You're assuming that they'll win. IMO, that's not necessarily a given. As the so-called "big boys" go, Microsoft is one of the biggest and best known. And despite how much the/. crowd loves to hate them, MS still has a very good reputation with the average consumer. This situation has just as much potential to crush MAPS as it does to boost them.
It is a legal fiction that has made the corporation an equal to the individual before the law -- a very destrcutive legal fiction I might add.
Ridiculous. While I agree that big corporations do have too much power, I don't see it as at all unreasonable for the law to recognize a collection of individuals as having the same rights as any one of them.
For corporations are not equal to humans in any real sense: they are potentially immortal,
And if technology becomes advanced enough to guarantee potential immortality to individuals? Do we cease then to be worthy of rights?
command more wealth than many nations,
So do more than a few individuals.
and have a degree of power over throngs of people which, in more sane societies, is reserved for the government alone, or the people themselves.
If you're referring here to their employeees, then they only have such power because these people agreed to give it to them in return for a salary. On the other hand, if you're referring to the power corporations wield with threats of expensive litigation, I agree that they do have too much power. However, two wrongs don't make a right. I think that the answer to this is not to reduce the rights of corporations, but to increase the rights of everyone, individual and corporation alike. Repeal the DMCA and replace it with a law explicitly stating the right to reverse engineer anything you haven't contractually agreed not to reverse engineer. (or better yet, a constitutional amendment explicitly stating the right to do anything that doesn't involve initiating force or using fraud.)
their notion that there is no trade off between freedom for corporations from regulation and freedom for individuals is equally wrong (child labor, the rights of employees,- for better or worse - to unionize, the family leave act, etc).
I think you're confusing freedom with handout.
Freedom for corporations, and freedom for individuals both come down to the same thing. Freedom for two independant parties to form a contract on whatever terms they consider to be acceptable. Employees have a right to unionize. They have a right to leave work if they have to take care of a family member. But people also have the right to sign a contract agreeing not to unionize or take family leave, and corporations (which, in case you've forgotten, are composed of people) have the right to refuse to hire anyone who won't sign the aforementioned contract.
One of the things that needs to be addressed is... [that] the constitution "only applies to the government."
Damn right the constitution only applies to the government. The government is the only entity that needs constitutional limits, because the government is the only entity that has an inherent right to deprive other entities of their rights in the name of preserving the rights of others. If OmniMegaCorp (tm) could arrest me and throw me in jail, then they'd need to have constitutional restrictions requiring them to give me a fair trial. But they can't. The worst they can (legally) do to me is sue me, and for that they need to go through the courts, which are guided by the laws passed by the government, which is restricted by the constitution.
Ask any Republican or Libertarian why a given corporation should be allowed to get away with some inethical behavior (e.g., cheap products, substandard service), & once you pin them down on the facts that what was done *is* inethical, they end up whining ``Well, they're just doing what every other comapny is doing. And they have to make a profit."
I can't speak for the Repubicans, but I think if you ask your average Libertarian, you'll get the answer "If the corporation has used force or fraud, then they shouldn't be able to 'get away with it'. But if the extent of their 'inethical [sic] behavior' is simply manufacturing inferior products, they have every right to do so. And you have every right to not buy their products."
The assumption is that private organizations would operate more efficiently than the government, and thus we would obtain more value per dollar spent on space exploration.
For those of you who don't have the attention span to read a whole Katz article, let me put it into a few bullet points.
Joseph Lockard, a guy with lots of fancy credentials, in such relevant fields as English Lit thinks that "virtual communities" are a "bunch of hooey".
He's written a book about it, titled Progressive Politics, Electronic Individualism, and the Myth of Virtual Community
His points include
It's expensive to belong to an online community. To belong to an online community, you have to be either rich, or skilled enough that your employer picks up the tab.
Because of this, people online are elitists.
You can't have a real community without materiality.
Katz then presents counterarguments:
It's too soon to tell anything about online communitites.
In the days of Jeffersonian Democracy, individual liberties were an ideal of the elitists.
Lockard uses a "narrow definition of community".
Sucessful communities include Slashdot, Kuro5hin, the WELL, and AOL.
Online communities compliment the need for real life interaction, not supplant it.
Bottom line. Katz does a decent job of explaining the argument that "The Virtual Community" is a myth, and then debunking it. Unfortunately, this is something most of us already get, already being members of at least one "Virtual Community".
Isaac Asimov wrote a story based on a similar concept a number of years (decades?) ago. IIRC, the title was "The Dead Past".
Interestingly, the technology in Asimov's story developed the other way-- devices were created to view historical events, but were tremendously expensive, and tightly controlled by the government. A pair of maverick scientists discover that they can produce a working model from available parts, and release the plans to the world.
Unfortunately for society, it's only then, once it's too late, that they realize that the devices can also be used to view the past so recent, it's for all practical purposes the same as the present. All though the story ends before the social effects can become known, the implication is that this will cripple society.
Can anyone come up with a distribution model that will work with the new tech rather than being swamped by it? "
Yes. It's called "give us a way to pay for individual songs, and download them in the format of our choice." I know a lot of people who have said that they'd gladly pay a reasonable price, if they could go to a music publishers website and download them, instead of hunting around for the right song, and hoping the quality doesn't suck.
We'll be all right as long as they don't send us to that horrible planted of the apes.... wait a minute... Statue of Liberty.... That was earth! Noooo! They blew up the earth! *sob*
I know it's been said already, but I'm going to take a second to plug the Internet Junkbuster. It's free, easy to set up, and lets you block cookies and banner ads on either a "accept only these" basis, or a "accept all but these" basis. I started using it a few months ago, and I love it. I very rarely see a banner ad, except those on Slashdot, which I chose to leave allowed.
Bzzzt! Close, but not quite. The users click yes to "make AOL their default browser". Then AOL trashes all other dial-up networking settings and replaces key.dll's with it's own. That's a bit more invasive than just setting a default browser.
I agree completely. What exactly is the difference between the Internet connection that a state university provides in the dorms, and the electricity, phone lines, or cable hookups? I don't know about other colleges, buy my school uses campus facilities for non-educational purposes all the time. We have a rec center. We have movie screenings in the auditoriums. We have student government organized functions of all types.
The point is, a college is providing more than just an education. They provide a community. Shouldn't it be up to the members of the commmunity what sort of standards they apply?
Slashdot Mirror
<pet peeve>
A NON-ERGONOMIC optical mouse with ONE FREAKING BUTTON!
</pet peeve>
You're assuming that they'll win. IMO, that's not necessarily a given. As the so-called "big boys" go, Microsoft is one of the biggest and best known. And despite how much the /. crowd loves to hate them, MS still has a very good reputation with the average consumer. This situation has just as much potential to crush MAPS as it does to boost them.
I think you're confusing freedom with handout.
Freedom for corporations, and freedom for individuals both come down to the same thing. Freedom for two independant parties to form a contract on whatever terms they consider to be acceptable. Employees have a right to unionize. They have a right to leave work if they have to take care of a family member. But people also have the right to sign a contract agreeing not to unionize or take family leave, and corporations (which, in case you've forgotten, are composed of people) have the right to refuse to hire anyone who won't sign the aforementioned contract. Damn right the constitution only applies to the government. The government is the only entity that needs constitutional limits, because the government is the only entity that has an inherent right to deprive other entities of their rights in the name of preserving the rights of others. If OmniMegaCorp (tm) could arrest me and throw me in jail, then they'd need to have constitutional restrictions requiring them to give me a fair trial. But they can't. The worst they can (legally) do to me is sue me, and for that they need to go through the courts, which are guided by the laws passed by the government, which is restricted by the constitution.The assumption is that private organizations would operate more efficiently than the government, and thus we would obtain more value per dollar spent on space exploration.
- Certain drugs can cause immediate mental breakdown, and cause a danger to others. There is a case to made that certain drugs should be illegal.
Perhaps, but such drugs are a small subset of the drugs that are actually illegal.- Well, first of all, that's not at the state or federal level, as I specified.
http://www.aclu.org/issues/gay/sodomy.htmlFor those of you who don't have the attention span to read a whole Katz article, let me put it into a few bullet points.
Bottom line. Katz does a decent job of explaining the argument that "The Virtual Community" is a myth, and then debunking it. Unfortunately, this is something most of us already get, already being members of at least one "Virtual Community".
Or perhaps the OSI? Don't they have it trademarked? If so, it's a pretty clear cut case of defamation, right?
You need to do the same thing that the TV studios have been doing for years when a popular program runs it's course...
Spinoff Shows! Perhaps one about Nate's new job as a talk-radio psychologist, or one in which Hemos joins the army and annoys the heck out of Sargeant Carter.
Taco and CoyboyNeal can of course, begin production on GIS: TNG
They've been doing that for years!
Not that that's a bad thing, of course...
Isaac Asimov wrote a story based on a similar concept a number of years (decades?) ago. IIRC, the title was "The Dead Past".
Interestingly, the technology in Asimov's story developed the other way-- devices were created to view historical events, but were tremendously expensive, and tightly controlled by the government. A pair of maverick scientists discover that they can produce a working model from available parts, and release the plans to the world.
Unfortunately for society, it's only then, once it's too late, that they realize that the devices can also be used to view the past so recent, it's for all practical purposes the same as the present. All though the story ends before the social effects can become known, the implication is that this will cripple society.
The *real* link is here.
Check Slashcode. The module (I believe it's called mod_adbanner) was released a week or so ago.
I can see the /. headline now!
"Gondolin Falls - Imminent Death of the Internet Predicted!"
Announced the very last week that I'm here at school with my spiffy-fast 'net connection. I'm pretty sure they did it just to taunt me.
Because, sadly, nobody bothers to actually follow the links when they moderate.
Yes. It's called "give us a way to pay for individual songs, and download them in the format of our choice." I know a lot of people who have said that they'd gladly pay a reasonable price, if they could go to a music publishers website and download them, instead of hunting around for the right song, and hoping the quality doesn't suck.
(I know, Different episode, but...)
We'll be all right as long as they don't send us to that horrible planted of the apes.... wait a minute... Statue of Liberty.... That was earth! Noooo! They blew up the earth! *sob*
I know it's been said already, but I'm going to take a second to plug the Internet Junkbuster. It's free, easy to set up, and lets you block cookies and banner ads on either a "accept only these" basis, or a "accept all but these" basis. I started using it a few months ago, and I love it. I very rarely see a banner ad, except those on Slashdot, which I chose to leave allowed.
*Thwaps the moderator who marked this up* Click through the link next time!
As for Mr. Anon Coward, don't you have anything better to do? And your site's not funny, either.
- UCITA makes the authors of software legally liable if it doesn't work right.
- Consumers can be forced to waive this right as part of a shrink use have shrink wrap licenses.
See the problem?Don't feed the trolls.
Bzzzt! Close, but not quite. The users click yes to "make AOL their default browser". Then AOL trashes all other dial-up networking settings and replaces key .dll's with it's own. That's a bit more invasive than just setting a default browser.
Ha! I remember it, and I'm only 18. I win.
The point is, a college is providing more than just an education. They provide a community. Shouldn't it be up to the members of the commmunity what sort of standards they apply?