[AusNOG] BSA Act part 3 (Filtering)

[Campbell, Alex]

> "Impossible" problems are fruitless endeavors to pursue, 
> resulting in the waste of an otherwise promising career 
> on worthless busywork.

The people doing the worthless busywork on the fruitless endeavor will
be ISP staff rather than the politicians themselves.  So I can't imagine
why the politicians would be concerned that the task is impossible - as
long as they are publicly seen as "doing something" about the perceived
problem.

We have entire government agencies whose sole purpose is to do worthless
busywork on fruitless endeavors.  This does not appear to trouble anyone
in Canberra.


-----Original Message-----
From: ausnog-bounces at ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at ausnog.net] On
Behalf Of Mark Newton
Sent: Wednesday, 2 January 2008 2:58 PM
To: Matthew Moyle-Croft
Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net; Bevan Slattery
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] BSA Act part 3 (Filtering)


On 02/01/2008, at 2:21 PM, Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote:


	
	Why?  Because no one's developed a good, line rate, classify all
content by morals system.  Because it's HARD.


If we're getting all political, lets make sure we get our language
sorted out.  

It isn't because it's "hard," it's because it's "impossible."

Politicians look at "hard" problems as challenges to be surmounted.  One
needs only to apply sufficient quantities of labour and money to make
"hard" problems go away.  The Iraq war and climate change are examples
of "hard" problems.

"Impossible" problems are fruitless endeavors to pursue, resulting in
the waste of an otherwise promising career on worthless busywork.  These
problems don't come with any glory or advancement attached because they
have no solution so nobody can ever claim credit for solving them.

What we are talking about in this thread isn't "difficult," or, "hard,"
or "infeasible," or, "impractical."  

It's "impossible."

If we're going to be talking about this stuff, getting this one defining
characteristic right is far and away the most important message that can
be sent.

  - mark

--
Mark Newton                               Email:
newton at internode.com.au (W)
Network Engineer                          Email:  newton at atdot.dotat.org
(H)
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