Wirehead Studios

If you haven't heard what SOPA is, you really need to educate yourself on it.  It's supposed to be an anti-piracy bill, but it has the effect of depriving people of due process at the mere accusation by a supposed copyright holder.  It's one thing to actually steal someone's stuff, which is bad.  It's another to, say, post a message on a message board with a link to something that might have possibly been derived from something copyrighted, or might even qualify as fair use, and have some twit in a suit aim the SOPA cannon at Wireheadstudios.org and all of a sudden our site goes down with no notice, no warning, and no legal recourse - all because you posted a link to a video of someone's kitten playing with a ball of yarn and the radio happened to be playing a certain song in the background of the video.

Yes, it is that stupid.

Yes, it is that serious.

Yes, this affects the entire internet.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Sign it.  If you're a US citizen, educate yourself on the bill, call your elected officials, and do something about it.

sadly as a resident of californina's 7th district my sack o shit representative has no fear of not being elected because he is a democrat in the bay area. So no amount of outrage on my part is going to do shit.

Well yeah that really sucks, thought it's kinda fun SOPA = Trash in swedish so that kinda says it all..

I was about to make a topic about this, oh well. The bad part is it'll not only affect americans, also people(and birds) abroad, not directly but it will damage everyone , this will be a good strike on the internet since the great China firewall.
 :(

I just have to roll my eyes at this... I was only a matter of time before someone tried this. I sure hope it gets shot down. It's total BS IMO. What ever happened to free speech in this country. I can understand trying to crack down on piracy but this is going WAAAAY over board  :!: :!: Shame on them...

Well freedom of speach will be gone if stuff like sopa becomes real

This can't happen... If they will take the entire internet, what will we do? If they take Youtube and other cool sites, the Internet will be no more fun. :(
I've heard they took down Megaupload already and that was just the beginning.
STOP SOPA NOW!

They've delayed the vote on the SOPA House bill, and PIPA in the Senate.  What this means is they still want to pass them.  This is a standard tactic used to wait until people calm down and become distracted, then slip it in and pass it when nobody's looking.

Keep following the news on these.  This isn't over until both bills are dead.

I'd hope that another blackout happens when they try to do it again.  I'd imagine the majority of people knew nothing about it until that blackout.  So as long as popular sites like wikipedia do another blackout when they try to do it again, at least one of the many bills further fleshing out the totalitarian and authoritarian aspects of the US federal government will be stopped.

"next thing you know, they'll take my thoughts away" -- one of the best quotes from Megadeth.

Wait its no longer the 24th, hah it seems their too scared to vote now, after 3 delays and the current setbacks. This bill seems  futile now. :evil:

From what I've read about it on MSN it's delayed "indefinitely".  :doom_love: From every thing I have read on that it was total BS, but you know it will stick it's ugly head out again sometime later :(

Let's also not forget that ACTA is still looming as strong as ever. If that shitstorm hits, that's as a bad as SOPA, or even worse.

I actually had to explain to someone how and why SOPA is as bad as it is.. And this, sadly is about the best I came up with..

Coworker - "so.. they can shut sites down now, how is this new..?"
Me - "Imagine this, you're at work and open up WinZip, you know, the compression app that you've never registered..?"
Coworker - "heh, ok.."
Me - "Someone then grabs a phone and calls up the suits to say you're using software you haven't paid for."
Coworker - "ok.."
Me - "The building is then stormed, everyone in it is arrested, and management needs to sue to get us all out of prison--ever."
Coworker - "wait, WHAT?!"
Me - "pretty much..

I just finished reading an article about the spiritual definition of sloth, which basically equates to being apathetic and not wanting to be "troubled" with God or spiritual things.  I bring this up only because it is a lack of vigilance, an apathy... you could say a kind of sloth toward liberties that is the largest threat to liberty today.  People just don't want to be bothered with becoming educated with this sort of thing, or doing anything about it.  Nobody calls or writes their representatives, nobody pays attention to the important news, but they'll keep up on all the sports games, or what happened on a television sitcom, or "reality" TV show.  Everyone's busy entertaining themselves, or when they do become angry they blame the government for being too powerful, but nobody seems to want to look in the mirror and see that the real root of the problem is not big government or big corporations or any of the usual demons to liberty, but their own inaction.  Who is to blame when the enemy sneaks over the wall - the enemy for being what it is, or the guard that fell asleep on the watch?  Too many people just don't give a damn about what's important anymore, and the ones that do seem to care won't stop bickering amongst themselves long enough over petty things to realize that when the ship sinks everyone is equally worse for it.

Maybe sloth or apathy is a part of it -- though I don't really see the relevance of "spiritual definitions of sloth".

In the case of internet(destroying) laws, I think there's another big factor though: people simply trust that no actually insane policies are made a reality. Most people I've explained the dangers of SOPA and ACTA to seem to accept that what I'm describing is bad enough, but they also generally feel that "it won't come to that." They somehow believe that greedy corporations and far from disinterested governments won't use that excessive power for anything but finally catching those bad pedophiles and only the worst of the "software piracy bosses."

If you tell them there already is or will be a humongous database with profiles of pretty much all internet users and pretty much everything there is to know about them digitally, that such powerful tools are  pr will soon be ready for limitless corporate and governance watchdog exploitation, they just think it's another one of those silly conspiracy theories -- "nobody can actually allow that kind of evil to come to pass."

Well, that's where they're wrong, I think. The ones that are not lazy about it, underestimate the danger.

The spiritual definition is different from the commonly understood definition.  When people think of sloth they often think of simple laziness.  From a spiritual perspective, it's not the case.  Someone can be a workaholic and neglect their spiritual life.  Far from being lazy, they're being apathetic toward God.  I simply used this defining of sloth as apathy and lack of concern and applied it toward liberty.  You could say people in America are being slothful in their duty of upholding liberty in the face of tyranny.  It's not that people are being lazy.  People are keeping busy enough doing a lot of different things, but they're not actively paying attention to what's really dangerous.  The only reason I mentioned it was to provide context... and the fact that I read the article right before reading Angst's post so the alternate definition seemed applicable and I wanted to test it out. ;)

I do agree that people have that "it won't come to that" attitude, but again, that's sloth and compacency at work.  People don't want to believe the worst can happen.  Yet, often times it can and does.  I read that Bin Laden did not believe America would retaliate towards 9/11 in the way it did due to how America behaved with the initial World Trade center bombing, the embassy bombings in Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole.  Yet, from his perspective, the worst did happen, which was a full bore military assault on Afghanistan.  Throughout history the worst has often happened to people that never expected it.  Pompeii certainly wasn't expecting to be buried under tons of volcanic ash, yet it happened.  What I find troubling is how people seem mentally prepared for another 9/11, or some other kind of physical assault, yet seem completely unable to believe that their own government can and does erode liberties when there's enough proof of that on the nightly news and all over the internet.  I suppose people want to think it's all nothing but conspiracy theory talk, but there's a difference between conspiracy theory and documented evidence.  All one has to do is examine the behavior of the TSA and other intrusive governmental agencies, and the statements made by their head officials rationalizing their actions, for proof that liberty is being lost to government.  All one has to do is read the tech and business news to see how liberties are being lost to corporations that increasingly want control over the lives of consumers.  I think all of this is proceeding unchecked because too many people are too busy paying attention to the wrong things.  It's not really that much more of a jump for the world to arrive at a cross between 1984 and Brave New World.

Fair enough.

I find it's surprisingly easy to keep focus on the important stuff, as long as you don't let the media decide what you ought to be reading. If I'd watch Fox News seriously (just to name the worst I've ever seen) or read most of my own countries newspapers seriously, I'd probably never have a clue about what was really going on.
So I guess the irony in the end is that the one place where people can still extensively educate themselves is going down the drain because most are unwilling to use it to learn about its value in the first place.

Another thing that pops to mind is that 1984 is considered a bit of a "godwin," these days. The closer we seem to get to it, the less serious most people seem to take the comparison.

We already do live in a world ripped straight out of 1984 and Brave New World. I might ramble a bit here, so I apologize in advance...

We willingly throw more and more information about ourselves at the government and their corporate overlords. Things like Facebook are a treasure trove to the people at the CIA. It's not yet the equivalent of a telescreen in every room, but it's getting there. There's already a camera built into everyone's smart phone and laptop. Look at your Xbox... now it's watching and listening with the Kinect toy. The next big thing in television is having that functionality built in.

We look at 1984 and see things like "We've always been at war with Eastasia... er... Eurasia." and it perfectly mimics the United States' manipulation of the public and their continued presence throughout the Middle East. The very idea of "Terror Alerts" is also ripped right from Orwell. The public have to fear for their collective safety, otherwise they might start to question the government's actions.

Newspeak exists. have you ever received a text message from someone? It's almost indecipherable. It's been boiled down to just the very basics of an already damaged vernacular. It barely contains any vowels and rarely has any context. People are sloppy with their language. This sort of ignorance is encouraged through the marketing of tween literature to adults. Just look at recent phenomenons like Harry Potter, Twilight, and now the Hunger Games. These things are written at a 6th grade reading level. They don't contain the depth of ideologies that adults should find intriguing.

It's clear to me that we're quickly entering a time when 1984 will be are daily lives. What's scarier however is that we've already been living in a Brave New World for years and years. The world of 1984 is one where government control has been carried to its most logically extreme conclusion. People are opening oppressed, openly monitored, openly denied pleasure. But when we look at Brave New World it's the exact opposite, while ultimately achieving much of the same. The populace doesn't have to be brutally oppressed because they are infinitely distracted. Whereas the ruling class of 1984 uses obvious negative reinforcement to control the populace, Brave New World illustrates the use of overwhelming positive reinforcement.

We already have our Soma to keep us numb. We have our Orgy Porgies to keep us distracted. The government doesn't need to censor our news or burn book because no one cares to read them in the first place. The stranglehold on information in 1984 just causes curiosity. Whereas the flood of trivial and meaningless information in Brave New World simply causes apathy and indifference.

Just to chime in a bit here, I think it isn't as clear-cut as if you aren't acting you are part of the problem.  I agree at some level, but I think it should also be acknowledged that we're talking about a populace of 300million under one government.  I think you all should have an idea how I view governments in general, and the great disproportion of power; however, another issue is simply that if you want to change something it is almost impossible.  The only people who have a chance are those who not only understand the problem but are also great leaders and great speakers -- those who have the abilities necessary to even have a chance at inspiring change.

I could say one person can make a difference, but you have the be the "right" one person to have that chance.  Or I could say one person cannot make a difference if indeed they remain one -- they would need to get others joining their cause.  Even then, the shear numbers required to actually change things are almost impossible to attain.

MLK united a great number of people who clearly had the same issue of oppression in common.  In today's age, we who see the way things are have to fight the minds of those who cannot or will not see the truth of things.  If indeed they realised the "truth" of things, then we'd have a chance.  I don't see that happening.

Also, even those with the proper skills require a tremendous amount of selflessness, because the cost of changing things is great for those who are leading that change.  They must dedicate their whole lives, make great sacrifices, and make everything they do dedicated to that change, and they must do it for the very people who will let it become that way again.  I just don't see a way for human beings to ever have good societies or fairness due to the ratio of intelligent and moral people to those who are unintelligent and/or immoral.

Something to keep in mind with people like MLK and, say, Gandhi... Their methods only worked because they were more preferable to deal with. Those in power had already dealt with their contemporaries, who were often times violent in their methods. That makes a peaceful, intelligent speaker very appealing. Words don't mean much when there aren't consequences behind them.