That story about how Mitchell Baker helped set up the SQLite Consortium is interesting, hadn't heard of that before. She gets a lot of flak for the direction Mozilla has been heading, so it's heartening to hear how she advocated that the Consortium be set up in a way where the developers retain the power.
I remember several years ago, I was considering pushing for some changes to our application to use a database like sqlite instead of a proprietary flat file format. I remember reading through the source and realizing how beautiful C source code could be, compared to the prop C code I was used to working on. That plus the constant improvement, stellar performance, and beautiful source code make Sqlite one of the top most gems of open-source software in my opinion. Huge props to Dwayne Hipp and the other contributors to this database which has enabled so many apps and products!
FWIW: when i met drh for the first time in September 2011 i asked him, "what's the D in your name for, if i may ask?" His answer was, "only my mother gets to call me that."
Has anyone heard of any issues using SQLite in jurisdictions without a concept of the public domain? The copyright page [1] seems to imply that you'd need to buy a license from Hwaci.
It remains an open legal question (at least in the United States) whether or not an author even can voluntarily release something into the public domain. Hwaci could theoretically decide that, actually, that they never really put SQLite in the public domain and in fact possess full copyright over it and would like not only current and future licensing fees, but also retroactive fees from everyone who's used it over the past 20 years without legal permission. Lawsuits ensue, pandemonium happens, etc.
However, if you actually did acquire a license from them beforehand (when it was still theoretically free), they'd have no ground to sue and such a case brought against you would be thrown out of court immediately.
Uh, no, they can't change history and take back the words they put there 20 years ago, or decide unilaterally that those words actually meant something else. The matter of whether a work has been successfully dedicated to the public domain (and when, and in what jurisdictions) is a matter for a court, not a matter to be arbitrarily decided or revoked at any time by the (at the time) copyright holder. It's a matter of words, interpretation, and copyright laws and treaties. Everyone has understood it to be public domain, this matches all the statements on all their documentation, and it would be ridiculous for a court to find otherwise.
The "open legal question" of whether you can voluntarily dedicate something to the public domain does not mean there is open slather to anyone who has done it to choose what the answer to the question is. It means it is open to a judge to decide the question once and for all someday, and then that question is resolved for everyone. I don't even know if your assessment of the question's unresolved status is correct.
>The matter of whether a work has been successfully dedicated to the public domain (and when, and in what jurisdictions) is a matter for a court, not a matter to be arbitrarily decided or revoked at any time by the (at the time) copyright holder.
Right, and a judge could rule that, in fact, it is possible to arbitrarily revoke free licensing at any time.
>it would be ridiculous for a court to find otherwise
You say that, but we live in a world of ridiculous IP law.
> Right, and a judge could rule that, in fact, it is possible to arbitrarily revoke free licensing at any time.
On the basis of what law or treaty? First of all, dedication is not "free licensing". It is not licensing in any sense whatsoever. When you dedicate the work, you are no longer the holder, hence public domain is also what works fall into when the author is long dead. I'm not sure what piece of law you'd be re-interpreting to reverse all of that understanding, which would be a precondition to allowing dedicators to retain any control whatsoever over a work that's currently in the public domain.
Your original point was better, if it is ruled that "dedication to the public domain" is not and has never been a real thing, then the original dedications never took effect, and copyright holders remained copyright holders instead of forfeiting all control. Stick to that one.
Copyright assignment is what you’re describing, and yes they are able to distinguish, because dedication is not the word for that and more generally people aren’t stupid. Copyright assignment typically has a number of formal requirements to succeed including being in writing and being signed by the assignor. Next time tell the joke about a signed copy :)
What prevents this scenario is estoppel: the users of sqlite have been told they can use it freely and Hwaci can’t retrospectively withdraw their promise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel
every time I see this word as a non native english speaker it sounds to me as a low level error ESTOPPEL ("Error: Stopped by Eminent Lawyer" or something)
Even when the concept of "public domain" may not apply as such, one can create a license that effectively grants public domain rights. CC0 is an example of such a license. What SQLite is doing here is similar.
Jurisdictions may impose limits as to what rights can be waived via license, but those limits apply to all licenses. In other words, if a PD-style license is invalid and does not confer the right to use the software, allowing the author to sue you for using the software, then the same is true of all freeware, open source, and commercial licenses. Buying a license wouldn't magically grant you any additional rights just because you paid money.
The commercial license stuff is CYA for companies with legal departments that don't understand open source or think the words "public domain" are spooky. In practice, SQLite and anything under a similar license is basically "as free as the law lets us make it" - and if it turns out that's not very free, that means we have a bit problem with more popular licenses like BSD, MIT, and GPL.
In practice, AIUI, the finer points that are under debate depending on the jurisdiction are around things like retaining authorship and moral rights (i.e. being credited). I don't think the idea of being able to provide a piece of software for free with no restrictions on usage or modification is under any kind of serious question. And the idea of not requiring credit for derivative works is also universal in the entire copyright industry - when was the last time you saw a CD crediting the author of every single royalty-free sample used in its creation? So embedding SQLite into a piece of software is pretty uncontroversially fine.
Now if you took SQLite, changed all the licenses to say you wrote it, and tried to distribute it stand-alone like that, some jurisdictions may have a problem with that. That's where moral rights come in, and where "public domain" might not truly mean "public domain".
I know that US courts do some weird things sometimes but "The author disclaims copyright" is abundantly clear, and also the author has made plenty of public statements clarifying exactly how that is to be interpreted.
The situation in civil law countries and especially countries that have inalienable "author's rights" is much less clear and hostile even to the SQLite copyright release.
But even in those countries, it would seem that only the authors, the people with "author's rights", have a claim on anyone's use of the code. If they intend for people to use and copy the code without restriction there is no one else to say otherwise.
> If they intend for people to use and copy the code without restriction there is no one else to say otherwise.
At that point you rely on a statement that is not legally binding and could be changed at any time. Wouldn't be the first time a software dev. rage quit and decided to go scorched earth on his projects.
Everyone is happily using public domain software in all jurisdictions. The timezone code used by many (all?) Linux and Unix distributions is public domain.
If you can find a jurisdiction without the explicit concept of the public domain and judges and lawyers that think there is no implicit concept of the public domain and someone who can claim copyright with a straight face to code that explicitly states that the authors relinquish their claim, then I still suspect it would get thrown out of court and the claimant opening themselves to charges of criminal fraud (entrapment and extortion) or abusing the justice system for profit.
Generally I don't think so, but sometimes legal departments are extremely careful and would rather spend money on an explicit license than relying on something they see as not 100% certain.
Offering this "service" seems like a great way to monetize your software, because it only hits those with overcautious legal departments that really don't care about the money, and everyone is happy: Legal gets their paperwork, company pays some amount that they don't care about, author gets money, engineers get to use it, everyone else who doesn't have a paranoid legal department gets to use it without any hurdles.
I'm pretty sure the author got sick of getting (from his perspective stupid) requests "hey you already said it's free but can you give that to us in writing, our lawyers won't let us use it otherwise" so he turned bureaucracy into money.
Edit: It's also a convenient way for companies to support the project with money. Very few companies have a "donate to this open source project" process, most have a "buy this software" process, so a company where the people using SQLite would like the company to pay for it now has a convenient way to do so.
Richard Hipp is a devout Christian, and demonstrates James 2:18: "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works."
Thanks for the blessings and the beautiful code; you really can be a poet in any language.
And just to follow up for anyone who may genuinely be wondering: Yes. Yes they were. Not quite as ubiquitous or well known as "9/11" is today, but they were up there with the statue of liberty as far as Icons of NYC and to a slightly lesser extent icons of the USA. They were, as they say, a big deal, even before they fell.
Indeed. They were the most prominent feature of the lower Manhattan skyline, often the prominent focus of any photos/flyover/footage of the city, especially views from either New Jersey to the west or Brooklyn to the east.
In some, they were just a part of the distinctive background place-setting New York skyline, or a ground-level signifier of "downtown financial district'; in others, they were part of the action. Especially memorable was the 1976 'King Kong', which updated the 1933 version to have Kong climb the twin towers instead of the Empire State Building. Other films featured the observation deck, a popular tourist attraction.
100% agree. I'd argue they were the #2 landmark in NYC after The Statue of Liberty at the time.
1. Statue of Liberty, without question.
2. Twin Towers - showed up in just about shot of NYC put into mainstream media from the date of inception until destruction.
3. Empire State Building - Yes it is really recognizable but never got the media exposure of the WTC.
After that things get a little muddier. If I'm doing a top-5 I probably do something Times Square and Rockefeller Center to round out the big-5 pre-9/11.
Of course the Statue of Liberty & Empire State Building were the undisputed 1/2 (in either order) NYC landmarks for many decades before the WTC arrived.
The Empire State Building had been the tallest building in the world for almost 40 years, from 1931-1970.
It was arrival of the taller WTC twin towers in 1970, & to a lesser extent the proliferation of other midtown skyscrapers, that gradually chipped away at the Empire State Building's literal & figurative prominence.
Sorry, should have been clearer - the ESB absolutely held the #2 spot pre-WTC, but the WTC overtook the ESB in attention and recognition mostly due to its prominent featuring in mass media which really ramped up and has been the top cultural export from NY and the US since the 70's.
There wasn't a movie made about NYC that didn't at some point feature the WTC in it either as part of the background shot.
hey, how about the Brooklyn Bridge? I'm pretty sure in the '70s/'80s it was in the top 5, being very popular both in art (e.g. Andy Warhol) and mass media (TV, movies, comics)
Shift 3-5 up. I don't think the new WTC holds close to the same brand recognition as The Twins.
Personally I'd probably rank the Top-5 post 9/11 as:
1. Statue of Liberty
2. Empire State Building
3. Times Square
4. Rockefeller Center
5. Chrysler Building
There's probably some fair arguments that these other buildings could make the top-5. In particular I think you could possibly swap out one of Rockefeller Center or The Chrysler Building for any of the below.
1. Yankee Stadium (well pretend Old and New are similar enough)
2. The Gugenheim
3. Madison Square Garden (I might be stretching with this one)
That's pretty cool in some ways. In other ways it's interesting as a reflection of the author's obvious preference for subjective ethics.
For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really?
Subjective stuff like this isn't bad, but it does really lead directly into the deeper questions.
Also, how does one determine whether they've taken more than they've given? A lot of people are going to bring subjective past impressions into this determination, which, like good & bad above, are complex enough that you can make that take-or-give-o-meter read just about anything--and again, justify--just about anything.
So on the one hand, it's nice that it's framed as a generous blessing, and good lord does it cut right through all that stupid legal bull! And on the other hand, people who place boring, obtuse, business law terminology where this project has placed a blessing have really good reasons for doing so, as such efforts, which get at objective use cases and expectations, have helped to remediate a lot of damage done by a bit too much subjectivity and projection of expectations in our communications.
> "The author's obvious preference for subjective ethics"
I doubt this interpretation, given SQLite's Code of Ethics (https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html). Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together; "I am the way, the truth, and the life" doesn't leave much room for alternatives.
What's funny is the principals of what modern progresive intellectuals find right or wrong were introduced by Abrahamic (specifically Christian) teachings. Before that, the whole framework of the poor or meek being something everyone should protect wasn't a common idea. Even devout Atheists are basically Christian philosophers with scientific faith replacing theistic faith.
1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
Science is not something you have faith in. The entire point of science is allowing your beliefs to change when presented with evidence. That's the exact opposite of "complete trust". If anything, the only thing you need to have faith in is in the validity of your own experience - and that's a philosophical dilemma, not a scientific one.
Doing science means knowing we're probably wrong and will learn something new tomorrow - but we're probably at least a little bit right and that will have made our lives better until now.
I think you're talking about the axioms which form the modern foundation of mathematics, but mathematics isn't a science, at least not in the sense I'm referring to. Mathematics is a tool; it does not aim to describe the world, but rather provides a toolbox useful for doing so. It doesn't work the same way science based on observation does. There is no faith involved, but rather just arbitrary choices that result in a useful end result. That's good enough. It's like a protocol standard we all use because it makes our life easier. You don't need faith in HTTP to use it.
If you mean the foundations of the scientific method, e.g. things like trusting your perception of the world (to some extent), that indeed crosses over from science into philosophy. But that does not invalidate the scientific method, not does it mean all of science is faith-based; it just means we had to make some assumptions to be able to accomplish anything at all. Those assumptions are still something we can and should question, we just don't have any good way of testing them.
More towards the latter portion of your writing. Science is a branch of philosophy after all. It has axioms such as:
"The world is objective, orderly, and comprehensible."
It assumes the existence of the laws of logic, and their immutability.
To even do a "test" you are assuming the truth of the axioms already. There is really no escape from epistemology. Axioms are simply accepted on faith, and everything is built on top of them.
> You are assuming the very logic applied at the time of measurement was, is, and remains true.
No, I'm not assuming that.
> Epistemology relates to how we know what we know.
That's why I added "I remember".
If I can't trust my memory at all, then it doesn't really matter what I do.
But I can put that as a disclaimer over everything if I really want to. I don't have to assume.
And I feel like you've gone way beyond the original scope at this point. If I don't feel like considering the "brain in a jar also the brain only started existing 2 seconds ago" theory right now, my decision to ignore it comes long before I even start worrying about science. If my decision is wrong, it's not a problem with science.
Nietzsche wrote a fascinating book about this - The Genealogy of Morals.
If I remember correctly, he uses the ancient city of Rome as a symbol of the pre-Abrahamic, natural han ethic. Power is good, sex is good, wealth is good, strength is good, competence is good.
This contrasts with the Jerusalem ethic where an almighty god is worshipped, not perched on a mountain or a cloud, but while nailed to a cross. So now self-sacrifice is good, and the whole story revolves around the weak, the poor, the downtrodden.
We’re still in the Jerusalem phase, despite having replaced the church with the state. Perhaps one day, in a few millennia, the wheel will turn back around.
It says somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun...
Christianity, including its ethics, obviously also had sources and influences. Both in its inception and as it has changed, fractured and adapted to its surroundings over time. And if you truly think that Jesus invented helping the poor and acting righteous, I can only recommend you read about religions. Both those that influenced Christianity and those that never came into contact with it.
> It says somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun...
Ah yes, that's most of Ecclesiastes. Everything is meaningless. King Solomon sometimes comes across as a bit of whinger, but then what do you expect if you're ultra-rich and bored and questioning the meaning of it all.
I agree that many aspects of Christianity have precedent. The one rather novel thing that it introduced was the concept of a God who would voluntarily suffer excruciating punishment so that we wouldn't have to.
Is it necessary for all Atheists to have faith in science? Science is a process to figure out the universe, not a thing/person/god. It's not the only way to know stuff, its just a good way. If the argument is that some people say Science as if it was some god, well, not much I can argue against there. Certainly not all atheists though. Otherwise, I agree that modern people took some of the good stuff old religions. It's so hard to know the truth, even about ourselves.
I'm saying that Abrahamic faiths generally don't leave any room for "my truth" being different from "your truth." There is only one Truth with a capital T, because there is only one God with a capital G. So if two people differ on some point of doctrine or ethics, one of them must be Right and the other must be Wrong. Mere mortals might not be able to determine which is which with perfect accuracy, but the One True God certainly can.
Notwithstanding that, because of the fallibility of humans, subjective matters of conduct arise. For example: because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed divorce, but from the beginning it was not so; David was an adulterer which was punishable by death, but repented and was forgiven; mercy triumphs over judgement. As Jesus said: be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. Unfortunately, we’ve all already failed.
No scripture is a matter of one’s own private interpretation, but many matters beyond that are, because we complicate matters for ourselves by our imperfection. A lot of the stuff in Paul’s letters he wrote to help resolve such matters.
That still leaves the human realm mired in subjectivity. I think "there is no true ethics system" and "there is a true ethics system but we can only access hints toward it" go together quite well.
If two people differ, they could both be Wrong, of course. (Imagine a case with three people, all mutually differing on a point. Now take two of them whom you conclude are not Right and...)
Gotcha, in fact I used to preach that style of position from my neo-Abrahamic pulpit. Slightly different in that I was preaching that God OR his special representatives like me could tell you what the right truth was. Funny memories.
I can't speak to Judaism or Islam (the latter in particular seems quite legalistic), but Christianity has the concept of "Christian freedom." TL;DR: A Christian is allowed to partake in any activity that is not outlawed by Christ as long as doing so does not cause the Christian to stumble or cause others to stumble. So whereas Islam or Judaism forbid consumption of pork, Christianity allows it insofar as it does not cause someone to stumble. Or take alcohol: it's not explicitly outlawed (though debauchery is), yet the Christian should probably have more self-control than to drink to the brink of debauchery. It's just a matter of personal governance.
So IMO, Christianity does indeed have quite a bit of subjectivity, but it's all calibrated around creating good and forging a tight knit relationship with Christ so we can better emulate Him to the world.
There may be one perfect truth but humans can only try to achieve it and being imperfect, none of us will. So we may come to different approximations of one truth.
> PS Are you also saying they have objectively measured the existence of God, or the divinity of Christ...?
There's only one objective reality/truth, regardless of human ability to measure it. It's like arguing that the stars' existence is subjective because you can't count them.
> There's only one objective reality/truth, regardless of human ability to measure it.
This way of thinking doesn't respect relativity enough to be settled. Sure if you go meta enough you could say there's only one universe, but maybe that's an imaginary descriptive construct and two particles whose light cones don't intersect aren't actually in the same "reality".
Has it ever been shown in court that there's any real point to putting a license at the top of every file? I'd think that the whole project is licensed under some terms, rather than having to do each file individually....
Anyway, I think structuring it as a blessing means that it doesn't tell us much about the author's view of ethics. Which is to say, it is so clearly just a reminder to the reader that they should be their best self, that it couldn't possibly be misinterpreted as the actual, objective legal requirements. So, those must be somewhere else, right?
Subjectively you may personally think that it _must_ have a license somewhere, sure. But the file itself says right there--no copyright, no legal notice.
The rest is also your interpretation, and the reason I say that is that you're also kind of putting yourself in the objective audience's seat in creating the interpretation. So there's still a subjective hand-wave effect.
Get into the position of somebody who has no idea what the expectations are for "never taking more than you give"--where exactly is that line supposed to be, speaking in terms of details that matter...? ...and see if you can understand what it's like to be spoken to from someone else's set of simply-expressed, vague expectations connected to exactly which ethical framework we do not really know.
If you're "average joe"ing this, that's more of a subjective demonstration of where this kind of language may feel awesome for the author or even average-yourself-speaking-about-you-personally, but for others--what about them?
> For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really?
I like it when software and spirituality come together. Reminds me of "the temple of God" operating system and I'm sure there's a lot of other developers who have sort of a spiritual or rapture experience.
From a way more zany far out and perhaps metaphysical perspective I mean God if he she or they exists really is the ultimate programmer crafting whole realities. Maybe there is an inherent spiritual connection in code? Even if it's just analogical
Oh I'm not making regard to that: to its goodness or not in that comment. That's you're doing that. I'm just saying what I said there about it, thanks. I hope you'll not misinterpret me.
That would be a disaster for them. But I don't think we'd have to wait decades, I'm sure those things are already known.
Although, attributing all the world's ills to a shadowy cabal of corrupt operatives is a pretty crazy conspiracy theory... that might just be the problem.
However, looking at how crazy society is today you can kind of understand how people would reach that conclusion..
So--what--if he was a "good citizen" they would have "let" him lead a normal life and build something good? But instead they (the "government" or some corporate or whatever) made him go crazy?
Well it won't work on me, I know that. I'm too strong for that.
That's what I believe, that's who I am. But here's what I think about it:
> Sometimes conspiracy theories get proven right.
Definitely they do. But in this case it's hyperbolic, I think. I don't think it's up to them. I get why people feel it's reasonable, to blame the government for these things but "the government" (or equivalently, some corporate or whatever, hereafter--just for the hell of it, let's call them, whoever this group is--"the grand ol' stinky" or "GOS") don't have the power, I'm quite sure.
I think we humans like to believe something "other" has the power, because it makes us feel easier in our lives, by providing some order and hierarchy to a crazy universe, and absolving us of some personal responsibility, not only for things happening to us, but for our responses to them.
Maybe it's more like a psychological compulsion to blame "another"? Ape-brain blame fingers, fragile limited human mind sense-making of an unimaginably vast and incomprehensibly incomprehensible universe. Conjuring little make believe figures out of the dark before our eyes, to soothe.
Now I don't think it's true (for reasons I'll outline below), but even if the theory "GOS can make people go crazy" is true (as in faithful to reality) it's not, I think, a useful theory (for reasons I'll outline at the bottom).
My motivation in writing this is to help people who struggle with this thing, because I can see traps that they'd fall into. And I think with a bit of navigation, maybe guided by these thoughts I put forward here, people would avoid falling into these traps, and they'd be more freer in their thinking, and empowered in their lives, and that would be good. And I've seen many people espouse these views.
So first let's acknowledge that both MKUltra was real and the veracity of your statement:
> Sometimes conspiracy theories get proven right.
Definitely they do. And many more pernicious ones continue operating unproved and unexposed probably. MKUltra is only the public stuff that made it out as a result of a hearing--they "destroyed" all the records. Imagine the stuff that would have been in there.
But does MKUltra prove "GOS can make people crazy"? I don't think so. Who, verified as part of it, "went crazy" because of that? I don't know of anyone. Someone died, as a result of a speed overdose...But let's assume that some of the people who have claimed to have been part of MKUltra are actually telling the truth...and they underwent "mental fracturing brain-washing" procedures, etc. They were traumatized. But they didn't "go crazy". You don't need an elaborate government mind control experiment to explain, or to make, people go crazy. People go crazy on their own. Mental illness (MI) is a big thing, but it's not because "GOS made it happen."
Even if there is, or it was discovered, that there is a correlation between actual MKUltra participants and MI, how do we know it's causative? Couldn't it just be they had a predilection for MI, not that MKUltra caused it, but maybe that the trauma they experienced in MKUltra, contributed to tipping them over the edge?
Now you don't need GOS or MKUltra for human trauma. We create plenty of trauma ourselves with our idiotic behaviors toward each other. PTSD is a MI right? Some soldiers get that...Is soldiering causative? Maybe. But then what explains the ones who don't get it? But maybe soldiering is also correlative, as in a predilection for MI, is contributed to by the trauma of soldiering.
Now just because there's no evidence of any GOS capability to make people go crazy, doesn't mean they don't possess that capability. But let's consider what would have to be true if that were the case:
- You can "give" people MI. Can you really tho? You can traumatize them, but can you give them a DSM MI? Or can you only contribute to their existing predilection, and then, in only some cases? But let's assume you can give people MI, and GOS has weaponized the technology. We should then see that some notable people, rabble rousers, etc, mysteriously "go crazy" right when they look like having a big impact. I don't see any evidence for this. I see people getting taking out the old ways: honeytrap blackmail, attempted reputational assassination via fake sexual assaults accusation, physical assassinations, ensnarement in psychological/operational 'denial-of-service' such as endless litigation, and just plain old imprisonment. I mean, if it ain't broke...Seems the old ways provide plenty of scope for GOS to take out 'troublemakers'. Who knows...you might get unlucky with your fickle MI technology and end up giving someone superpowers...then you got trouble on your hands. Finally on this point, plenty of people undergo extreme trauma (hello, Africa, sadly), people are imprisoned, tortured, raped, get sick...and undergo trauma not just criminally, but even in the normal course of their lives like getting ill, or going through a traumatic breakup, or loss. But people recover. Even extreme traumatic experiences don't succeed in breaking people. Not with any reliability. And really I mean that makes sense. Humanity has evolved to become somewhat resilient. Our entire history is exceedingly traumatic, but most people are not "crazy" (heh, at least in the DSM sense).
But let's assume GOS has the tech and can make people crazy, what else would need be true:
- the person's case would have to justify the use of that tech. What would this mean? You could invoke a whole lot of esoteric principles about free-will, non-interference, cosmic law, minimizing the disturbance to the timeline, etc, etc etc...but that's like Occam's razor stuck in the really hairy tail that's wagging a tiny dog: what's the cost benefit of this? It's subtle, it's specialist, it's secretive...all that makes its deployment expensive. It's not just set and forget, you probably have to monitor people. So it seems to make sense for only the biggest most secured targets. If someone has a lot of money (lawsuits fail), close protection (assassination fail), savvy (honeytrap fail), lots of connections (judicial harassment fail) the only thing you have left is fake sexual assault accusations. That's easy enough to manufacture...but it's also not guaranteed to work. But it sounds a hell of a lot easier than making someone go crazy...But just say it's not, where is the evidence of people who are getting taken out by this? It's nowhere. The people who are apparently, "going crazy" as targets of this elaborate "GOS crazy-maker tech" are like small time, mostly poverty stricken (to a relative degree), big nothing burgers in the geopolitical/security/intelligence/corporate scheme of things. I mean, don't poor people have a higher incidence of MI simply because their lives are more traumatic and therefore any demographic-invariant predilection rate is more contributed to for lower wealth people? It's not a very nice truth, and by no means does it mean that we shouldn't do anything about trying to bring more support for MI, but it makes a helluva lot more sense than "GOS is targeting vagrants to make them go crazy". These people don't matter to GOS, they don't matter at all..not in the scheme of things, the calculus of power, they matter as humans--but these are the people who are "going crazy".
So I think it's highly unlikely that this technology exists, but even if it does, I think it's really highly unlikely that it's being deployed--because there's no evidence for it. All the people who are "going crazy" are not significant in any way. Not really. I mean they are significant as people, and their suffering is painful and sad, but they are not significant in the calculus of power. And the people who are significant in the calculus of power, are not "going crazy"--they are being taken out in other ways: the old ways.
So I think there's a psychological compulsion to believe the "other" is the cause. It evokes our ancestors sacrifice to the gods mentality. Plus, like I said earlier, it brings order to an incomprehensibly incomprehensible universe. And it absolves individuals for some of the personal responsibility both for things that happen to them, and for their responses.
But even if it is true, the theory that "GOS can and does make people go crazy" is not a useful theory, because if you believe that, and if attempts are being made to make you go crazy, then you only make yourself more vulnerable by believing that people have the power to do this to you. This tech, even if it existed, cannot be perfectly reliable, because if it was, you'd already be drooling in a sanatorium somewhere, or on the streets. It's more useful to believe it's something you can fight back against. Believe that you're too strong for that. That you're responsible for what you do in your life, not some "other".
Because whether the theory "GOS can make people crazy" is true or not, that's a more useful theory to have. Because if they do, believing you can win will make you better, and survive. And if they don't...then you will end up taking responsibility for your own shit rather than blaming it on some "other" and that's more useful for you.
So really, rather than inventing some physical technology to enslave people with MI, if GOS really wanted to make people go crazy, they might just invent some "narrative technology" to seed the mass consciousness with the idea that this technology existed, thus making vulnerable those people who believed that, to surrendering personal responsibility, and doing and being less, than they otherwise could have been.
That's what I think. Hopefully that helps some people.
As far as I understand the code of conduct is more or less an in joke. They don't have any community integration worth noting as all SQLite contributors are full time employees. It mainly exists to tick of a checkbox in their customers/donors requirements without actually adopting any of the CoCs people kept pushing.
I can't respons to randerson's comment directly because it's dead, I'd recommend he look at Aquinas' just war theory and other Christian ideas on when war is ok. There are many problems with the military industrial complex we have but that does not mean we should have no defense. Guided missile destroyers fulfill a legitimate defense role and would be needed even if we were much less interventionist.
I didn't dispute whether it can be used for good, I'm glad we have these things and I'm also a huge fan of SQLite. But when your system shoots down an enemy (to you) aircraft, how do you reconcile that with:
"Do not murder."
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
"Honor all people."
"Do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself."
"Do not return evil for evil."
"Love your enemies."
the list goes on..
These are Christian commandments, so it would help to understand what Christianity thinks of war to understand these. Even ignoring the tradition and focusing on the Bible:
- Do not murder is a commandment Israel received on Mt. Sinai. After that Israel continued its journey to conquer the Promised Land, which involved killing a lot of people (i.e. kill != murder)
- If you think New Testament has changed this, there is an episode in the Gospel of Luke (3:14) when soldiers come to St. John the Baptist to ask how they should change their lives. Guess what - he never tells them that being a soldier (and that was voluntary at the time) and killing your country's enemies is a sin. In fact early Christianity was popular among soldiers
> the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.
According to wikipedia:
> Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought.
So if the missile was fired by people that are legally allowed to kill other people, "Do not murder" has been respected.
> Do not return evil for evil.
I feel like there is a difference between preventing someone to commit evil acts (defending yourself) and attacking them.
> Honor all people
You can honor fallen enemies.
> Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies.
Might be a stretch, but I don't think love would prevent you from killing someone if that was necessary.
> Do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself.
Presumably you would rather be killed than be allowed to murder other people.
All of that may be a bit of a stretch, I don't know much about religious doctrine. But it's still coherant with "common sense" I think.
> I'd recommend he look at Aquinas' just war theory
There have been whole books written about this - though I can't blame you for not having read them, many of them are turgid in the extreme. Christian ethics aim to break cycles of recrimination and escalation, but not in general to the point of helpless passivity. Of course the strictures of just war doctrine are considerably harder to square with the de facto imperial power of a country like the United States which is practically and to some extent aspirationally similar to the Roman empire in its heyday.
For a more modern take on the ethics of warfare you might find it interesting to examine the Lieber doctrine, which was instituted during the US civil war and (nominally) still in force in many respects.
> If you are reading this on GitHub or some other Git repository or service, then you are looking at a mirror.
The same file from the fossil repository -
https://sqlite.org/src/file?name=src/main.c&ci=trunk