
Maddox - I hope SOPA passes - CWIZO
http://maddox.xmission.com/
======
guelo
What Maddox doesn't seem to understand is that "raising awareness" is the only
way you win these battles long term in a democracy. For example, gay marriage
is slowly becoming a reality because over the last 20 years gays have opened
people's eyes to their plight. Once a cause becomes a moral issue for most
Americans it wins. But most people have no idea what us tech geeks are
bitching about so we have to educate them about our causes. And that is
exactly what yesterday was about.

~~~
irishcoffee
This may upset people, but in my humble opinion, gay marriage has been a pawn
used by DC for political gain. Raising awareness worked because DC figured out
a way to twist it into a campaign talking point. Makes me sick.

~~~
dhimes
Honestly, on that issue I don't think it happened that way. They were doing
great with stem cell research and abortion- especially late-term. In fact, I
frankly think gay marriage took DC by surprise. At first it was, "Oh, that's
just Massachusetts. I'm surprised California doesn't have it." And then they
realized it was a "serious" issue.

My personal perspective, having lived in the DC area most of my life and
moving to MA shortly after (or was it just before? I don't remember), is that
yeah, I was a little worried about how to explain it to my young kids. Turned
out not to matter. I personally don't think the government should give a rat's
ass who you love.

~~~
tommorris
Here's how you explain it to your kids: "Mummy and Daddy love one another very
much, and so do lots of other people. Men love women, some men love other men,
some women love other women. And when they love each other enough, they commit
to being with that person for the rest of their lives and get married."

I'm not totally sure how a conversation like that means - as some same-sex
marriage opponents seem to think - that one has to start describing the
intricacies of sex, anal or otherwise.

I do think it's utterly disappointing that the primary reason people seem to
think that denying same-sex partners from getting married is because they are
too much of a pussy to explain to their kids that gay people exist and can
love one another.

~~~
sethg
_I'm not totally sure how a conversation like that means - as some same-sex
marriage opponents seem to think - that one has to start describing the
intricacies of sex, anal or otherwise._

Because some same-sex marriage opponents are obsessed with the intricacies of
anal sex (whereas the typical preadolescent child really doesn’t care about
the intricacies of any kind of sex). Heck, some of them are probably more
obsessed with this topic than the gay men who _do_ it.

------
sethg
One of the problems in the American political culture is that wealthy
interests _set the terms of the debate_ , and the mass media goes along with
that frame of reference, which means that certain political perspectives are
dismissed as not worth considering before they even make their case.

The Occupy Wall Street protests and the “Internet strike” were both successful
because they _changed the terms of the debate_. In the former case, the mass
media, which had spent months obsessing over deficit deficit deficit, suddenly
took notice of income inequality, and Romney’s _Republican primary opponents_
started attacking him over his vulture-capitalist history. In the latter case,
the fact that there _was_ opposition to SOPA/PIPA, and that these opponents
are not just “pirates”, finally became mainstream front-page news.

These are not legislative victories in and of themselves, but they are
significant. The proper reaction is not “in the big scheme of things this is a
small victory, so don’t feel smug about it” but “in the big scheme of things
this is a small victory, so let’s build on it to go on to bigger victories”.
Rome wasn’t sacked in a day.

~~~
carbocation
If we set the terms of the debate, we didn't do a great job. We protested an
"anti-piracy bill" according to the paper of record. Surely those are the
sponsors' terms...

------
edw519
<BabyBoomerRant>

I _love_ this post and I'll tell you why...

I understand that my age puts me in the minority here at Hacker News, but
anyone who has ever followed anything I've said here knows that I really
believe that's just a detail, not a real issue...I don't care as much about
who you are as what you do and how you treat others.

I grew up in the U.S. in the 1960's and it was a very different time for all
kinds of reasons. The biggest difference of all had little to do with money,
technology, or superficial lifestyle; it had to do with _state of mind_. Like
all young generations, we were confused and didn't understand why things were
the way they were. So, with lots of energy and spare time, we took action...

We protested, we marched, we did whatever we thought it took to affect change.
We took the side of the oppressed: blacks, women, gays, the poor and homeless,
the environment, and most of all, we protested an illegal and immoral war. We
ended the war and we changed the world.

It's great to see that some things haven't changed: young people still find a
way to channel their resources to try to make things better, but here's the
problem: All I see with this worldwide Occupy movement is people complaining,
"Where's mine?" It seems like it's all about "me", not "us".

That's why these SOPA protests are so refreshing to me. It's the first thing
I've noticed in years that reminds me of my youth, not so much in action, but
in spirit. People have taken a few minutes to stop worrying about themselves
to do something about the greater good for all of us.

But the spirit of modern times prevents us from doing enough. We will take
action so long as it doesn't cost us too much. Where is the sacrifice? Where
is the "put your money where your mouth is"? I love the way OP points this
out.

I'm proud of Wikipedia. Craigslist came close, forcing its users to work to
get to their local pages. But too many, like Google, just wimped out. All
their black banner said was, "We care, but not that much."

Listen to OP! For just a few minutes, fuck the "stake holders", the "money
managers", the "players", the "metrics", the "ROI", and the "bottom line".
Can't we just once pretend that it's 1968, and stop giving a shit about
ourselves long enough to realize that a couple of extra bucks today will soon
be worthless in a world going to shit if we don't do something about it? Only
when we demonstrate the passion that comes from true sacrifice will the
"normals" really take notice.

</BabyBoomerRant, TimeForMaalox>

~~~
jdietrich
The baby boomers didn't change a damned thing.

In Britain, liberalism was architected primarily by people who were part of
our very old establishment. The decriminalisation of homosexuality was
achieved largely by the work of Lord Wolfenden, Lord Pakenham and Arthur Gore
(8th Earl of Arran). The same goes for most of the political changes we
associate with modernity and progress - with the notable exception of Bevan
and his peers, the people turning the wheels were mainly minor aristocrats in
dusty tweed. A great many of the most significant changes were made contrary
to public opinion, the most obvious being the abolition of the death penalty -
a policy which most Britons still oppose.

The boomers credit themselves with having changed the world when they were
young, broke and essentially powerless, but deny any credit to the generation
that constituted the establishment at the time. Conversely, now that they
control the majority of capital, make up the biggest electoral demographic and
holds most of the elected offices, they deny responsibility.

The most destructive act of the baby boomers was creating a culture in which
the individual is seen as having supremacy over the institution. The
consequences are obvious and stark - a political system with single-digit
approval ratings, where nobody feels represented and nobody feels responsible.
A political culture defined not by fundamental ideological allegiance and
difference, but by special pleading. There's no such thing as a socialist
anymore, no such thing as a conservative or a trade unionist, just people with
opinions. America always pretended to be classless but Britain has gone the
same way, preferring the egoistic fantasy of an egalitarian society over the
reality of one where power and wealth and privilege are still very much in
force.

We're trapped in a solipsistic nightmare, where conspiracy theories have
replaced an understanding of social power. Until the people who are in charge
actually admit that they are in charge, we're fucked.

~~~
rushabh
The boomers have also presided over a period of unparalleled monetary
inflation. They chose not to take hard decisions. Being an xer, I can totally
relate to the concept of being trapped. The boomers are sitting on gazzilions
of dollars of inflated wealth and god knows how much power that goes with it.
It is not so much the lack of power that bothers me, but the conflict between
playing by the rules defined by the boomers and the new hope of post
materialism.

I think the xers and yers will remain conflicted generations.

~~~
geogra4
>I think the xers and yers will remain conflicted generations.

Conflicted with each other? Or internal conflict?

~~~
Bleys
The previous paragraph covers the issue of conflict between boomers and young
generations, touching on the controlling forces of boomers conflicting with
newer ideologies. So I think they meant to say that the x and y generations
will remain in conflict with the boomers until the boomers grow too old to
hold their power.

The problem I have with the invocation of post-materialism specifically to
support this argument is that if post-materialism were manifest in the
youngest generations, we'd have a lot of empowered voting and office-running
youth overthrowing the boomer establishment. Post-materialists value freedom
of speech and people collectively having power in political decisions more
than they value material goods and even national order. Post-materialists
would be fighting tooth and nail and leveraging every advantage they have
against a corrupt, centralized material-obsessed authority.

A powerful post-materialist youth would leverage technology to empower their
voices directly through the voting system and the lawmaking process. They
would enable an open-source voting system with access to vote online and with
publicly published by-vote data that associates votes to a generated unique
key. When you voted, you would be given that key and then your association to
that key would be destroyed. Thus, you'd be able to verify your vote was cast
correctly and we could all verify voting data validity. The open-source voting
system would ensure that there were no holes in this process.

A powerful post-materialist youth would reform lawmaking such that all bills
had a single specific agenda with no riders (i.e., hidden pieces covering
separate topics not covered in the abstract). They would ensure that every
person could easily search for all the bills in consideration that covered
topics they cared about and that the government actively marketed this data to
the public.

A powerful post-materialist youth would have a crowd-sourced information
platform for politics that tightly integrated with the searchable, taggable
data. Think Reddit+Wikipedia for politics. With this there could be a wiki
page for every issue and bill in discussion and a "subreddit" for every party
and political action group to organize through.

A powerful post-materialist youth would develop these solutions and steamroll
them into the status quo long before the boomers retired.

Maddox is highlighting that youth have not been exerting strong post-
materialist influence in politics and joining a growing quorum of people
saying, "Do more, care more, and you can actually shift ideologies and power
structures to better align with your ideals."

The missing element to making this mainstream is a technology-focused social
approach to reforming the voting system such that it is possible for the
average working and school-going youth to develop and grow their understanding
of the issues affecting all those that they care about by connecting them to
those same people.

~~~
philipmorg
@Bleys, would that it were so.

I think mainstream culture is a bigger impediment to the changes you describe
than voting system reform. But I certainly would like to see the kind of
changes you describe.

------
mike-cardwell
Can anyone back up his comment about recycling with any indisputable or at
least convincing evidence/statistics?

"Even if you, your neighbors, and everyone you've ever met recycled everything
and reduced your waste output to zero, it wouldn't even make an observable
impact on overall waste production in the world. Household waste and garden
residue account for less than 3% of all waste produced in the US. That's less
than the average statistical margin of error, and most people don't even come
close to producing zero waste."

I've always suspected that this is correct, but I'd like to be able to back
that up with some evidence.

~~~
pingswept
The fraction of the total waste stream that you can affect is irrelevant when
deciding whether to recycle. Any single industrial waste creator could make
the same argument-- my company only creates 0.001% of the waste stream, so it
doesn't matter what I do. This has to be wrong, because we know that the total
outcome is nothing other than the aggregated behaviors of all of us, and the
total outcome matters.

The important question is whether the impact of recycling the waste you create
is a net gain or loss, after you take into account all the work needed to do
the recycling. From an energy perspective, most recycling is a massive saver
of energy [1], but that doesn't mean it's economical. England, for example,
imports a lot of glass, but does very little glass manufacturing. Recycling
glass there is probably not a valuable service, but that says nothing about
its value where you live (unless you happen to live in England).

Waste stream sorting technology is still developing; I wouldn't be surprised
if that reduces costs in the future such that sorting waste in your house
isn't worth it-- you'll just dump everything in the bin and let robots pick
out the valuable stuff later.

[1]: <http://www.economist.com/node/9249262> (Money quote: "Recycling
aluminium, for example, can reduce energy consumption by as much as 95%.
Savings for other materials are lower but still substantial: about 70% for
plastics, 60% for steel, 40% for paper and 30% for glass.")

~~~
mike-cardwell
Knowing the percentage of waste that is house hold waste is extremely
important. If it's 50%, then getting people to recycle is _essential_. If it's
3%, maybe there are better things we can be concentrating on to reduce the
overall amount of waste.

In tech, we call it premature optimisation.

~~~
pingswept
As long as the household percentage is nonzero, I'm afraid I disagree.

Suppose recycling used more energy than it saved (which is the case for some
materials e.g. low grade plastic waste in places with little plastic
manufacturing). Then, even if that waste were most of the waste stream,
getting people to recycle would not be essential-- it would actually create
more waste, something to avoid.

My claim is that as long as recycling is a net gain, after you count all the
costs, it doesn't matter what percentage of the total waste stream it is.

Note that I'm not saying that industry shouldn't _also_ recycle. I suspect
that the potential gains there are even larger, but that's not an argument
against household recycling, given that the tasks are executed by different
people in parallel.

~~~
adgar
> My claim is that as long as recycling is a net gain, after you count all the
> costs, it doesn't matter what percentage of the total waste stream it is.

Then you are ignoring the very existence of opportunity cost.

~~~
pingswept
I think we actually agree here. I said: "net gain, after you count all the
costs." I meant "all the costs" to include opportunity costs.

------
llambda
Maddox is a polemicist. He actively enjoys and cultivates such a persona and
to what end? It seems to me his goal is to play devil's advocate as a kind of
link bait. What I've seen of his work is pointedly provocative in an
intentionally non-PC way. However I don't feel that simply being clever, and
holding points of view that are seemingly diametrically opposed to the
mainstream, is actually an effective way to effect change.

For instance, in this particular article, Maddox claims that we need a "spark
to light the lazy tinder". There is here an implicated false dichotomy where
either some draconian legislation passes, e.g. SOPA, and everyone "wakes up"
or no other efforts will prove progressive. I don't buy it. In fact, I don't
buy any argument that makes the claim that due to the current state of
political economy we are unable to see the kinds of changes we want without
total and complete revolution. I feel it's absurd to dismiss efforts such as
yesterday's which net results that include some 13 new senators opposing the
bills.

~~~
BudVVeezer
His point was "opposing the bills _today_." We'll have to do the same song and
dance again in the very near future because the ignorance behind SOPA/PIPA
isn't going away. So yes, we won the battle, but not the war, so to speak.

~~~
nooneelse
The solution to that isn't to not fight now in hopes that more people join
later in outrage. It is to use current success to push the debate onto the
opponents' turf. Counter the lobbying to (over)extend copyright protection
schemes with lobbying to reduce them (more narrowly tailor them), which easily
reads as increasing individual freedom and the scope of the public domain.
Push back.

------
deno
Does anyone else feel like they can predict what Maddox will say about any
particular issue at this point?

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/)

BTW. The same could be said about DMCA, when it was passing. It just made
everyone used to even more abuse.

~~~
ChrisLTD
_"The same could be said about DMCA, when it was passing. It just made
everyone used to even more abuse."_

Bingo.

Stopping legislation before it gets passed is the way to go. It's extremely
difficult to get laws rescinded or overridden.

And what would make anyone think a few websites getting taken down by the Feds
would cause some sort of massive street protest? Our government has done some
awful things in the last ten years involving war, torture and civil liberties
and most people couldn't care less. Even when there were massive protests over
Iraq, they were ignored.

------
michaelfeathers
Nice sentiment, but I think boycotts are way less effective than many of the
alternatives he discards. In this system, you change a congressman's mind and
there's only two ways to do that: pour on the outrage, or contribute more
money.

Tongue in cheek, I think there is another alternative: the tech industry could
simply buy the movie companies. Some of them are certainly sitting on enough
cash.

~~~
twentysix
"In this system, you change a congressman's mind and there's only two ways to
do that: pour on the outrage, or contribute more money."

If by contributing more money to a congressman you can affect the outcome of
legislation/laws made in a country, doesnt that mean there is something wrong
with the system that resulted in such a situation ? Shouldn't that be
addressed and solved first?

~~~
michaelfeathers
It would be nice. I was looking for most effect for the least amount of
effort, but yes, fixing the system would be great.

------
wonderercat
> There are a number of publishers on this list, including my own publisher.
> If the consensus I get from readers is that we should boycott publishers,
> I'll support the boycott even though it hurts me.

As much of an asshole as he is, I've always respected the guy for his shocking
lack of hypocrisy.

If movie producers had the decency to make this kind of public stand, things
might be different.

------
Terretta
It's unfortunate that the companies he outlines to boycott (the ones marked in
yellow) are the ones with the most legitimate complaints about counterfeiting.

The word "piracy" is unfortunate, mixing up Hollywood's complaints about bit-
for-bit originals being available, and, for example, Chanel's complaint about
fake Chanel being manufactured and sold "mail-order" online through offshore
commerce sites.

Chanel and the like do need (but already have) protection by the law against
counterfeit sales. They don't have a right to be protected for legacy
distribution models. For example, Chanel shouldn't have a right to a law that
says since existing Chanel stores only ship UPS Ground, any store shipping
FedEx Overnight should be taken offline.

A bill for "Stop Counterfeiting" would be better focused on the actual
problem, instead of stigmatizing the medium or channel ("online").

~~~
Roboprog
I was wondering why there were so many manufacturing companies and a couple of
drug stores on his list. What's the dog in the fight???

~~~
zecho
Petzl clarified their stance when the list first came out:
[http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-
amer...](http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-americas-
stance-sopa-and-protect-ip)

------
jorisw
You really should read all of it before commenting on it. His point is that
stopping SOPA is meaningless because it will simply be tried again. "It has to
get worse before it gets better".

~~~
tintin
No it is not. His point is: get to the root of the problem. And he notices
that it has to get worse before people understand this.

I totally agree with him. It's like the bugs get fixed, shitty lasts forever.
Most of the time fixing a bug means getting tot the root of the problem.

~~~
ahel
I think that the root of the problem is not that generic "people" are unaware
of anything(in this case that SOPA ). I think that the problem is money in
politics through lobbyists, they sustain at the top of the hierarchy the
corporations' will against what common sense wants or even urges.

------
brudgers
The problem with boycotts is that they perpetuate the same logic which led to
SOPA - that people are consumers before they are citizens and that the persons
who matter politically are corporate, not flesh and blood.

~~~
nooneelse
Indeed. Sure I vote with my wallet, but I don't see why that means I shouldn't
also vote with, you know, my vote. Or speak with my voice.

------
shn
Most of the societies of today are broken, and western countries lead the way.
Deep individualism and consumerism (I spend therefore I am) is the cause of
the current state of the affairs however these are also result of weak
communities and bond between people. The societies of old times that is
belittled by modern man had much stronger bonds among themselves.

Although today's current communication means help spread the word to some
extent but unfortunately most are filtering the real issues. Although internet
gave a bit of hope that these filters could be subverted but legislations like
SOPA, which I believe many look a likes will follow, unfortunately will
smother free speech (take the most broader possible definition) eventually.
Countries under dictatorships easily squash it but in "free" world it is
censored by ignoring it. Why and how? Concentration of wealth to a few. I
don't blame them because it is nature of things, they seek perpetuating their
rule.

You can argue on some fact stated in the article, however it is irrelevant.
The gist of this article is that the lack of inaction, conformism, and
individualism cost societies a lot. 5K+ US soldiers, 1M+ iraqi citizens died
for a bomb that did not exist (that is how they sold the war to you and then
they mocked about it). How could this have happened in a "free" and
"democratic" society. Anyone care to explain? How could a moron like George
Bush could be elected in the first place in a country like US anyway?

I am sorry but he is right, as long as we are who we are SOPA, PIPA and other
legislations with alphabet soup names will follow and tire you.

------
vezycash
What is a Permanent solution to this stuff?

~~~
fleitz
Form a group, pick a person in a 'safe' seat, preferably a senator as those
are pretty much the safest seats out there, and get them unelected over this
issue. Ensure the issue gets media coverage as to your group.

Anything else will do pretty much nothing. In two years get someone else
unelected.

Diane Feinstein would be a perfect target, she represents the valley, has been
in the Senate forever, and won the last election by a _HUGE_ margin. If you
could get her unelected you would put everyone else on notice.

The reality of the situation is that this won't happen. There is no permanent
solution because everything is triangulated and marketed so well that it's
virtually impossible to change it. People pass this legislation because no one
cares and whatever negative ads get run during the 30 days before the election
matter far more than anything else and quite frankly most people will be more
upset about _THEIR_ pet issue than _YOUR_ pet issue.

If you could get Google or Wikipedia, etc to focus solely on getting _ONE_
person unelected then it would show clout. But they won't because it would
cause such a shitstorm of unimaginable proportions because 1/3 of their user
base votes for her party no matter what they do, and 1/3 dislikes both parties
and something about keeping politics free from corporate influence, which is
something _both_ parties agree on unless that influence comes in the form of
campaign contributions, PACs, lobbyists, etc.

You've got a political system in which no one cares about habeas corpus. If
they don't care about that then they aren't going to give a shit about
dismantling the internet. Bread and circuses my friend.

~~~
gee_totes
Well, this is a "democracy" (in irony quotes), so there's no permanent
solution to anything, as there will always be elections.

Perhaps a better and more sustainable solution would to galvanize this energy
around SOPA into a culture of activism. After calling our senators and
representatives, we should move on to talking the media and call them out when
they broadcast misleading statements from the MPAA/RIAA (like the oft-cited
$770 billion(!) lost to piracy every year). This would help us build a base.

Also, this fatalist attitude of things doing nothing is a) wrong and b) just
gives you an excuse to give up.

For example, remember the anti-war protests during 2003? Those were the
LARGEST PROTESTS IN HISTORY. Yet they did not to stop the war. Luckily,
everyone did not adopt the attitude of "protests do nothing, we need to do X".
And those who did adopt the "protests do nothing, we need to do X" attitude
were proved wrong yesterday.

We did something yesterday. While it did not go as far a some people hoped, we
did do something. And that is a victory we can build on.

~~~
fleitz
I never said anything about giving up, my strategy for improving my life is
not to change the government. It's largely pointless.

------
tytso
The reality is that you need both. Getting 4.5 million people to sing the
anti-SOPA/PIPA petition and blacking out Wikipedia to so that lots of users
notice is part of getting them to wake up. It's not everything, by all means.
You also need to have smart people who are playing the inside game, which
means donating money to organizations who can play the Washington D.C
influence game. Yes, it's dirty; yes, you will have to compromise from time to
time, including donating $17,000 to Lamar Smith over six years (although to be
fair the last donation was a year before Smith started working on SOPA, and
it's nothing compared to the $94 million dollars the pro-Internet-Censorship
forces poured into trying to buy this legislation). No question, the sausage
making factory is ugly; but like the patent system, sometimes you have to play
the game with the current set of rules, even as you work to try to change the
rules. (Which is why companies like Red Hat and Google are filing software
patents.)

So the big question is: what have _you_ done on both fronts? Yes, anti-SOPA
blackouts for the day are not effective, at least not as a standalone thing.
But have you donated to the EFF? If you work for a computer/internet company,
have you urged them to set up a PAC to try to influence legislation in
Washington in the correct direction? And then have you donated to that PAC?
I've personally donated to both the EFF and Google NetPAC. If you haven't done
these things yet, today, the day after the anti-SOPA protests, is a great day
to start.

By the way, if you think fighting SOPA is hard, just do a bit of research how
much money big pharma could pour into defending the patent system as it exists
today. If we all aren't pushing to make sure there are lobbyists working just
as hard to influence legislators in the other direction, patent reform doesn't
have a prayer.

------
brador
Boycotts alone don't work. You need an alternative. Look, I NEED tissues. I
don't mind buying a different brand, but I'm not going to boycott my tissue
company without an alternative.

Boycott lists, like averages without variance figures, are borderline useless.
You need the other part (alternative) to make the boycott list actionable.

~~~
infocaptor
I did create my list of things to avoid and some alternatives. Everyone needs
to create their own list of alternatives and post it for others benefit
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLD...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLDnkVZCUm)

------
nluqo
Most of the calls to boycott companies seem pretty poorly organized (even this
article is just a list on some guy's website, albeit one with moderate
internet popularity).

What about an app entirely dedicated to organizing boycotts? Users would
suggest and vote on issues and companies to boycott. The end result would be
detailed guides on which products/service to avoid along with alternatives.
The site would only highlight one issue at a time to maximize the effect.

I've been toying with the idea for a while (there are plenty of sites/apps
built around single issues, but I've only found one site that does what I've
described... though poorly implemented: <http://www.boycottowl.com/> ).

------
j_baker
I'm calling contrarianism. The fundamental premise behind this article is
flawed. Things get worse without getting better all the time. We still have
the Patriot act, the DMCA, the Copyright Term Extension Act, ACTA, etc. Make
no mistake about it, if SOPA passes, it will be with us for a long, long time.

I hate to break it to Maddox, but the current situation is nothing new. I
think our founding fathers would smile to see what is happening around SOPA,
because it's exactly what they designed our system of government for. We have
to remain ever vigilant to protect our freedoms from whoever wants to take
them. Because if we don't, our freedoms _will_ be taken away.

------
davcro
I don't think protesting these companies is a good long term solution. We need
a protect DNS act or anti-censorship bill. Big tech has more money and power
than hollywood. They should lobby more aggressively.

------
onedewd
So much efforts to stop law proposal X. Which is great. What about the idea of
a Open-USA or other Open-Iran where a true Meta-Democracy or whatever open
society model is implemented where all efforts would be PRO something instead
of hateful stuff like protesting. This laws are proposed by lobbies that go
against the interest of 99% of the persons. How is that even conceivable ? All
this big companies opposing could create a github project for open government
and then elect a person that implements that.

------
mrcharles
This is the best post on SOPA I've read yet, and it really highlights the only
way anything will get done for real: A targeted and wide-spread boycott of
SOPA supporting companies.

------
gnufied
I thought Apple withdrew support for SOPA?

~~~
tjogin
I don't think Apple ever did support SOPA. BSA did, of which Apple is a
member, and BSA withdrew their support.

~~~
gnufied
yeah remember Apple & Microsoft threatening to cancel their membership, in
light of SOPA support of BSA. Wondering, why is Apple on Maddox list though.

~~~
5l
Do you have a reference for this?

------
resdirector
Don't suppose someone could write a chrome plugin to block the sites he's
listed as supporting SOPA?

I can't remember the list off the top of my head and I do want to make an
effort not to buy anything from them ever again. I suspect many other people
are the same, which reduces the effectiveness of the boycott.

------
Newgy
At least two of the legislators on his target list have renounced support for
SOPA:

Dennis A. Ross (R-FL) Lee Terry (R-NE)

~~~
ericflo
It doesn't matter. That was his whole point.

------
jerfelix
I read all the way to the bottom, and got stumped by this statement in the
footer:

    
    
        256,026,015 people think stopping SOPA will change anything.
    

What do you suppose that means? That he has 256M hits on this page? Is he
missing a "not" in the sentence?

~~~
batista
Maddox writes the footer's himself (check other pages in his blog).

It's an arbitrary number he put up to make a point.

~~~
Jem
It's not an arbitrary number - it _is_ the hit count.

~~~
batista
The fact that it increments over time doesn't mean anything, he could use some
server side script to randomly increment the value.

Are we supposed to believe he has had 256,056,823 (current value) visitors to
his one-day-up SOPA page?

Or is it the aggregate for total visits to his site, ever?

~~~
Jem
There has always been a counter on his home page, so I'm guessing aggregate
total visits over X period of time. The majority of his 'articles' have one.

Of course, he could just randomly increment the value using a script, but
Maddox has been around a long time (I've been reading his site on and off for
around 10 years) so I doubt he has need to.

------
erkin_unlu
he is right but not complete, its not the fault with your senators or
representatives, its about the system that feeds the so called democracy. We
must learn why the companies are so interested in politics and what they gain
from these bills like this one.

------
haydenevans
Maddox is still relevant?

------
infocaptor
Great post - more action oriented. I created my own list of things to avoid
using the above list of companies. Everyone create their own list and post it
on your blog, facebook, google plus
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLD...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLDnkVZCUm)

------
perfunctory
This is the best piece of writing about SOPA so far.

------
drunkenmasta
I first came across xmission.com back in 2004. I was immediately struck by his
writing style. I always aspire to be as fearless and concise as Maddox is.
Just look at his range of knowledge, he is able to write well on a variety of
topics. (Applause)

------
guelo
I never thought I'd see the day that Maddox was on the front page of HN. With
the redditization now complete pg should bring back the display of the comment
scores since it obviously didn't help preserve whatever it was that he was
trying to preserve.

~~~
CWIZO
Regardless of what you think of him and his articles this one simply deserves
to be here. It makes a lot of sense and IMO he hit the nail on the head with
what he is proposing.

It's not productive to discriminate against someone simply because he is known
to publish controversial stuff.

ps: I submitted this and I'm not a reddit user ;)

------
ZeroMinx
Not sure what this does on HN. Perhaps people don't know Maddox?

Here's an old classic where he's judge art work done by other kids on the
internet; <http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule>

Random hate mail; <http://maddox.xmission.com/hatemail.cgi?p=1>

------
runn1ng
This is a stupid article.

He first explains how protests are meaningless, because not enough people do
them, and then proposes.... protest, by boycotting almost everything.

~~~
oflannabhra
Did you read anything he said? While there's a lot of bluster to filter
through, his points were more something like the following:

1) Americans want to "protest" by doing things that don't cost them their
comfort.

2) We are (successfully) protesting SOPA/PIPA, but the real problem is not the
legislation. The problem is how the legislation got created (companies
lobbying Congress, and Congressmen acting solely in those companies best
interest).

3) In light of 1) and 2), we should use what power we do have as consumers and
voters to prevent such legislation from being created again.

While we can debate the merits and effectiveness of boycotts, or voting, let's
try not to strawman the article.

