You’re Doing it Wrong – Page 34

Defrauding Advertisers

Since I have a lot of libertarian friends it’s no surprise that I see a lot of articles posted on a websites called the Libertarian Republic on my news feed. Personally I have avoided linking to the site with one exception. This is because the site has the atrocious practice of creating top 10 (or whatever arbitrary number they choose) lists where each item is on a separate page. That means you have to click 10 fucking buttons to get through the entire list. I always knew this tactic was to artificially raise the number of page clicks to game advertisers but I never though I’d see one of the administrators of the site so brazenly admit to it. The site recently posted a bullshit top 10 list of reasons why Rand Paul should be elected president (when the site says libertarian it means statist libertarian, which is why I don’t read it). On the site’s Facebook page somebody asked why these top 10 lists always require 10 goddamn clicks to get through and one of the admins chimed in:

So the site is planning on charging readers to see top 10 lists on a single page. I don’t fault the admins of the site for wanting money and see nothing wrong with charging for a service. However the admin’s followup lead me to ask another question:

Aren’t the Libertarian Republic’s advertisers customers? Isn’t artificially raising the number of page clicks by requiring readers to click 10 times to read a single article defrauding those customers? When you think about it the Libertarian Republic is selling its customers a lot of clicks without providing as many potential readers. Since a site admin claims they care so deeply about customers wouldn’t you think the site would not try to artificially increase the number of clicks by shamefully cutting up top 10 lists into 10 separate pages?

If I were an advertiser on that site I would be a bit miffed that clicks were being inflated through this practice. I might even consider it an act of fraud if sale units of ads were purchased on a per click basis.

Again, I don’t fault the site administrators for trying to make a buck. I do find their claim of being interested in customers a bit dubious when they split top 10 lists up like this specifically to sell more ads though. And if they treat their advertiser customers like this then what incentive do I have to buy a subscription (not that I would since I’m not interested in paying for another statist rag)?

That Should Teach Those Kids a Lesson

Kids make stupid mistakes. In the old days before an all pervasive police state parents usually handled correcting their children’s bad behavior. Today the police try to involve themselves in all matters including children acting stupidly. A group of children from Chicago recorded themselves having sex and uploaded it to Twitter. Police found out and decided to intervene. How did they handle the situation? By kidnapping them and charging them for manufacturing child pornography, of course:

Four Chicago-area teenagers faces felony child-pornography charges after uploading a video of themselves having sex to Twitter. The three boys and one girl, ages 14-16, are being held in juvenile custody until a court hearing later this month.

Both the sex and the posting of the video were consensual—this is not a rape or “revenge porn” scenario. But under Illinois law (as in many other states), minors who post sexually-oriented images of themselves online or even share them privately with one another can be charged as child pornographers.

That should teach those kids a lesson. A felony record will ensure they are never able to get a job and that will likely push them towards a life of crime to survive. Since they would be living a life of crime they would likely have continuous run-ins with the police as they check in and out of jail like some traveling salespeople do hotels. This will ensure that the state has a unending source of forced labor and us tax victims will be forced to pay for their housing, clothing, food, and medical care.

OK, now it’s time to be serious for a moment. Making kids felons is not an appropriate way of handling these types of situations. Felonies haunt people for life and labeling somebody a felon before they even have a chance to get a job is fucked up. This is especially true when you consider kids make really stupid decisions because they lack the life experience necessary not to. But bullshit like this will continue to happen so long as police are allowed to involve themselves in situations that really should be handled by parents.

How Not to Defend Yourself

Contrary to what many opponents to legalized self-defense claim there are many instances of individuals successfully defending themselves every day. From the aware individual who managed to avoid a violent situation by crossing a street at the right time to the individual who regretfully had to draw their concealed firearm and shoot their attacker successful incidents of self-defense are all around us. But there are people who mistake self-defense for vengeance. This story that happened in St. Paul is an example of vengeance:

Last night around 5:30 p.m. two armed robbers approached a man near the Hmongtown Marketplace at Como and Pennsylvania Avenues in St. Paul’s North End.

He pulled out a gun and exchanged shots with the would-be robbers.

Everything up to this point qualified as self-defense. Two armed robbers certainly make for a case where their target can reasonably assume that their life is in immediate jeopardy and lethal force is therefore justified. However the defender wasn’t satisfied with stopping there:

Then, when the robbers jumped in their car and tried to escape, he hopped in his car and chased them for more than a mile down Thomas Avenue.

Self-defense ends with the threat does. Once your attackers flee you can no longer claim self-defense if you continue responding aggressively. In this case the defender became the attacker when he chased down the fleeing robbers and engaged in a second gunfight with them.

I encourage everybody to learn skills that make them more able to defend themselves. Knowledge is one of those skills. You need to know the laws regarding self-defense otherwise you may end in a cage.

Dating Advice for Libertarian Men

It’s April 1^st but instead of trickery I have genuinely useful advice for my fellow male libertarians. There is a stereotype, justly deserved in my experience, that libertarian men have a hard time getting dates. As a libertarian male who tends to do OK when it comes to dating I’ve been planning a dating advice for libertarian males presentation at AgoraFest. But somebody beat me to it. Avens O’Brien produced a list of 12 reasons why libertarian men aren’t getting laid. Usually I would avoid linking to one of those lists where each item is presented on a separate goddamn page to rake in a few extra fractions of a cent in advertising revenue but this is incredibly important information so I’m making an exception. But to help you out I’m going to list all 12 items and links directly to them.

From the feedback I’ve received points one, two, five, nine, and ten are the really big sticklers. All of the women I’ve dated were willing to forgive a lot so long as their significant other didn’t constantly complain, had a sense of humor, had hobbies outside of philosophized about liberty and politics, wasn’t an asshole, and wasn’t awkwardly aggressive.

The important thing to keep in mind about this list is that it’s written by a women so it’s going to be far more valuable than the shit libertarian men like to post about the need to be all alpha and shit.

Focus Your Wrath on the Politicians of Indiana Not the People

A lot of dust has been kicked up after Indiana passed a bill that would allow businesses to discriminate based on the owner’s religious beliefs. As the bill was written by Republicans it’s no surprise the bill was aimed at enabling business to discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals (LGBT).

In response to this news Salesfore has cancelled all events in Indiana, Gen Con has threatened to pull out of the state, and more people than I care to count have said they will no longer do any business in Indiana. I feel that it’s necessary for me to point out something that seems to be getting missed. The bill in question was passed by a handful of suit-clad individuals in a marble building. Most of the state had no say in the matter. All they could do is sit idly by while their overlords passed the legislation. Some may claim that the people of Indiana should be held accountable because they voted in these overlords but I will point you to the state’s 2014 election turnout that notes only 30% of registered votes were stupid enough to show up to the polls [PDF]. So 70% of registered votes didn’t have anything to do with the current rulers getting elected.

The bottom line is that punishing everybody in a state for the actions of a handful of fuckwits is not an appropriate response. A far better response would be to create a database of businesses that choose to discriminate against LGBT individuals and boycott them specifically. It would also be appropriate to boycott the politicians themselves but that’s always appropriate because they’re a bunch of sick fuckers who rule us at the point of a gun.

For my libertarian friends that claim this legislation better allows business to freely choose who they will and will not do business with I will point you to the text of the bill. It has some wonderful weasel language:

(b) A governmental entity may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person:
(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

It seems to me that this bill gives the state the option of not prosecuting a business for discriminating based on the owner’s religious beliefs but keeps the door open if the state choose to prosecute. Namely if the state can claim prosecuting a business is in its interest and no other means of forwarding its interests would be less restrictive then it can prosecute. This would open the door for a lot of abuse. For example, the state could decide to prosecute a business owned by a Muslim under the guise of forwarding the state’s interest and having no less restrictive way of proceeding.

Opening the door for the state to pick and choose who it prosecutes is not the same as allowing a business to pick and choose who it does business with. One gives the state the power to decide how businesses can discriminate and the other doesn’t. This bill, based on my layman’s reading (shocker, for those who don’t know, I’m not a lawyer), is a case of the former and not the latter.

The DEA’s Hookers and Blow Parties

What kind of parties does the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) throw on our dime? Hookers and blow parties, what else?

Agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration reportedly had “sex parties” with prostitutes hired by drug cartels in Colombia, according to a new inspector general report released by the Justice Department on Thursday.

In addition, Colombian police officers allegedly provided “protection for the DEA agents’ weapons and property during the parties,” the report states. Ten DEA agents later admitted attending the parties, and some of the agents received suspensions of two to 10 days.

Isn’t it funny how these agencies always get caught up in scandals related to what they’re trying to stop? The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) was caught providing firearms to drug cartels, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) creates terrorists, and the National Security Agency (NSA) purposely tries to break Internet security for everybody.

The only thing that surprises me is that people still trust government agencies in any way. Every single one seems to eventually get caught up in a scandal where it provides resources to the criminals it’s supposed to be fighting. This shouldn’t surprise anybody since criminal gangs like to work together but it should erode any trust the public has in these agencies.

Why Nobody But Republicans Like Republicans

Although the many Republican political victories in the off year election made many social conservatives feel absolutely chart-topping levels of euphoria the truth is most of the country hate the Republican Party. And there’s a reason for this. The party’s constant pursuit of social issues rubs most people who aren’t social conservatives (and many who are) the wrong way. It also rubs many small government advocates the wrong way because nothing says small government like paying bounties to people who identify transgender individuals:

State Senator CB Embry’s bill would have banned students across Kentucky from using facilities that did not correspond with their “biological sex”, offering rewards of $2,500 (£1,650) to anyone who reported people violating the law. Sen Embry believed trans students using the toilets of their gender would cause “embarrassment, shame, and psychological injury to students”.

The bill passed the Republican-controlled Senate, but was stalled by the majority Democrat House of Representatives. Sen Embry then tried to force through his proposals by adding them to a separate, unrelated educational bill, intended to give students greater representation on certain decisions.

Fortunately the bill stalled out but this ended up being bad press for Republicans and great press for Democrats. This is just another bill on the massive pile of bills that Republicans have written and passed since winning seats in the last election. And it’s going to bite them in the ass come next election.

There were a lot of fiscal conservatives who gave the Republicans a chance by voting them in only to see no appreciable results. Government hasn’t shrunk and budgets are still creating massive amounts of debt. If they’re smart the fiscal conservatives will migrate elsewhere since voting Republican obviously hasn’t advanced their goals. Advocates of equality are also unhappy with the Republicans’ pursuit of social conservative issues and will be motivated to turn out to the polls during the election year that actually matters. Hell, many social conservatives are unhappy with these bills because even though they don’t particularly like many groups being attacked by Republican politicians they still believe interactions should be entirely voluntary.

In other words nobody besides diehard Republicans like Republicans. They’re insufferable jackasses when they get into power and don’t even deliver on their promises of balancing budgets and shrinking government. At least the other team is somewhat honest about its intentions to interfering in our personal lives, stealing our money, expand government, and piss away money like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

Discrimination So Good It Has to Be Mandated By Law

The state is the worst discriminator of them all. While there are a lot of horrible bigoted assholes in the world they lack one thing the state has: the power to force others to discriminate. I can choose not to associate with a single bigoted asshole but if I refuse to discriminate in the manner decreed by the state I can face fines and/or be locked in a cage for years. Politicians in Florida have introduced legislation that would mandate discrimination but that state certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on such shenanigans. The French Parliament has introduced legislation that would require modeling agencies to discriminate against women who are deemed too thin by the arbitrary definitions of the state:

The French Parliament is debating legislation that would effectively set minimum weights for women and girls to work as models, a step that supporters of the bill say is necessary to combat the persistence of anorexia.

If it becomes law — it is backed by President François Hollande’s Socialist government — modeling agencies and fashion houses that employ models whose body mass index measurements do not meet minimum standards would face criminal penalties.

There are two points about this legislation I want to bring up. First it defines a minimum weight utilizing a stupid method. Body mass index (BMI) is a statistical index that doesn’t take any unique characteristics of an individual into consideration. For example, one of my friends is a body builder. He is pretty much the peak of male fitness. According to his BMI, which is calculated using only a person’s mass and height, he’s overweight because muscle weighs more than fat and he has a lot of muscle.

Second it legally requires modeling agencies to discriminate against individuals potentially suffering body image issues. Anorexia as a symptom of having a severely negative body image. As far as I know no mental health professional recommends discrimination as an effective treatment for any mental disorder. In fact I’m fairly certain that’s the exact opposite of what a mental health professional would recommend. If this legislation was actually about fighting anorexia it would do something different such as require modeling agencies to have a mental health professional interview applicants and offer assistance to those who are suffering a mental disorder (I’m not saying that’s a good idea, just something that would actually demonstrate a desire to help people with anorexia).

Turning this around a bit imagine if the legislation mandated discriminating against people who are labeled overweight based on their BMI. Would you find it acceptable if, say, restaurants were prohibited from hiring people whose BMI listed them as overweight? No (if you answered yes then you’re an asshole). So it shouldn’t be considered acceptable just because somebody falls into another defined category on the BMI.

Stupid shit like this is the result of looking to the state to solve a problem. Instead of solving the problem you end up having a bunch of politicians, who generally lack any training in fields related to the problem, making arbitrary decisions based on their political ideologies. Since almost every politician’s political ideology is fascism it means you always get legislation that decrees people obey or face punishment.

It’s too Late to Change Anything After the Polling Place Opens

What’s the solution to all of this nation’s problem? More democracy! At least that’s what Obama seems to think:

President Obama on Wednesday suggested that if U.S. voters want to counter the outsized influence of money in politics, it might be a good idea to adopt mandatory voting.

“Other countries have mandatory voting,” Mr. Obama said at a town hall-style event in Cleveland, Ohio, citing places like Australia. “It would be transformative if everybody voted — that would counteract money more than anything.”

Mandatory voting might have a transformative effect if ballots had an option to disband offices. But that option is never available so mandatory voting laws would just coerce you into choosing a master. And since money in politics shapes the ballots it’s already too late to counteract it by the time the polls open (but Obama isn’t an idiot, he already knows that). By the time you’ve gone to the polls the big money players have helped appoint nominees for the two major parties and electoral regulations severely limit what third-party candidates, if any, appear on the ballot (and they don’t have the money for a major media campaign anyways nor are they usually allowed into debates).

It doesn’t matter how many people vote because voting is just confirming the choices already curated for you by your overlords. Another comment by Obama points out another transformative effect of mandatory voting laws:

The president continued, “The people who tend not to vote are young, they’re lower income, they’re skewed more heavily toward immigrant groups and minorities… There’s a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls.”

The keywords here are lower income. Expropriating wealth from people who have little is difficult for the state to justify without looking like a complete asshole. Income and sales taxes don’t raise much money from people with little income to tax or buy things with. Civil forfeiture laws are limited in scope so can’t be applied across the entire demographic. But Australia has shown other states the way by fining people who fail to show up at polling places. Suddenly the state can justify expropriating more wealth from lower income people. It also knows that lower income people have a harder time getting to polling places since they often lack transportation, can’t get time off of work, etc. so the probability of getting to fine them under mandatory voting laws is very high.

Mandatory voting laws are just another sham to make people believe they have a say in politics and a convenient trick to steal their money. As an added benefit, as can be noted by North Korea’s bragging about 100% voter turnout, mandatory voting laws also provide the state with propaganda it can use to justify its legitimacy. How could one, for example, argue that Kim Jong-un isn’t a legitimate ruler when 100% of the population voted for him?

The DMCA is a Corporate Subsidy

Planned obsolescence is a term generally used by the economically ignorant to explain the improvement of products over time. The claim is that, for example, Apple doesn’t make as good of phones as they could because they want them to be obsolete next year so consumers will buy the new one. This ignores the fact that using the latest and greatest hardware drastically increases costs so manufacturers of mass produced devices tend to use components that are still very powerful but cheaper as they rely on older technology. It also ignores the fact that a phone isn’t suddenly obsolete just because a new model has been released. If there were the case there would be no market for used phones.

But there are times when examples of planned obsolescence, that is to say times when companies invested time and resources guaranteeing a product would cease to function after a certain period of time, can be found. Not surprisingly most of these examples rely on various corporate subsidies put into place by the state. One of those subsidies is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA criminalizes the production and distribution of technology that circumvents copyright protection schemes, which are commonly referred to as Digital Rights Management (DRM). How is that a corporate subsidy? Let’s take this case of actual planned obsolescence as an example:

The IlluMask is a $30 “light therapy” mask that utilizes LED lights to zap away bacteria, stimulate skin cells and otherwise fight acne/aging (depending on what model you purchase.) Sounds great (if you buy IlluMask’s claims). A lifetime of skin revitalization, and all for just $30. Oh, wait.

The trouble is, it is limited to 30 daily uses of 15 minutes each, totaling just 7 1/2 hours, effectively lasting you a month. At the end of which, you just discard the device and get a new one. That seems like a ridiculous waste of a perfectly fine, functional device whose LED’s can last at least 30,000 to 40,000 hours.

Even if we ignore the negative environmental impact of discarding plastic masks loaded with perfectly good LEDs, there’s still the incredible audacity of IlluMask’s claim that its mask will only last 30 days, at which point the LEDs doing all of the facial revitalization/bacteria zapping are suddenly useless, even with well over 99.97% of their lifespan still ahead of them (based on 35,000 hours).

The manufacturers of the IlluMask utilize DRM to prevent the device from working after 30 days. Fortunately bypassing the DRM is easy:

1. Change the batteries if lights are getting dimmer.
2. Use a screwdriver and open the case. Then remove batteries and unscrew screws so the plastic battery holder on top of the circuit board can be moved over. Be careful NOT to damage any of the delicate wiring.
3. Now that the circuit board is exposed, put the batteries back in their slots.
4. Using a piece of wire (such as a paper clip) touch one end of your wire and place it where the thin copper wire connects to the circuit board (silver spot marked LED). Touch the other end to the little RESET copper circle–located on the left of the circuit board (use the copper circle above the word RESET, not below).
5. Press the start button while the wire is in place.
6. Move your wire from the RESET button to the TEST button.
7. Press the start button again while the wire is in place, and the count should reset to 30!

Unfortunately the DMCA makes disabling the DRM a potentially criminal offense. And herein lies the subsidy. Thanks to the DMCA developing DRM technology can be worth the investment in time and resources. Even though DRM can always be bypassed, which would making it a poor investment in time and resources under normal circumstances, the existence of the DMCA means that anybody who does develop methods of bypassing DRM faces fines and prison time for doing so. The state threatens violence against anybody who attempts to bypass DRM, which drastically raises the cost of doing so. And the tax victims gets to foot the bill for sending the heavily armed cops to kidnap developers of DRM bypassing technology, having highly paid prosecutors and judges argue and rule the developer’s guilt, and guarding the prison the developer will be kept in for years. Were the DMCA not in place bypassing DRM would carry no risks and manufacturers would have no recourse other than attempt to develop a hardier DRM mechanism.