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Pirate Party Founder Steps Down After 5 Years
ktetch-pirate writes "Five years to the day after he created the first Pirate Party, Rickard Falkvinge has stepped down as leader of Piratpartiet, the Swedish Pirate Party. The announcement was made in a webcast with Falkvinge and his deputy Anna Troberg, with Troberg taking on his duties effective immediately."
I'd like to say:
He finally realized what a dirty, thieving bastard he was trying to get everybody to be. It's about god damned time one of them relented. Artists and others who work hard for a living and create things that enhance your lives every single day deserve to make a living. You are not entitled to the sweat of their brows or all the time out of their lives that it takes to actually learn how to play an instrument, become a good actor, etc. Sorry to break the news to you.
Now everyone that reads that has to pay me 2$ for the next 99 years, and isn't entitled to distribute it without having their lives torn apart by lawyers.
You know what would rock even more? If we could have both music and movies and and all the other art that we can spread across the world to everyone with a computer virtually for free as well as having the poor artists not starving.
An it would totally rock if everyone had access to all digitalized culture legally, so one wouldn't have to feel bad or fear a one in a million chance of personal economic disaster.
And we can. All it takes is a little socialism. Let the people decide what they like by downloading stuff and give those artists a living wage paid for with taxes.
(Another solution, even easier to administer, would be basic income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee )
Anyway... Socialism FTW and fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Peace.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Yeah, wouldn't it be great if we can just have everything for free and have the government provide everything? That's genius. And since money magically appears out of nowhere, it's foolproof. Now all we have to do is force people to work and we're golden.
you mean like how people aren't forced to now?
"Five years to the day after he created the first Pirate Party, Dread Captain Rickard Falkvinge has walked the plank as leader of Piratpartiet, the Swedish Pirate Party. The announcement was made on the high seas under sword-point with Falkvinge and his First Mate Anna Troberg, with Troberg taking on his duties effective immediately. May his bones rest quietly in Davy Jones' locker. Arr!"
Why is parent modded as troll? He's got a very valid opinion on the matter. About 90% of all rape allegations in Sweden don't even result in charges.
Are you replying to the part about basic income? Are you stupid or something? Do you think all people would settle for whatever little the basic income would give them? Most people would want to work to get paid so they can get fancier food, a bigger house and more stuff.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Yeah, wouldn't it be great if we can just have everything for free and have the government provide everything? That's genius. And since money magically appears out of nowhere, it's foolproof. Now all we have to do is force people to work and we're golden.
Now this could be a good thread - the "unlimited filesharing of other people's work as a basic human right" crowd vs. the Tea Party crowd.
(Makes popcorn)
I hate copyright. I would like to see it abolished. I occasionally pirate stuff. I don't think I am above the law, therefore I think it is wrong. I don't condone software piracy. I hope I'll plead guilty if I'm ever on trial (but I probably won't).
So you see. I completely support your envisioned future. I just don't think I'm supporting it by pirating. People like those in TFA are the ones making a difference (sadly... a very minor one).
Where I live we have a system that provides even less work incentive than BIG and the unemployment rates are pretty similar to those in the US, although the unemployed here do live in more humane conditions. But people on the whole don't want to be unemployed because government money may keep you fed but it doesn't buy you a shiny new game console. Also, most people have an inherent urge to feel useful. I'm not saying this is because they're good people, but it's just the case that we're wired that way, it's probably some ancient tribal instinct.
Quite apart from the economic feasibility (which is just fine) there is also the question that I for one don't want to live in a society in which there are people who have to beg for money and/or starve. A civilised society simply doesn't tolerate such squalor. I don't care if some unemployed people don't want to work (as long as they're not too plentiful) and in any case I think a good society would give unemployed a stipend and help to get back on life's tracks.
As for the music payment scheme, I don't know if I agree with GP. Not all people like music... should those people be forced to help fund musicians through taxation? On the other hand maybe cultural development is for the public good to a sufficient extent... I'm on the fence.
Wait, isn't she one of the chicks that was banging the Wikileaks guy?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
I don't think Pirating is the best way to go either. FOSS and creative commons is.
Pirating can help, in a way, though. When done by all the middle class kids, it should make politicians realize they're criminalizing an entire generation and that that isn't a good thing or that there isn't even anything they can do about it.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Let the people decide what they like by downloading stuff and give those artists a living wage paid for with taxes.
Those of us living on planet earth realize that money is a way to validate what people choose to do with their time. Maybe someone decides what they want to do is bang trash cans together for eight hours a day to no particular end. Is that worth a 'living wage' (a horrible, horrible term that needs to be smashed to pieces, by the way) in your opinion?
I'll answer that for you: Yes, because the government should provide everything for everyone; if they want to work, that's cool, man, but if they don't, that's cool too.
Fucking hippie.
You are not entitled to the sweat of their brows or all the time out of their lives that it takes to actually learn how to play an instrument, become a good actor, etc.
Neither is the RIAA/MPAA, who gets about 90% of the profit from these artists with almost none of the work behind them.
Well, given that we have multi-generational welfare families, yes. I think many would. The question is what you do about those people. Do you let them starve, or do you feed them knowing that you were never going to get them to work anyway. Of course, if you guarantee them a livable wage without work, the number of people that live on the dole will be greater than if you let them starve.
I find the response I almost always get from my suggestion on how we should deal with food stamps interesting. I suggest we make a K-ration type food. Make it taste horrible, yet be healthy. I mean taste REALLY bad. Then just give it away. Don't bother tracking it at all. Get rid of all the bureaucracy involved in the food stamp program. Literally pull semi-trucks into parking lots and let people take what they want. If it tastes bad enough, most people will work before eating it, but they will eat it before they starve to death. The people that eat it even though they could work for food are the ones you were never going to get off the dole anyways. There would be no black market for it because anyone that wanted it could just go get it for free. This guarantees no one starves, reduces bureaucracy, and makes fraud totally uneconomical without any punitive threats. Win, Win, Win.
The interesting part is that most peoples response to this is to suggest that this would violate some kind of human right. They usually come around when it is pointed out that feeding someone food that tastes bad is not abuse. We do it to children all the time. It is interesting though that their first thought is that it is abusive.
Why is parent modded as troll? He's got a very valid opinion on the matter. About 90% of all rape allegations in Sweden don't even result in charges.
So you "believe" the assertion that "looking" at women in Sweden can "easily" get you sued or arrested or sued is not a troll? No need to state your true agenda either.
If I'd modded it I'd have kicked it down as "off topic", your post on the other-hand is a "troll".
"Valid opinion" == sophism. So's your second sentence. No matter how strongly you feel you've somehow been wronged (or slighted) making up bullshit to support your viewpoint will always work against you.
Isn't than an old American tradition frorm the colonial age? I mean slaves..
You're not forced to work. Homelessness is always an option. You can get your meals from a soup kitchen, camp out in Walmart's parking lot and beg people who shop there for cash until the police tell you to leave, etc.
There's no guarantee you'll like that option, but you don't seem to like the option of working, either, so I guess it's worth a shot, huh?
My blog
Jeremy: "I should be able to have everything I like, all the time! Isn't that what Democracy is about?"
If they don't like any kind of digitizable culture, they can sulk and murmur along with everyone who doesn't like roads or hospitals or public schools or whatever else taxes gets us, in my opinion. :)
The anointed artists would represent the mainstream of culture and how many of those do we need? One per a thousand consumers? The art tax would be vanishingly small.
And we'd be rid of the leeching middle men, the industry executives, of course.
Others, who have enough of a passion would keep rocking and having to get a job until/if they hit it big time, just like they do today.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
No matter how strongly you feel you've somehow been wronged (or slighted) making up bullshit to support your viewpoint will always work against you.
Except if you're a politician in the United States of America (tm); then it's encouraged.
Why is parent modded as troll? He's got a very valid opinion on the matter. About 90% of all rape allegations in Sweden don't even result in charges.
So you "believe" the assertion that "looking" at women in Sweden can "easily" get you sued or arrested or sued is not a troll?
Looking at women, yeah a troll. But looking at women the wrong way, not a troll, must be +1 Funny or Interesting
The artists know the drill when they sign up. They could keep a lot more of the money if they started their own labels or even signed to high-tier independents, but they want the bright lights of the stadium.
with almost none of the work behind them.
I fail to see how sitting around while smoking dope and writing poetry qualifies as more "work" than seeking out new talent, managing budgets for studio and tours, organizing promotions and buying ad space, reading the public sentiment towards particular genres and aspects of music, etc., all while employing thousands and providing for their families. The lazy bastards.
I'm no fan of MAFIAA world dominance, but I know a spade when I see one.
Well, given that we have multi-generational welfare families, yes.
That's because welfare, by the time you get all the free prescriptions, transportation, eyeglasses, etc.etc that's all covered, pays over 200% what a minimum wage job does. When you're not qualified to do anything, then welfare gives you a ridiculously high wage.
Hence, the problem you mention.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I suggest we make a K-ration type food. Make it taste horrible, yet be healthy. I mean taste REALLY bad. Then just give it away.
To make that work you would have to outlaw chilli sauce.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If that is what the people want, the people will download it and based on those numbers, money could be sent their way. If people don't want to download the banging of trashcans together for eight hour a day, they won't and that particular art wouldn't be paid for by taxes.
Of course, with the basic income for everyone, one wouldn't even need to bother banging trashcans together if one wouldn't want to, but that was another point. It would solve the piracy and starving artist problem too, but if you don't want to go all that far in decency, then have a look at the first suggestion again.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
When done by all the middle class kids, it should make politicians realize they're criminalizing an entire generation and that that isn't a good thing or that there isn't even anything they can do about it.
That never stopped the drug war (btw, drug 'crimes' are far more common than infringement). And if the drug war does stop, that won't be what stopped it. As someone in early history would have put it (probably), only through tongue or force of arms can the common man effect change.
Ignoring laws simply does not work. Protesting is hardly any better, not when the avenues he/she has available are tightly contained. Interrupting business? Go to jail. Downloading a song? Life ruined; owe $2M. Maybe if the states took the occasional contradictory stance... but they don't.
You are not entitled to the sweat of their brows or all the time out of their lives that it takes to actually learn how to play an instrument, become a good actor, etc.
Neither is the RIAA/MPAA, who gets about 90% of the profit from these artists with almost none of the work behind them.
It's way to easy to see the whole "piracy" issue as *just* two opposing viewpoints. And, to me, neither view stacks up. I strongly suspect both camps are being naive and manipulated. And here's my reasoning:-
My point here being that neither party is "completely" right. Copying doesn't reduce the industries revenue stream as much as claimed - though it doesn't make the impact the industry claims it does. I'll leave the value of promotion out of this - it's a red herring.
Why would an immensely profitable industry spend a fortune on a demonstrably pointless pursuit? The assertion that they are total idiots contradicts their success.
Follow the money is the method that should be applied. Do that and it appears obvious (to me) that the "industry" is spending vast amounts of money because it is a cost effective way for them to protect their income. The mistake pro-pirates make is believing the product is the income stream. IMO they are wrong and have been deliberately been fooled.
The industry is profitable and powerful because it controls distribution. The RIAA/MPAA campaign is not about stopping copying it's about stifling an alternative distribution network.
You are not entitled to the sweat of their brows
I like the flamebait. Always entertaining. Though it's so hard to determine whether the trolls are lying or actually believe it. But sentences like that are golden. The rule is quite explicitly that "sweat of the brow" is not protected. That is, if you take someone else's plans and build a house, you have no copyright to the result, no matter how "beautiful" it is. It was not a creative work on the part of the builder. The same with any other act where it is created with work, but not novel creativity.
So yes, we are entitled to the sweat of their brow. Just because it was hard to do doesn't mean it is copyrightable.
Learn to love Alaska
Good point about the drug wars. I'd like to point out that other places than the US may be better soil for sane legislation, though. (Not that I'm too optimistic about that.)
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
He finally realized what a dirty, thieving bastard he was trying to get everybody to be.
As a copyright infringer, I often break into peoples' houses and rob them blind!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Since it's Sunday, and I have nothing better to do. Let me humor you with a long reply.
Yes, it would be great if we can have everything free. That's called the Star Trek economy. Once we have production-grade replicators or nth-generation Repraps, that will become a reality, indistinguishable from magic. Now, if all that we need to manufacture something is the work to haul some amorphous lump of matter and dump it into the replicator, then the value of money degrades to that of a household chores bribe: Hey, Junior, can you fetch me some dirt from the back yard. I promise, I'll drive you to the ballgame this Sunday.
That's it, as far as goods that we can hold in our hands are concerned. We're not yet at the Star Trek level as far as physical objects are concerned. Every single iPhone or Prius has to go through some form of manual intervention, a worker who has to assemble the bits and bolts. You can't just download the blueprint for a laptop and feed the binary data to any of today's state-of-the-art 3D printers. And even if you can, you still need special materials that you can't ask Junior to fetch from your back yard.
On the other hand, duplicating an eBook or an Mp3 is as easy as typing "cp *mp3 /media/My_Copy" or simply plugging in your iPod Touch and clicking the appropriate prompt button. As far as digital goods and objects are concerned, we are already at the Star Trek level. So the work needed to product a piece of music is limited to the very act of making the actual recording, not the reproduction. Once the master has been made, endless copies can be made.
So, I'm sure you'll ask, who'll pay for the initial step? Those hungry for novelty and innovation. If nobody wants to pay to hear a new version of the Goldberg Variations, then we're stuck to listening to the old recordings by, say, Glenn Gould, or until some bored amateur decides to record and foist on us her atonal version of Bach.
Don't underestimate boredom as a motive for innovation and progress. It's what made Wikipedia the dominant source of information in the Internet, millions of bored users deciding to contribute their little tidbits of information.
Yes, Wikipedia still needs money to operate its servers. But that is minuscule compared to the quantity of "free" editing and writing work contributed by bored users, trolls, and government agents. We don't pay for the pizza but for the pizza delivery.
Well, that wouldn't affect anyone. If they only take more when they don't have to pay, if they had to pay, no one would be making more.
I believe there might be a certain amount losses in sales to copyright violations, but a whole lot less than the industry want us to believe. And as you say, there's a lot more to it than sale of recordings. Which might benefit from increased distrubution even if it isn't increased sales.
We are all God's parents.
I foresee a couple of problems with this. What's to prevent me from raising pigs using this untasty free food of yours? Or maybe transform it into semi-tasty food for resale? Perhaps sell it in another country? Free raw materials would certainly be abused :)
>>> it's about stifling an alternative distribution network.
Is that why I have to wait 30 days before I can see the latest SGU or Caprica episode on syfy.com? Yep. Well if they think I'm going to pay to subscribe to Comcast and Syfy Channel, then they can just think again. I can wait a long, long time until I can see it for free or cheap (DVD rental).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Good point about the drug wars. I'd like to point out that other places than the US may be better soil for sane legislation, though. (Not that I'm too optimistic about that.)
I modded you up almost solely because you were willing to recognize a good point when it was made instead of acting like a petty bickering child and arguing for the sake of making a pissing contest. Maybe that isn't the intended use of an "Informative" mod in the strictest sense, but by your example you are in fact "informing" others of how to participate in civilized, enjoyable discussion. I think that's at least as important as a list of facts. Slashdot needs more of this. Thank you, sir or ma'am. This was a most refreshing thing to see and I wanted you to know it.
I'm Swedish and I approve of this message.
While pigs may be a problem. Turning it tasty would likely be more trouble than it's worth, and selling to another country would cost you more than you could get for it.
Oh, come on now, everyone here at Slashdot knows we could be the ones making the big bucks calling the shots at mega corporations but instead we've decided to sit around and poke fun at those short-sighted fools who roll in the big bucks. It's a choice, my boy, we chose to make modest or poor wages slaving for The Man instead.
All kidding aside, most of the people who spit on copyright are mostly the ones who'd hear nothing about putting up their money on what is a start up venture like signing a band. While it is getting cheaper to produce albums it still isn't cheap. At the same time learning one's craft well enough to rise above the typical bar band or club DJ isn't cheap or easy either.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Actually, the "tradition" isn't American since slavery pre-dates America. It probably predates written history.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
And in another few years, Anna will retire and another will come along.
They should think about franchising...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Umm. You've never lived in a welfare-heavy culture, have you? Lots of people (not all) choose it and "settle."
If that is what the people want, the people will download it and based on those numbers, money could be sent their way.
Since the downloader invests nothing bar his ISP, it would be easy for an artist ('n'friends) to artificially boost the download numbers.
(Not criticising the general idea, but an unspoofable "download tracking system" would be hard to pull off. An idea I suggested (pre-iTunes) was a licensing system to replace digital copyright. Teh governmentz sets up a central Music/Film/Book Library server containing all published digital works. Vendors subscribe to it, which gives them the right to resell any work. The vendors are the only ones who need to track downloads. Government distributes royalties. Vendors don't have to negotiate with individual publishing companies, teh government sets all rates. It's not free-for-users, but it's a step away from existing stupidity.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Wouldn't it be cool though to have a country where the women totally oppressed the men, where the men had to travel around in veils, where the women worked and the man stays home; where the man has to file false lawsuits alleging rape by the woman? It would be awesome.
Hmm, nope... I'm not into BDSM. Why do you ask?
Guys, there is a very simple solution to this problem: make the publishers go away.
Artists can sell their music on the internet, they don't need publishers who record their CDs anymore.
Artists could earn more money if the publishers went away while still lowering the prices of their albums. It's a win-win for artists and we, the customers. The losers are the publishers who are pretty much useless. And frankly, fighting 'pirates' is no reason to be a dick to honest people, so I have no sympathy for the publishers.
So did the English Language, Baseball, apple pie, and George Washington, but we still call those American.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
They usually come around when it is pointed out that feeding someone food that tastes bad is not abuse. We do it to children all the time.
I've always thought it was abusive to make children eat food that they did not like.
Why stop at muric and other art forms? Why not have all thing available for any amount you wish to pay?
I want to buy food? Great, I'll go to the Walmart and take whatever I want and pay whatever I want. And I don't have enough money, or just don't feel like paying? Have the government give everyone a living wage.
And why stop there? You want a new oven? Same thing. Don't pay! Have the government subsidize it.
Although Art has many lofty goals, it is also a source of income for people. If the artist demand a price for it, you should pay. If he gives it for free, great! But to tell the artist he shouldn't charge for his work while using great-sounding socialist ideals (which, BTW, worked so great for Mother Russia), is naive at best, and stupid at worst.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Yeah, or maybe people could take government-backed paper notes and give them to the artists as a way of supporting what they do. As they get more of these notes, they can exchange the notes for goods and services that will possibly allow them to gain more public exposure, produce better-sounding music, and collaborate with elite talent that can possibly bring new dynamics to their art.
Oh wait, that's what capitalism is doing right now. Shit; nevermind.
As far as copyrighted works are concerned, history shows people are quite content with working for free on their own already.
Well, not *everyone*, but losing Lady GaGa and Justin Bieber ain't no big loss anyways, all the good music is indie in any case.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Anything that tastes bad enough that you can't get used to it or cover it with ketchup or something will make it so that you can't keep the food down.
Or he always has the option to take rob you and take money from you - but then of course the government provided services like police protection, court system, and prison system might make his life more difficult. Damn government providing everything for people.
I second Basic Income, it would be a great way of not only encouraging creative activities, but new small business creation as some of the risk is taken away with an unconditional basic income no matter what. And it would guarantee that no one dependent on existing programs fall through the cracks and risk homelessness or even starvation for lack of money, while at the same time virtually eliminating the costly bureaucracy surrounding the existing programs. A basic income guarantee is unconditional, it is not dependent on any factors, not even income, you only have to make sure that each person gets one basic income and no more, thus reducing the need for bureaucracy greatly.
I've read a lot about the matter. The movement doesn't have much steam here in Sweden (the Greens used to have it in their party platform, but never made an issue out of it, not sure if they do any more) but is apparently quite a bit stronger in Germany.
enough partying, time to plunder!
he who controls the spice controls the universe
I don't see how multi-generational welfare families are any morally worse than multi-generational wealthy families, yet tons more complain about the former than they do about the latter. Idle is idle. Both are a net drain on society, but in different ways.
Once we have production-grade replicators or nth-generation Repraps [reprap.org], that will become a reality, indistinguishable from magic.
We'll never get there. The powerful people whose wealth and power are wrapped up in our dominant "few producers / many consumers" wealth redistribution scheme will never allow it.
If we ever get close to the Star Trek replicator, I guarantee you that the IP, know-how and everything related will be suppressed and destroyed by the small ownership class who profit from scarcity.
What exactly do you have against the term "living wage"? Did it murder your grandmother or something?
Guys, there is a very simple solution to this problem: make the publishers go away.
Agreed
Artists can sell their music on the internet, they don't need publishers who record their CDs anymore.
Only when the audience can hear about them - web pages rely on search engines - which can, and will, be gamed. Fine if you're Devo or Radiohead, maybe ok if you're Courtney Love, and if no one has ever heard of you? You what - rely on SEO experts?
The internet is no more a threat to the established studio monopoly than radio or television - bittorrent over the internet is the threat. It's the subversive technology. Web sites are no more a threat to the existing system than ads in local newspapers and junk mail.
I also doubt that twits and facefriends can, or will, change the existing order.
And just where do we get the money for "basic income"? Who pays?
Don't just say "the government", because that just takes the question up a level, to where does the government get the money to pay you? Etc.
Actually, I'm all for the government paying anyone and everyone a basic income. Only thing is, to get it you have to do whatever work its is that the government needs done. Roads. Garbage collection. Sanitation. School bus drivers.
If the government is going to pay out money, they should darn well get something for it. Don't want to work at all? Fine. We won't let your kids starve, but you, sir, can eat dirt.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Requiring people to work for their basic income sort of defeats the purpose of an *unconditional* basic income..
As for who pays, the taxpayers of course, just as they pay for the myriad of programs designed to keep people off the streets now. The added cost in Sweden at least would be pretty minor, it is a pretty small group of people who are completely left out in the cold, but they do exist. The reduced cost of the bureaucracy behind all of the means-testing going on in the various agencies would cover part of it.
Before you use the common argument of reduced incentive to work, studies have showed that this is quite minimal in pilot tests. And considering the high unemployment rate (even in a good economy, unemployment is rarely below 4%), a slightly reduced incentive to work is not necessarily a bad thing, slightly fewer hours per capita also means there is work for more people in order to make up the difference...
You know what else we could do? Just put copyright back to place. To the good old days where you have to register your copyright and where it's only lasted 14 years.
We should limit copyright even more because with the internet it's so easy to publish. The limit should be 5 years now, with +5 years extend.
With a sane copyright law the artists and the publisher could come up with new ideas how to make money instead of be depended of an indefinitely state granted monopoly. What we have now is already socialism. It's worse, it's planed economy.
With the political power that such groups as the RIAA and MAFIA have and the laws behind them (100+ years copyright, DMCA, etc.) we could just make them government owned like in China and call them Office for Arts, Music, Movies.
With a limited copyright we could finally have a rich public domain, which is the most import factor for new innovation. Without a rich public domain there are no work available to build upon, for which all works we have now are build upon older works and ideas.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
How is this either troll or flamebait? Slashdot mods gone insane with rage. Could it be the mention of socialism? McCarthyism still seems to be running high among Americans.
Mod parent up!
>If we ever get close to the Star Trek replicator, I guarantee you that the IP, know-how and everything related will be suppressed and destroyed by the small ownership class who profit from scarcity.
Just like they managed to do today with Information replicators? They will try, but they will not succeed (unless the replicators require some rare natural resource to function)
Considering that middle management and bureaucracy continue to expand, pointless consumerism runs rampant, obsolete or oversized corporations get billions in subsidies and tax loopholes, and the largest sector of the US economy is now finance (surpassing all goods-producing industries combined), it's arguable that we've long passed the point where society required full employment to provide its needs, and we have now entered the phase of endlessly inventing new high-paid welfare jobs that do little other than keep unemployment low and the GDP high (on paper).
(holy run-on sentence, Batman!)
If there was a strong social safety net, it's true that many people would simply drop out and live off the state's dime. But it would mostly weed out the unmotivated, the burned out, and those ill-suited to their jobs—in other words, people who were barely contributing if not detrimental to their own companies. If companies could no longer frighten workers with the spectre of unemployment, employees would have much greater bargaining power without resorting to labor unions. It would also give many people the chance to spend some quality time in their garage on that crazy idea they think might change the world. Or the chance to go back to school and learn some useful things. Or the chance to spend some time with their kids. Eliminating retirement and unemployment benefits would go a long way towards removing highly paid but underperforming employees and positions**. All in all, the workforce would be smaller but much more active; agile, motivated, and organic, like capitalism is supposed to be.
I don't think we've yet reached the point where we could switch to such a system without pain and suffering, but the inexorable advance of technology brings a world of employment-by-choice closer to reality. Population growth is slowing worldwide thanks to increasing affluence. For once we find much of our industry—like cars, airplanes, computers, and appliances—becoming more efficient over time, not less. Our most industrialized countries already have more than enough resources and technology to meet the fundamental desires of their populace—subsistence, transportation, communication, and recreation. Since we already have proven the practicality of an industrial base large enough to satisfy the entire population, it becomes mostly an issue of optimization and labor reduction. Assuming we can adopt a better source of energy than fossil fuels, and assuming materialism hasn't been ordained the state religion by then, I doubt this century will end without reaching the point where we can offload enough of our menial work onto computers and machines that we don't mind doing the remainder. It might not be a Star Trek techno-utopia, but it would solve a lot of problems.
-
**(If an employee is particularly valuable, they should be paid more now, not promised pensions twenty, thirty, forty years down the line. If the employee is smart, they'll invest the money wisely. If they're not smart, at least the safety net means they won't be sleeping in the gutter. In either case, you won't see the triune problems of employees twiddling their thumbs until their pensions mature, companies unwilling to fire underperforming executives because they don't want to pay their golden parachutes, and the financial ruin of victims of Enron-type collapses.)
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
and the horse you rode in on.
The horse I rode in on is an experimental bio-fueled vehicle.
The complaints about its exhaust are overblown.
Have they improved on it? Nay.
Let the people decide what they like by downloading stuff and give those artists a living wage paid for with taxes.
So all the RIAA and MPAA have to do is fudge a little download information and divide the payout however they want. We can trust them not to do that, right?
Quick question: WTF ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY HAVE YOU BEEN FOLLOWING?!!!
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Um.
Russia is the richest country in the world, by far.
The former is worse because they get paid with money taken from their fellow citizens at gunpoint. The majority of wealthy families are not out robbing people to keep their coffers full. In fact the majority of them are small/medium business owners whose families worked quite hard for that money. The Rockerfellers and Kennedys are the exception not the rule when it comes to family wealth, and for the most part the wealthy families give plenty back to society rather than just sitting around sucking on their crackpipe collecting their welfare check.
I don't see how multi-generational welfare families are any morally worse than multi-generational wealthy families, yet tons more complain about the former than they do about the latter. Idle is idle. Both are a net drain on society, but in different ways.
The former pay taxes, the latter don't. I don't know what kind of arithmetic or economics you are using, but how are wealthy families a "net drain"?
edit: The other way around of course
You'd soon get people that would take the entire truckload, then sell it as fertilizer or something like that. Whenever you give away something for free you need some sort of a mechanism to stop a single person from taking it all. How about a 'ration-cafeteria'? You can take as much as you want, you just have to eat it right there and then.
Not all people like music... should those people be forced to help fund musicians through taxation?
They're not getting out of it today. Even if you disregard the direct levies they're subjected to on recordable media and similar in many countries, IP rights are still equivalent to other widely spread taxation points on the economy.
Even if you avoid paying it in the first degree, you'll pay for it in a general higher cost of living; you'll pay the slightly higher price for a haircut as the hair saloon pays a fee for playing music, etc. And going beyond that, you'll get it baked into cable fees, as generalized cost of living wage demands, etc. The funding is simply extracted at so many points that you can't avoid getting impacted by it.
If we avoid the waste of the current system, a more direct and efficient funding of musicians would burden the economy to less than 10% of what it's costing us today, while directing more money to the creators than they're getting out of the middlemen today. The supposed objectors would find themselves paying less, directly and indirectly than they are today.
"I've always thought it was abusive to make children eat food that they did not like."
Only Grizzly-Mamas think that,
"I want to buy food? Great, I'll go to the Walmart and take whatever I want and pay whatever I want."
You can copy it, not take it, the original has to stay at Walmart.
No but the "base minimum income" idea has its merits.
First, it would provide a social security for everyone. I'm quite convinced it would reduce crime quite a bit (and I'm not alone in this), first because the fundamental need for petty crime ceases to exist (=getting money to buy food, or getting food altogether) and even the least in the population have something to lose (the very LAST thing you want is people who have literally nothing to lose).
Second, poor ("dumb") people are more likely to spend money than rich ("smart") ones. The latter are more likely to plan ahead and build a nestegg for retirement. And I think I needn't stress how people able and willing to spend money are a boon for an economy.
Third, that myth that people will cease to work at all and just lay around lazily is easily debunked. Would you sit on your ass for, say, 600 bucks a month? Or would you first of all want to work to feel less of a lazy bum and second want more than those petty 600 bucks so you can actually buy something nice? And those that would DO SO already, it's not like there's no way around it. Sure, you'd have to pay people more than 3 bucks on a "want fries with that" job. Boo-hoo, cry me a river, McD. I don't know about you, but I think people should be able to sustain themselves on money they earn from working.
On the other side, you'll save a lot of money because it will take a lot of bureaucracy out of the social security system and unemployment management. I don't know about your country, but here a good deal of our tax money gets blown on unemployment, every unemployed person costs MORE than twice the money he gets, due to bureaucracy. Not to mention that many get more than the basic amount of money, so even if you provide every person who could potentially be part of the workforce with a basic income, you'd most likely end up cheaper.
So the economy would benefit from it, social peace and stability increases and it costs most likely not more than the current system. Care to tell me the drawbacks?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In other word, minimum wage is way too low.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You know what would rock even more? If we could have both music and movies and and all the other art that we can spread across the world to everyone with a computer virtually for free as well as having the poor artists not starving.
An it would totally rock if everyone had access to all digitalized culture legally, so one wouldn't have to feel bad or fear a one in a million chance of personal economic disaster.
And we can. All it takes is a little socialism. Let the people decide what they like by downloading stuff and give those artists a living wage paid for with taxes.
(Another solution, even easier to administer, would be basic income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee )
Anyway... Socialism FTW and fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Peace.
Or - any artist, performer, actor, director, writer who feels strongly about defending the way the current studio/distribution system treats them - publicly put up their paypal (or bank account details). An account the studios don't control. Then those that support the artist - but not the distributors, can donate money directly. What's that going to hurt? If they recieve money, and they don't want it - they can donate it to a worthy cause. But you can bet the studios won't let that happen!
In Australia - with certain restrictions, terms written on the back of a cheque are legally binding - what if people who like musician x sent him a cheque, and on that cheque it said "Dear x, I enjoyed your song/album y but I don't like the manager/company who fucked you over on the royalties - please accept my payment for $z on the condition you don't share it with said manager/company, sincerely a fan".?.
Nourish the share-cropper, starve the slave master. Viva the intelligent revolution!
We could even go with the fashion industry's concept, which doesn't have any copyright protection at all. And as we know, fashion designers are notoriously poor, don't have a chance to earn a decent living, and we are forced to wear the same design for dozens of years because no one has any incentive to create new clothes designs.
Or we could be the food industry, where recipes aren't protected by anything, not even trademarks (the trademarks itself are protected though). And as we know, no one ever got rich from inventing any new recipes.
Where I live we have a system that provides even less work incentive than BIG and the unemployment rates are pretty similar to those in the US, although the unemployed here do live in more humane conditions. But people on the whole don't want to be unemployed because government money may keep you fed but it doesn't buy you a shiny new game console. Also, most people have an inherent urge to feel useful. I'm not saying this is because they're good people, but it's just the case that we're wired that way, it's probably some ancient tribal instinct. Quite apart from the economic feasibility (which is just fine) there is also the question that I for one don't want to live in a society in which there are people who have to beg for money and/or starve. A civilised society simply doesn't tolerate such squalor. I don't care if some unemployed people don't want to work (as long as they're not too plentiful) and in any case I think a good society would give unemployed a stipend and help to get back on life's tracks. As for the music payment scheme, I don't know if I agree with GP. Not all people like music... should those people be forced to help fund musicians through taxation? On the other hand maybe cultural development is for the public good to a sufficient extent... I'm on the fence.
I live in a country where the taxpayer does subsidize the "yarts" I also support the idea that it's a waste of money - if the government funded "yartists" were so fucking deserving they wouldn't need a taxpayer hand out.
Ah - spittle! The free screen cleaner! :-D
So, instead of the current system, where the 10% of a creative work's users/viewers/listeners that don't pirate pay for its production, we'll have a system where you essentially have to pay for a creative work whether you use it or not?
I'm not saying that your idea is necessarily bad, but have you ever considered that there are people out there who genuinely are looking for work and who really cannot find any? And not because they're lazy, or because they just pretend to be looking.
As for the suggestion that it would be abusive, or otherwise ethically objectionable, I think given that you suggest making the food taste "horrible" and "REALLY bad" on purpose, I think you really shouldn't be surprised.
Yes, it's easy to copy a song, however, the artist that created it still needs to be paid. If everyone copied for free, then he has a problem. And I don't think he should be living on a government grant. He deserves more than that, and definitely more than the cashier in Walmart.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
It may be so, but I was talking about Soviet Russia, AKA U.S.S.R, AKA the greatest experiment in socialism .
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
It's a well-known political problem known as the welfare trap.
You can't expect much subtlety in catch phrases and propaganda. But I can assure you that the thought process doesn't end there when pro-pirates are concerned, and I assume the same is true for the anti-pirates.
Copying information has been easy and nearly costless for quite some time. What the internets have provided us with is a very easy and nearly costless way to connect people and publish and distribute information. All organizations (in its most inclusive meaning) that have benefited from the earlier situation where high costs were associated with connecting people as well as publishing and distributing information, are in one way or another threated by this development. This includes e.g. the copyright industry as well as the catholic church and even the national state itself, even though it may not be immediately obvious. All these organizations will try to defend themselves, and we will have a major struggle for quite some time, but I really don't think opposing communication among people will work out very well in the long run.
Here comes everybody, by Clay Shirky, explains some of these things in more detail. It's a great book.
There are other countries than United States. Remember that whenever you think that this will not work because of "Our Leaders".
Socialistic Iceland of 3200ad would probably switch to geothermally powered replicators without a hassle.
Let me think... how about basing everything on "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
And the solution is quite easy: Disallow paying people less than what's required to survive.
Welfare's primary and often only function is to give people a way to sustain themselves. This is (or should be) barely more than what is required to survive. If now companies are allowed to lower salaries to the point where they offer not more than what welfare already does, it is only logic for people to stay on welfare instead of taking the job, especially if the salary is the ONLY incentive to take that job (e.g. if there is little to no chance to climb the company ladder or if there are no fringe benefits, which is usual in those low pay jobs).
Let's be honest here, isn't it DUMB to take a job that "costs" you 8 hours of your life per day when you do not get anything extra out of it? Especially if it is not a job that by itself gives you any sense of accomplishment.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Baseball does not predate America.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
> We could even go with the fashion industry's concept, which doesn't have any copyright protection at all.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article4036308.ece
Ok, here I am, take me to court because you'll get nothing out of me. And to the person who modded this insightful? Let me know what logic you used to feed such a troll.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Why?
Actually it didn't work for Radiohead as they said they'd never do the pay-what-you-will model again. Those who downloaded the album and paid nothing probably didn't have a big impact on the overall fiscal performance of the venture. Those that did pay would have paid under a price point that Radiohead obviously felt their product was worth. This means that even if Radiohead were to name a price to get back enough money to make it worthwhile for them to record that the public would be unwilling to pay it. Even with all the Slashdotters who claimed that they were going to pay for the album even though they didn't like Radiohead the venture was unsuccessful.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
"few producers / many consumers" wealth redistribution scheme
What are you talking about?
I think your comment is more insightful as it's written.
It's worth mentioning that wealthy slackers consume far more goods and services than impoverished slackers. A wealthy slacker uses several nice homes, eats lots of fine meals, sees the best entertainment, etc etc. A impoverished slacker uses a small apartment,a bus seat on occasion, and some basic food.
If you think about it in terms of resources rather than dollars, which is more immoral: producing nothing and consuming a great deal, or producing nothing and consuming enough to keep alive?
I am officially gone from
First of all, you now suddenly went from "wealthy family" to "wealthy slacker". Second, a slacker who spends money for goods and services is obviously better for the economy that somebody who doesn't.
That's not a copyright, that's probably a "community design", which was introduced into European law and came into effect on Apr 1 2003. It's protection term is 25 years from the day of registration, if the yearly maintenance fee is paid. Unregistered designs are protected for three years.
Actually it didn't work for Radiohead [snip]
Dunno if Radiohead is a good example of music people want to listen too. I only liked the first three albums - if memory serves "Rainbows(?)" was the donate if you want it album - that I don't have it, and can't think of a track from it, should speak for itself.
I used Radiohead as an example of a name that could command an audience. My point being that having webspace alone wouldn't replace the existing (limited slot) promotion system unless the artist is already established.
As to whether sufficient money would be volunteered to make a donation method work - that's probably a bagel type thing (see Freakanomics) - peer determined. But if no one knows you exist they can't donate squat.
Can a donation or subscriber system work? It certainly works for *some* - both software (noscript, adblock), anime (I know people who religiously download every week, translate, and then spend a fortune buying the official copies of what they already have) and literature. It's worth considering that live shows are where most musicians make a living, and many bands without record deals working the indie scene on the Oz east coast depend on their back of the van homebaked CD sales (it's where I've spent most of my music collection money). Getting heard really helps.
While I doubt Luc Besson'd ever make a profitable movie based on a bittorrent distribution system and donations or subscriptions... I don't doubt a Firefly type show could.
A "living wage" as it applies to some smug union lobbyist's idea of how much is appropriate for 'social progress' and a "living wage" as it applies to how much money will actually allow someone to live are two entirely different things. But one implies the other.
Copying as theft is, well, obviously rubbish.
It is not rubbish, it is fact. You and others can repeat that 10 million times and it will not make it so. What happened was that millions of high school and college kids, with the usual financial limitations of people in that age group (which their parents and grandparents all had to deal with in their day, BTW) decided that they shouldn't be limited in the amount of music, movies, and video games that they could consume, so they broke the law en masse with the idea that the authorities can't bust them all, might as well give up trying. Moooo-o-o. So when the RIAA and MPAA predictably started making examples of people, these kids logged onto sites like this one and posted hundreds of specious rants... "oh it's not theft, it's infringement... the cops should be going after the real criminals, like the guy who swiped my iPod at the restaurant... there are no victims". But there are victims. The entire music industry has gone steeply downhill over the past ten years, driving most of the big box retailers out of business.
If I fully owned my own home and the ground under it (no rent, no HOA dues, etc.), subtract $150 per month for utilities, and that's still enough to eat out for two meals almost every day. So although I wouldn't sit on my backside, I probably wouldn't work, either. Instead, I'd spend my time doing something more meaningful than working to make a profit for someone else---creating art or music, teaching, social programs for the poor, etc.
On the flip side, if I were renting, $600 per month wouldn't cover the base rent for a mobile home site or a tiny studio apartment. At minimum wage, I would still have to work at least twenty hours per week on top of that $600 per month just to cover base rent, utilities, and bulk food from Target or Costco. At $600 per month, I'd either be homeless or sharing a studio apartment with twelve other people.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Copying as theft is, well, obviously rubbish.
It is not rubbish, it is fact.
Go take some pictures of your head. Maybe if you could make a coherent point you would get the same air time in real life as you get on the web.
Hint: what you are *trying* to say is "copying causes loss". If you can't say what you mean you're just pointing and grunting. I read your rant before I judged it, making my brain hurt trying to follow your logic doesn't engender sympathy.
AC is for a purpose - using it because you're scared to post from behind a pseudonym like the rest of us - just demonstrates you "don't quite get it". (sigh).
But there are victims. The entire music industry has gone steeply downhill over the past ten years, driving most of the big box retailers out of business.
See - that an example of stupid. "Record shops" come and go. The "music industry" is doing just fine. Theater takings are down - the film industry is doing just fine. News at 11 - drive-in theaters are taking a hit. VHS production companies crippled.
Now - imagine you're a dick, and imagine you just wrote the post I'm responding to, but I repeat myself. Apologies to Mark Twain.
No, I'll keep my capitalism. I don't buy much music or movies because it's complete s@#@@! The good stuff I do pay for, and I DO NOT WANT THE GOVERNMENT deciding whom to pay. Idiots or corrut aholes will pay the crappiest artists instead.
Has no one in the US learned that socialism means more government beuracracy?
Since when has the government effectively managed money, or any form of social welfare?
I would rather decide the private institution that gets my money, and that's the way it should be. At times that it's most needed the US citizenry comes through with aid. We conributed more than the rest of the world to Haiti. Even though I'm unemployed I dropped some money to the Red Cross.
Right now the government is taking too much money, and that's proven by the fact they are increasing the national debt by comepletely wasting it on stupid things. No business should receive a bailout, and the banks I use never even came close to needing it(even with free checking that doesn't require a minimum balance or direct deposit.) We should be closing all foreign miliary bases, ending both wars, and focusing the money on military research(led to the internet and most modern tech so why stop.)
---------------
Liberterian Out
So yes, we are entitled to the sweat of their brow. Just because it was hard to do doesn't mean it is copyrightable.
The OP was quite clearly talking about artists, whose work generally is copyrightable. You're just butthurt that he used a common phrase in a slightly different sense than you expected.
Falkvinge's emails were always riddled with simple grammatical errors and sometimes I've even wondered if he bothered to turn on the spell checker. Anna has always written much better.
Well, the concept does; I mean, just look to Cricket. And Homosexuality.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
That's the sort of screwed up reasoning that a highly abstracted economy generates. Economy is the management of available resources. People are, however, more concerned with trade than anything else. Trade should be merely a tool for managing resources, not a goal in itself. Yes, consuming more creates more jobs and trade, but it actually saps wealth. The more you consume, the less you have. It's that simple. Historically it hasn't been an issue, but when the world population triples in only 60 years, that's how we should be thinking. Plus, with increased consumption, there's a lot of garbage being generated. That's why I think a slacker - or a worker, for that matter - that spends a lot of money is way worse than a slacker who lives modestly.
Have you seen Pioneer One? It has the first two episodes out, and it's not bad. Reminds me of X Files at times, with a bit less budget.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
How did we get into a Malthusian dystopia all of the sudden? Please just follow your ideals, cancel your internet subscription and go live under a rock.
The former is worse because they get paid with money taken from their fellow citizens at gunpoint.
Generally people who have little more than they have - I've noticed that panhandlers tend to hassle people who look like they've little more than themselves. Ditto burglaries and car thefts (neighbours).
The majority of wealthy families are not out robbing people to keep their coffers full. In fact the majority of them are small/medium business owners whose families worked quite hard for that money. The Rockerfellers and Kennedys are the exception not the rule when it comes to family wealth, and for the most part the wealthy families give plenty back to society
No, very few do. I'm wealthy - I pay less tax on my income than others whose incomes are lower, I don't cheat on tax - but if you're on 50Kpa you don't have anything to negative gear - yes I worked hard for my accumulation of profits. But let's not confuse "wealthy" with "mega-rich". I've got no serious gripe with wealthy - which to me means 7 figures if cashed up. (my country charges higher income tax rates on higher incomes, and death duties - as it should). When the mega rich start paying tax equivalent to the workers you'll be right. When corporations like BHP start paying more than an effective 2% tax rate for the money they make from a nations resources there'll be more money for the lower income earners. The available pool of funds is limited - the flow is not as fast as people seem to think (money moves through poor hands faster)
rather than just sitting around sucking on their crackpipe collecting their welfare check.
With the exception of drug barons, gun runners, thieves, fraudsters , polluters, snake-oil merchants, and any other scumbag that makes money. I think you'll find (look at the history of San Fransisco, Manhattan Island, Monaco etc) that greed and ruthlessness gives rise to riches and power - followed by law and order, followed by welfare states. First you take by force, then you hold by force which you license, then you work it.
Where I live developers are trying to establish an industrial zone - they want government funding to buy up land and build factories, then they want to build high density low income housing so that they can *ship* people down from a nearby city because "we don't have enough low-skilled unemployed people locally". No surprise the main lobbyist for developers (I'm looking at you Terry) is also lobbying to reduce local education funding.
How about - people often/generally do the least they have to do, within their ability, to get the most that they can. Constraining factors being peer pressure, religious indoctrination, police, vigilantes, etc.
We are not all the same - some people have no choice about being stupid.
And I'm not disagreeing with everything you say - family and expectation certainly play a major part - maybe even more important than education. Some are more successful than others - the wealthy families you refer to - but that does make them any less likely to be criminals than the unsuccessful families - they can simply afford to farm out the dirty work. I've seen a study of the history of criminality in one family. Politically contentious stuff. one family in question have been directly and indirectly profiting from the drug trade since the start of the opium wars, through to heroin, crack, and methadone. Not a family name you'd have heard unless you're familiar with big tobacco (one of the clan was busted at an Ivy league institution recently). The other study was on three generation only - mostly petty cons and ripoffs, border-line successful.
Interesting thread, wish I had more time to read, and think about these things. Cheers.
"Second, a slacker who spends money for goods and services is obviously better for the economy that somebody who doesn't."
No they really aren't. They are worse because they are taking up productive capacity for unproductive ends. If a fantastically wealthy person happened to be say the CEO of a company and were more productive if they were say eating excellent food (or if they were motivated to do more / better by getting nicer food) then that nicer food in some sense represents an investment (even if it is exceedingly expensive).
Unless they are working hard themselves the only thing the heirs of the very wealthy do is serve as an example for people of what can happen if you are very rich and able to pass on that wealth. Does the thought that your daughter (if you have one) might turn out like Paris Hilton incentivse you to work harder?
Two words: anger management.
Free market capitalism
I've never heard it associated with unions or smugness. That's a pretty politically charged take on a benign, neutral term. I've always seen it as simply the minimum hourly wage necessary for an individual to meet basic needs, food, clothing, shelter, etc. We use the term to differentiate from "minimum wage" which is set by law and often has nothing to do with how much it takes to live. Why bring politics into it?
"The majority of wealthy families are not out robbing people to keep their coffers full. In fact the majority of them are small/medium business owners whose families worked quite hard for that money."
Citation needed!
Have you seen Pioneer One? It has the first two episodes out, and it's not bad. Reminds me of X Files at times, with a bit less budget.
No - but bloody good point - I remember seeing it advertised on the PirateBay, and reading up on it. I meant to find out what it was like and forgot. Thanks for the reminder.
And since money magically appears out of nowhere, it's foolproof. Now all we have to do is force people to work and we're golden.
Maybe you don't know enough about fiat money.
I don't know how criminality was brought into this. We're comparing idle wealth with idle poverty.
Take a 25 year old guy who sits around eating cheetos and watching TV all day: If he's poor and on welfare, people are critical of him, he's lazy, he's not a contributor to society, etc. But if that guy (same behavior) was the grandson of the CEO of Exxon, well suddenly we have no problem with his cheeto-eating? I say they're morally equivalent:
1. Neither produce anything for society.
2. Neither live off their own money.
Yet all the judgment is heaped onto the poor one.
I've always seen it as simply the minimum hourly wage necessary for an individual to meet basic needs, food, clothing, shelter, etc.
If you've ever supported yourself on a low-wage job, you should know that hours can be extremely erratic and many employers will prevent you from reaching 40 hours a week, lest they be penalized by full-time worker taxes. That means on a given week, depending on scheduling, you'll probably be getting between 30 and 39 hours. This could be the difference between $11,600 a year and $15,000 a year gross based on $7.45 an hour (a huge difference from 5 years ago, when I was making $5.15). That's a 23% difference. The point is, an hourly basis for a "living wage" is meaningless.
Even if we're talking on a monthly basis, there are vast regional differences in cost of living that could not be encompassed by a federal cost of living mandate. Around here, especially in some of the more rural areas, you could eat and have a warm place to live on $600 a month with all utilities paid. Try and pull that off in San Fransisco, Chicago or New York City. Won't fucking happen; not even in the ghetto.
$600 a month will get you a palace in China or India.
My point is that a "living wage" is influenced by so many external factors that it's impossible to standardize, and any attempts to do so smack of corruption and class warfare.
I've never heard it associated with unions or smugness.
Union Pushes Living Wage Bill
Chicago Airport Workers Seek Living Wage
Ottawa Endorses Living Wage for All Its Employees
Local Unions Demand Living Wage
I could go on.
The smugness is inherent in anything to do with unions.
Sure, it may be tough to nail down and definitely varies region-to-region, but the whole point of having the term is to make the point that what the government calls "minimum wage" is not necessarily a wage that someone can actually live on.
Saying the term itself is smug and politically charged is like saying the word "gun" is politically charged because some people support "gun control".
Or take a person who sits around all day posting on Slashdot?
The US is particularly judgmental about laziness. Not as bad as Prussia, where the King would personally beat anyone he noticed idling about, for his own good, as well as the good of the nation, of course, but bad enough. Welfare queens are considered about the lowest life form in the nation, no better than thieves, and worse than used car salesmen and ambulance chasers.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
but the whole point of having the term is to make the point that what the government calls "minimum wage" is not necessarily a wage that someone can actually live on.
Bullshit. That $600 a month scenario was me, and I was living on my own making minimum wage. If I can do it on $5.15, surely someone can do it on $7.45.
Disclaimer: I'm a member of the Swedish Pirate Party, and I've been so for a few years. I've voted for them in the three most recent elections (two for the Swedish parliament and one for the EU parliament).
I definitely believe that this is a good move. Rickard Falkvinge is a very charismatic person, but also a controversial one. He's enthusiastic, he knows how to reach the headlines and has done a wonderful job of founding the party and establishing an awareness of these questions in Sweden. The problem is that he lacks political tact. He's committed at least two really bad faux-pas, one statement in which he defended the right to keep but not buy child pornography and one time when he asked for personal funding from the party members, suggesting as they would be gifts they didn't need to be taxed. On top of that, there is a common view that the Pirate Party is Falkvinge's own private project and that he is something of a cult leader.
Therefore it is great to have Troberg on board as a leader. She is less technical and more personal than Falkvinge, but first and foremost she's much better suited to running an organisation than Falkvinge ever was. She will be able to handle people without driving them off, she's competent and she radiates credibility in a way that a party with the word "pirate" in its name needs desperately. Falkvinge was great for kick starting the party but Troberg is just the right person to take it to the next level. She has a tough job though - the party flopped in the 2010 elections and without a lot of hard work there is a risk the party will dwindle and be largely forgotten well before the 2014 EU parliament elections.
I fail to see how sitting around while smoking dope and writing poetry qualifies as more "work" than seeking out new talent
Two words, opportunity cost. It takes 1000's of hours to hone your skills. You can't go to college, get a degree, and then work a demanding 9-5 office job and simultaneously be a successful musician. It's all or nothing. You have to take the minimum wage job with flexible hours and be a musician or do the office job.
Also, writing good music is mentally and emotionally straining. You don't write good music "sitting around smoking dope". It takes inspiration. Which takes time. It's not like writing a computer program where you say OK, I'm going to write this program that does X. You can't just say to yourself OK, I'm going to write a masterpiece.
I like the people on this site, but man, when it comes to art and music, you guys are fucking clueless.
What, no Black Pearl jokes? Damn.
How about I go and get a truck full of that untasy food and feed them to my cattle.
Do not understimate the power of salt and peppar!
Is that why I have to wait 30 days before I can see the latest SGU or Caprica episode on syfy.com?
Don't you brag about still being on dial-up? Why the fuck do you care? It isn't as if you are going to be able to watch it anyway.
Well, I don't know if I'll use the word abusive either, but it does seem needlessly assholish to make something taste so foul that someone will need to starve themselves for several days before being willing to consume the ration. Not to mention not eating for those days will impact health and stuff. I'd opt for making ok tasting food that only comes in one flavor and probably make it porridge like. Humans crave variety in their diet, and spending weeks eating the same mush will probably make most folks want something better in life.
Bah... nobody would surrender to the Dread Pirate Anna.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
I'd like to know your literature examples of people that it has worked for.
My point being that having webspace alone wouldn't replace the existing (limited slot) promotion system unless the artist is already established.
And my point being that even being established doesn't really mean success. For all the free press and supposed non-fan "donations" that were made Radiohead still couldn't pull it off. What happens when artists start putting out stuff on the web on a regular basis with no backing and no free advertising? I'm not disagreeing with you but rather throwing in more ideas behind it.
It would have been interesting to me to see what would have happened if Radiohead had put a dollar value on their recording that they would have like to have seen with an active ticker. Much like Wikipedia has today during their pledge drive. I wonder if people would have ponied up more or the rate of decline in payments after the mark was met. It would be even more interesting to see Radiohead break down the costs of an album production in a meaningful way. I don't think people really appreciate the costs involved in producing a first rate album. I have no doubt that they have no idea how much time some of these people put into their craft and the risks they're taking to deliver entertainment.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I like the people on this site, but man, when it comes to art and music, you guys are fucking clueless.
Look at my website, dipshit. I run a record review site. I'd bet 50 to 1 I know more about music and art than you ever will. And I know from being a musician, being around musicians, and watching untold hundreds of documentaries that writing music is much, much less than people make it out to be. Improvisational artists can put out tens of records per year because they have the mental discipline to receive inspiration in the moment, rather than spending months crying about their girlfriends in order to shit out three stanzas of heartbreak and loss that can be spoon-fed to a braindead public.
You can't just say to yourself OK, I'm going to write a masterpiece.
You're right. And nobody spends three months on one piece of music and then declares "I have written a masterpiece." Music (and art in general) is entirely subjective; what makes a 'masterpiece' is a confluence of people throwing their support around a particular work. Art is personal expression; the only thing that makes 'great art' is positive response from others.
I could go on but this is the most I'm willing to give to an AC.
Only a fool would repeat an experiment that failed with the exact same parameters, hoping that it would be a success next time. What makes you think Copyright won't be abused/extended (again!) in the next iteration by the very same economic forces that abused/extended it in its current form? Will there be no $LOBBYIST(s) a la Disney in the future?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Freenet - is cryptonetwork for anonymous distributed storages/sharing of files and of messages (message boards, free-mail etc also work. also static web-like HTML pages). Check it out it rocks (but it IS for patient people! just 5 minutes to set up though - but weeks to really learn the possibilities!!)
Copyright is a deal. You agree to pay the creators of content a fixed amount to experience the content once. Agree? Agree. Deal. One side decides to make copies and give them away that is breaking a deal. You can parse EULAs, the DMCA and the Constitution any way you want, it is still breaking a deal.
"...and yet, I blame society" Duke - Repo Man
Yes it does. It really grew out of the English game rounders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders
http://joeposnanski.si.com/2010/11/08/history-lessons-with-bud/
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Clifford Hugh Douglas figured all this out nearly 100 years ago, and put it into a completely practical system called Social Credit. Not only would Social Credit end poverty and economic oppression, but unlike Socialism it would actually do a better job than Capitalism as a platform underlying private enterprise! Check it out - read Heinlein's For Us The Living, A Comedy Of Custom, and then have a look at all the online resources. The man was the Einstein of Economics, but because Economics is a corrupt science, his work has never been recognized. All the wars after WWI are one result of this heinous suppression of the truth.
Social Credit would solve everything...
How is it a "few producers / many consumers" wealth redistribution scheme?
If anything, it redistributes wealth from producers to consumers.
One thing that is highly questionable is if the basic income would stay so basic. At least here in Norway, when you add up the people on all forms of benefits including retirement benefits and the public sector they're almost 50% of the voting population. Over the next years the wave of elderly means a majority will be getting their money from the government. On the short term that means the more they give to themselves, the richer they will get. At least until the private sector gives up funding everyone else and the economy collapses.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Yeah, "grew out of" and actually, Rounders "grew out of" some French game. Modern baseball was formalized in America a full 30 years before Rounders was. What you're saying is like trying to compare the first version of Indian Chess with the later refined Persian Chess that is mostly what is used today.
By your terms I guess that all music was influenced by some caveman hitting a hollow log with a stick too and by that same logic the music made today is just a lightweight rip off of Ogga the Hunter circa 50000 BC.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
You've done a great job trying to create an argument to support a faulty conclusion to preserve your world view.
For that, I commend you. You have a future in politics and/or internet based arguments. I wish you the best of luck in the new year.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
What's this I heard about you using two or more registered user accounts here on slashdot, clone? clone53421 (1310749) and this one clone52431 (1805862)??
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1927208&cid=34689212
It also appears that your big trolling mouth and skimming got you into a jam again in that URL above, and you ran away. How embarassing for you clone!
I see you've taken the last resort of those who know they're wrong. Clumsy but sadly commonplace.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Its not that I know I'm wrong or that I know I'm right. Its a response to an argument that is clearly headed nowhere as its left the realm of objectivity.
We agree on the facts, disagree on semantics. You responded to facts with an argument about how to interpret those facts. That's not fun for anyone. From your responses it seems clear that you are not an emotionally disinterested party: all of your arguments will be centred around feeding that emotionally twinged pre-conceived conclusion.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Yawn
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
and did Rickard Falkvinge get to parley?
apk, kingsjokers, MEK_LoveBug, or the kings jokwers?
oh wait, you're all 4 the same person. embarrassing = YOU.
So you ADMIT you have more than 1 registered account here then, clone53421 (1310749) and this one clone52431 (1805862)!
(lol... hilarious!)
Also see subject above. You are WRONG, as wrong gets, as per your usual.
I have DSL at home.
And high-speed at work.
Only when I'm stuck in a hotel do I have to downgrade to dialup. So when I'm at home (or work) I watch an episode off syfy.com
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Except we aren't handing those paper notes to the artists. We're handing them to their producer-overlords who then say, "By the way, your band still owes us $250,000 for the studio sessions we booked while you were all sick with the flu."
I'd like to know your literature examples of people that it has worked for.
I don't have a ready answer/link to that one. From memory it is writers offering custom variations for a fee - if enough readers pony up the money the writer will expand on what happens with minor characters. Just go time to dash off some quick responses then I need to sleep - I'll dig through my bookmarks and references in a couple of days and post the links here.
Here's a publishing company offering some free downloads as part of their business model.
Having since listened to the Radiohead album in question (In Rainbows) they might have done better if the album wasn't so bad.
Bittorrent alone won't work - I agree. Something fan based that reviews and points at bittorrents might be useful - I'm thinking of the sort of photocopied music mags that used to get dropped off at pubs around the Sydney Indie scene.
Yes - I think a published "target" might help - even an ego type board posting messages and/or donators names.
With movies - product placement'd be interesting - given the small budget Pioneer One was made with. And actors could be very cheap - most NIDA graduates'd jump at the chance to work in a production that would get a large audience.
Two words: anger management.
One word: loser.
The drawbacks... someone has to pay for it. Oh sorry, the drawback.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
We had a few billions for bailouts. If we got that amount of money just to keep a few bankers from selling apples on the street, how much easier should it be to pay millions of people who'd be already quite happy with 600 bucks a month?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Meh, I'm a libertarian... I don't think the government should do either. Technically, neither does our constitution.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
How did we get into a Malthusian dystopia all of the sudden?
If I had to guess, I'd say it was the discovery of penicilin. But who knows?
Please just follow your ideals, cancel your internet subscription and go live under a rock.
Actually, in terms of resource savings, dying would be preferable to living in any way, even if under a rock, according to what I have exposed. And, as telling someone to die is considered somewhat more offensive than just telling them to avoid the internet and move, I believe it'd make for a suggestion more suited to your purposes.
I'm a social-liberal. Odd mix, I know.
I am quite convinced that a healthy economy needs consumers with money. We're currently not lacking affordable products at reasonable quality, we're lacking the people who can afford them. More and more people have the bare minimum to survive, and that's not enough to keep an economy running. People have to have money to spend to drive an economy. Remember, revenue is not what you produce, it's what you sell. And to sell, you need a buyer. And to buy, he needs money!
In a nutshell, a basic income would ensure just that. I'm fairly sure the economic growth and the increase in spending, and hence the increased tax income and the jobs created, will easily cover the cost.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I agree with you on revenue, but not really on how to get there. Since I give up 36% of my income to the gubmint, that's 36% of my income I cannot spend. And if you think the gubmint efficiently doles that $$ out to the well deserving, think again. By the time it trickles down to welfare recipients, over 50% of the $$ is gone thanks to bureaucracy.
If an employer doesn't pay a fair wage, their competitor, wanting good works, will. It's only when monopolies are allowed (or illegal labor) that companies can force wages down to unbearable levels. Take a look at the Google vs. Facebook programmer situation. Google is throwing more $$ at people to stay because Facebook looks sexier to work for.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Otherwise we can simply pay for what we want more of, and ignore the rest. If it ain't worth your money to get more of it, suit yourself if the creator can't/won't create any more for you. If it ain't worth the money for anyone to get more work done, maybe the "content creator" would have to keep doing it in her/his spare time. Doesn't require socialism at all ;) Works fine with intuitive view that it is actually the new work, and not work from the past that actually has an economical value. Since file copying and file sharing as a means of distribution is free, the only thing that might still have a value is the creation of new immateria - no longer the distribution of old immateria - which all current copyright legislation has totally missed.
This is all good and well for people who have skills and are hence sought after. But these people are also no problem. They have spending money. There is a level of income when it doesn't matter, for the economy at least, whether you earn more. If there's money left over at the end of the month, after you bought everything you wanted, essentially you're earning too much from the economy's point of view. Of course not from yours (hell, I would certainly complain if my paycheck was cut by the 1000 bucks I "over-earn").
But for the economy it doesn't really make a big difference whether you earn X money (with X being the amount of money you need to buy all the things you wanted to buy, within reason) or X+Y money (with Y being a positive number). You're not spending Y, that money is not used for consumption and hence not useful for the economy.
The problem is people earning less than X. If they had X, they'd buy what they want. Since they have less than X, some goods remain unbought. Economy could benefit from these people having enough money to buy everything they want.
Now, the reason these people don't get more money is that they're not in the lucky situation to be able to choose who to work for, they're not sought after, they're the ones looking for a job. And supply and demand (i.e. many people competing for few jobs) dictates that they will have to sell their work force cheaply. Cheaper than what would allow them to earn X.
So what you said, i.e. "If an employer doesn't pay a fair wage, their competitor, wanting good works, will" does not work here. These people are not in the position to be negotiating for a "fair wage" or even choose their job.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Does that mean you're suggesting the rest of us should have to pay for peoples' poor choices in life?
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Poor choice, no choice, who's to say?
It depends on your goal. If your goal is personal profit and maximizing your own money, then of course this is not in your interest. This should not be the goal of a country, though, at least in my opinion. IMO, one of the goals of a country should be a healthy, stable economy, and that requires (besides strong companies that can and do produce internationally competitive products) a population able and willing to spend money.
Domestic sale (and domestic ability to buy) is very important. Especially because the biggest sector has the hardest time exporting: Services. You can only export services if you rely on foreigners to come to your country as tourists because you can't really provide services to people abroad (with a few exceptions that, in turn, need a very extensive infrastructure, and you're in competition with countries that can provide those services for a fraction of the cost). So unless you want your economy to rely on tourism (which is fickle at best), you have to have a population that has enough money to spend on services. And as you might expect, services are amongst the first things people cut back on when they are lacking money. If I only have money for food or a haircut, take a wild guess which one I'll get.
I think we're discussing here the benefit for a country and its population. And yes, IMO for this goal it is indeed a good idea to support those that made a poor choice, or those that never had one.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fair enough, but I've seen my fair share of people who had every excuse in the world to fail (including my former neighbor who lived with his alcoholic grandfather after his drug addicted mother commited suicide). I think there's more to poor choice than lots of people consider.
I agree with you again on economy as a whole. I think we're just going to disagree on best methods to accomplish that. Stable economy, check. Healthy citizens, check. Educated citizens, check.
Growing food, while important, does not generate a strong economy, it generates a sustainable one. Services don't always require infrastructures in countries they're exported to (medical, legal, consulting, etc...) but yes, you're spot on in that it's the first to get cut when budgets are tight.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Also, and it's hard to say that without sounding snobbish so I won't even try, poor people are more likely to spend instead of save. I've seen it time and again when I was doing security audits at banks. People who were overdrawn constantly instantly spent whatever money they got. Not only to pay off debts, but also to buy new stuff. The idea to save up doesn't seem to cross their mind. You can see the same phenomenon when poor people suddenly inherit or win a lot of money, it's soon gone again.
Like it or not, such people drive the economy. They SPEND what they have. Which is better for an economy than saving, which might get invested but usually is just stockpiled.
Especially in a time like this when people start to hog and stockpile rare metals like gold for "worse times". This is about the worst that could happen for an economy. This is money that's even more dead than in an account, and this worsens the problems we're facing.
Additionally, the services you mention require a well educated workforce. Medical, legal and consulting services require people with good education and good qualification. You might have noticed that these are also not the people who have a problem with earning enough money to spend it on everything they want. Or do you? The problem is people who have "want fries with that" jobs, and exporting them is insanely hard without a reliance on tourism.
Of course, such a system would "reward" failing. We'd finance a lot of deadbeats this way, but considering the benefits I think it's worth it. First, as explained in the posts above, the economy benefits from it. These people spend whatever money they get their fingers on. And they spend it on services, which is by itself perfect because no "real" goods have to be produced, services are almost always pure workforce, i.e. about the best you could sell (from the viewpoint of a country's economy). Cheap, uneducated workforce too, which in turn creates jobs for all these people.
Also, with people having money, they have something to lose. And if history showed us one thing, it's that it is very, very dangerous for the stability of a country if you have an increasing number of people with nothing to lose. I do expect a drop in crime rates, too.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Again, all very insightful thoughts (which is why I friended you).
I'm going to touch on the second to last paragraph though. I don't believe the economy as a whole benefits from taking money from productive people to finance deadbeats so they too can spend money. If a rich person buys a yacht, how many jobs do you think that funds? If a rich person invests their money in stocks, bonds, or saves in a bank, how many jobs do you think that funds? People with more disposable income are much more likely to buy higher end items they may or may not need, and the US still manufactures many of those goods. Again, more jobs.
However, when you take more and more of that money for funding deadbeats, those items are not purchased as often. What you've done in that case is taken away money working for the economy to fund the purchase of extra fries with the combo. You've also helped perpetuate a lifestyle that depends on the transfer of those funds to continue buying extra fries.
On crime rates, I wholly agree, as with people with nothing to lose. I don't think giving them something for nothing helps get them out of the situation they're in, whether self perpetuated or not. I do believe welfare is a good system, as people fall on hard times and need a boost once in a while. I feel the same way about unemployment insurance. I DON'T feel we're using those funds well for generational welfare families or baby factories though.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Doesn't take socialism at all. A privately funded pirate economy is very possible. Where people pay for what they like ( and want more of ), and ignore the rest. The government or taxes need not be involved at all (except in abolishing this copyright madness) :p
People with much disposable income are likely to save it and stockpile it. If I could show you without breaking the NDA I'd hand you the results of the bank I've been working with, but I am sure they weren't the only ones conducting such studies. There is a very good reason why you get much more favorable conditions if you plan to park a lot of your money in a bank, simply because they KNOW that even if it is daily due they can rely on you not touching it for a while. The "big money means big contracts" myth also doesn't hold much water in a global economy anymore, since these are also the people who are most likely to have the means to move such contracts to areas where labor is cheaper. Why should I build a yacht at a US shipyard if I can get it cheaper in Bulgaria, and by no means of worse quality?
Also, as stated before, the "best" kind of goods to sell, from the point of a country's economy, is services. Goods that are entirely made up of work, with no resources being used (aside of power, gas, but no metal or produce having to be extracted from the land). And there's only so many services you need, once you had a haircut, you probably won't need one for a while. No matter how rich and no matter how much you spend on a single one.
One thing I do agree on is that there should be a BIG incentive for people to go out and work for their money instead of sitting on their lazy butt. But I am definitely convinced that you get more motivated and better working people if you give them a good reason and an incentive to WANT to work instead of pressing them into a modern form of slavery (i.e. "work or starve, your choice"). With the latter, they will do their job half assed at best, with their only motivation to get out of the office or store as soon as they can, invest as little time and energy into their work as possible and if possible steal as much as they can get away with while they're there. Do I want someone like that to work for me? Certainly not!
I want a motivated worker who comes to work with the intention to give my customer what he wants (within the limits of what I as his boss want). And of course as a customer I want a store clerk that appreciates my business with him, not someone leaning behind the counter waiting for the time to tick down 'til he gets out of his personal hell.
There is no way to force someone to do "good" work. Someone who simply does not want to will always do what I described above. And I do not want to deal with such people, neither as their employer nor as their customer! So I'd say, if you don't WANT to work and if you're happy with 500 bucks a month, here's the money and get out of my sight, no, get out of my life!
What we do have to do in such a case is twofold, though. First, we have to offer people who WANT to work but lack the training or ability to give them just that, so they can get a job. Sure, you don't need a lot of training for a burger flipper job, but anything beyond usually takes at least minimal skills. So I would say, let people learn! Possibly, to ensure that they're serious about it, require them to do a burger flipper job while they get their training, I am quite sure we can fill a lot of the flipper positions with people that way, and people who are quite a bit motivated to keep that job and do it well since they do not want to lose their chance for a better education and training, which is tied to them holding that job.
Second, society would have to change its look at people who want to but cannot. I'm sorry to say it, but when you talked about "why fund people who made a wrong choice in life", it kinda stabbed me. Making a wrong choice is human, and I am all for aiding people who want to correct such mistakes. If we keep looking down at people who made the wrong turn once, they will never even WANT to change their ways. Why bother trying fitting into a society that shows you clearly that they do not want to deal with you? Look down at the deadbeats and those that refuse to work (especially since we fund them), peer pressure can do wonders here, but I do personally admire everyone who manages to pull his ass out of the gutter and I try my best to be supportive to everyone who at least tries to improve his situation.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I doubt you're ever going to get motivated workers at a burger joint, but I certainly agree with the thought of finding a way to provide training for those who want it and would participate.
Regarding my comment, I stand by it. I've had plenty of opportunity to make wrong choices in life, and certainly have made a few. However, I should have made it clearer what I meant. People who make many wrong choices, or continue to do so especially at the detriment of others. Career thieves for example. How many bad choices does a person have to make for me to write them off? It certainly differs, but at some point I do give up.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
I think it's a matter of esteem, whether you get motivated workers. If someone knows he's appreciated, he will enjoy it. If you keep telling people they're replaceable at any time, how motivated will someone be?
We have a similar problem with preschool teachers here. How motivated are they going to be to watch our kids in their most important period of their life if they're looked at with a "gee, how hard could it be to play with kids all day?" attitude. In other countries these people are held in a much higher esteem, similar of that of university professors, and behold, these countries are usually also at the leading edge of student qualification comparison tests.
I have no problem to appreciate someone working at a fast food restaurant, I know I couldn't stand around all day and be friendly to the average idiots frequenting a burger joint while wearing a stupid outfit. Sooner or later I would most likely just flip. And I don't mean burgers. Same for the guy that cleans my toilet at work, how he can do that every day without throwing up constantly is beyond me.
OTOH, I have a hard time not looking down on bank managers after having to work so close with them for far too long. What's the difference between a pig and a bank manager? You don't turn a pig into a manager by making it drunk. Seriously.
So in general, whether or not you get motivated workers is a matter of esteem and whether or not you treat people with respect. Of course, as long as we equate esteem with "how much money does he earn", it's not really going to change.
Concerning the question how many mistakes one may make before you drop him, as many as it takes him. I'm willing to pay that three times convict his education if there's a good chance for change. There's no blanket solution for it, of course, and I would say an examination of every case would be necessary. If you do not offer someone an exit from that "career", how should he get out even if he wanted? Sure, some feel at home in prison, you won't change these people. Simply dropping the rest because there are some that are unchangeable and unwilling to work within society isn't going to be a solution either, though. I think when someone stays in prison for a while, you can get a pretty good idea how he will act when released, so I guess it should be quite possible to find the ones that are worth a try and those that are hopeless.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.