The warning can supposedly be found inside the in-flight magazine of Philippine Airlines and has been circulated on Twitter.
Passengers with Philippine Airlines are told that "Despite being under military control, Thailand is very safe for tourists" but are offered five tips to help "blend in".
They include "carry your passport (or a copy) with you at all times", "avoid wearing red t-shirts, which are associated with a group opposed to the military government", and "don't carry George Orwell's dystopian novel '1984'. You don't want to be mistaken for an anti-coup protestor."
[Editor's addition follows]
The Telegraph has a more recent article which lists
eight things that can get you arrested in Thailand:
- Wearing T-shirts that could "promote division"
- Eating sandwiches in public
- Reading certain books
- Posting anything deemed critical of the military online
- Gatherings of more than five people
- Raising a "Hunger Games" salute
- Being labelled "problematic", or a political activist
- Playing a non-approved computer game
We here at SoylentNews endeavor to promote journalistic independence and freedom. Some may find it easy to laugh at such dystopian rules in a foreign land, but these can be a wake-up call to those in a country which claims greater freedoms. Are these freedoms still in effect? Are they being encroached? Where and in what ways? What can be done about it?
Consider recent efforts to have ISPs provide filters in the UK and for logging of customers' net traffic in the UK and Australia. Consider, too, the reports of the NSA's huge new data processing facility in Utah and the Snowden-leaked documents which identify massive data collection.
"Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty."
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. (Qu’on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j’y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.)" Armand Jean du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu (1585–1642).
Do you find pervasive recording of your physical and on-line travels troublesome? What steps have you taken, if any, to protect yourself? Firewalls? Installed https-everywhere? Used a VPN and/or TOR? Encryption? What would you recommend as best practices to your fellow Soylents and others in the world at large?
[Update: Added indicator of where the original submission ended.]
Related Stories
The book publisher Penguin is printing more copies of George Orwell's dystopian classic "1984" in response to a sudden surge of demand.
On Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning the book was #1 on Amazon's computer-generated list of best-selling books.
[...] "We put through a 75,000 copy reprint this week. That is a substantial reprint and larger than our typical reprint for '1984,'" a Penguin spokesman told CNNMoney Tuesday evening.
[...] According to Nielsen BookScan, which measures most but not all book sales in the United States, "1984" sold 47,000 copies in print since Election Day in November. That is up from 36,000 copies over the same period the prior year.
When the submitter visited amazon.com, the book was ranked #3.
Additional coverage:
- Los Angeles Times
- The New York Times (may be pay-walled)
- 9News
- The Washington Post (owned by the founder of amazon.com)
- The Guardian
- The Man Who Invented the Science Fiction Paperback
Related stories:
Washington DC's Public Library Will Teach People How to Avoid the NSA
George Orwell's "1984" Telescreens are Here...
Traveling to Thailand? Don't Pack George Orwell's "1984"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @06:54PM
Already Gene Roddenberry knew how dangerous red shirts can be ...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 21 2014, @07:52PM
Gene Roddenberry was a genius. He knew that Whites exploited all natural resorces, that Blacks were violent, than Asians were cold and calculating sons of bitches.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by basicbasicbasic on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:23PM
Maybe try having one day a week where you don't go trolling.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:40PM
Suck my cock, you fuckstick.
(Score: 1) by basicbasicbasic on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:59PM
Today isn't the day, then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:00PM
Hunter?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @05:17AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson [wikipedia.org]
The Internet made his (demented) literary genius of no (lasting) value anymore. Marginalized and utterly 'exhausted' from a lifetime of living life on the ragged edge and in the moment, the father of Gonzo journalism [wikipedia.org] 'checked himself out' at gunpoint. He was 67.
Though he is gone, his work still lives on....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas_(film) [wikipedia.org]
Uncle Duke from DOONESBURY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doonesbury [wikipedia.org]
General Hunter Gathers from THE VENTURE BROS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venture_Bros [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday September 21 2014, @07:19PM
They could have covered it all with the one rule "Do not be labeled 'problematic'".
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nerdfest on Monday September 22 2014, @12:59AM
... or "Do not visit Thailand".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @04:28AM
Even simpler... label Thailand as 'problematic'. No tourists, no problems. Also no dollars and soon that effect affects the regime. Much faster than supporting it by going there on holiday and spending their cash into the economy.
(Score: 2) by Theophrastus on Sunday September 21 2014, @07:47PM
Can some wise someone connect the dots between "Eating sandwiches in public" and being seen as a threat to the military 'government' there? ("what? you've not heard of the RGTA (Reuben ground to air) system?")
a gratuitous aside: "Hunger Games Salute" == cub-scout salute. (which is kinda appropriate)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:02PM
Apparently eating sandwiches in public is some form of protest in Thailand.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTd_FJbiRq0 [youtube.com]
Mind you, I don't think the fact the second guy was dressed like Dilbert, and how he got all that press and police attention is a coincidence.
(Score: 3, Funny) by frojack on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:51PM
First this is a Gweg post, so right away its wrapped up in his political views of everything, which are more important to him than the truth.
He wasn't arrested for eating the sandwich (and I suspect gewg knows that.)
He was arrested for reading the banned book 1984. (and I suspect gewg knows that as well)
Look at 14 seconds into this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTd_FJbiRq0 [youtube.com]
He then did something with his phone, playing some music which I suspect, is also probably banned.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @03:37AM
First this is a frojack post, so right away its wrapped up in his political views of everything, which are more important to him than the truth.
Frojack decided that one particular video is the only possible context to the article's claim that eating sandwiches in public can get you arrested. When in fact a senior police chief explicitly said Eating sandwiches is not illegal per se, but if sandwich-eating is being used as a front - when the real intention is to criticise the coup - then that would be. [bbc.co.uk]
Conveniently fascinated by minutiae, Frojack thinks the most important "truth" is that critical sandwich eating is illegal, while naive sandwich eating is permitted. And the person who gets to decide what is and is not critical eating is not the person doing the eating. So no problems there either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @05:43AM
Metamoderation can't come soon enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @02:51PM
Modup. This is a totally accurate post currently unfairly downmodded.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @08:18AM
Everything south of the 1984 stuff is all Marty's.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday September 22 2014, @04:33PM
So you are telling us that you stopped writing after the quoted section and the rest is th additions of the SN Editor, without any indication of that being an edit?
If so, that's just not right, editors should not be piling on the majority of a story, without indicating its editorial additions.
If that is in fact what happened, I apologize.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @08:48PM
Yup and yup.
Traveling To Thailand? Don't Pack George Orwell's "1984" (from the queue) [soylentnews.org]
Apology accepted.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by martyb on Wednesday September 24 2014, @02:38AM
Your comment is spot on. I apologize for not setting off the addition more clearly from the original submission. The story has been updated accordingly.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1) by martyb on Wednesday September 24 2014, @02:36AM
The original submission was set off with a <blockquote> to indicate it was separate from what was added. In retrospect, I can see that it was insufficient. A horizontal rule <hr> and a note has been added. I apologize for any confusion as to authorship this has caused.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday September 22 2014, @03:42PM
My first guess was that the sandwich is assumed to have some Filthy Pig Flesh in it or something else that's forbidden for silly religious reasons.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Sunday September 21 2014, @07:57PM
That's what the airline is, morons. I guess I shouldn't find it too out of the ordinary that an airline is treating every passenger like a gullible sheep but I still need to say it. They're morons, how does "eating a sandwich in public" and all that other stuff equal "tourist friendly" to these people. I guess it doesn't matter in the end since you'd be stupid to want to go there.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:08PM
you'd be stupid to want to go there
Sexual tourism [google.com]
Be warned, however, seeking out children is universally frowned on. [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Monday September 22 2014, @12:33AM
... Well, that's depressing.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @03:44AM
Thailand is a lot more than just asian strange.
The beaches there are amazing and there are tons of historic sites.
Most people vacation in Thailand for completely non-sexual reasons.
The country's unofficial motto is "the land of smiles" because of their reputed friendliness.
And only very recently has any of the political instability started to affect foreigners.
I went to high school with a half-thai girl, her mom was a minor princess in the royal family there.
(Score: 3) by cykros on Monday September 22 2014, @05:20AM
Worth noting as well is that it's perhaps the largest concentration of Theravada Buddhism in the world, with a rich history of Buddhist culture to be studied, either scholarly or as a practitioner.
Still, the political situation would be enough for me to sit it out in boycott if I were otherwise planning to go. That's not a regime I care to fund.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mcgrew on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:30PM
I was stationed at Utapao AFB from Aug. 1973 to Aug. 1974.
Guys, this is just how Thailand is; it's normal for them. Step on a bhat (a coin) with the king's picture and civilians will beat you before the police arrest you. I had a gun pointed in my face once because I didn't want a shot of whiskey; it turns out that in their culture it's a deadly insult to refuse a gift. I drank the shot when that was explained to me. Carry 1984? Far more dangerous is pointing your foot at a cop.
Their culture is over 5,000 years old, how fast do you expect it to change?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by turgid on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:48PM
Their culture is over 5,000 years old, how fast do you expect it to change?
The older I get and the more I find out, the more I am amazed at how diverse this world is.
I'm also very glad that I don't go abroad very much because I'm sure I'd be dead or rotting in a foreign jail somewhere :-)
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:22PM
I am amazed at how diverse this world is
100,000 brands of the same superstitious tribal nonsense with a slightly localized spin stand in stark contrast to how Science converges on the truth.
With each passing year, the average human's willingness to unquestioningly embrace religion and custom makes me ever more cynical.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:52PM
Perhaps there will also a larger awareness of how things actually work due to more communication? So that we will end up with huge crowds of tribal doing the ostrich view and others exploring the scientific view?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @11:28PM
more communication
The Drake equation has a term about how long an intelligent species survives after inventing technology.
The Internet has been one of the best things ever invented.
We'll see if the 'Net survives long enough to fulfill its promise.
...or if the totalitarians, greedy capitalists, and blue-nose censors kill it completely before that.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Sunday September 21 2014, @11:54PM
We'l see if the 'Net survives long enough to fulfill its promise.
The Internet could be one of the best things ever invented. Right now it's filled to the brim with trash, propaganda, marketing BS, and porn - and only increasingly so. The S/N ratio is pretty low. Even from the POV of "Internet as free public library" the Internet isn't as valuable as it's made out to be.
That's why I've started to primarily use the Internet for what it's best (and least corrupted) at -- cheap/fast/easy, direct, person-to-person communication. Peer-to-Peer, FTW!!
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @03:06AM
First, porn has been the driving force behind the success of a lot of technology: home movie projectors, VCRs, DVDs, and now the 'Net.
Next, 90 percent of EVERYTHING is crap. [wikipedia.org]
Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting notes that there are a lot of duplicitous [google.com] and unreliable sources of information. [google.com]
OTOH, there are online places that they have used for citations [google.com] (with no negative mentions). [google.com]
.
Even from the POV of "Internet as free public library" the Internet isn't as valuable as it's made out to be.
You need to improve your Google-fu.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:40AM
porn has been the driving force behind [...] a lot of technology
To follow the logic: porn --> better technology --> closer, healthier relationships (i.e. "togetherness")
Still stand behind it?
Also RE: Google-fu -- Damn it, Google keeps taking away my search operators!!
(I replied in seriousness to your "public library" sentiment in a lower reply)
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @05:26PM
Some couples consume porn together.
Some committed couples make their own porn.
Some partners appreciate it when the guy goes to a strip club or watches porn and is then all charged up.
The spectrum of human activities is pretty broad.
As long as the choosing of your mate isn't done in haste and everybody is clear on the ground rules, there can be lots of acceptable permutations.
.
Google keeps taking away my search operators
I'm a pretty demanding user of their search service and I don't see anything missing.
They even created a page for the *needs training wheels* crowd.
Now, for a while there, they hadn't figured out that there are a great number of folks who DON'T want synonyms.
They added the Verbose thing fairly quickly for the *don't screw with my search string* guys.
That method even honors dots and hyphens between words in a phrase like the old way.
The only real difference between that reimplementation and the original is that phrases with a wildcard in the middle get completely mangled.
For those, you may as well go to the new "improved" page and use a bunch of quotation marks.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday September 22 2014, @01:23PM
The Internet could be one of the best things ever invented. Right now it's filled to the brim with trash, propaganda, marketing BS, and porn
All of which can be easily ignored. Meanwhile it is indeed the biggest library in history, almost every book written before 1900 is available with a few clicks and keystrokes. I can read newspapers from around the world, today's edition. Impossible before the internet.
If I want to look something up, I no longer have to go to the city library and thumb through Britannica; we have wikipedia. If there's a modern book I want to read I can check to see if the library has a copy on its shelves. If the book I want is checked out, they'll reserve it for me and send an email when it's been returned.
Before the internet your views would be heard by few unless you were rich and famous.
I started writing when I got on the internet and discovered that people actually enjoy my writing. I'm working on my third book now. I'm writing as voraciously as I read before the internet. Without the internet, my books would not exist.
The internet has changed and is still changing the world's societies far more than anything in history, including TV, radio, and even moveable type. I imagine it's impossible for a twenty year old to have the slightest clue what life without the internet is like.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:26AM
[The trash] can be easily ignored.
But this statement is simply not true. Even if it is realistic to a greater or lesser extent for individuals, it is most definitely not a realistic expectation for groups as a whole -- this fact is the essence of propaganda/marketing. If you say something enough times, to enough people, it becomes "the truth", whether it's really true or not.
The nature of a thing is defined by its majorities, not its exceptions -- Garbage in, Garbage out.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Sunday September 21 2014, @11:46PM
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @03:33AM
People who put stock in "holy" books containing so many self-contradictions make me uneasy.
Bible Inconsistencies; Bible Contradictions [infidels.org]
I previously mentioned Science and how that discipline tends to converge on the truth.
The Sect of the Month Club, where there is an ever-divergent trend in religion, is the *opposite* of that.
At best, only one religion can have the truth.
My intuition, when noting all the stuff in their dogmas that Science has debunked, leads me to believe its ALL just a bunch of made-up hooey.
Lives based on hooey don't make sense to me.
Custom is generally just tribalism.
Occasionally, Science will show that a custom is logical.
I like to point out that a busted clock is right twice a day.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday September 22 2014, @01:41PM
Your link cherry picks passages completely out of context. Rather than science debunking the bible, I see it confirming it. For instance, the big bang theory. Previously science thought, in contradiction with the bible, that we lived in a solid state universe that had existed forever. Atheists railed against it because it does, in fact, confirm Genesis (except the God part). "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void." The big bang theory states that the earliest universe was a soup of subatomic particles. "And God said let there be light, and there was light." The BB theory states that it was hundreds of thousands of years before the first stars formed.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday September 22 2014, @03:40PM
You're seriously citing religious critique from a site called "Infidels.org"?! I do so love things that bill themselves as "a drop of reason in a pool of confusion."
I'm not quite sure what the logic is supposed to be for all those "X came before Y and Y came before X" arguments either. They seem to be claiming that man being created out of the dust of the earth means nothing else existed at that time. Dirt didn't stop existing once trees and birds came along...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @08:16PM
If you look at the page at infidels.org, 99.9999 percent of the content is straight out of the "holy" book.
Don't go blaming other folks when the book containing "the absolute truth as delivered by God" can't even keep its own story straight.
Yeah, I'm sure if you nitpick his nitpicking, you could whittle down the giant mound of self-contradictory nonsense to only an extra-extra-large mound of self-contradictory nonsense.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:02AM
Lives based on hooey don't make sense to me.
In that statement, we find agreement.
The disagreement lies in whether Science is something to base a life on.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:29AM
Science is all about whether a conjecture can stand up to scrutiny.
The systematic elimination of nonsense from the database we call human knowledge seems eminently logical.
Using only what's left after that seems like a good way to write the the guidebook for being a logical human.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by turgid on Monday September 22 2014, @07:20PM
As I said before in a post attached to another story [soylentnews.org], the older I get and the less timid I get the more I am compelled to speak my own mind, especially on matters of "belief." Ever since I was a teenager I have patiently listened to the pontifications of others (often trying to put me right or in my place) without disagreeing too loudly or otherwise saying anything that might cause offence (i.e. pointing out facts or presenting other points of view) because I was too polite.
It's easy to be ignorant, and it takes effort to become educated. However, these days it takes a heroic level of effort to remain willfully ignorant in the quantity of overwhelming evidence obtained by rational means.
It's very important philosophically that each of us is free to believe what we need to believe for our minds to function. However, we can't be slaves to the ignorant just because they have missed out on a good education (through poverty, social pressure, or living under an oppressive regime) or won't educate themselves.
We can tolerate them (more than a large majority of them tolerate us) but we need to ensure that they do not impose their arbitrary superstitions on us or anyone else.
I'm all for diversity and respect of differences, but with that we must expect the tolerance of the rational and secular. If simply calmly presenting facts and alternative points of view with friendly good intentions provokes offence in these people, then that is a shame and it may be uncomfortable in the short term. However, for the long term good and to encourage progress it it necessary.
Sorry if that sounds pompous.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday September 23 2014, @01:52AM
each of us is free to believe what we need to believe for our minds to function.
(the so-called rational individual)
slaves to the ignorant just because they
(the collective, or as you say "the ignorant masses")
A major foundation of modern Western thought is the elevation of the individual over the group/culture/historical antecedent. You argue that the rational individual knows more than the so-called ignorant masses. We are **all** ignorant, to a greater or lesser extent, and regardless of the "Truth" of specific religious beliefs and cultural traditions themselves, a major goal of these structures is to allow generational transmission of wisdom and knowledge to overcome the individual's ignorance (and resulting damage to the group, society). Unquestioningly discarding the teachings of 1000s of years of wisdom (i.e. insight into human nature and workings, and perhaps ;) the metaphysical nature of the universe) as "superstitious ignorance" does indeed sound "pompous".
Unfortunately, finding ways to truly "respect our differences" (instead of just lip service respect) is a constant challenge in any heterogenous society.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 1) by turgid on Tuesday September 23 2014, @07:20PM
Unquestioningly discarding the teachings of 1000s of years of wisdom (i.e. insight into human nature and workings, and perhaps ;) the metaphysical nature of the universe) as "superstitious ignorance" does indeed sound "pompous".
I'm not talking about discarding wisdom, I'm talking about discarding the superstition and the structures that promote and reinforce ignorance and blind belief.
We have already been able to sort out the wisdom from the superstition, but that needs to be communicated with "the masses" better.
I won't bother listing all the superstitions and bigotry that come from religion since they are infinite. People are wont to concoct new ones to suite their agendas on a daily basis. Many of these superstitions are pretty nasty and result in war, famine, disease, torture, death, oppression, mutilation...
The human race could do a lot better without that stuff.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by turgid on Tuesday September 23 2014, @07:39PM
Unfortunately, finding ways to truly "respect our differences" (instead of just lip service respect) is a constant challenge in any heterogenous society.
Yes, it's high time that the pious, faithful and self-appointed enforcers of "god's will" learned to tolerate everyone else. And the ones with all the answers need to educate themselves a bit more on the observable facts of physical reality.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Saturday September 27 2014, @12:34PM
and the ones with all the answers need to educate themselves a bit more on the observable facts of reality
What if the "observable facts of reality" don't hold "all the answers"? That statement and context of your argument with the phrase "high time" makes me tend to believe that, instead of the secularism you speak of, the religion you follow is "Science" - the new religion whose adherents believe that science, instead of being just a useful tool, is the answer to **all** life's and society's questions...
So instead of a tug-of-war between the religious and the secular, what seems to me to be the true conflict here is an age-old one -- that between religions warring for dominance.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday September 22 2014, @07:13PM
> in stark contrast to how Science converges on the truth.
Computer science is science and science converges on the truth, impossible since windows converged to version 8 and mac pros converge to wastebaskets. Grow a pair of balls. Eyeballs.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @08:24PM
"Computer science" isn't any more science than is "political science".
If you go to the library, you'll find computer science in the 600s[1] (technology aka applied science).
All the real science is in the 500s.
[1] These days, a lot of that has its own section between 000(d) and 010(d).
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:55PM
That country seems nuts. Business will be assigned elsewhere. Suffer!
(Score: 2) by cykros on Monday September 22 2014, @05:42AM
Hopefully that applies to foreign made goods as well as travel.
Thailand was the United States’ 19th largest supplier of goods imports in 2013. [ustr.gov] U.S. goods imports from Thailand totaled $26.2 billion in 2013, a 0.2% increase ($61 million) from 2012, and up 72% from 2003. U.S. imports from Thailand accounted for 1.2% of overall U.S. imports in 2013.
THIS is the kind of thing that has sane people in protest of the WTO and other Free Trade Agreements. I for one am not opposed to the idea of trading on a global scale and letting the varied costs of living see some disruption as a cost of that, but I am not interested in openly condoning and funding behavior that essentially amounts to a human rights violation on massive scale. And suggesting that it should be left up to the consumer to make that decision in the store (with the three screaming kids located precariously nearby...you hope) is simply unrealistic and furthermore is a matter of our country shirking responsibility to uphold freedoms elsewhere (as we seem far to willing to pay lip and military service to). That it meanwhile also places the American workforce stuck competing at a disadvantage of their competition being treated inhumanely.
It's one thing to allow for disruptive technology, but another to foot the bill for labor abuses. In this regard, anyway, an attack on one is an attack on all.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by lonestar on Monday September 22 2014, @01:48AM
Yes, damned right I find pervasive surveillance troubling. I mean on the surface it's troubling, but not exactly surprising. Every government that gets too big will inevitably become rampant and succumb to these darker urges. Much as I hate to admit it, there is no doubt in my mind the US government has irrevocably reached that stage. The only thing that's going to stop it is a hard reset. At the same time, we're headed in a collectivist direction.... mass surveillance and collectivism are the most deadly combination in human history.
What is most troubling are the prevailing attitudes about it. Nothing makes me more contemptuous than hearing someone say, "If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide and nothing to worry about." This sort of non-linear thinking, completely lacking in any capacity to synthesize context and human nature, is to be expected - from a fucking 2 year old.
Having said that, I really don't let it consume me. At 40 years old, I have my convictions about right and wrong, and I'm comfortable with my parameters regarding what I'm willing to tolerate. I've always said that when my way of life becomes "dangerous" to "the greater good" and I need to be removed from society, come & fucking get me. Because I'm really not going to change.
Out of principle I try to keep my profile low. It's not my intention to become a willing participant in the facebook social experiment. But I don't actively hide anything.
(Score: 4, Informative) by M. Baranczak on Monday September 22 2014, @03:44AM
Orwell has been banned at one time or another by most dictatorships since WW2. This shit is just getting old - it'd be more surprising if they didn't ban him.
What I don't like is that Orwell has become a symbol, rather than a writer. A lot of people have read "Animal Farm", and most of them have no idea what it's about. "1984"? People don't even read that, it's just a catchphrase. All the other stuff that he wrote? Nobody's even heard of it. So as a public service, I'd like to post some selected byte-sized chunks of Orwell.
Confessions of a Book Reviewer [george-orwell.org] - A look back at the good old days when people actually got paid for reviewing books, rather than just doing it for free on Amazon. Hilarious and depressing at the same time.
As I Please - Dec. 1 1944 [telelib.com] - Newspaper column that meanders from the V2 rocket, to Don Quixote, to Stalin and Trotsky.
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad [georgeorwellnovels.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @11:41AM
it's boring.
people come here to "flip out" and some die.
natives are brainwashed nationalistic.
the military is above police.
"democracy" is a stage play.
food mostly gives you tummy-ache. eat canned food, factory food (chips),
drink bottled water and enough alcohol to kill doubts and bacteria (7-eleven everywhere).
forget the chicks! drugs are bad wherever you go!
you're on holiday, take it easy and don't try to change what doesn't want to change.
use commen sense, a smile is just a smile and means nothing.