Did Psychopaths Take Over Wall Street?

"How do people with such obvious personality flaws make it to the top of seemingly successful corporations? Boddy says psychopaths take advantage of the “relative chaotic nature of the modern corporation,” including “rapid change, constant renewal” and high turnover of “key personnel.” Such circumstances allow them to ascend through a combination of “charm” and “charisma,” which makes “their behaviour invisible” and “makes them appear normal and even to be ideal leaders.”

This reminds me of many people I know who get promoted and hired away to new and better paying jobs. How about you?


Did Psychopaths Take Over Wall Street?
(via Bloomberg)

The Coming War on General Computation

"The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race.

The problem is twofold: first, there is no known general-purpose computer that can execute all the programs we can think of except the naughty ones; second, general-purpose computers have replaced every other device in our world. There are no airplanes, only computers that fly. There are no cars, only computers we sit in. There are no hearing aids, only computers we put in our ears. There are no 3D printers, only computers that drive peripherals. There are no radios, only computers with fast ADCs and DACs and phased-array antennas. Consequently anything you do to "secure" anything with a computer in it ends up undermining the capabilities and security of every other corner of modern human society.

And general purpose computers can cause harm -- whether it's printing out AR15 components, causing mid-air collisions, or snarling traffic. So the number of parties with legitimate grievances against computers are going to continue to multiply, as will the cries to regulate PCs.

The primary regulatory impulse is to use combinations of code-signing and other "trust" mechanisms to create computers that run programs that users can't inspect or terminate, that run without users' consent or knowledge, and that run even when users don't want them to.

The upshot: a world of ubiquitous malware, where everything we do to make things better only makes it worse, where the tools of liberation become tools of oppression.

Our duty and challenge is to devise systems for mitigating the harm of general purpose computing without recourse to spyware, first to keep ourselves safe, and second to keep computers safe from the regulatory impulse."

Cory Doctorow

(via the Chaos Communication Congress - 2011)

Chicago to Outlaw Protest

Here's a free history lesson. Anytime someone in power tells you something is "temporary" or "one time only" call them a liar and immediate begin plans to remove them from office.

"Not even a month has passed since Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, requested that the Chicago city council enact what he termed “temporary” and “one-time only” anti-protest measures in advance of the overlapping NATO and G-8 summits that will be held in the city from May 15-22. During a press conference held on January 4, Emanuel claimed that he “misspoke,” and that many of the proposed antidemocratic ordinances will in fact be permanent."



Proposed Chicago anti-protest laws to become permanent 
 

Republicans Attempt to Stop Students from Voting

"William O’Brien, the speaker of the New Hampshire State House, told a Tea Party group earlier this year that students are “foolish” and tend to “vote their feelings” because they lack life experience. “Voting as a liberal,” he said, “that’s what kids do.” And that’s why, he said, he supported measures to prohibit students from voting from their college addresses and to end same-day registration."

 If you are a student who lives out of state plan early to either vote as an absentee or get your driver's license updated to reflect your local college address before election season 2012.


Keeping College Students From the Polls

CA Occupiers Face Felony Lynching Charges

In a gross perversion of the original intent of anti-lynching laws from the Klu Klux Klan days police in California have begun to charge certain people arrested for peacefully protesting during Occupy rallies with lynching. Yes, that kind of lynching. At what point will the police just drop the pretense and start arresting people for protesting in general?

Occupy Activists Lynching Allegation 
(via MSNBC)

The Mainstream Media Finally Understand SOPA/PIPA

At least it appears the mainstream media has both noticed and recognized the importance of SOPA/PIPA.

SOPA Explained
(via CNN)

Wikipedia goes dark on piracy bill protest day
(via MSNBC)

5 things to know about the SOPA protest
(via FoxNews)

You could be forgiven for thinking this means the fight is over. However, it is much more likely that the fight is just beginning. Now that the 1% has noticed the power of the internet expect future attempts to censor the internet to be more cunning and stealthy.