Disqus - Latest Comments for Jak King

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » PPI on RFID

Jak King — Sat, 09 Oct 2004 23:40:34 -0000

It is sad that you think that "lower prices and improv(ing) the quality of goods for consumers" are the be-all and end-all. Slave labour and death for quality defects would both lower prices and improve quality. Would you support those too?

We are already experimenting with RFID chips to track inmates in prisons, and sex-offenders once released. Pretty soon there will be insidious commercials seeking to have all of our children tagged in case of kidnap and natural disaster. Peer pressure will drive this forward ("you mean you don't want to protect little Johnny?") and within a generation the government will be able to track every move we make.

I'm willing for supermarkets to be a little less than optimally efficient to protect us from this fate.

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » RFID implants are not the “Mark of the Beast”

Jak King — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:27:43 -0000

Your article is premised on more than one false assumption.

First, you say that: " ... that same tracking feature could also be used by a malevolent government as a means to monitor citizens. Fortunately, America does not currently face that threat, making it foolish to oppose the technology." As the article The American Taliban makes clear, we are in fact facing just such a malevolency.

Second, you suggest that having this data maintained by a private company (rather than by the government) somehow solves the privacy issue. This is nonesense, of course, in this age of the Patriot Act which requires any company upon demand to give up to the government any data it holds. It is precisely because of propagandizing articles like yours that the government can successfully use corporations to collect data that the government is not politically able to collect for itself.

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » What the Election Results Mean for the First Amendment

Jak King — Sat, 06 Nov 2004 23:37:13 -0000

I believe there are only "Two Bad Choices" for the Democrats.

Re: Ridiculous bullet tax

Jak King — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:32:17 -0000

"My friend Rod Wright, Calfornia's leading champion of the Second Amendment, likes to point out that people living in gang neighborhoods don't get the same kind of police protection that liberals in gated communities get, so guns are essential for their security. In light of that fact, Perata's latest tax really is an attack on the working poor"

What a nonsensical conclusion. If anything is an attack on the working poor it is the fact that policing in their neighbourhoods is so bad. You solve this problem by improving the policing, thus reducing the need for private weaponry.

Re: Mega-Ripoff

Jak King — Thu, 16 May 2002 17:20:02 -0000

I certainly agree that $350 to hear the whiner and Steve Johnson would be an entire ripoff. But your characterization of what the fee gets you is as inaccurate and self-serving as anything on scripting.com

Re: Soccer in America

Jak King — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 19:16:35 -0000

But why would soccer want to change from being what it is -- the most successful and popular sport in the world -- to meet the demands of a comparatively small market like the US?