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What stones am I casting?

Also, your driver's license analogy is poor. There are legal differences between a "social contract" and a legally binding contract. Besides, if I were to exceed the speed limit, I would suffer the ramifications if I did (i.e., a ticket and possible jail time depending on how great the violation was). Not to mention the increase to car insurance... (note that I neither verified nor denied your assumption -- mostly as it doesn't matter in this discussion).

You might want to check out this site Particularly "Attacking the person". Tossing out logical fallacies is not the best way to make your point.

-jhon

What stones am I casting?

Also, your driver's license analogy is poor. There are legal differences between a "social contract" and a legally binding contract. Besides, if I were to exceed the speed limit, I would suffer the ramifications if I did (i.e., a ticket and possible jail time depending on how great the violation was). Not to mention the increase to car insurance... (note that I neither verified nor denied your assumption -- mostly as it doesn't matter in this discussion).

You might want to check out this site Particularly "Attacking the person". Tossing out logical fallacies is not the best way to make your point.

I fail to see why "appeal to authority" is a flawed argument.

You obviously have no clue with respect to logic, so allow me to elucidate:

argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority)

The fact that the mplayer people say that it is fully GPL'ed does not necessarily make it so.

It is the authors' code. The authors wrote it, and have chosen to GPL it. They are in a far stronger position to know whether or not they've chosen to GPL their code than any outside observer, no matter how much authority said observer may have in your uninformed eyes.

As for gentoo - it's good to hear they ignore nonsense like licenses. I'll recommend it to my company next time they are looking for the best way to get sued.

You are obviously a troll, a clueless fuck, or both. If you had bothered to do even a modicum of research (such as reading the mplayer license for yourself, or visiting the gentoo website, you would have found that each package is clearly and distinctly linked to the full text of their license, be it GPL, BSD, artistic, proprietary, or what have you, and the absolutely none of the software they distribute is done so without and thorough look at the licensing, and all of it is distributed in accordance to the terms of said licenses.

This isn't rocket science, but it does require a fifth grade reading level and a willingness to excersize it.

As for looking to get sued, slander seems to be the approach to that end which would complement your expressive talents the most.

I hope you don't see this as rude. My only aim here is to promote the correct use of language, which is generally a good thing for everyone.

I'm getting really tired of people equating copying information with 'theft.' Copyright breach it may be (an entirely different kettle of fish, as anyone who understand copyright knows), but theft it is not. The two circumstances are not even remotely similar enough to warrant such a comparison, and anyone who argues otherwise is committing a False Analogy fallacy. (Going into a store and "five-finger discounting" the actual CD is both theft and copyright breach, just to be sure we're clear on that.)

Nothing has been "taken," nothing is "missing," and certainly nothing is "gone" when someone makes a digital copy of something -- unlike Chernin's False Analogy argument about dresses from Wal-Mart.

That's not to say that copyright breach isn't some kind of crime, or that it's not wrong -- but, again, it's not "theft." And it's certainly more defensible (under certain circumstances -- notably our vanishing "Fair Use" and "Public Domain" provisions) than theft.

As a final, waspish parting shot to the point that "all this theft is destroying the industry," Chernin should talk to "Frisky Dick" Richards, who plays "Violent J" in the Insane Clown Posse, which actively encourages people to download, copy, share, and, yes, even steal their work. (He might also try talking to Ron "Hitler" Barrassi of TISM about the same subject, if he thinks he can stand it. I want to sell tickets to that event!) Weirdly enough, ICP has two platinum records and a few gold records to their credit -- with NO airplay or video play -- and seem to be living proof that Chernin and all who sail with them are also committing a Slothful Induction fallacy. (In short, the evidence says Chernin et al's argument isn't true, but they believe it anyway.)

I'm getting really tired of people equating copying information with 'theft.' Copyright breach it may be (an entirely different kettle of fish, as anyone who understand copyright knows), but theft it is not. The two circumstances are not even remotely similar enough to warrant such a comparison, and anyone who argues otherwise is committing a False Analogy fallacy. (Going into a store and "five-finger discounting" the actual CD is both theft and copyright breach, just to be sure we're clear on that.)

Nothing has been "taken," nothing is "missing," and certainly nothing is "gone" when someone makes a digital copy of something -- unlike Chernin's False Analogy argument about dresses from Wal-Mart.

That's not to say that copyright breach isn't some kind of crime, or that it's not wrong -- but, again, it's not "theft." And it's certainly more defensible (under certain circumstances -- notably our vanishing "Fair Use" and "Public Domain" provisions) than theft.

As a final, waspish parting shot to the point that "all this theft is destroying the industry," Chernin should talk to "Frisky Dick" Richards, who plays "Violent J" in the Insane Clown Posse, which actively encourages people to download, copy, share, and, yes, even steal their work. (He might also try talking to Ron "Hitler" Barrassi of TISM about the same subject, if he thinks he can stand it. I want to sell tickets to that event!) Weirdly enough, ICP has two platinum records and a few gold records to their credit -- with NO airplay or video play -- and seem to be living proof that Chernin and all who sail with them are also committing a Slothful Induction fallacy. (In short, the evidence says Chernin et al's argument isn't true, but they believe it anyway.)

(Thank you Samuel Clemens.) Well, fortunately, it seems as though a lot of people who use those doctored statistics often wind up hoist on their own petard. Looks like WorldCom's getting there, as was Child Find in an article in the Denver Post that won a Pulitzer Prize for reporters Griego and Kilzer.

There are some spectacularly bad examples in the posting above... I'm not sure anyone ever said there were a million homeless people. However, the widely-criticised (as to methodology) US census survey cited almost half a million, which you can add for yourself here. Also, as to the "statistics" quoted by the poster on sexual orientation, I know that as early as 1972 the University of Guelph's Veterinary and Agricultural Colleges were using the 10% figure in training films (one of which, my friend, a student in another department at the time, narrated) on animal breeding, and in Animal Days, the British naturalist Desmond Morris mentions something similar based on his work with ten-spined sticklebacks (1958). Similar figures seem to hold through all animal species.

The problem seems to be that too many of the general public fall for that same old Ad Verecundiam Fallacy. I think it's a lack of critical thinking skills.

And in this day and age, if a CEO doesn't qualify as an "improper authority"... --smirk--

You can also eat your own excrement - but you choose not to do so. What is your point, Einstein?

This is so obvious that I can't believe that I have to explain it. RMS has set up a false dilemma: that either Linus has to stop using Bitkeeper or else the FSF can't have anything to do with the kernel. In fact, there is a third option: they could use Bitkeeper. This is a fallacy of distraction intended to make it appear that the FSF's hands are tied, when in fact they're not.

-Waldo Jaquith

No author, no references and argumentum ad populum reasoning like above. .

Grade: Failed.

Uhoh...

Well, with all this thought about the whole six degrees thing.

I'm just afraid that someone in the US's SSSSq Agency (Super Secret Secret Squirrels of course) will realize they have a good chance of finding that some hidden terrorist types (cat /bin/laden) by randomly snatching a person, and six specific contacts (since it might be likely that Joe Blow knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy who knows where they are.

Why... The implications of this amazing research to national defense are amazing.

It's a good thing that affirming our consequents is a common practice now-days (psst... If (all persons in the world are "connected" via a small number of links) then (randomly picking a person and starting from there is a good way to "connect" to someone specific). (randomly picking a person and starting from there is--sometimes--a good way to "connect" to someone specific). Therefore (all persons in the world are "connected" via a small number of links).

Mmmmm fuzzy logic.

Perhaps you'd care to address the arguments made in the FAQ, rather than the person who wrote it?

Is there something intriniscally nutty about owning a gun? Or is this just another example of the logical fallacy of attacking the person you are arguing with rather than coming up with a valid argument to support your conclusion?

Everytime you call someone a "gun nut" you actually weaken any rational argument in favor of gun control. So don't do it. Rather, explain why the 2nd amendment is flawed and why individual citizens should not own firearms. Do so in a way that makes your argument stronger than the argument of those who maintain that the right to own firearms is an important liberty.

Unless you can't come up with such an argument in which case using a logical fallacy is your only hope. Hmm, come to think of it thats probably why the term "gun nut" gets thrown around so much. Its too hard to come up with a valid argument, so you take the easy way out and label people.

Its murder rate per capita is seven times that of France, where active practice of religion is virtually nonexistant.

So is the practice of personal hygiene (trust me -- I lived there for six years). I conclude that frequent showering induces violent crime. But then what of fundamentalist Islamic countries, which have lower murder rates than both France and the U.S?

the liberal centers of secular humanism such as Berkeley and New York City are shooting-free.

Now this statement simply cannot be taken seriously. New York City shooting-free?!

Hell, the school that was shot up in Santee, CA is one mile from the famous Institute for Creation Research.

And probably no more than six blocks from the nearest McDonald's. Keep that in mind next time your kid asks for a Big Mac.

even though if the Ten Commandments were hanging in Columbine the body count would have probably tripled. Teacher-led prayer was taken out of schools in the sixties, kiddo, you're a bit too late to blame school shootings on it.

Lost me here -- the Ten Commandments are responsible for school shootings even though they were removed from the schools nearly forty years ago? Kiddo, methinks you're a bit too late to blame school shootings on the 10Cs.