You Know the Internet has Reached a New Low
…when a live webstream of a woman being raped shows up online.
Seriously, this is disgusting:
According to police, Hock raped the woman in her own bedroom after she had been asleep for four to five hours. The victim told police she learned about the video after receiving numerous text messages from her friends. She said she then signed onto the Web site and found photos of Hock lying next to her as she was nude from the waist down, the statement said.
Phoenix police said they obtained the five-minute video and heard Hock comment about how the victim was completely passed out and how he can have sex with her without her knowledge.
I have no commentary to add to this detestable story, except to say ladies: always, always be sure you know what kind of people the guys you’re drinking with are.
This is just absolutely revolting. I’m going to go vomit now.
US Still Pwns China on Free Speech
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the bloody end to the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. Reports abound that the Chinese government has blocked several social networking sites in order to avoid a resurgence of anti-government sentiment:
…the Chinese government has begun clamping down on access to popular Internet services in an apparent effort to quell memorials, protests, or any rekindling of the pro-democracy and anti-government sentiments that led up to 100,000 Chinese to gather at Tiananmen Square in the first place. Microsoft and Yahoo have confirmed that access to Flickr, Hotmail, and even Microsoft’s new Internet search service Bing have been blocked by the Chinese government, and reports have access to microblogging service Twitter shut down as well.
I don’t get sentimentally patriotic very often, but seeing that iconic image of the man in the white shirt standing in front of the line of tanks makes me happy that I live in a society that embraces the idea of free speech. I’m not a very politically-savvy person. IMHO, politics is nothing but a ridiculous game and an utter waste of our money. However, with that massive waste of money comes a big government that’s too intellectually divided and, more importantly, too inefficient to ever be able to censor our speech, thoughts, beliefs, and expressions.
Try to imagine an entity of the US government actively regulating content on the internet. The feds are already doing such a great job with medicare fraud, online prostitution, disaster relief, the war on drugs, the financial sector, social security, the budget deficit… need I continue? When it comes to protecting free speech, our saving grace may be that our government is too incompetent and uncooperative to ever become an Orwellian dictatorship. My idea of a realistic dystopian future is less like V for Vendetta, and more like Idiocracy (”paid for by Carl’s Jr.”)
Liberaltariansim and Women
This cosmopolitan word that suggests a new alliance between leftists and libertarians has been floating around the libertarian blogosphere for the last few months (or since we all realized that the Democrats were going to clean up in the 2008 elections). Robin Hanson recently suggested that the reason this alliance won’t work is because the standard libetarian “heroes” more closely resemble those of conservatives rather than those of liberals:
Libertarians support low taxes because individuals should be free to choose how their money is spent, rather than being forced to accept collective choices. Conservatives support low taxes so that those who have worked hard for their money can show off the fruits of their labor and earn full respect for it.
Libertarians support gay marriage because individuals should be free to have whatever consenting relations they want. Liberals support gay marriage because they want us all to officially respect gays as much as straights; gay activists have earned their group more respect.
It seems to me that libertarian self-made heroes are more similar to conservative community pillars than to liberal subgroup activists. Self-made men are mostly not made in the bedroom; their glory shows more in their income than in their subgroup identity.
An interesting theory, to be sure, but it raised a question for me: what about the heroines of libertariansim?
Isn’t the libertarian movement already dominated by men? The “self-made man” archetype seems pretty ingrained, across cultures even, and isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, I can’t think of many male American heroes who weren’t of the self-made ilk. And while the modern leftist movement may share roots with the feminist movement, women have pretty much caught up to men in the most salient aspects of equality* (yes, I know, we’re not at “perfect equality,” but we’ve come a damn long way in the last century. Think of it like a logarithmic curve; we’re past the steep ”knee of the curve” and are now on the gradual incline towards greater equality).
The libertariat would do well to attract more women, and “Liberaltarianism” is the perfect way to do this (confession: I’m a former liberal-turned-libertarian woman, so I’m either biased, or I have insight). Associating with stuffy church-y conservatives, philosophically-radical anarchocapitalists, or back-woods Ron Paul-tards isn’t going to score any points with modern, educated women. On the other hand, carrying the banner for free speech, religious freedom, gay rights (there’s definitely an over-representation of gay men in the movement), etc. while also carrying the message that the free market is the greatest humanitarian tool we have for helping the poor seems like a viable PR strategy.
Women are more educated than ever before. They are perfectly capable of understanding basic economic principles like the gains from trade, shortages and surpluses, and dead-weight losses. A compassionate woman who believes in free speech and individual liberty, and who is also educated enough to understand the role that market mechanisms play in wealth creation could be the new face of libertariansim. This is what “compassionate conservatism” should have been in the first place: fiscally conservative and socially tolerant.
Imagine if Hilary Clinton adhered to the economic theory of the Chicago school. She could have bitch-slapped (no pun intended) Barack Obama back to Chicago early in the primaries, and still beat the geezer-ly McCain on social issues. Oh, if only…
A New Gig
I’m excited to announce that I’ve been recruited to write for the Competitive Enterprise Institute at their blog, Open Market. Read my first post here.
As for Technagora, I plan to continue writing my nebulous and esoteric pieces about technology, economics, culture, sci fi, et cetera here, while writing on tech policy issues at OM. Ice Cream Headache will also continue to be irregularly updated.
The Feds’ YouTube Channel
Google reports that the federal government now has its own YouTube channel. There, viewers can watch weekly addresses from President Obama, videos from NASA, the Department of Education, and several other government agencies. The move into cyberspace is part of Barack Obama’s goal to make government more transparent and accessible, although my guess is that outside of political junkies and Obamaphiles, government videos aren’t going to capture much attention. Obama’s first weekly video (released during inauguration week, four months ago) has been viewed about 1.2 million times; the Slap-Chop Rap has been viewed 2.1 million times in the last month, and this idiot kid has been viewed 4 million times in the last three weeks (and my faith in humanity has just died a little more). The view counts for all of BHO’s videos since inauguration week have steadily declined, and last week’s video is sitting at 85 thousand views. But the government videos are there if you want ‘em, and that’s probably a step in the right direction.
So, can we do away with those televised presidential addresses now? I don’t watch much television, but it always seems that the SOTU is on the one night I want to watch House, or whatever.
Also, it looks like all the videos are in the public domain, so have at it, comedic media mash-uppers! (Masher-ups? Up-mashers? What’s the correct word here?)
FTC Investigates Apple and Google Boards for Possible Antitrust Violations
The Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation Monday into the ties between the boards of Google and Apple. Eric Schmidt and Arthur Levinson each sit on the boards for both companies, although according to antitrust law, a person may not sit on the board of two companies if it decreases competition between them.
As if it needs to be said, Apple and Google aren’t really competitors, not in any meaningful sense, anyway. Google is an information services company that specializes in internet search, advertising, information organization, and not being evil. Apple is primarily a hardware company that manufactures PCs (called “Macs,” though technically they’re still personal computers), mp3 players, cell phones, and “edgy” urban hipsters. In effect, Google is the top company for geeks with mathematics PhDs, Apple the haven for geek-wannabes with horn-rimmed glasses.
If the two company’s compete anywhere, it’s in the wireless marketplace, albeit indirectly. Google’s entry into the smart phone market (through its open-source Android operating system) has no doubt spurred this investigation. Android runs on T-mobile “smart” handsets, which compete with the AT&T iPhone (both of which compete with Blackberry, HTC, Palm, etc). Here’s the rub: Apple itself only has about a 1% share of the cell phone market, and about 6% of the smartphone market, while the Android phone is about 4% (smartphones make up about 12% of the entire cell phone market). Google also has a deal pending with HP that would put the Google OS on a new line of HP netbooks, which would bring Apple and Google closer to being true competitors, but rumors aside, Apple appears to have no intent to enter the netbook market.
While I don’t object to the FTC’s goal to promote a competitive marketplace, this investigation is unecessary. The tech market has historically been the least regulated, most competitive, and fastest advancing sector of the economy, while tech prices have come down year after year after year. Let’s chill out and leave it alone.
An Apology for Jacob
I complained about it a few months back, but lately I’ve actually started paying attention this blogger’s daily “list-o-links.”
So, ahem… I’m sorry, Jacob. Your links don’t suck, they add some variety to the same old blogs I read everyday. (But still, you know, “no effin’ way.”)
