Tim Berners-Lee Says World Wide Web Must Emerge From 'Adolescence' (venturebeat.com) 281
The fraying World Wide Web needs to rediscover its strengths and grow into maturity, its designer Tim Berners-Lee said on Monday, marking the 30th anniversary of the collaborative software project his supervisor initially dubbed "vague but exciting." From a report: Speaking to reporters at CERN, the physics research center outside Geneva where he invented the web, Berners-Lee said users of the web had found it "not so pretty" recently. "They are all stepping back, suddenly horrified after the Trump and Brexit elections, realizing that this web thing that they thought was that cool is actually not necessarily serving humanity very well," he said. "It seems we don't finish reeling from one privacy disaster before moving onto the next one," he added, citing concerns about whether social networks were supporting democracy. People who had grown up taking the internet's neutrality for granted now found that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had "rolled that back."
Humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the side effect of Free and Open information.
Before the Web, While legally had the freedom of speech, being able to publish your viewpoints was expensive, and/or tightly controlled.
A lot of our opinions (including my own, so take what I say with a grain of salt) are just based of our experiences and what we grew up with with learning on what is right and wrong. So me as someone who grew up programming computers, tend to see other problems like a programming problem. Setup a user experience to direct people to make the right choices, put in faults if they go too far off the stray, try to accommodate for variances, and normalize them.
In the past our freedom of speech was mostly limited to our personal communication with other people, Family, Friends, CoWorkers, and guys at the Bar. Many of the founding ideas of American Democracy was discussed and plan at the taverns per-Revolutionary War. Talking to these small groups had smaller amount of impact. However now I can post my idea and be read all around the world, for people to either change their mind or at least consider my idea, just outwardly reject it and argue my points or failures, or complement me if it matches what they are think too.
The problem is every opinion is not edited and we have no good way to fact check all our opinions. I could have the Opinion of an Anti-Vaxer (I don't) then spread my opinion to the general discussion. While 30 years ago, such information I may have written to the editor, and they would have not posted mostly because it doesn't fit the facts, or at worse, doesn't jive with his view. Or I could spend thousands of dollars to public my ideas myself.
Today it is like everyone has their own newspaper, that they can publish for free, with the content of a bar room half drunk discussion.
Re:Humanity (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the side effect of Free and Open information.
Before the Web, While legally had the freedom of speech, being able to publish your viewpoints was expensive, and/or tightly controlled.
Don't worry, the big social media sites are fixing that. Tightly controlled is the new normal.
Facebooks latest bans? Senator Warren's ads calling for the breakup of Facebook (yeah, no one's going to believe that one was "community standards"), and the deplatforming of ZeroHedge, a crazy/fringe investment site that is routinely vocally critical of Facebook.
The problem is every opinion is not edited and we have no good way to fact check all our opinions. I could have the Opinion of an Anti-Vaxer (I don't) then spread my opinion to the general discussion. While 30 years ago, such information I may have written to the editor, and they would have not posted mostly because it doesn't fit the facts, or at worse, doesn't jive with his view. Or I could spend thousands of dollars to public my ideas myself.
The new normal is that you can't spend money to buy an ad if the publisher disagrees with your views.
Today it is like everyone has their own newspaper, that they can publish for free, with the content of a bar room half drunk discussion.
Sadly, that's not the case on social media. However, the web as a whole is still remarkably open if you want to make your own web site, and of course gopher and usenet still exist, largely under the radar now.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, well, the ISPs are working against that, to keep the world safe for Google/Facebook/Amazon... Soon only whitelisted protocols will get through, everything else will be sent to the proper authorities for analysis. Only common carrier rules can keep the open internet above ground. Without that, we simply must develop bulletproof ad hoc mesh networks to bypass the corrupt service providers.
Or, you know, use a VPN.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know? I think the problem is the internet is now full of noise and advertising, but very little actual information. I think censoring is not the way to go, who is going to do that? Companies like facebook, and google? Yeah right, I don't want them to be the guardians of our mortality. Governments? Of course they would never abuse that power.
Maybe we just need a chain of trust, to be able to tell what a posters credentials are? If references are given, then be able to tell the credentials of those
Oh, I thought he could be above this... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's something particularly chilling, technologists thinking their task is to "solve" politics is pretty high on the list. (Among politicians and politically motivated public commentators the parallel approach is to claim their political stance is pure scientific truth without a whiff of political stance.) My personal take on such approaches is that the cure may be more dangerous than the problem that has been framed to be the problem.
Politics is politics. There are no solutions that turn it into something else. Or at least solutions that would really fix it, but there are plenty of "solutions" which break things that actually work as a side effect, while mostly replacing the problem with another, trendier problem...
Re:Oh, I thought he could be above this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrongthink.
The guy says the Internet is contaminated. You know it is. It's not just propaganda. That's just ONE of the pollutants.
Data grabbing and advertising are in there as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Politics is politics. There are no solutions that turn it into something else.
Yes, exactly.
Politics is the solution, at least in the sense that it sure beats tribes under warlords just hacking each other up.
Re: (Score:2)
If there's something particularly chilling, technologists thinking their task is to "solve" politics is pretty high on the list. (Among politicians and politically motivated public commentators the parallel approach is to claim their political stance is pure scientific truth without a whiff of political stance.) My personal take on such approaches is that the cure may be more dangerous than the problem that has been framed to be the problem.
Politics is politics. There are no solutions that turn it into something else. Or at least solutions that would really fix it, but there are plenty of "solutions" which break things that actually work as a side effect, while mostly replacing the problem with another, trendier problem...
We should be allowed to have private conversations and interactions with our friends.
This isn't about politics, this is about Liberty. If you believe in Liberty then you should be concerned with corporations and governments mediating, manipulating and censoring your communications.
Especially at a time when so many people are using electronic communications to reveal minute aspects of their lives.
Look at the communications providers today. At one level it is just about spying on your communications in orde
That is exactly backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy needs an informed population to work.
That is correct, and in why only in recent years has it really started to work.
People trying to subvert democracy often attack it by misinforming the population
Indeed that has been happening for a few decades now by a central core of media that withhold and shape information.
in the last few years by convincing people that everything is fake and a lie
And how did they do that? By in fact showing people directly, what were fakes and lies.
simply choosing their own preferred truth is a valid choice.
That's the thing though. Now anyone can really get the whole picture. They can see the actual video of what people did, and judge them on that instead of what the media claims they said or did.
People complain that Trump voters ignore the "Truth" that Trump is whatever - racist, homophobic, etc. The reason Trump never has much impact from those claims, is because for the first time you can really see the falseness of them - you can see how Trump behaves now and in the past around women, around people of color, even around supporting gay marriage.
Trump is unique compared to a lot of current politicians in that there is a lot of prior video of him and so people already had a sense of him before the media started trying to craft an alternative image.
But going forward, more and more politicians will have the same thing apply - people will judge them based on what they have actually said and done instead of what the media claims about them. You can even see that with newer politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - she gets a lot of flak from the right, but you can watch a lot of video from her that is fairly reasonable, so the calls that she is crazy do not really stick.
She has some ideas about socialism that I and others find wrong, but you can actually go see what she says and judger her based on that instead of by what others sat about her. So how is any of that a "lie"? People can be better informed now that at any point in history - the real problem is that the professional political class by and large suck giant donkey balls, and now that is easy for anyone to see. In the end that is not a "problem" at all, that is a solution and the world is undergoing a correction based on this new fact...
Re:That is exactly backwards (Score:4, Funny)
you can see how Trump behaves now and in the past around women
Indeed. You just grab em by the pussy.
Re: (Score:2)
The reaction of people to Trump describing a situation they will never encounter always amuses me, because most people would act with hardly more honor in similar situations.
So you are saying most if not all rich or famous men have no respect for women?
I think you are wrong, but I'm happy to see the Me Too movement dealing with at least some of them.
we have countless women working for Trump before he was ever president, and working with him now - along with having daughters
Sure, rampant nepotism surely demonstrates his underlying respect.
That's the real problem with society and especially with liberals today, they cannot separate sex from ability. It's why they also shamefully attack sex workers and slut shame women left and right with the slightest pretext...
Right, it's liberals who have all the hangups about sex. The right are all about women's rights and free love. ROFLMAO.
You truly do live in a alternate universe,
Re: (Score:2)
Pedophiles are no more prevalent in the gay community that the straight one. And I doubt conservatives are underrepresented either, just throw some clergy in there.
Re: (Score:2)
But going forward, more and more politicians will have the same thing apply - people will judge them based on what they have actually said and done instead of what the media claims about them. You can even see that with newer politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - she gets a lot of flak from the right, but you can watch a lot of video from her that is fairly reasonable, so the calls that she is crazy do not really stick.
Not sure who's calling her crazy, but from what I've seen, she's pretty dumb. I think she gets a pass because she's fairly attractive, and a useful idiot for their agenda. For instance, there's this gem: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrong on several counts about unemployment [politifact.com]
There are dozens of similar claims she's made like this. As Murray Rothbard said "It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it
Re: (Score:2)
He's a knight. This means he must be involved in politics.
What utter nonsense.
move to America where you can have free speech and only elected representatives are allowed to vote on laws
So Californians don't vote on specific propositions then? You'd best let them know they've been doing it wrong.
The US and UK (Score:5, Insightful)
Humanity enjoys the freedom to vote.
Re:The US and UK (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump's presidency has been pretty mundane truth be told. Nothing is on fire. We have less war for a change. My 401k is looking good. The price of gas is too. Oh yeah and nobody is in concentration camps like so many claimed. Yet clearly the guy is somehow at the same time both Hitler and incapable of walking and chewing bubble gum at the same time.
I'll tell you what he actually is, a centrist who has a focus on economic policy. 99% of the whining and bitching about him is manipulation by the other party because they are mad they lost.
Re:The US and UK (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh yeah and nobody is in concentration camps like so many claimed.
Don't worry, they've changed the definition of "concentration camp" to include "people who have committed crimes and are in jail."
I'm not even joking, I've heard people call ICE detention facilities where people are held until they can be deported "concentration camps" which is just so crazy I can't even put words to it. You'd think that would count as some form of Holocaust denial but given liberals love to attack Israel, apparently not.
Yet clearly the guy is somehow at the same time both Hitler and incapable of walking and chewing bubble gum at the same time.
You see that a lot with conspiracy theorists. The enemy must simultaneously be incredibly strong, and capable of pulling off vast conspiracies, while at the same time being dumb enough that their conspiracy is easily spotted, if only you're willing to look at it right. Since the left has gone all-in on the whole Russian conspiracy angle (just scroll up in this very thread!) it's not surprising we're seeing this common trope applied to President Trump as well.
Re:The US and UK (Score:4, Insightful)
Same thing with "dog whistles." I'm a right winger. Trump says something like "Make America Great Again" and leftists say "dog whistle for white supremacy!" but I can't hear it, and I'm the dog. Maybe that means it's not a dog whistle, and the leftists are just hearing whatever they want to hear.
Re: (Score:3)
Dogs never know it is a dog whistle, it is just a regular whistle to them.
Just like, the racist shit is just regular political speech to you, so you quibble about the words instead of the racist shit.
Re:The US and UK (Score:5, Insightful)
the guy is somehow at the same time both Hitler and incapable of walking and chewing bubble gum at the same time.
That more-or-less describes Hitler: charismatic, but basically a failure at everything else.
Re: (Score:2)
Now his predecessor, Kaiser
Re: The US and UK (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
He did succeed at not being captured.
He was better at suicide than most who try, and none had more success.
Always look on the bright side; everybody has talents. Everybody is Special in their own way.
Re:The US and UK (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet clearly the guy is somehow at the same time both Hitler and incapable of walking and chewing bubble gum at the same time.
Yep, just like Reagan somehow "was" both an evil mastermind and an imbecile, all at the same time.
I've lived through all this before.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, just like Reagan somehow "was" both an evil mastermind and an imbecile, all at the same time.
The imbicile part was all a ruse. [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yeah and nobody is in concentration camps like so many claimed.
Are those usually advertised? Just wondering.
Re: (Score:2)
To a certain extent it is true that Trump is representative of America.
But just the ~25% who voted for him. Half the people vote, and slightly less than half of those voted for him.
And it might not be news to inform you that they hate us back. Or that we're all still Americans.
We have a Special Relationship with hatred. It comes from having Free Speech. We're used to hating each other openly, but still not killing each other over it.
Re:The US and UK (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy isn't a vote, it's a process. The original vote didn't even define what brexit is, it just said "leave the EU". Years later and the democratic process has been unable to translate that into a plan that can be agreed on.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is 1/3 want a hard Brexit, 1/3 want a soft Brexit and 1/3 was to cancel Brexit, but it requires a majority to make a decision in democracy.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't want to blow up the system. I want to save the system by stopping a foreign invasion of people who don't share American values and are at best indifferent and at worst openly hostile to the people living here. I think the people trying to flood the country with foreigners are the ones trying to "blow up the system."
Re: (Score:2)
people who don't share American values
Welcoming immigrants is an American value.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but they don't enjoy the freedom from collusion and interference.
You're picking one jewel. The other he offered is the goddam constant breaches.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nah. We we got rid of that kind of thing when we stopped letting people like you run our country.
Wait, you can't even afford potatoes anymore? That's pretty bad.
Re: (Score:3)
there are legitimate reasons for wanting to leave the EU
No one has been able to suggest one so far.
Feel free to try though.
Re: (Score:2)
Traveling to Brussels gave Boris Johnson bone spurs in his freedom bone.
It is practically a crime against humanity.
Also, prosperity was weakening their stiff upper lips, and without severe economic depredation and austerity their cultural identity is doomed.
Another good reason, after centuries of war with Ireland, they just can't stand the though of making it more than 20 years without violating their peace accords with a hard border. They have to backstab the Irish, or they just won't even know that they'r
Re: (Score:2)
I just hope the huge failure that is the Brexit for the people that voted for it will serve as a warning to others not to blindly follow liars into the snake pit.
Sometime, there has to be some loss in order for the majority to gain.
Re: (Score:2)
I keep up with Brexit as well.
It passed by 51%, and like Donald Trump's voters, most Leavers were trying to make a point not actually expecting it to go that way.
Unfortunately, in both cases, there's no do over.
Or is there? We'll see.
Re:The US and UK (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK didn't vote for Brexit
Factually untrue. There was a referendum, and more people voted to leave than remain.
the majority didn't vote
Also factually untrue. Turnout was 72.2% - which is higher than turnout at any US Presidential election since 1900. Are those all invalid too?
Putin's illegal propaganda funding
stop Brexit with a real vote
What do you define as a REAL vote? Do you seriously think that a second referendum would magically be "cleaner" than the first one? I don't think you do. I think you just want to keep asking the question until you get the answer you want, and democracy be damned.
For what it's worth, I voted Remain. I think leaving the EU is a terrible decision. But the precedent that would be set by ignoring the expressed will of the public because you don't like the result is more frightening to me than the worst chaos Brexit might bring.
Re: (Score:2)
It was an advisory opinion poll, not some sort of binding law, or even a plan that contained details.
That's the thing; they voted on the word Brexit, but not actually anything detailed or binding.
The precedent set by not chopping off your own fingers is simply that you shouldn't engage in self-harm, there is not any benefit from showing how macho you are in that situation.
NaBrO (Score:2)
I think we prefer having adolescent humor.
Re: (Score:2)
I know your mom does.
Sorry Sir Tim, this is mostly what information freedom means to humanity.
If only there was something he could do about it (Score:4, Funny)
If only there was something Tim Berners-Lee could do about privacy vulnerabilities being included into web standards...
Re: (Score:2)
He doesn't control the standards; if the W3C took a position against industry they'd just make their own "standards" and either claim to be a standard by monopoly or lousy published specs which they wholly control for their own unfair advantage (MS.)
WHERE ARE THE DISCUSSIONS ON MOB BEHAVIOR? All the worst social human nature is being amplified by social media. Virtual lynch mobs are terrorizing people to the point where we are changing our behaviors lest they come at us.
Re: (Score:2)
The C in W3C suggests that they already are industry, not some sort of regulator of industry.
Web teen angst (Score:5, Funny)
Tim Berners-Lee: World Wide Web, you must emerge from adolescence ...
WWW: I didn't ask to be born!
Tim Berners-Lee:
WWW: You're not my real parent anyways!
Tim Berners-Lee (Score:3, Informative)
The man who gave us a closed-source DRM blob in our browsers.
Power brokers (Score:5, Insightful)
Power brokers and the "learned scholars" seem to always think the system is broken when normal people get more information and then don't bend to their will. Maybe the solution you envision from your ivory tower surrounded by your walled gardens isn't the world we want to live in.
Re:Power brokers (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you not consider people not vaccinating their children to breakage?
In a perfect world everyone would have the time and ability to carefully research an issue like vaccination and come to understand that there are vast amounts of evidence supporting the conclusion that they are safe and effective, with a few small caveats that any competent doctor administering them would be well aware of.
In practice that's a completely unrealistic scenario and failure to address the issue results in human rights violations.
Worse still, the "power brokers" you mention use fear and doubt to exert control, and any democracy should rightly try to prevent that from happening. Democracy based on fear and lies is not democracy, it's what happened in Europe in the 1930s.
There has to be a balance, otherwise it's just exchanging one type of tyranny for another.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree and would like to add this:
In the US, when DST rolled out from 2-3 am Sunday morning, a hell of a lot of Fitbit devices went motherfucking squirrely because the athletic watches (across all models) missed the midnight reset event Sunday night. Ramifications included bricked devices, steps from Sunday weren't reset to zero and became additive, scheduled hourly steps from Sunday were added to Monday without a break ...
Using that example, here's my additional concern:
In the Fitbit community, suggestion
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously I meant the common ones that all children get in most developed nations. Trying to force people to define every word they use and always assuming the worst, most ridiculous interpretation is just a stifling tactic.
I'm happy to have a discussion about vaccines, but only if you behave like a grown up and make some minimal good faith effort to understand what I'm saying.
Re:Power brokers (Score:5, Insightful)
The Ivory Tower may be far from perfect, but truth and reality is, at least superficially, the overriding concern. It usually win out, often in battles fought long ago.
What a lot of people get on the web are falsehoods crafted (or created by meme evolution) to appeal to human irrationality.
Re: (Score:2)
truth and reality is, at least superficially, the overriding concern. It usually win out, often in battles fought long ago.
Yeah but sometimes it takes a thousand years for truth to win.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but horoscopes no longer have standing in academia, but there are widely available on the web.
Re: (Score:2)
The Ivory Tower may be far from perfect, but truth and reality is, at least superficially, the overriding concern. It usually win out, often in battles fought long ago.
Rudyard Kipling foresaw and addressed the current political/societal/ideological problems in a famous poem.
The Gods Of The Copybook Headings
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
Re: (Score:2)
Like I said, far from perfect, but over all it more dedicated to the truth then anti-vaxxers, climate change denialism and President Donald Trump.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps the "we," to whom you refer are not scientists?
TFS and TFA was not scripted by the unwashed masses. Scientists (and "we,") would sure like to have a goddam Internet that wasn't polluted with special interest bullshit and that is data-porous to the casual intruder.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You needed a shower before reading my post.
And not wanting to live in a wasteland was the reason for Brexit.
Disconnected (Score:5, Insightful)
Berners-Lee is so fully disconnected from reality now that he's no longer credible. He talks about the Web "saving humanity", yet he has personally participated in crafting standards for it that serve corporate interests rather than the rest of us. Under his "guidance", the Web has transitioned from a network where people participated in its development and had control over how they consumed it to one where they no longer participate, have no control, and have become passive consumers. Corporate Web developers now view their target "useless eater" audiences with the same disregard as eugenicists of the last century.
He's lamenting his own utter failure to guide his own creation in the way that he claims he really wanted it to progress, while doing the precise opposite? What a bloody hypocrite.
80/20 engineering rule (Score:3)
Berners-Lee is clearly an optimist but his great power is in starting the web, he only has the slightest influence after it exploded out of control so it is not fair to say he has guided us to where we ended up today. He's not responsible for human nature and our culturally ingrained evils; he can go around saying don't use my invention for evil/weapons etc like most every scientist throughout history. He can wish he never gave us the ideas but somebody would have eventually done something similar. Sinc
Re: (Score:2)
Under his "guidance", the Web has transitioned from a network where people participated in its development and had control over how they consumed it to one where they no longer participate, have no control, and have become passive consumers.
The "old" technology hasn't been removed. I would even argue that it is more easily accessible than ever.
But human laziness, quick Dopamine fixes and broken net security, all exploited by corporate greed, make *us* choose to transition away from that mode of participation. If you live in a relatively non-repressive country you should blame the consumers, not the producers or innovators.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
He's the One Man who invented it. He was in an utterly unique position to shape it. He failed. Now in his waning years he's trying to rescue his legacy after decades of sleeping with the corporate enemy.
Re: (Score:2)
... and Tim Berners-Lee was in the room when all those awful "bloated" corporate-backed extensions to standards were being added. This is why I call the man a hypocrite. He sold out, and now fears for his legacy.
Re: (Score:2)
Your argument isn't entirely invalid, but I still hold Berners-Lee responsible. We all know what happens to the dog when you leave the gate open unattended.
Re: (Score:2)
Um, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
We need a new internet because there were some election results he didn't like? Seriously?
Yup. He's mad because the web isn't structured in a way that directly and permanently empowers leftist politics while suppressing everyone else. So, it clearly needs a reboot into a more authoritarian version that will control people to his liking. In the name of freedom, of course.
Technologist with Utopian Vision Meets Reality (Score:2)
Making the world a better place (Score:2)
Because tech is all about making the world a better place, right? Not about competitive, amoral, unbridled, unregulated, unfettered money making, whatever it takes at all, right?
So Berners-Lee thinks that tech can solve political problems, as opposed to sustaining & augmenting them & making money out of it?
Seriously? (Score:3)
Balkanization (Score:2)
Anonymity (Score:2)
As long as anonymity is a staple of the Internet, it will never 'grow up' or mature.
It's that very anonymity that encourages people to be on their worst behavior because there's absolutely no consequences to that behavior.
As much as I love the anonymity afforded to internet users, I can freely admit, it's a root cause of a lot of the trouble we're having.
It probably needs to go away. Humans have shown they can't behave in a responsible civil manner with anonymity on the table.
Re:This is, frankly, sickening (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's a failure of everybody (Score:2)
The human nature to do stupid things always is ingenious in finding new ways to fuck up. You just can't stop it, if you baby people too much some authoritarian takes over and makes a bigger mess of it (it only works if the "parents" are super human... I wish for an A.I. take over in the distant future.)
Re: (Score:2)
What ignorant decisions?
The economy is growing faster than Obama and Paul Krugman (NOBEL PRIZE WINNING ECONOMIST!!!!!) said was possible 2 years ago. The Korean War, which lasted 70 years, is officially over and the dictator of North Korea is talking with the President of the US. Again, something that supposedly wasn't possible just a couple of years ago. Amazing that Nobel Peace Price winner Barack Obama wasn't able to do that.
Yes, TBL is "old man yells at cloud". It's sad, because he's a smart man. Th
Re: (Score:2)
Listen, these elections are what you get instead of violent revolution.
This is entirely the point of democracy, and it mostly worked. In Roman times, an ambitious guy like Trump would have tried to raise an army.
Re: What a joke. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Back then all it took a rich person to avoid military service was to avoid bribing anybody to get a slot!
Things were a bit different back then. The Romans were a warlike people, like most people were. The idea that the rich avoid having to fight in the wars is very, very recent. In the old days, people fought in wars hoping to become rich! It was one of the very few ways to advance yourself in society. And the rich fought in wars to gain fame and increase their position.
Re: (Score:3)
You couldn't be pressed into a legion. Those were really good jobs! You actually had to be able to buy a bunch of military hardware to qualify, and you had to be from a family that was rich enough that they'd trust you to be able to resupply yourself.
If you were pressed into the military, you'd be light infantry, and would not even be mentioned in most of the accounts of battle. You would be provided with a sling or light javelins, and you would generally go up against light cavalry trying to flank the heav
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: World wide (Score:2, Insightful)
You'll have to enlighten me. How has the EU been punishing the UK? From where I stand it looks more like a whiny cunt trying to leave the club whilst stilling having access to the equipment and the cheap members bar.
If the EU wanted to make it hard they would just say 'you're out, you get nothing, all treaties are void, goodbye'.
The trouble with Brexit is that no-one who supports it actually has a realistic plan or even an inkling of what's involved. Not that that stops them moaning about how everyone's aga
Re: (Score:3)
There's been a continuous stream of "fuck you" proposals from the EU.
From here it looks mostly like the Irish border is the only real gamestopper. The EU has a duty to the Republic of Ireland, who is a member, and wants to stay that way. They have no duty whatsoever to Britain, who really no longer matters at all.
Really quite shocking nobody apparently thought of this before.
The end result will almost certainly be a "no deal" Brexit. Everyone agrees that's the worst possible situation
The worst for Britain, but why should the EU care about that? Some people in the EU will be hurt to be sure, but they are also gaining all those jobs and capital that are fleeing the UK in droves.
http [independent.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
They have no duty whatsoever to Britain
Actually they do. They also have a strong interest in an orderly exit with ongoing funding of prior commitments.
Unfortunately the UK parliament are doing their best to overthrow democracy.
Re: (Score:3)
They have no duty whatsoever to Britain
Actually they do.
Only in the Brexiters imagination. All they owe you is your right to take your ball and go home.
Re: (Score:3)
Let me quote Article fucking 50 itself:
"the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union"
Sorry, what in that line suggests they have to guarantee you something you like?
It's not in any way been an amicable process with the intent to make things as painless as possible.
LOL. Fucking duh.
Anyone who told you it would be, they were lying. Alternative facts perhaps.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, wait, wait, you're saying their stiff upper lips don't grant them Exceptionalism in the eyes of other Europeans?! Shocker.
But, but, but, they had Churchill! And Queen Elizabeth!
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, wait, wait, you're saying their stiff upper lips don't grant them Exceptionalism in the eyes of other Europeans?! Shocker.
But, but, but, they had Churchill! And Queen Elizabeth!
I've been listening to the Queen a lot since I saw Bohemian Rhapsody.
Oh, wait...
Re:Brexit no brexit (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't have a no-deal Brexit, it violates the peace treaty in Ireland.
The backstop is already required under UK law, because they have Treaty obligations that prevent a hard border inside Ireland, and they also have obligations to themselves to enforce some sort of customs regime.
Voting on Brexit without having a solution for that was fucking idiotic in the extreme. It was a farce of a vote, and was only an opinion poll anyways, not a binding resolution.
What sort of idiot country would put an issue that big, with that big of an (entirely negative) economic impact, up to a public vote that only needs 50%+1?! That's totally insane. A more rational idea would be to do something that extreme if you got over 2/3 of the vote.
If you can change the legal basis of your sovereignty with 50%+1, your country is destined to be a backwater, because crazy fads are a thing that easily can touch 50%+1 of the people. But at that point, other feedback loops kick in, and it is really hard to get over 60% on just a fad. If the UK had been putting their past decisions of this magnitude up to that sort of vote, there wouldn't even be a UK!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice how you slipped that "impeach Trump for nothing" bit in there. Obstruction of justice isn't nothing. Neither are illegal campaign contributions to shut up former lovers. If it were nothing, why all the lying and obstruction - which, basically, is what led to the Mueller investigation in the first place. The FBI was investigating Russian interference (which happened, and needed to be ferreted out) - having nothing to do with impeachment (unless, of course, they were in cahoots with the campaign). B
Re: (Score:2)
Nice how you slipped some DNC talking point bullshit in there.
"Obstruction of justice isn't nothing." -> yes it is when there is no evidence of it at all, besides the firing of an FBI director who has been revealed to have gone way way outside his role and excepted norms for a law man over and over again.
"Neither are illegal campaign contributions to shut up former lovers" -> Yeah its just terrible that someone would use his own money to keep a mistress quite to avoid embarassing his family further.
Re: (Score:2)
"Obstruction of justice isn't nothing." -> yes it is when there is no evidence of it at all, besides the firing of an FBI director who has been revealed to have gone way way outside his role and excepted norms for a law man over and over again.
And perhaps that'd have been excuse enough - except for the fact that he admitted to having done it because of the Russia investigation - on TV and to the Russian ambassador. I.e., Comey isn't the only witness.
Paying to shut up your mistress may not be a campaign contribution, but getting a third party (the National Enquirer) to do it - in order to disguise the source of your payment may well be. That's under investigation. You may think it'd have been okay to just pay them off, but even so, he didn't do
Re: (Score:2)
Whether it's obstruction of justice or not is what Mueller is tasked to determine. When Nixon did it, it was. Trump could've fired Comey with his phony excuse about the Clinton email investigation, but then he went on TV and basically said he did it to end the Russia investigation. How is that not obstruction of justice. Even if the Russia investigation had turned up nothing (though it has turned up much more than nothing), that doesn't mean that serious allegations of foreign election meddling don't de
Re: (Score:2)
the UK doesn't want to be in the custom union and it doesn't want an open border, but it wants to preserve the Ireland/Northern Ireland open border
You've used the same term ('open border') to describe two very different things there.
Then the UK wants to preserve its trade relationship with the EU, but doesn't want to follow EU regulations. Which means trade treaties, which takes years normally for any country to do.
The trade agreement talks are already in planning.
you don't need some cabal to explain why Brexit negotiations are going badly
No, it's because the Government are fucking incompetent and/or maliciously sabotaging the process.
Brexit is going badly because leaving the EU means leaving the EU, and the UK voted to leave the EU, but doesn't want to lose all of the benefits.
That isn't why Brexit is going badly, it's merely a negotiating start point. This is not unexpected and is not a barrier to successful outcomes from those negotiations.
The barriers are elsewhere.