Rupert Murdoch. The name should strike fear into you if you run an international news organization. If not, you may not be aware of just how far this guy reaches.
My guess is that Murdoch is a man who is not used to losing, but today, he lost at his own game.
While this is good news, it came partially as the result of bad news. Whether or not Mr. Murdoch knew about any of what was going on is irrelevant. The question is this: will he be charged for any of these crimes?
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say no, but I'm not a law doctor.
Still, this is a big blow to Murdoch's media empire. It could potentially result in him losing his entire UK market share, and at the very least, it's going to cost him a lot of money.
Is it the jenga piece that will bring the whole tower crashing down? I have a hard time believing that an individual of his status would allow that to happen, as he has the means to ensure it doesn't.
I mean, the guy already doesn't pay taxes. In fact, we pay him. Thanks to tax loopholes, and various laws relating to international banking, Murdoch is able to circumvent paying taxes immediately by sheltering income in failing businesses that get federal tax breaks or by keeping it off shore and not spending it in the US. All of this is perfectly legal within the US legal system, which calls to question the wisdom of that system.
Why is it that I have to pay taxes out of every single income check I receive? Why can't I juggle around my assets in order to make myself look insolvent?
Oh, because I'm not rich. I don't get those opportunities, or even the choice to pay taxes or not. It is removed automatically from each pay check and sent to a criminal government that uses it to fund illegal wars by calling it "defense spending". Look at how large of a chunk of the budget is devoted to defense. What exactly are we defending against?
If we can't afford to be at war in three places simultaneously, maybe we shouldn't be.
Our country has been going broke since late 2004, and those in charge have managed to hide it by borrowing more and selling our toxic assets. We saw the results of those actions play out over the last two years with the mortgage crisis.
Now, with our currency on the verge of collapse, the solution proposed by Washington is much the same as it always has been: raise the debt ceiling and continue to borrow. As we hit the 15 trillion in debt mark, it's time for regular citizens to stand up and take notice of this gross mismanagement of our nation's wealth. They are destroying the dollar and removing wealth from the middle and lower class. This is by design.
They know exactly what they are doing to us, and the reason is simple: wealth consolidation. Because we are forced to spend all or most of our time chasing fake paper currency in order to stay afloat and remain ahead of our own personal debt, we are never able to get out in front of the debt snowball.
We live in an age where you must pay valueless pieces of paper that represent notes of debt for items of real, tangible value. It works because people believe that the paper has value, when in fact, it does not.
Actually, coins are the only part of our currency that have real, tangible value (since each coin contains a small amount of precious metal). If the economy were to crash, silver coins are worth more than their face value purely for the purpose of melting them down. I doubt that hoarding silver will make you rich, but it might help you survive when the time comes. Plus, it couldn't hurt to have a place for all that spare change you have laying around the house.
Do I think this is the end of the world? No. Honestly, if anything, it is an opportunity for the human race. We can rise above these self-imposed systems if we choose. But the question remains: will we?
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The Debt Crisis: How Bad is the Situation?
Apparently, those of us who took out student loans should do our part to help out with the alarming deficit. You know, by paying them bitches back! Like, now. No more deferments!
Seriously. The GOP wants to place the burden of balancing the budget on the backs of college students and the elderly. The Republicans want to slash Medicare and Medicaid and force college students to pay back massive loans immediately when unemployment is the highest it has been in decades. But, they don't want the tax breaks to expire for their rich pals, nor do they want to make any concessions to military spending.
The graph on that page should illustrate what is wrong with our situation in relation to the rest of the world. We are funding a military we cannot afford and the American Empire stands on the brink of collapse, for perhaps the first time in its history. We hit our debt ceiling on May 16, and due to some fancy accounting, we were/are able to keep things afloat until August 2, pending the discussions about the federal budget.
So what happens if we hit that limit, and the government still hasn't managed to make a decision, one way or the other? Basically, the US defaults on its loans, and is unable to pay back the money it owes quickly enough to outpace spending. It could mean a partial or full government shut down, or, more likely, a massive cutting of social programs in order to continue paying the debt a little longer.
The problem is that our system has finally shown the stitching in its curtains, minus the men behind said curtains. It was masterfully constructed (or perhaps altered later) by a group of powerful geniuses in order to squeeze the most amount of wealth out of the largest possible population of people, and it has worked brilliantly.
As Americans, we work longer hours for less pay. And less vacation time. And we do more work. We are essentially slaves, albeit with much more freedom and wealth than any slave ever had in ages passed. But slavery is much easier to maintain when its subjects remain oblivious of their enslavement. We have to pay our way in order to survive, because that is what the system demands. Want water? Food? You'll need a job. And those are the two things with which they intend to really control us when the meltdown occurs. Water will be the most valuable substance on the planet, because fresh water is so rare. Many will die without access to clean drinking water in the coming decades, but this has been planned from the start.
Go look up T. Boone Pickens, a famous Oklahoma oil man. He's convinced the future of money making is in water. He's buying up land and mineral rights all over the place, and this isn't even a secret. He's going to sell the water in the ground to you at a premium, because he knows what is coming.
There is, then, the entirely separate issue as to whether or not someone should be allowed to 'own' a source of water anyway. It is, after all, the essence of life. Without it, we would not survive. We are made up of mostly water, and we need it to survive. But it's much deeper than that. Water is a fundamental part of our reality, and it should, I think, be a human right. All humans should have clean drinking water. We possess the capability to solve this problem.
I'm not asking that everyone in the world be given free health care, although I really see no reason why we couldn't afford to do that as well if we stopped spending trillions on wars to perpetuate a system that will eventually fail or become something much worse. But I do think that without consideration for the basic needs of all humans, we cannot ever hope to elevate our species as a cohesive whole. And if we cannot achieve that, we will never make it off this world to become something greater.
Who was it that said that quote that comes to mind? Oh yeah... Jacque Fresco:
It may seem like wishful thinking, but it's possible, I think. Not without revolution, however.
Seriously. The GOP wants to place the burden of balancing the budget on the backs of college students and the elderly. The Republicans want to slash Medicare and Medicaid and force college students to pay back massive loans immediately when unemployment is the highest it has been in decades. But, they don't want the tax breaks to expire for their rich pals, nor do they want to make any concessions to military spending.
The graph on that page should illustrate what is wrong with our situation in relation to the rest of the world. We are funding a military we cannot afford and the American Empire stands on the brink of collapse, for perhaps the first time in its history. We hit our debt ceiling on May 16, and due to some fancy accounting, we were/are able to keep things afloat until August 2, pending the discussions about the federal budget.
So what happens if we hit that limit, and the government still hasn't managed to make a decision, one way or the other? Basically, the US defaults on its loans, and is unable to pay back the money it owes quickly enough to outpace spending. It could mean a partial or full government shut down, or, more likely, a massive cutting of social programs in order to continue paying the debt a little longer.
The problem is that our system has finally shown the stitching in its curtains, minus the men behind said curtains. It was masterfully constructed (or perhaps altered later) by a group of powerful geniuses in order to squeeze the most amount of wealth out of the largest possible population of people, and it has worked brilliantly.
As Americans, we work longer hours for less pay. And less vacation time. And we do more work. We are essentially slaves, albeit with much more freedom and wealth than any slave ever had in ages passed. But slavery is much easier to maintain when its subjects remain oblivious of their enslavement. We have to pay our way in order to survive, because that is what the system demands. Want water? Food? You'll need a job. And those are the two things with which they intend to really control us when the meltdown occurs. Water will be the most valuable substance on the planet, because fresh water is so rare. Many will die without access to clean drinking water in the coming decades, but this has been planned from the start.
Go look up T. Boone Pickens, a famous Oklahoma oil man. He's convinced the future of money making is in water. He's buying up land and mineral rights all over the place, and this isn't even a secret. He's going to sell the water in the ground to you at a premium, because he knows what is coming.
There is, then, the entirely separate issue as to whether or not someone should be allowed to 'own' a source of water anyway. It is, after all, the essence of life. Without it, we would not survive. We are made up of mostly water, and we need it to survive. But it's much deeper than that. Water is a fundamental part of our reality, and it should, I think, be a human right. All humans should have clean drinking water. We possess the capability to solve this problem.
I'm not asking that everyone in the world be given free health care, although I really see no reason why we couldn't afford to do that as well if we stopped spending trillions on wars to perpetuate a system that will eventually fail or become something much worse. But I do think that without consideration for the basic needs of all humans, we cannot ever hope to elevate our species as a cohesive whole. And if we cannot achieve that, we will never make it off this world to become something greater.
Who was it that said that quote that comes to mind? Oh yeah... Jacque Fresco:
"What is needed is the intelligent management of Earth's resources. If we really wish to put an end to our ongoing international and social problems we must eventually declare Earth and all of its resources as the common heritage of all the world's people. Earth is abundant with plentiful resources. Our practice of rationing resources through monetary control is no longer relevant and is counter-productive to our survival.
Today we have access to highly advanced technologies. But our social and economic system has not kept up with our technological capabilities that could easily create a world of abundance, free of servitude and debt. This could be accomplished with the infusion of a global, resource-based civilization where all goods and services are available without the use of money, credit, barter or any other form of debt or servitude."
It may seem like wishful thinking, but it's possible, I think. Not without revolution, however.
Monday, June 13, 2011
NSA Found Spying on just about everything and everyone... What else is new?
So this is interesting. It basically confirms what many of us have been saying since the Patriot Act went into effect: your information is no longer private, regardless of whether you are a US citizen or not.
It was a well known fact that the NSA had approached every major wireless phone carrier and asked for access to their data. T-Mobile was apparently the only one to ask for a warrant. Of course, now that they've been purchased by AT&T... I think we see where this is headed.
Wait a second. This isn't just headed in that direction. It's already damn well there. We arrived at the draconian police state sometime just after the tragic events of 9/11, and still, we've managed to fall so very far.
Warantless wire-tapping of US citizens? Where is the outrage? Where are the riots?
We've been conditioned to fear our government, and thus far, it's working quite well.
Did you know that the NSA was created for the limited purpose of monitoring foreign communications? Why then, have they been given mandate from on high to sift through their own citizens' communications? Or was the mandate even given? Do they simply operate as a clandestine organization, untainted by the ever-changing stream of irrelevant politicians that filter through the doors every 2 and 4 years.
There is a simple answer and it is a frightening one: they see us as the enemy. Not the terrorists, with whom they fight a 'Global War on Terror' (a fight that can never be won, nor was it ever intended to be). Certainly not other nations, many of whom face similarly draconian governments to contend with.
We are enemies of the system because we possess the power to speak out against it in a way that was never possible before. The internet allows a literal global consciousness to exist in the collective hearts and minds of humanity. Wondering when we would be able to tap into a universal, global consciousness? It's already here.
You can get a college education on the internet for free right now. You can get news from all over the world within seconds. You can see the huge difference between what is reported online and what makes the so-called "television news". I'm reluctant to call it news since it barely qualifies as that, regurgitating 15 second sound bites until the horse has been beaten to an unrecognizable pulp.
This is not an argument against government. But we were warned many times in the past by men much more learned in the ways of founding and sustaining a working government body than any man who claims knowledge in the current sphere of politics. Eisenhower warned us of the military industrial complex. Jefferson warned of the bankers. They were prescient, or perhaps simply more forward thinking than many of us today.
Thus far, humanity has yet to come up with a better system than capitalism. It seems that, despite its monumental flaws, it still might be the best thing we've got. The only question is, why should we settle for the best we have now? Why not strive to improve our race as a whole, and not simply elevate the top 1% even further while the bottom half of the world's population is left to live in varying degrees of poverty.
Overpopulation is a huge issue, and it's one that no one wants to address, but you can bet that the people who drive the engine that determines the future of humanity are attempting to figure it out. There are lots of attempts to discover the method, means, or reason for why the elite would want to exterminate a portion of the population, but it makes perfect sense from a rational, logical perspective.
There are already programs in place to ensure that humanity continues to die at a steady pace. Chem trails, fluoridation of the water supply, and the genetic modification of foods by Monsanto are all troubling developments for the health and well-being of our species.
So where does that leave us? More later.
It was a well known fact that the NSA had approached every major wireless phone carrier and asked for access to their data. T-Mobile was apparently the only one to ask for a warrant. Of course, now that they've been purchased by AT&T... I think we see where this is headed.
Wait a second. This isn't just headed in that direction. It's already damn well there. We arrived at the draconian police state sometime just after the tragic events of 9/11, and still, we've managed to fall so very far.
Warantless wire-tapping of US citizens? Where is the outrage? Where are the riots?
We've been conditioned to fear our government, and thus far, it's working quite well.
Did you know that the NSA was created for the limited purpose of monitoring foreign communications? Why then, have they been given mandate from on high to sift through their own citizens' communications? Or was the mandate even given? Do they simply operate as a clandestine organization, untainted by the ever-changing stream of irrelevant politicians that filter through the doors every 2 and 4 years.
There is a simple answer and it is a frightening one: they see us as the enemy. Not the terrorists, with whom they fight a 'Global War on Terror' (a fight that can never be won, nor was it ever intended to be). Certainly not other nations, many of whom face similarly draconian governments to contend with.
We are enemies of the system because we possess the power to speak out against it in a way that was never possible before. The internet allows a literal global consciousness to exist in the collective hearts and minds of humanity. Wondering when we would be able to tap into a universal, global consciousness? It's already here.
You can get a college education on the internet for free right now. You can get news from all over the world within seconds. You can see the huge difference between what is reported online and what makes the so-called "television news". I'm reluctant to call it news since it barely qualifies as that, regurgitating 15 second sound bites until the horse has been beaten to an unrecognizable pulp.
This is not an argument against government. But we were warned many times in the past by men much more learned in the ways of founding and sustaining a working government body than any man who claims knowledge in the current sphere of politics. Eisenhower warned us of the military industrial complex. Jefferson warned of the bankers. They were prescient, or perhaps simply more forward thinking than many of us today.
Thus far, humanity has yet to come up with a better system than capitalism. It seems that, despite its monumental flaws, it still might be the best thing we've got. The only question is, why should we settle for the best we have now? Why not strive to improve our race as a whole, and not simply elevate the top 1% even further while the bottom half of the world's population is left to live in varying degrees of poverty.
Overpopulation is a huge issue, and it's one that no one wants to address, but you can bet that the people who drive the engine that determines the future of humanity are attempting to figure it out. There are lots of attempts to discover the method, means, or reason for why the elite would want to exterminate a portion of the population, but it makes perfect sense from a rational, logical perspective.
There are already programs in place to ensure that humanity continues to die at a steady pace. Chem trails, fluoridation of the water supply, and the genetic modification of foods by Monsanto are all troubling developments for the health and well-being of our species.
So where does that leave us? More later.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Global war on drugs 'has failed' say former leaders
This is a very interesting article. It basically confirms what 90% of humans living under some sort of prohibition have always known: prohibition does not work.
In the United States, we experimented with prohibiting alcohol earlier in our country's history and it helped create one of the most massive crime waves the US has ever experienced. They gave up trying to outlaw the use and sale of it, and instead turned to regulation.
I doubt anyone wants hard core drugs to be legal, least of all me. I'm not sure how I feel about clinics that give heroin users free heroin, even if the results have been positive. Maybe if they lessened the dose over a period of time in an attempt to ween the user from the drug, and/or provided treatment and counseling as a requirement for being given the drug for free, then I would be on board with it.
But the most baffling thing about this announcement is the white house drug tsar Gil Kerlikowske, who rejected the recommendations of these global leaders. From the article:
This must change if we are to combat illicit drug use in a truly successful way. It is my experience that heavy drug users are such because they are hiding from something, or attempting to remain outside their section of reality. Avoidance of their problems, in other words. For the money spent incarcerating these people and making them more likely to commit other crimes, we could provide free counseling, drug therapy, and other medical benefits that would make these people much less likely to continue using drugs.
Prisons are notorious for being even easier for a drug user to acquire their substance of choice. Oftentimes, the drugs are even cheaper than on the street, because they are easier to come by. This is an entirely separate issue, one that came about as a direct result of the exploding prison population in the US.
So why send a small time drug offender to prison? To answer that question, you must first ask another: Who does that benefit?
And the answer will probably make you angry.
It's easy to justify asking for more funding when you have a high rate of arrest in your district, and it's easy to justify arresting more people when your funding is directly related to how much profit your department is able to generate. So the men at the top of these organizations have been backed into a corner: either become a profitable police force or you will be shut down.
The path we are headed down as a nation is frightening. Cameras on every street corner, yet we lack the proper funding to educate and feed everyone in the US? Why are our priorities so skewed in the direction of defense? It's been over 10 years since the last major, overt attack on the US. Shouldn't we be more worried about the Chinese?
You could argue that it is our increased defense that has prevented further attacks, but I don't believe that to be the case. We will always find new methods of security to implement, and there will always be people who figure out how to circumvent them. The TSA is a fantastic example of government waste on a massive scale. They even admitted that passengers were the reason we were more safe on planes now days, and reinforced cockpit doors. They admitted that their security is essentially flawed and ineffective. So why do we need them?
Well, the truth is that we don't. Our culture (and by our, I mean the US) is fear based. It revolves around this fear, feeds from it, and requires it to survive. Fear of losing your job, fear of losing your family, fear of the unknown terrorists that hate our way of life, fear of the religious nut jobs from any religion going too far in one direction. Fear of being ugly, not accepted, chastised, ridiculed, or just ignored. We are conditioned to believe that fear should be our greatest motivator, even though it is never implicitly stated that this is the driving principle behind our entire society. Without fear of divine retribution, perhaps more people would commit crimes and maybe society would crumble. I can't say for certain.
No one knows the best answer to any question, because better answers are always forthcoming. But as humans, we should recognize the most basic piece of knowledge that should be inherent in our learning: we are evolving creatures. Systems that force us to maintain the status quo will make us stagnate as a species, and government is one of those systems. Religion is another.
We are better than these things. A small number of humans know this, but there is an even smaller number that uses this knowledge to control the rest of us. They know that we could be better, but they don't want us to be equal. They want us to be divided, because it is that division that causes shortage, and that shortage that ultimately causes all crime, war, and economic hardship.
The simple truth is that these few people live in fear of us. That is why they control us through complex, secretive means. They are frightened of the alternative. Imagine if every human knew the massive amount of potential they were capable of, were they only to take the time to find it.
In the United States, we experimented with prohibiting alcohol earlier in our country's history and it helped create one of the most massive crime waves the US has ever experienced. They gave up trying to outlaw the use and sale of it, and instead turned to regulation.
I doubt anyone wants hard core drugs to be legal, least of all me. I'm not sure how I feel about clinics that give heroin users free heroin, even if the results have been positive. Maybe if they lessened the dose over a period of time in an attempt to ween the user from the drug, and/or provided treatment and counseling as a requirement for being given the drug for free, then I would be on board with it.
But the most baffling thing about this announcement is the white house drug tsar Gil Kerlikowske, who rejected the recommendations of these global leaders. From the article:
"Drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated," said a spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. But that isn't how we treat it here in the US. We treat drug users of any kind like criminals immediately. There is no slap on the wrist for a first timer getting caught with a small amount, there is no warning. There is no leeway.
This must change if we are to combat illicit drug use in a truly successful way. It is my experience that heavy drug users are such because they are hiding from something, or attempting to remain outside their section of reality. Avoidance of their problems, in other words. For the money spent incarcerating these people and making them more likely to commit other crimes, we could provide free counseling, drug therapy, and other medical benefits that would make these people much less likely to continue using drugs.
Prisons are notorious for being even easier for a drug user to acquire their substance of choice. Oftentimes, the drugs are even cheaper than on the street, because they are easier to come by. This is an entirely separate issue, one that came about as a direct result of the exploding prison population in the US.
So why send a small time drug offender to prison? To answer that question, you must first ask another: Who does that benefit?
And the answer will probably make you angry.
It's easy to justify asking for more funding when you have a high rate of arrest in your district, and it's easy to justify arresting more people when your funding is directly related to how much profit your department is able to generate. So the men at the top of these organizations have been backed into a corner: either become a profitable police force or you will be shut down.
The path we are headed down as a nation is frightening. Cameras on every street corner, yet we lack the proper funding to educate and feed everyone in the US? Why are our priorities so skewed in the direction of defense? It's been over 10 years since the last major, overt attack on the US. Shouldn't we be more worried about the Chinese?
You could argue that it is our increased defense that has prevented further attacks, but I don't believe that to be the case. We will always find new methods of security to implement, and there will always be people who figure out how to circumvent them. The TSA is a fantastic example of government waste on a massive scale. They even admitted that passengers were the reason we were more safe on planes now days, and reinforced cockpit doors. They admitted that their security is essentially flawed and ineffective. So why do we need them?
Well, the truth is that we don't. Our culture (and by our, I mean the US) is fear based. It revolves around this fear, feeds from it, and requires it to survive. Fear of losing your job, fear of losing your family, fear of the unknown terrorists that hate our way of life, fear of the religious nut jobs from any religion going too far in one direction. Fear of being ugly, not accepted, chastised, ridiculed, or just ignored. We are conditioned to believe that fear should be our greatest motivator, even though it is never implicitly stated that this is the driving principle behind our entire society. Without fear of divine retribution, perhaps more people would commit crimes and maybe society would crumble. I can't say for certain.
No one knows the best answer to any question, because better answers are always forthcoming. But as humans, we should recognize the most basic piece of knowledge that should be inherent in our learning: we are evolving creatures. Systems that force us to maintain the status quo will make us stagnate as a species, and government is one of those systems. Religion is another.
We are better than these things. A small number of humans know this, but there is an even smaller number that uses this knowledge to control the rest of us. They know that we could be better, but they don't want us to be equal. They want us to be divided, because it is that division that causes shortage, and that shortage that ultimately causes all crime, war, and economic hardship.
The simple truth is that these few people live in fear of us. That is why they control us through complex, secretive means. They are frightened of the alternative. Imagine if every human knew the massive amount of potential they were capable of, were they only to take the time to find it.
The Dark Web
At first, I honestly believed this was a joke. Now that I'm knee deep in it, I know better.
The dark web goes by many names and definitions. The most simple explanation is that it's the portion of the internet not indexed by search engines. Some people refer to it as the links that can be reached via TOR, but it's essentially a throwback to the way the web was in ages past, before every thing was indexed. Without knowing where you are going, it is very difficult to find your destination.
But that doesn't really do it justice, because it's much more than that.
It's exponentially larger than the web we access on a daily basis, and only a small portion of it is even accessible from a normal browser. In fact, it's so much larger than the regular web, it would be nearly impossible to index all of it in a reasonable amount of time.
To me, this concept is mind blowing. There is lots of speculation about what goes on in the deep recesses of the internet, and I'll be the first to tell you: it isn't pretty. There's loads of porn (the bad, illegal kind), hit-men for hire, and drugs for sale, all from what seem to be reputable sources. Obviously, this isn't the case. Who knows how many of these sites have been set up with the intention of catching would be law-breakers? How can one discern the difference between a safe site and an unsafe one?
Herein lies the issue with experimenting on the deep web: it is, to this point, not well documented (which is kind of the point, I guess). There is a hidden wiki that I would recommend accessing before you start delving deeply in to the hidden web. Here is a reddit post that will bring you up to speed.
Want to know the sort of information you're missing? Type your name into this search engine. It will show you results from the deep web. You might even be shocked by how much of your personal info is already out there. I was able to find myself in several locations on the web in extremely short order.
And be warned. In many cases, there are good reasons why these sites don't appear in regular search queries, and it's because their content is revolting, illegal, and/or completely depraved. Forget 4chan. This place makes 4chan look like a reasonable, regulated environment by comparison.
Still, I can't help but feel intrigued by its mystery. I'm thinking I'll set up a computer and isolate it on the network, or perhaps browse TOR from an external hard drive. Either way, I feel obligated to experience the rest of the internet. At least, the parts that I don't find repugnant.
The dark web goes by many names and definitions. The most simple explanation is that it's the portion of the internet not indexed by search engines. Some people refer to it as the links that can be reached via TOR, but it's essentially a throwback to the way the web was in ages past, before every thing was indexed. Without knowing where you are going, it is very difficult to find your destination.
But that doesn't really do it justice, because it's much more than that.
It's exponentially larger than the web we access on a daily basis, and only a small portion of it is even accessible from a normal browser. In fact, it's so much larger than the regular web, it would be nearly impossible to index all of it in a reasonable amount of time.
To me, this concept is mind blowing. There is lots of speculation about what goes on in the deep recesses of the internet, and I'll be the first to tell you: it isn't pretty. There's loads of porn (the bad, illegal kind), hit-men for hire, and drugs for sale, all from what seem to be reputable sources. Obviously, this isn't the case. Who knows how many of these sites have been set up with the intention of catching would be law-breakers? How can one discern the difference between a safe site and an unsafe one?
Herein lies the issue with experimenting on the deep web: it is, to this point, not well documented (which is kind of the point, I guess). There is a hidden wiki that I would recommend accessing before you start delving deeply in to the hidden web. Here is a reddit post that will bring you up to speed.
Want to know the sort of information you're missing? Type your name into this search engine. It will show you results from the deep web. You might even be shocked by how much of your personal info is already out there. I was able to find myself in several locations on the web in extremely short order.
And be warned. In many cases, there are good reasons why these sites don't appear in regular search queries, and it's because their content is revolting, illegal, and/or completely depraved. Forget 4chan. This place makes 4chan look like a reasonable, regulated environment by comparison.
Still, I can't help but feel intrigued by its mystery. I'm thinking I'll set up a computer and isolate it on the network, or perhaps browse TOR from an external hard drive. Either way, I feel obligated to experience the rest of the internet. At least, the parts that I don't find repugnant.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Premium Call of Duty makes me ask: War, what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again...
Perhaps by now you've heard, Activision is giving gamers the 'option' of paying monthly for 'extra' features, dubbing the service, Call of Duty Elite.
And the title tells you everything you need to know about the idea as a whole: it sucks.
But anyone can say that. Here are some reasons why it sucks:
1) 15$ map packs proved that gamers are willing to pay big bucks for what amounts to very little actual content. This is the next logical progression of that mindset. Can you imagine what the next step in this evolution of wallet-rape looks like? I shudder at the thought.
2) Even if it is cheap (say, 5$ a month), you likely won't be able to hold on to the content that you have access to for the duration of your subscription. So when it's all said and done, the map packs, by comparison, almost seem like a better deal, as shocking as that is to admit. Unless you only plan to play the game for a month or two, in which case, I guess you win?
3) It stratifies the playerbase. Now you have players who have access to more information about the game they already own (info that is likely free online, like over head views of maps, weapon info, etc), but within the context of CoD, you aren't competitive unless you're paying for elite, because the assumption is that it will provide something that you can't get anywhere else, whether that is true or not.
4) If you're going to charge a monthly fee, you'd better be ready to support your game after release. I'm not sure they are ready for this yet. Modern Warfare 2 barely received map pack love, and it took ages for it to surface. Treyarch, the guys behind Black Ops, planned a bit better, but still. By the time both of these games received their first map pack update, I was already done playing them. I had moved on to something more substantive.
5) Call of Duty's gameplay isn't worth an online fee. Sorry, but it isn't. It's the equivilant to charging people who love Halo for the extra stuff that Bungie simply put in as an afterthought (Bungie.net, ability to share matches, etc) simply because they know people will pay for it. It's like adding one new feature to Madden each year and charging full price for each iteration.
I know some people's lives revolve around Call of Duty, but for those of us that enjoy games as a medium, this kind of development is extremely troubling. Let us not even speak of the fact that they've completely molested a series I've been playing since I was in my teens, squeezing every last drop of monetary value from its lean, rotting carcass. Let us not speak of the developments in the console realm of 'releasing' DLC that is already on the disc, waiting to be unlocked by a 100kb file that costs five real dollars.
Let's just talk about what this encourages within the gaming industry as a whole.
It's bad enough that companies are willing to charge for more weapons. Or characters. Or cars. What's worse is that we are willing to pay for them. Discovering this, they will continue to push the line further and further back until it is difficult to tell where we stand on the issue. Do we continue to buy into their bullshit, because they hold the rotting corpses of our favorite video game franchises? Or do we start to popularize games like Minecraft where a one time, nominal fee includes all updates? For life.
I will say that Minecraft forced me to think more than Call of Duty ever did. Granted, I can't discount CoD for getting me interested in war history in the first place, but I certainly didn't spend as much time thinking creatively about how to do anything other than kill in CoD. In Minecraft, I'm forced to use every available tool my imagination has stored in order to achieve my goals (which I can make up as I go). So now, here I am, comparing the two. Obviously, there is no comparison to be made. They are different types of games. The point I am trying to get across is that gamers expect a particular amount of return on their investment on a given title. Folks who own game systems in order to play Call of Duty do not give two shits about Minecraft, nor do they have any clue why people would play a game that looks like that. There is a huge difference between the two types. Gamers won't swallow a monthly fee for an arcade FPS shooter as easily, because they know it doesn't mesh with their expectations (and they generally know a decent value when they see one, but maybe I'm giving us too much credit.) Regular folks who love CoD and could not possibly care less about other video games on the other hand (their audience), will eat this shit up.
So, I'm not really their customer anyway. But it sets a terrible precedent.
Especially if it succeeds.
Perhaps by now you've heard, Activision is giving gamers the 'option' of paying monthly for 'extra' features, dubbing the service, Call of Duty Elite.
And the title tells you everything you need to know about the idea as a whole: it sucks.
But anyone can say that. Here are some reasons why it sucks:
1) 15$ map packs proved that gamers are willing to pay big bucks for what amounts to very little actual content. This is the next logical progression of that mindset. Can you imagine what the next step in this evolution of wallet-rape looks like? I shudder at the thought.
2) Even if it is cheap (say, 5$ a month), you likely won't be able to hold on to the content that you have access to for the duration of your subscription. So when it's all said and done, the map packs, by comparison, almost seem like a better deal, as shocking as that is to admit. Unless you only plan to play the game for a month or two, in which case, I guess you win?
3) It stratifies the playerbase. Now you have players who have access to more information about the game they already own (info that is likely free online, like over head views of maps, weapon info, etc), but within the context of CoD, you aren't competitive unless you're paying for elite, because the assumption is that it will provide something that you can't get anywhere else, whether that is true or not.
4) If you're going to charge a monthly fee, you'd better be ready to support your game after release. I'm not sure they are ready for this yet. Modern Warfare 2 barely received map pack love, and it took ages for it to surface. Treyarch, the guys behind Black Ops, planned a bit better, but still. By the time both of these games received their first map pack update, I was already done playing them. I had moved on to something more substantive.
5) Call of Duty's gameplay isn't worth an online fee. Sorry, but it isn't. It's the equivilant to charging people who love Halo for the extra stuff that Bungie simply put in as an afterthought (Bungie.net, ability to share matches, etc) simply because they know people will pay for it. It's like adding one new feature to Madden each year and charging full price for each iteration.
I know some people's lives revolve around Call of Duty, but for those of us that enjoy games as a medium, this kind of development is extremely troubling. Let us not even speak of the fact that they've completely molested a series I've been playing since I was in my teens, squeezing every last drop of monetary value from its lean, rotting carcass. Let us not speak of the developments in the console realm of 'releasing' DLC that is already on the disc, waiting to be unlocked by a 100kb file that costs five real dollars.
Let's just talk about what this encourages within the gaming industry as a whole.
It's bad enough that companies are willing to charge for more weapons. Or characters. Or cars. What's worse is that we are willing to pay for them. Discovering this, they will continue to push the line further and further back until it is difficult to tell where we stand on the issue. Do we continue to buy into their bullshit, because they hold the rotting corpses of our favorite video game franchises? Or do we start to popularize games like Minecraft where a one time, nominal fee includes all updates? For life.
I will say that Minecraft forced me to think more than Call of Duty ever did. Granted, I can't discount CoD for getting me interested in war history in the first place, but I certainly didn't spend as much time thinking creatively about how to do anything other than kill in CoD. In Minecraft, I'm forced to use every available tool my imagination has stored in order to achieve my goals (which I can make up as I go). So now, here I am, comparing the two. Obviously, there is no comparison to be made. They are different types of games. The point I am trying to get across is that gamers expect a particular amount of return on their investment on a given title. Folks who own game systems in order to play Call of Duty do not give two shits about Minecraft, nor do they have any clue why people would play a game that looks like that. There is a huge difference between the two types. Gamers won't swallow a monthly fee for an arcade FPS shooter as easily, because they know it doesn't mesh with their expectations (and they generally know a decent value when they see one, but maybe I'm giving us too much credit.) Regular folks who love CoD and could not possibly care less about other video games on the other hand (their audience), will eat this shit up.
So, I'm not really their customer anyway. But it sets a terrible precedent.
Especially if it succeeds.
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