Entries Tagged 'Politics' ↓

BBC News has posted an article regarding the use of and subsequent outrage regarding high-pitched auditory devices that allow individuals to effectively disperse crowds of young people by playing tones which only young ears are consciously sensitive to.

From the article:

The devices, which exploit the fact that a person’s ability to hear high frequencies generally declines once they reach their 20s, have proved popular with councils and police who aim to tackle anti-social behaviour by using them to disperse groups of youths.

But a new campaign called “Buzz off”, led by the children’s commissioner for England and backed by groups including civil liberties group Liberty, is calling for them to be scrapped.

As with a few of the organizations outlined in the article, I believe that using these kinds of devices in public or private settings is patently wrong. It appears that our perspective on dealing with modern youth can be rather easily summed up as one of complete disinterest until the personal discomfort of the “mature” leads to annoyance. The fact that many of these devices are being used in commercial centers in the UK is laughable. Indeed, it is becoming more and more evident that our own “need” to consume in the peaceful confines of shopping malls, replete with painstakingly designed and tested advertisements saddled with complimentary muzak to create feelings of indifference towards our spending, has replaced our understanding of one of our foundational rights; that of our own cognitive liberty.

It strikes me that the concept of cognitive liberty, which I believe is the paramount philosophical creation of the human mind, is the liberty in which all other liberties swim with impunity. Without it as a foundation and breeding ground for thought, other liberties, such as free speech and the freedom of religion, become nothing more than good intentions bolstered by empty rhetoric. To subject another human without permission or warning to a sound with the intent of actively disrupting their thought process and, in some cases, causing them some deal of physical discomfort seems to be another sign of a potentially scary future. This seems especially true when the individuals utilizing these dispersion techniques are doing so out of concern for the material goods they’re peddling. The scary future exemplified by not only intentions of these kinds of devices, but by the lack of foresight of the men and women who bring them to the table as good solutions is something to take into great consideration as we continue to turn our understanding of the human body and technology against the people who will one day be asked to better it.

According to a news.com article, a bill introduced to the House last Friday by Democrats would put responsibility on college’s to monitor their students traffic, with some very serious consequences if they choose not to do so.

From the article:

According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity,” all of their students–even ones who don’t own a computer–would lose federal financial aid.

First of all, I’d like to applaud the Democrats for threatening their base. Seriously, what the hell are you guys thinking? For a party who insists that they want to separate government interests from corporate interests, this is a perfect example of protecting corporate interests by implementing advertising supported venues for music distribution.

My main beef with all of this is that the people who are making the laws do not know ANYTHING about the technologies they are attempting to put a stop to. They don’t seem to realize that the people they are threatening (”Stop the piracy or we’ll take away your loans! Seriously this time guys!”) are some of the only people who continue to be innovative and help maintain the basic infrastructure that politicians rely on to disseminate their BS and propaganda.

I rarely download music anymore and I’m not currently in college, but these kinds of policies and bills are not what is going to solve the problems that are currently being experienced by the media companies in this country. It has been said a thousand times before, but they need to embrace this technology, not try to dunk it, and certainly they shouldn’t attempt to stop it by threatening the people that put money into their pockets and keep some of these politicians in office.

Anita Hill wrote an article for the New York Times regarding Clarence Thomas’ attack on her character in his new memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” Thomas personifies her as an incompetent, “touchy”, “combative left-winger” who only had a government job because he had “given it” to her. He was, of course, forgetting the fact that she had graduated from Yale Law School (just like Thomas) as well as passing the D.C. bar exam.

Here is a piece of the article regarding the current state of affairs:

“Regrettably, since 1991, I have repeatedly seen this kind of character attack on women and men who complain of harassment and discrimination in the workplace. In efforts to assail their accusers’ credibility, detractors routinely diminish people’s professional contributions. Often the accused is a supervisor, in a position to describe the complaining employee’s work as “mediocre” or the employee as incompetent. Those accused of inappropriate behavior also often portray the individuals who complain as bizarre caricatures of themselves — oversensitive, even fanatical, and often immoral — even though they enjoy good and productive working relationships with their colleagues.

Finally, when attacks on the accusers’ credibility fail, those accused of workplace improprieties downgrade the level of harm that may have occurred. When sensing that others will believe their accusers’ versions of events, individuals confronted with their own bad behavior try to reduce legitimate concerns to the level of mere words or “slights” that should be dismissed without discussion. “