die-hard fans. Now I work in an area where almost everyone I see is wearing a giants logo. My boss even gave me time off to watch the game under the assumption that I am a giants fan.

So, think of sports as an analogy. Each team is an army. Each fan base makes up the citizens of the country they protect. Why do the fans support the team when they know that it will only cause fighting? The US is starting to realize this, and thus our army is losing support.

Basically, I hate pretending to like sports. I care not for who is playing, because every game is the same. Two teams face off, and one of them wins. The fact that I will actually get a sour reaction from a sports fan that I tell this to is what makes me dislike the sports system. If you want to watch the game, feel free. If you assume that I too want to watch the game and hear all about it when I obviously haven't been paying attention to the sports world, then you need to start doing some serious self examination.

Plus, for anyone that is too ignorant to realize it, sports is just another form of entertainment meant to waste your time and money. If you don't believe me, watch the super bowl tonight... and I mean watch. Think too. Think about how much money has been sunk into the halftime show, the ads, the holographic bullshit they use to communicate with other idiots that don't have any useful skills. And think about how much money is being given to every person involved... and how much money the massive crowd gave to be there. And lastly, think about the reason that they are willing to put so much money in: Because you and far too many other people are watching this game, giving it the most valuable ad space I know of.

Or, join me and watch the puppy bowl. Because cute puppies are far more entertaining to watch than a bunch of muscular men in extremely tight clothes tackling each other to gain possession of the illusive ball as they try to move it 100 yards in opposite directions. Real impressive.

Welcome!

Welcome to K, Ind. I'm K, and I'm here to tell you what I think about the world. Lets start with my qualifications. I've got a BS in ISAT (Integrated Science and Technology), so I suppose that makes me a scientist. Beyond that, I don't care. In fact, I don't even care about that. Qualifications mean nothing to me. My brother is the CEO of WePay.com, but that hasn't altered my perception of him. The fact that I watched him build the company from scratch is what has altered my perception. People are who they are, and a diploma from James Madison University certainly hasn't changed who I am. If you'd like me to think highly of you, don't tell me your qualifications. Tell me what you've done. What you're doing. What you will do. I hope I'll convey my answers to those questions as I write this blog.

When I say tell me, I mean it. If you've read this, I'd love to hear from you about anything. ANYTHING. I'm quite good with personal issues. I'll be your therapist if you'll let me. Of course, if this somehow becomes popular... I haven't figured out the plan for that. I expect little to no readership, but I will write anyway. One day, my descendants will be able to read this, and see what KInd of person I was... and that makes it worth it.

This world of mass communications has flooded the channels, and ideas no longer propagate the way they used to. There are no Einsteins because there is no one to single them out. So many brilliant minds will never be discovered and humanity's progression will be slowed because of it. If only we had a system that examined each of us as individuals and assisted us in getting where we need to be. Oh right, it's called the education system... and it sucks. It gets us somewhere... thats for sure. However, it seems like it normally just takes us into the mountains of debt. I'm one of the fortunate ones. My father saved me from that place. But now I'm just coasting forward without much direction, and no desire to make absurd quantities of money. Why do we even call it "making money"? Only the government can do that. They are the one. Everyone else takes money. The more you stockpile, the less there is for everyone else. Money is literally worthless, but everyone has faith in its value, and so the system soldiers on... Predicated on the lie that the green paper in my pocket can be traded for just about anything. It was once tied to gold... and most people agree that was a good thing. Now, the dollar is not even tied to the exchange of paper notes. The decoupling of the dollar from the physical dollar has really screwed us. Debt can now run rampant as people can spend money that exists only as data in someone's server... and it has. This was initially seen as an economic boon... However, financial data has never spiraled this far out of control before. It's going to be interesting.

Anyway, I'm K, and I'm an INTP... a systems thinker, analyst, scientist, physicist, astronomer, philosopher, counselor, and fun loving kid. Pretty much, I'm a human being, and you are too. There is nothing I enjoy more than exploring a fellow human mind. Although I should warn you... mine isn't what I would call "normal".