Reconciling Information Privacy and Liberty?

thetan asks: "F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that 'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.' However, for many outsiders, it's hard to understand how cliques reconcile seemingly contrarian views. For example, many US Republicans are against abortion but in favour of the death penalty (no doubt they have their reasons). Amongst the Slashdot commentariat, one often hears that information wants to be free, almost as a catchcry of the open source, copyfight and related info-libertarian movements. OTOH, these same Slashdot readers stridently guard their privacy, so presumably information about their shopping preferences or websurfing does not 'want to be free'. How does the intelligent and functional Slashdot crowd reconcile the liberty of other people's information with the privacy of their own?"

Great Caesar's Ghost!

[Anonymous Coward]

As seen in Wikipedia:Slashdot [wikipedia.org], circa 2010:

The fateful event took place on August 4th, 2005, when veteran Slashdot editor "Cliff" unknowingly set off the greatest flamewar of all time.

A discussion of Abortion, the Death Penalty, freedom of information, privacy rights, Republicans/Democrats, the sitting president, and an earlier article on Evolution and Intelligent Design proved too much for the website. Comments surged into the thousands within minutes, Slashdot's webserver farm burst into flames, and the resulting conflagration took out 23% of the global Internet (source: Netcraft) before WWW Firefighters could put it out. Hundreds of brave posters and cowardly AC's alike were consumed in the initial blast.

--picture insert: CowboyNeal rushing back into the burning building to save the polls--

You will be missed, Slashdot. Truly, you were an American icon.

Personally

[BlackCobra43]

I find a giant dose of hypocrisy works just fine.

This is the BESTEST TROLL EVAR!!!!

[ENOENT]

Thank you, Cliff.

YHBT. HAND.

Re:Not at odds, one in the same

[BaudKarma]

On the contrary, I'm deeply interested in what porn you bought yesterday.

Or to be more exact, I'm amazed that people still pay for porn.

Re:Not at odds, one in the same

[Anonymous Coward]

At first I thought that you, as a porn pirater, are a free rider. If no-one paid for porn, then it wouldn't get made. But then I thought about the problem some more. That's right, I thought more about porn.

If no-one paid for porn, the only porn that would get made would be made by people who would do it for free: exhibitionists. Exhibitionists come in all shapes and sizes. I assume that I wouldn't want to watch the vast majority of this kind of porn because most of the girls would be of questionable hotness. We can't have that.

What would be the solution to this problem? Perhaps a non profit organization that could fund porn made by the more attractive members of our society, which would then release the porn into the wild for the good of humanity. This would be kind of like the way the big IT companies (IBM, HP, etc) pay people to work on the kernel.

Would this be porn libre?

A naked society the only consistent approach

[Anonymous Coward]

"David Brin's Transparent Society, where everyone, including our government, is under equal scrutiny, is probably the only way forward for those who believe that information wants to be free."

I'm wearing transparent pants.

Abortions for some, tiny American flags for others

[Pfhorrest]

Kang & Kodos: "Abortions for everybody!"

Crowd: "Boo!"

Kang & Kodos: "Er, abortions for nobody!"

Crowd: "Booo!"

Kang & Kodos: "Uh, abortions for some... tiny American flags for others!"

Crowd: "Yaaaaaay!"

Re:Libre, *not* gratis.

[Doc Ruby]

I believe that life begins when the father and mother of the eventual child first begin the copulation process that later includes fertilization of the egg by the sperm. "Conception" is as arbitrary a cutoff point to allow the destruction of that forming life, as is "birth". The soul of the child is born as soon as the souls of the parents come together. Therefore, not only must abortion be prohibited, but contraception, even pre-conception (like "the Pill", condoms, etc). In fact, "coitus interruptus" is murder, if the copulation is aborted before fertilization can occur. Anyone who is guilty of murder, by stopping the copulation, must be executed. These innocent lives are being killed by the thousands every night, all over the world. When will they get justice?

Re:Great Caesar's Ghost!

[Anonymous Coward]

So is it fine to go out and shoot a 'tard? They don't have fully formed brains.

Re:Contradictory?

[aminorex]

The shower example is no more or less contradictory than the execution example. Mutatis mutandis, the two shower cases are reconciled by positing a compelling differentiating factor, for example, observing that the number of men who rape women is much larger than the number of women who rape men, so having a single chick in the men's shower is much safer....ummm... nevermind.

Re:Death penalty, force, trespassing, and theft

[fucksl4shd0t]

p.s., what is this, flame day? First Intelligent Design, now abortion and death penalty.

I think God's getting ready to pull the rapture down. I wish he'd hurry. I've got a pipe bomb with Jesus written all over it, and I'm a-itchin' to use it.