aric

Yes. You make it sound like people can't hold multiple opinions. A person can simultaneously believe the drug war is unethical while believing that selling (rather than openly revealing) 0day exploits is unethical.

The difference is that most of those people are not calling for any government interference. Otherwise that would be humorous given that governments and their no-trace-back shell companies are the largest clients. They simply disagree ethically through free speech.

Thank you! I'd be honored. Likewise, I'll be eager for any music from you, especially as you're even willing to ask. It should be noted that I truly love all forms of music and sound without reservation.

Would be nice if HN had a simple forum or messaging/alerts for these moments. My lists are a disastrous mess in Foobar. It's time to finally get up to par and organize what I can on Spotify or whatnot for these situations. Any way to message, or just check back in a few days?

Sometimes it does. It depends. For instance, if I'm listening to NPR, Democracy Now, or other news shows and podcasts, those are usually too distracting. I can't get any real work or reading done if it's too engaging. "Silence" can be golden. Then there are other forms of vocal information that seem to recede well enough in the background yet remain there just enough to decide whether to actively listen.

It might be put in terms of working around others. Ideally, the noise others make will enter subconsciousness enough to concentrate yet remain aware of anything 'worth' listening to or someone snapping in my face. Basically, you just have to experiment on yourself. Do what feels right for you. If someone's constantly fighting for concentration against surroundings, then that person needs to change surroundings. And moods constantly change.

Emotions are humanity. Life is real life. Moreover, good movies are far more than mere fiction or the sum of their parts. To people with vivid imaginations and deep empathy, any [medium of information], "fact" or fiction, powerful enough, can be experienced viscerally as with "real life" even if only in that moment.

I said it partly distills a spirit of cities that never sleep, not of sleep. :) Not everyone lives in dense urban areas. And many who do don't want to listen to the actual noise of their environment. It's often distracting. That's the point of setting a mood. It's escapism. You try to choose how you want to feel. Beyond altering the immediate space around oneself via sound, lighting, scents, physical comfort, scenery, and ambiance in general, one may want to remain tuned into the larger, active world through real-time streams yet not have it be distracting. That could come through web sites, visuals, music, television, radio, shortwave, or any other medium that creates a sense of 'living information.' It can be comforting. It can be greatly humanizing.

One may be deep in the heart of a sardine-packed city, feeling disconnected. No setting is exclusive to the shaping of one's feelings except to those who may not care to shape their own positive perception.

> It then completely removes actual humanity and suffering, and replaces it with dispassionate narration of management of human activity.

It depends on the person being affected. Speaking only for myself, it's the opposite of dispassion. Sure, I love dark, dystopic, cyberpunk moods with the best of 'em. Personally, however, and I'm sure this rings true for others here, I'm always left with overwhelming sense of hopefulness in those moments of unease. It's a feeling that humanity can come together to resist and overcome obstacles. It's entirely empathetic and passionate. On the topic of police scanners, indeed, upsetting moments occur. Suffering occurs. Humorous moments occur too. It's interesting. My constant worry and sincere hope goes out to people in need even at the mere sound of an ambulance. The presence of critical information is not fuel of sadism. It's fuel of concern, curiosity, connectedness, and awareness.

News functions greatly in this respect. Heavy news affects those who are willing to bear witness to it. It's humanity's suffering. News of the world's plight causes a rollercoaster of emotions. As much as it brings pain, shock, tears, pessimism, and cynicism, it so too brings cause, unity, hope, struggle, and awareness. The electricity of urgency has its own presence regardless of how different people objectify it. People who tune-out of it altogether could be equally objectifying, depending on their attitude and perception. Tuning out can be healthy just the same. Emotions are 'pluralistic' amid extremes of peace, fear, love, happiness, and curiosity. Lightning, though terrifying, remains electrifying.

> That said, I have code to do... so on with the suffering!

Hilarious! I'm entering a more upbeat mood now. A mix of violent gangsta rap blended with the life-affirming moans of highway traffic will suffice. A.B.C.

It invokes a mood. It distills a spirit of night and cities that never sleep. Urgent events from a police scanner play upon a feeling of social connectedness. Combining that with ethereal music plays upon senses of tranquility, danger, peace, haunting, calms before storms, and life transpiring. Dramas like Blade Runner, The Killing, and True Detective, as a few examples, achieve many of their most beautiful moments through that same, heightened essence.

It's great for programming at night. It's meditative without entering a full alpha state. It's like other moods, such as sounds of rain and nature, that linger but don't distract. Many people find it conducive to "the zone" of creativity and productivity.

Bookmarked. I already occasionally listen to local and nonlocal police scanners via Broadcastify with my own playlists of atmosphere and ambient-shoegaze music. No joke. I'll use this. Some beautiful, fresh music on the roll here.

Is English your first language? I'm not asking out of disrespect. I'm genuinely curious. The grammar of headlines and titling is often confusing to several non-native speakers. Incomplete sentences and 'news speak' play a vital role in language. For starters, it isn't a mouthful.

http://esl.about.com/od/intermediatereading/a/newsheadlines....

If you want a complete sentence that's more aligned with the meaning and intent of the original headline, try the following. "[A|This] Middle-School Dropout [Codes|Coded|Is Coding] [A] Chat Program That Foils NSA Spying." The one you wrote has some subtle, imperative differences in meaning. Adding "[the ability of the]" is hypercorrective. And it's verbose. "NSA Spying" is appositive speech; it's perfectly normal and understood.

Talking about the systemically brutal consequences of people who have blind allegiance to the rule of law is not equivalent to inferring that humanitarian law (e.g. Bill of Rights) shouldn't exist. It's not equivalent to saying law isn't useful. You're conflating or projecting these sentiments. Unfortunately, conflation like that is a common consequence of nationalism. People who find faults are often derided or willfully misinterpreted. I'm not accusing you of this. It's just a point.

> "I seem to recall these sorts of things being strongly correlated with secret police, etc, and not being in a society with stable laws that it adheres to."

Those societies didn't have "secret" police. They had police who operated (sometimes in secret) legally. Every nation is as fueled by law as the next group seeking legitimacy. This shouldn't be a point of contention. No one's conflating "secret law" with "law." In a land where "secret law" becomes increasingly legitimate, it becomes a fool's errand to stress over shallow semantics, as dire reality takes shape (e.g. a prison, surveillance, military economy legitimately escalating).

> "Similarly, rule of law has nothing inherently nationalistic about it."

Allegiance to "rule of law" is entirely nationalistic in this context of nations. I'm not talking about the 'laws' of physics. The violence that inherently serves as the foundation of all national laws isn't magic. Zeus and his jack-booted thugs aren't appearing out of the sky to magically enforce words written on paper. Maybe you're trying to say that one person's interpretation of a nation will vary from another person's interpretation and, therefore, this means that one particular nationalist is not the same as another particular nationalist in the same nation. That's true. Yet, it doesn't mean much. It's usually a source of delusion ultimately.

I prefer that rhetoric as follows.

'Anyone who supports the war on drugs has abandoned liberty and freedom.'

Terms like "the rule of law" encourage a mentality that's unempathetic and unconcerned with many forms of tyranny and suffering. It encourages complicit behavior through blind allegiance and rhetoric. That allegiance will probably remain until the faithful are personally affected and destroyed by the rule of law they so thought they knew.

The rule of law is a process that should be (and usually isn't) viewed as deserving of great distrust, fear, and delicacy rather than of great admiration and worship. The largest atrocities and cruelest of societies may happen due to the rule of law. The United States' Bill of Rights is not enough. Legitimacy doesn't fear it. Meaning is created. Meaning overrides meaning. Freedom and free speech may be eternal flames in the hearts of free minds. I hope that will always be so. Legitimacy, meanwhile, paves a path with new terms while nationalists are left clinging to the rule of law.

Similarly, behind every good ship is a trusty Ship's Cat. (...and often whiskey too.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship's_cat

The euphemism known as an IRS audit would interfere in his life if an exchange into or out of USD took place. Anyone can attribute value to anything. That doesn't make it valuable. Taxation here would require provable gains or losses, as with USD. The transactions of people exchanging only in [bitcoins, metal, coffee beans, rocks, fancy/worthless paper], not in USD, do not imply that any taxable "gains" or "losses" occurred. If it implied this, there would equally be a lot of losses claimed.

If you think a person who wants to carry or transact a supposed worth of 10,000 EUR or 3,000 EUR or higher, without being tracked, is performing an action befitting of the word "criminal" (and often the harsh, cruel treatment that comes with this word) -- and if you think these actions warrant subjecting the entire society to search and seizure (and the dramatic consolidation of power that it grants) -- then, unfortunately, you don't see what the problem is.

You might not be bothered by it. But I implore you to look past your own comfort and respect that others are bothered -- to at least see the possible problems. I'll reduce the terms. Many people don't want their personal, consensual affairs tracked, limited, and dictated by a central authority. A central authority for sake of discussion is the entity that tends to strip people of their physical and psychological humanity by means of economic persecution, containing people in cages, subjecting people to various forms of isolation and torture, and killing people. Thus, in no uncertain terms, many people don't enjoy increasing the power (i.e. legal and otherwise) of that central authority. They especially don't like doing so, the more they see the system on which it operates as being oligarchical, abusive, and unethical.

How many times must it be repeated through history's political systems to understand that predicating laws upon [search and seizure] is a fast-track ticket to tyranny? The United States has been riding this road for a long time. See: Prohibition / Drug War. Do you see a problem with an economic incentive for subjecting people to searches? Do you see a problem with their labor/value stolen? Would you see a problem if it were a mafia setting terms (hell, they could even let you vote and call it democratic, wink-wink) and then pulling you over to intimidate you and take as they see fit -- or possibly worse? One of the biggest problems is when people don't see the problem.

Brainfuck is a backwards gun. https://www.google.com/images?q=backwards+gun

C++, nunchucks? Ha, fair enough. But I'll continue to think of Go as my legion of tiny gophers under command, scurrying into battle or working relentlessly like Doozers.

I don't think I misunderstood you. Sorry, respectfully, I just don't see a good argument in the article against theoretical uncontrolled markets by drawing parallels to that context. Of course, it depends on a clear definition of uncontrolled and consideration of any non-market forces that still exist surrounding it.

It really isn't. That's a heavily controlled environment. Airlines condone reclining. Therefore, reclining should be expected by people paying to enter, unless the terms of service state otherwise.

The only idiotic part of this equation is the person who misdirects intolerance and anger at the recliner rather than at the airline's environment. On an individual level, money is one form of compensation to give up a feature one would expect to use. Asking to be paid isn't the same thing as expecting to be paid. Try negotiating with honey (dialogue), not vinegar ("Knee Defenders"). Or pay up. Or boycott the airline. Use something else. Air grievances.

Lack of privacy seems like a good way to encourage cultural genocide. Total transparency for individuals would make it easier for prevailing thought-leaders to suppress minority groups. Culture could be eliminated before it has a chance to coalesce to the point of daring to enter public acceptance. To think otherwise is to believe that cultural tyranny (thus legal tyranny) wouldn't exist in a world where no one may hide. That's foolish. Tyranny bred in complete openness is possibly more insidious. It's harder to escape.

The author, perhaps, isn't bothered by the many reasons why other people unlike himself want privacy and have wanted privacy throughout history. Maybe the plight of others will never be good enough for him to change his advocacy. There's irony in his case. Not so long ago, and to this day in many parts of the world, revealing oneself as an atheist would have made one subject to extreme persecution, if not quicker death. It was through a long course of secrecy, over a gradual shift in public perception, which was rapidly accelerated by the soft veil of the internet, that more people began to feel safe enough to 'come out' as atheists. (Granted, that history didn't have a complete lack of privacy. Yet, if it had, I'd wager that the world today would have even fewer "heretics" upon whose shoulders others may rest their unpopular thoughts.)

Transparency should be a growing expectation people have toward all governments and institutions that wage force over people. I agree with that part.

Value has value. Labor is labor. Agreed. It's laughable to base assumptions on relating "labor" to "value." The forms of labor that generate value depend entirely on cultures, systems, laws/artificial constraints, and circumstances of an era. It's still worth noting that in a society with post-scarcity such as Star Trek:TNG, which, of course, is almost entirely a result of replicator proliferation, "labor" would have a far more visceral and noticeable correlation with "value." Which human actions would be highly valued in a fantasy where people have the means to bend matter/energy to their will, where no one is without most specialty foods and material objects of choice, where it's almost always a question of what people feel like doing on any particular day?

Many episodes touched on that. Naturally, the value of a person's time sharply rises where no one need give their time. Today there are still vast differences in personalities among people that generates incredible variance in culture and pursuits irrespective of reward. Conjecture that to the maximum. There are things that give incentive to pull away from what one might not ordinarily do. There's specialty teaching; personal performances; lively forms of artistry; types of manual labor for odds and ends not conducive to androids and automation; the never-ending pursuit of happiness and/or power? What might "dirty work" be? It's like thinking of an amalgamation of the present day considerations of elite society equalized through sheer unrestricted access of the masses. I forget how land settlement on Earth works in Star Trek.

No matter the economics...

One might expect that most societies comprised of Earthlings will still start with the world's oldest profession and end with the world's second-oldest profession.

It's worth watching these short videos from years ago to get an idea, though this is a different game. Chimps outperforming humans in memory games:

1. "Man Vs Chimp - memory test"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVlJv7ZkvGA

2. etc.

https://www.google.com/search?q=chimp+memory&tbm=vid

I appreciate your politeness. Forgive me. I won't cast you off as one of those unquestioning faithfuls to a status quo. You're clearly concerned with questioning it, which is far beyond the attitudes of most people. Most people can't fathom supporting less violence and less corporate control, merely by virtue of their having grown up into this current society with corporate-controlled government. This society is largely an echo chamber where roads to success are more easily achieved by believing in one particular variation of capitalism (out of infinite variations) because exploiting it is far easier than questioning it.

> Pharmaceutical companies will still find it rational to stake money on clinical trials that may or may not yield the results necessary to ethically bring the drug to market. And they must still find it rational to do this while knowing that another rational company can just wait to hear the results of the clinical trial and just sell the drug effectively for free.

My position starts with peace. It sounds cliche. But peace as a groundwork for a more natural market doesn't need to worry or concern itself over whether PharmaABC Co. will pull in however many more $x billions beyond its $y billion in marketing/propaganda costs (resulting from the comparative ease they had in securing monopoly rights by buying and submitting new patents). What peace and a more natural market must concern itself with is protecting people and entities from other people and entities who attempt to wage involuntary relationships (e.g. mafia, gangs, businesses, government itself: especially institutions with three-letter acronyms). Under more peace and peaceful government, that which will follow may follow.

I agree with your paragraph's statements.

Pharmaceuticals would not go away. Yet still there would be vast amounts of money to be made. The distribution of that money would be more grounded though. Less corporate control would be a huge boom to scientific exploration. This holds true for any industry that becomes more accessible to people: hardware, computing, food. The upsides are always rational and ethically superior to their alternatives. 3D printing my own parts or brewing my own coffee will hurt the bottom line of certain interests. However, it will only expand the bottom lines of more people who can come to the table as a result of the mere ability to now enter a market. They matter too. Meanwhile, cafes of the world open their doors, even as Starbucks takes over block after block. Different wants create peacefully coexisting supplies.

If you want to understand my view, allow me to use this example. Pretend coffee is new. Pretend Starbucks doesn't exist. Pretend coffee plants came as a result of research, ideas, or derivations of nature. A world with patents in general is -- to me -- akin to a world where Starbucks could patent coffee. Or perhaps a capital group buys those patents to start a Starbucks and license them to only big players who have the capital. Society is at the mercy of Starbucks or the whims of a few. Starbucks can then (legally) prevent other people and businesses from growing, selling, and distributing coffee. Don't like their particular flavor? Don't like their company? Don't like the way they do business and source their goods? Tough luck. If it wasn't enough to build an empire on a service and product alone, they can now at least build an empire off of corporatism. Oh, and they'll continue to call the shots for another 6-20 years. And for what? Really, for what? So that they can amass themselves on the backs of a society's military/police/prison network (i.e. the institutions that ultimately back their corporate law)? So that they can prey upon high demand, as a taste for coffee quickly develops, without having to answer to the grounding forces of the absence of monopoly status? So that they will take the initial "risk" of being first to market? Any minor positives become unseen to the ignorance and imbalance this breeds. Consider that my vision of a living 'coffee nightmare.' :)

Just because something would no longer be patentable doesn't mean the constructs of society wouldn't form to support people and businesses discovering medical breakthroughs (or coffee). I mentioned earlier that I believe a society as this is even today -- of mostly 'good' people -- would mostly love and want to reward the ones who bear good and honest fruit for society. I also believe this path would have cyclical effects. It's that echo chamber again: learning that there are ways to conduct business without the luxury of dominance. There are many arguments to be made that over time this itself would increase the flow of commerce between people and also increase the re-flow of capital into more avenues of development and research. Granted, my words are also predicated on people having increased access to information about the entities with which they engage.

It's smart of you to be cautious.

It's wise of you to be concerned, not wanting to potentially rip the carpet out from under people who rely on potential drugs for peculiar and rare diseases. It's understandable to have notions deeply rooted in us through surroundings, such as fearing that a world without patents (what I like to call a more natural world) might mean a world where certain companies have no inclination to conduct science if they fear not obtaining their pot of gold. I respect and share your concern. But I'm also here to suggest that there's more to life than this. There's more to life than supporting something fundamentally corrupt that stems from fear. If other markets are any indication, and I believe they are, then for every company that would give up over no longer being able to claim patents -- that for every one of those types -- there are many more people and businesses on the sidelines who are eager to jump at the chance to fill voids and then some.

Yes, this would be with explicit understanding that it would probably result in less money for them and that the only dominance they achieve is inescapably up to them -- and up to a society that, under these freer conditions, I believe, would begin to become more prone to recognizing the efforts of those who take those risks (both recognition in fame and monetarily). You might consider this possibility. You might consider that nothing in life: no thought, no object, no idea, no system of logic, was born into this world yearning to be backed by violence. Only (some) individuals who 'birth' ideas call for backing them through violence. Do we want to enrich this mindset or stand for something better? The greatest tangibles and intangibles in life always seem to be born out of humanity's compulsion for logic and creativity. Ideas yearn to be free. The stuff we see around us is predominantly in spite of patents, not as a result of patents. But that's my opinion. Exciting times would be ahead for any area of science where people have increased access and needn't fear lawsuits and company death from patent holders. Unfortunately, those areas are few and unpredictable. The depth to which patents have sunk means one must have a great deal of legal backing (money) merely to venture a foot into an ocean of exploration. You might consider this. That's all I ask.

I am begging the question. It's important. But you're forcing presumption. You presume that drug patents lead to better 'results' and that this form of corporatism is one in which society should place its faith, at the expense of freer people.

> This market is enabled by patent protection, not hindered by it. ...

We disagree. I and many others do not support patents nor business-as-usual. It's pretty simple. I don't wake up in the morning and think about how I can continue to best serve the enrichment of particular pharmaceutical companies.

What's insidious is clear. The insidious component to me in this whole equation is the one where people are led into a rather unquestioning belief that human potential -- be it in medical science and wherever -- would not exist or progress if it weren't for a framework that allows temporary market dominion of capital (and the monopolies that arise from this). It's nonsense. You've stated broad sweeping claims though. These claims very much do beg questions -- far more, to me, than any questions that result out of society having to cope in the absence of (punitive, violent) market constraints. My own presumption is in believing that, while answers that bridge a transition aren't definitive, at least the path should strive toward an ethical horizon. Personally, to me, a republic that uses collective force to inhibit [people from researching, selling, and building upon concepts and therapies] -- a society with patents -- is a shining example of insidious, unethical, corrupt behavior. The SCOTUS had a tiny bit of sense to revoke some of the patents on genes, at least, if we're to talk baby steps.

It reconciles by coping.

It's better to deal with the harsh reality of peaceful commerce than it is to continually mold an economy with abysmal, suppressive, artificial constraints. Such laws are overwhelmingly wielded by large corporations: groups of protected people who afford patent war chests, suck up the relatively small patents "of the little guy," who gladly suffer constraints, and whose dominion grows parasitically with every law they bend in their direction.

The answer for "incentivizing" progress has no clear path. But I know it should lie elsewhere from this current one, if we're to ever set our courses ethically. It must consist of peace. Peace means not using violence and not caging people just to mold corporate will. Incentives exist on one side. Many people are naturally driven to learn, research, create, and discover.

On the other side, that doesn't solve the economic drivers that act as a backbone. Obviously, that's where your question is focused. Given less control by corporations, I imagine time-to-market, mover advantage, and trade recognition would still be enough to create a very fertile economy. It would hardly lack in the catalysts that dive manufacturing and profit-based prospects and motives. I'd argue that it would increase those conditions beyond just the net-health increase of market access. The major difference would be an economy that becomes more decentralized with fewer mega-corporations and more p2p trade. The pace of drug design would not necessarily slow. Motives and rewards behind drug design would nevertheless change and certain aspects of that would slow.

I'm more sympathetic to trademark IP. Trademarks were a helpful stopgap against fraud in the evolution of the US economy. Yet, trademarks as we know them today could be logically disbanded in the future if the means which which to prove identities and dates of creation become more solidified into everyday life. Certain aspects of enforcement would probably linger on for consumer protection (e.g. selling exact, branded replicas of a product would be prohibited in areas where true confusion is likely to occur). I believe most people want to reward people and businesses who take chances, act transparently, and serve quality products and services, the more that information becomes readily flowing. Likewise, I believe most people want to disfavor the people who act fraudulently (presenting the works of others as their own).

Ultimately, I'd rather society cope with the human potential that occurs without the limitations of patents, rather than society coping with the human potential that occurs with the limitations of patents. This philosophy may or may not lead to more net gains superficially. However, I think it leads to more gains rationally and ethically.

> The whole article sounds like a call for regulation based on a fear of change.

It's the opposite.

The article is hypothesizing that regulatory capture will lead to major policy fights against decentralized manufacturing. In fact, that's already the case due to widespread patents that prevent a lot of 3D printing competition -- beyond some recently expired patents, which subsequently allowed a tidal wave of new upstarts to come about (on Kickstarter and so forth). In case it's not clear, the article is not in support of an increase in corporate protection that they're (logically) presuming. One would assume the publication is full support of 3D printing having mass adoption and becoming freer.

It's the site's ultimate responsibility.

If getpaint.net wants to maintain a site with deceptive ads, that's their explicit decision. I couldn't care less about their limited choices. Excuses like that are worth a null device. It's not up to anyone else to figure out for them how they should create an honest/ethical source of revenue. Likewise, complaining to Google is nearly a dead-end. The only decent solution is calling 'em out. Express disappointment and recommend against them. Maybe they'll care. Maybe they won't.

Sites like this need to be called-out and shitlisted.

They have no regard for whether computers get infected. It's even worse when it's a site for supposedly "legitimate" software (or any download) allowing huge green [DOWNLOAD] buttons and deceptive ads. These links almost always lead to spyware/malware traps. We all know it. Many of us wonder about how many people it hurts. It's obvious to most of us to decipher what is/isn't a correct file. However, it isn't obvious to a general audience. And that's a very serious problem for anyone who actually cares about other people.

It's also a reason I leave adblocking off for general browsing. I like to see which sites are careless. Regarding Paint.NET itself, it's one of the closed-source programs I use sometimes while on Windows. Sure, it's a good step above MS Paint. (Maybe one of these days it'll have basic effects brushes too.) Yet any credit I would've given to their effort goes right out the window with a shameful site. But that's a calculation for revenue they're making: one they'll have to live with.

There have been countless (known) RTF vulnerabilities for over a decade.

Framework fatigue is understandable. Need? No. Want? Yes and maybe. Fortunately, no one's forced to use any one thing. That's because of the answer to your question: yes, no, and maybe. Do we really need another app? Another book? New languages? More music? Yet another program? People choosing their time and pursuits is what leads to countless dead-ends and countless progress. One might want to fear a day when the generality of a no displaces the spirit of a yes, about whether an activity is justified inherently.

I trust that the researchers of this study are too distrusting of all evidence to the contrary.

Upvoted as well. We ultimately agree. I'm sure you understand my contention.

> "It also means submitting to the authorities when you break the law; MLK spent a lot of time in jail."

I interpreted that phrase as exclusive although you probably implied it as inclusive. I simply don't want anyone to be mistaken. Civil disobedience doesn't require submission to authority. Enough people as it is make irrelevant equivocations about Snowden and others having to flee the [United States | {or insert regime}] out of fearing for their lives. Civil disobedience feeds on strategy. MLK had his legions and knew some fleeting jail time would actually work in his favor. I appreciate Thoreau. :) I wish more people would take his thoughts (and the thoughts of other like-minds) to heart. Peace!

That's not the definition of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is not, in any way, exclusive to waging disobedience within a regionally localized or symmetric form. By definition, it's only exclusive to disobeying one's government, laws, or other civil institutions.

True enough on that last part. These chilling effects compound rapidly.

Who created that rule? People must martyr themselves in cages, in blood, and in torture to peacefully resist, disseminate, and earn approval?

Lunacy.

There are stark differences to Martin Luther King, Jr. This current era is a time when people transcend borders more easily. King was fortunate to seize upon an entire network build-up behind a cause and behind him over many years. The punishments he faced by breaking segregation laws are gentle in comparison to the brand of "justice" and punishment Snowden is likely facing in his "homeland." One might imagine the likes of King, Mandela, and so on, recognizing this new face of oppression as did King did against the industry of military and against a government that's willing and eager to invade Vietnam and obliterate the Vietnamese under the mirage of virtue. One might imagine King now standing vocally strong in support of anyone who dares to not become a disposable pawn to today's prison economy. Yet it matters not. One might not want to conjecture; for, as always, a person's words are only one person's narrow perspective.