If a goverment cannot trust is citizens to be armed, why must the citizen trust the goverment?
The key here is "Armed". Should Joe Public be allowed to keep a SAW around? An RPG? Canisters of nerve gas? Perhaps some tanks? How about a few Atom Bombs? Back in the 1770's, the definition of "Armed" was much simplier. Should a group want to overthrow the current US government, it's not going to happen with a bunch of rifles and handguns. The complications of violently overthrowing the government are far, far greater than when the Consitution was drafted.
You can argue all you want about gun rights, but please don't tell me it's because you need to be ready to violently overthrow the government.
Ahh, it brings back memories of silly flamewars of old on local BBS messageboards and fidonet. Now instead of the hardware and the OS (IBM vs Apple vs Amiga vs Atari ST...) we've switched to the OS. The more things change....
I know people who actually pirate the songs first, then buy the same album. I have goten the impression this is not uncommon. It's partially wanting to play the songs in a car and wanting the CD it's self.
Well, virtually everyone I know either has a CDR (they're super cheap, you know), or access to one. mp3->wav->CD is a very simple thing to do. So once you have the mp3s, you essentially have the CD.
Yes and no. I definitly have used pirate sites as a form of radio when I had time to browse them and I know lots of other people (with fast dorm internet access) who do the same thing. Plus, you should remember that many bandz have essentially no chance of getting airplay, so mass uploadings are much better then nothing.
Well, got me, I'm sure it happens to some degree. I'm sure there are a few bands out there that try and stick their music wherever they possible can. So far it doesn't seem to have done much, and I don't expect it will. You're right about the airplay though - I guess it can't hurt, but I really don't think it makes any more impact than having your music up on mp3.com - unless people have a reason to listen to you, the chance of someone randomly liking your song so much to seek your band out and actually buy a CD is very low.
Anyway, I just really don't think uploading music to pirate FTP sites is going to change jack squat. "mp3 radio" already happens in the form of shoutcast, and this makes little difference either - with virtually unlimited choices, no one bothers. mp3 has been around for awhile, but no one is making their music career off self-distributing mp3s. The music industry is far bigger than just distribution, and right now (and for a long time), there's not much mp3/the internet is going to do to change that.
The first thing is to turn the pirate sites into an actuall promotion system instead of just a distribution system. This is what I mean by having people submit upload URLs for sites to some promotional outfit (or to the band directly) and the bands would upload their promotional material to thse sites.
I guess I'm not understanding you, because I don't see how this changes much. If you upload your music to a pirate FTP, you're simply opening up another distribution door. If everyone does this, who is going to download hundreds of songs by unknown bands and listen to them all, simply because they found it on their favorite ftp site? Just as many people as those who randomly search through mp3.com and download songs --- not many.
This would bve a more valuble form of promotion if we added support for HTML in mp3 comments to the major mp3 players, i.e. click a button on the player to open a web page in a browser which included art, lyrics, advertisments, links to go buy CDs, etc. This is somehting programmers would do that could really help the independant artists and would make it much more effective to distribute free music. I'd say artists need to actually verbally give their web address in a promotional song now since the players do not support this.
Some artists already do stick a short audio ad for their website at the beginning of their songs. Does this help? A little, but the real problem is getting people to listen to the mp3 in the first place. If you have an mp3, and you actually have interest in the band, chances are it isn't that hard to find out something about them just by searching for them on UBL, mp3.com, or whatever.
I do not personally buy CDs of bands which are booked by major record labels (protest), but I do have a LOT of friends whose buying habbits are significantly influenced bit by mp3s
It's too bad your "protest" hurts the artists as well, considering you seem to advocate pirating mp3s. Anyway to the other point -- I didn't say mp3s don't influence what someone might buy. I said that people very rarely buy CDs which they already have (pirated) mp3 versions of. Friends of mine may buy OTHER cds of the same band because they liked the one they pirated, but they don't buy the ones they've already pirated.
Techno bands especially can do really well by distributing free music since there are a lot of techno bands and it can be hard to find ones you like without first having the mp3s..
How are techno bands any different than any other sort of band? There are a billion bands out there of all types... and sure, having access to music does allow for people to discover bands they like.
and many people want records and not just CDs. Once a DJ friend of mine pointed at a box of records and said "That box probable cost me $10,000, not because the record in it are expencive, but because I had to buy those 20 boxes worth of records to get these good ones."
Well, there is a cult following for vinyl, but its not a big cult. As far as the anecdote - most people do not randomly buy albums and hope they're good. In the case you want to hear a band before you buy their album, there are a variety of ways to accomplish this without pirating mp3s. Almost every record store in my city allows you to listen to CDs in the store. Most bands offer one or more songs, free in high quality mp3 format, and others in a lower-quality format (so you still have a reason besides your conscience to buy their CD if you like it).
Actually, I would not be surprised to see mp3 promotion surpass radio promotion really soon for things like Techno, but remember puttingyour shit on mp3.com dose not count as promotion. You need to really have an agressing campaign of uploading and pushing it on people in IRC.
If every band in the world begins trying to "aggresively" upload their song(s) to every FTP site in the universe, the situation is no different than looking at mp3.com - tons of songs and bands you've never heard of, and won't download and listen to by random chance. As far as IRC goes, this is not and will not be for a long time (if ever) a real promotional method. As with the FTP scenario, if it ever gets popular enough to make a real difference in growing your audience, there will be 10 zillion bands promoting their music in whatever channels, and no one is going to go listen to them all simply because they have an annoying timer advertising themselves.
Anyway, we'll see what happens, but right now mp3s influence on helping local/indie artists grow their audience has been minimal.
The problem is when the "tool" is being used for far, far more pirating than legitamite use.
mp3 pirating is rampant. So rampant it's not even funny. The amount of 'legitamite' mp3 use (regarding copyrighted works - IE archival, or just them on the computer for the heck of it) is extremely minimal in comparison. Denying this is serious ignorance of reality.
Let's face it - if you already have a CD, having an mp3 copy of it is virtually worthless unless 1) You have a diamond rio or 2) You want to share/trade it with someone else. #2 is why mp3 has exploded, and why there are currently 10 gazillion ftp sites and napster clients running serving up all sorts of copyrighted work.
I'm not saying the RIAA and the music industry in general isn't sickening, but I find myself growing weary of these legitimate use arguments when it's damn well obvious most mp3 use is not legitimate. Atom bombs don't kill people, people kill people, right? If I had 5 bucks for every slashdot poster whining about fair use who was sitting with X gigs of pirated mp3s on his HD, I'd be rich.
Amen! They make you sign your life away because they control the promotion channels.. but MP3s will change this
Well, so far they haven't. Now they're just 10 billion bands with their mp3s up all over the place that no one listens to. Having a world-wide distribution method is wonderful, but it's not terribly useful unless you have a world-wide promotion method. If no one knows who you are, you are simply another needle in the haystack.
In order to grow a national audience, a band must
1) Have a quality recording. I don't mean the music, but the recording itself. It is not cheap to record/master a pro-sounding album rather than what sounds like a local band demo (it doesn't matter how digitially perfect it is if it sounds like crap to start with). Labels make this possible for new bands via a loan of sorts. If you're trying to self-distribute, you're going to have a hard time pulling this off unless you've already got a large stash of money on your hands.
2) Get played on the radio, nationally. Armies of label folks call, and call, and call major radio stations across the country trying to push songs. You have no army by self-distributing other than word of mouth. Major radio stations are virtually controlled by the major lables. I have NEVER heard of an mp3 some DJ or radio station exec just randomly found and loved so much they began running it in heavy rotation. It does not happen.
3) Tour and get booked. If joe the promo guy for Sony Music in Chicago calls super-popular bar X about booking one of their bands, bar X listens. If you call claiming to be a self-distributed sensation, you're going to have to be generating some enormous word of mouth buzz to get in.
4) Every type of miscellany promo conceivable. A band can't do it on their own once they've reached a certain level.
Anyway, easy self-distribution is not the answer to crushing the music industry as we know it, particularly if self-distribution = giving your music away for free. Merchandising t-shirts and hats is great, but consider for a moment how many CDs and mp3s you have, and how many band t-shirts and hats you have. Consider how many people you know that trade mp3s that actually go out to buy CDs of the bands they already have mp3'ed songs of (Among my friends, I can say exactly 0 have done this).
Anyway, mp3 does provide a new distribution method, but how it's going to re-write the rules in the music industry is awfully shaky.
Where the heck is cable access a felony? In Texas, it's a $500 ticket. I only know this because recently a local cable company setup an amensty program for cable thieves.
I doubt you have any musical pieces, specific recording nuances and all, perfectly stored on CD.
Err, actually - the recording nuances are part of the recording. A particular recording is often an entity of its own. The conditions, mics, mastering, etc, are all quite unique to the specific recording. Heck, artifacts of the recording sound are sometimes quite pleasing. That's why all kinds of studios/bands still keep recording their stuff analog rather than to a bunch of ADATs or a HD. Saturating that 2" tape sure does warm up the guitar sound and fatten up the drums.
You are confusing two issues here, namely intellectual rights and privacy
I don't think I'm completely confused about the issue, although point taken, I probably crossed the boundaries a bit. I'll blame sleep deprevation. I do have a problem with making one delimter on a type of information and saying "Okay, you can control that", and then calling other types of control bogus.
You've misread what I said, it is short sighted people who claim information has mass. I make no claims regarding the sightedness of people with differing opinions on ownership of information:).
Ahh! Well, if you really want to nit pick, without mass, there is no information. So if a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around...
This ambiguity is why there is a distinction between "freedom to control your creation" and "freedom to control copies of your creation"
The real sticker there is, the creation is independent of the media it's on or how many instances of it are floating around. Freedom to control my information means the ability to control all instances of it.
Lets imagine you weren't going to see a cent out of Pepsi whether they used your song or not - in the no ownership of information world they use your song without paying you (making them assholes), in the copyrighted world you tell them you want $5000 and they tell you where to stick your $5000 and use another song (making them cheap assholes). How much did you really lose out in the no ownsership of information world? You gained exposure for a start.
The money issue was not the motivating factor here, rather that I'd find it highly repugnant to find my song used in idiotic commerical advertisement without needing to have my consent (Now, if Pepsi would pay me $5 million instead of 5 grand, I might sell out, just once =)). Yeah, maybe I'd get exposure - but I don't want exposure associated with pepsi advertising, agh. If that example is not solid enough for you, let's say the Neo-Nazi party of America begins putting out political radio and tv ads with my song as the background.
My music is far more important, personal, and valuable in every sense of the word than any physical possesion I have. I would rather have someone steal my car than steal my songs for Nazi radio ads.
No I do not find this position fair, but the world is not fair
Well, that is a cop out. Under copyright law, Pepsi can't bastardize my song unless I allow it, nor can the Nazi's, nor can Jerry Springer. That's fair. I'll drop this though and hit your points.
You're now thinking 'yeah but I'll get ripped off even more in the NOIW', which might be true but I wonder if you've really thought about what you would gain in such a world?
I've thought quite a bit about a NOIW world. I do not particularly like it, because I see it as restricting individual freedom. I am not a communitarian in most regards. I don't have a problem with some information being seen as universal, but I do not see all "information" that way. When "all code becomes GPL", "all music is free to copy", and we're in a NOIW, we'll find a huge sector of our society attempting to find ways to live. The FSF's brief answer to this, at least as far as supporting software goes, is to institute some sort of tax on hardware which would then get allocated to projects ala the NSF. Of course, dealing with software is just the tip of the iceberg - Tim O'Reilly needs money to write linux books, Puff Daddy needs money to write music, Maplethorpe needs money to take pictures. Disregarding the very problematic logistics of this, we're slowly talking about giving money to a entity's that encompass and "everything" and we have no choice in the matter. I do not like it when my choices are restricted. I also see plenty of negative effects arising (Is it more valuable to make music free, and allow more people to hear it, or to allow musicians to own their music, and by doing so making money, allowing them to create more?), but I'll cut short. Allowing people to choose the terms they share their creations under (Such as being able to between GPL/BSD) is the only choice compatible with personal freedom.
Granted this wont carry over into the 'it might have been immoral but it was was my job' businesses, but with a total overhaul of the patent system, they might work
Well, I do believe there's a need to overhaul the patent system, not abolish it... but as you said, this is a different beast.
When a company takes my GPL code and breaks the GPL, what they have done is taken free information and made it no longer free.
Well, since your code is still freely availible, it is still free, isn't it? Like I said, I'm not taking your car - I've taken a copy of what you've made, but you still have your copy. I've just used in under terms you've explicitly forbidden. We'll say my moral code allows this, since I'm not taking something from you. If your morality overides mine on copying my closed source program, I guess my morality overrides yours here too. We have problems.
As I tried to point out in my last point, although the fundamental viewpoints are different, it's really about the right to control information. Saying you can't control information is controlling information! One point says you must keep my creation open(and yours too!). The other says you must keep my information closed. Telling me I can't sell a copy of my CD under "no copy" terms is crazy to me. Telling you I can use your CD for whatever "non-free" purpose I feel like is crazy to you. The only way we can co-exist is to respect each others terms.
If I were to sit down with you right now with DVD recording of my true alien abduction to the planet Zybol and say, "Okay Mr. Cookie Monster, here's this long contract I've drawn up which says I'll give this to you, but you can't copy it under any circumstances or tell anyone about it". An NDA of sorts. You sign the contract, you make the choice to agree to my terms and take the DVD. What's the problem with this? Now we move it to "you just can't copy it", ala, the terms you agree to when you buy a DVD right now. Are you saying two humans can not make a contract regarding "information"?
Agreed, but it might well mean it's ok to copy it (morally).
This is what bothers me the most. As far as I'm concerned, you can have whatever morality you want as long as you don't impose it on me, but here you do. MY morality says if you copy my CD under sonso terms, you're stealing it, period. Lots of problems arise when people feel their personal morality allows them to step onto the morality of others. You might say "Oh my no, you're imposing your morality on ME", in which case I say, I friggin CREATED it, thanks. Without me, it wouldn't exist! You take the freedom to choose how I control my creation. My terms take nothing from you - you, in fact, have another choice!
Well, many of my views (like copy a CD and mail the artist money directly) are more for ripping out the middleman than ripping off artists
Self-distribution becoming a viable reality for a variety of media would be very nice. However, your "I'll pay the artist directly" idea is a bit unclear. Do the artists get to dictate this price, or do you? Is it purely a volunteer effort on your part?
I have a paid job programming and havn't yet released anything under the GPL (it's the 'if everyone else is taking advantage of the few benifits of this screwed up system, why shouldn't I' mentality)
The GPL is great. Open source is great. I'm glad it exists and it's thriving. At the same time, the closed source model provides plenty of its own benefits. Not the least of which is that you can make living off your work directly! This includes music, software (many, many types of software do not fall into an open source buisness model), writing, you name it. This is a good thing.
Finally, I do wish you hadn't skipped my movie anecdote from my prior post. It's probably the most substantive argument I made on why IP is logical.
I wasn't playing devils advocate, I find the NOIW intreiging, and people like nadador (who can't see the big picture beyond the square and so condemn those who can) irritate me
Sure sure. I've found our discussion quite pleasant. I've attempted to stick my noise in these kinds of issues a few times with people, but it almost always immediately degrades into bashing/name-calling. Your viewpoints have made me think about things in new ways, and that's always good.
Preferences -> Exclude Topics -> Movies -> Shhh
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Review: "Scream 3"
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· Score: 2
Boycotting the MPAA, which includes boycotting reading about their movies(!) ?
Don't believe Slashdot should carry movie reviews?
I've seen all sorts of debate on the meaning of "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters", here's your complete, very limited hassle solution. Don't thank me, it's been around for awhile.
How is the defintion a problem? Of course music is information. 'Something you can store in your mind' is a nice broad idea of information for a start.
I doubt you have any musical pieces, specific recording nuances and all, perfectly stored in your mind. I'll digress.
A short explaination for the short sighted person who can't grok that information has no mass - there's always one:
For the short sighted person? Thanks, but I've given the topic quite a bit of thought (as have many others) and it seems we disagree on some fundamental points, as many do.
Yes, information can be stored in a variety of ways. That's not the issue. The issue is whether property = matter. For instance, do you own the information to your genome? Should you allow a hospital to copy the information one day in the future, do you believe you no longer have control over whether they make further copies of it and pass it along, to say, insurance companies?
The issue is not whether they have the freedom to control their creation, they do, unconditionally. The issue you are are confusing this with is whether they have the right to control someone elses copy of their information.
How can someone have the freedom to control their creations if they can NOT control the copies of it? In that case you only have freedom as long as you never allow a copy to be made. That is a highly restricted choice, incompatible with the word freedom.
Say I freely distribute an mp3. Pepsi gets a copy and decides to play it as the background music for a commercial. Going by what you've said (and you may just haven't stated this clearly), I have no control over whether they use it or not - I allowed the music to be copied, and I don't have control over a copy of my "information". Now my intensly personal love ballad is being used in a Pepsi commercial played 20 times a day involving two ducks. Do you really find this posistion fair?
Let's examine a little further. Say I make the most amazing movie ever made. Everyone wants to see it. The only way I allow people to view it (once) is if they pay me X dollars, in which I will go wherever they are and play it for them. I stand right by the projector to make sure no one attempts to steal the physical media, and use armed thugs and metal detectors to make sure no one brings in recording devices.
So here I do have *unconditional* control over my creation, although I've got to go to ridiculous extremes to retain it. As long as I protect the physical media it's on like a caveman, everythings fine. People who feel the viewing price is worth it, pay it, those who don't, don't. I'm happy because the revenue this generates allows me to make more movies.
Now given that we're living in an age where I can make very high quality copies of the movie cheaply (unlike say, the 1930s) and many people have the means to view these copies, I want to dump this traveling movie gig and simply provide people copies while retaining the same freedom to control my movie. However, in your view, this is impossible. Heck, I can't even sell a single copy to a movie theater because once that's done, they're free to copy my movie and do whatever they please with it - such as converting it to DVD and selling copies for barely-over-cost profit. Does this seem logical?
Finally, let's say I take a large piece of your GPL'ed product and stick it into my commercial, closed source binary only, product. My view: You don't have the right to define the terms in which I can use your a copy of your information, period. If you find out, you scream bloody murder and sue the crap out of me, saying it's your creation, your terms (Note here your code is still out there, I'm not taking your proverbial car away). Now lets say I make my closed source program without your GPL'ed code. You buy a copy and redistribute it freely. Your view: Information is free, you can do whatever you like with your copy of it. If I find out, I scream bloody murder, and sue the crap out of you, saying its my creation, my terms.
So who's right? In my view, we both are. Respecting one means respecting the other. We both should have the freedom to control our creations, uncondtionally, however we see fit. The problem is when someone asserts they're free to break the creators terms if they don't agree with them.
I assume you mean 'Do you have the right to determine how much a copy of my music will cost' - how much it is worth is independant of how much it costs, how much you claim it is worth or even how much you think it is worth. I think the worth of you music is individual to the person seeking the copy.
Obviously in this instance I meant worth as in monetary worth. Certainly it's an individual choice as to what the monetary value of anything is. However, if you feel somethings overpriced, it doesn't mean you are allowed to steal it.
People will pretty much pay for a CD what it is worth to them, so your belief in your fundamental human right to charge what you think the CD is worth, is going to be sidelined by what the CD is worth to the purchaser anyway.
Since you've made an implicit insinuation here, let's make something clear. The idea of property in ALL forms is a completely artificial construct. Whether that's the right to individual ownership, whether you can own a piece of land, whether I can own information, whatever. There is no fundamental human right to property in any form, period.
As far as the CD's worth, yes, as before, if someone is selling you something, you make the choice whether you're willing to pay that or not.
mp3's haven't stoped me buying music I thought was worthwhile (so given this statistical study of 1 I naturally assume most people are like that:))
Yeah, I often wonder what effect it's really had. Among my friends, mp3 trading is rampant, but how much that affects what they buy is a little shaky. Right now I don't think it's having much effect. As broadband continues to roll out, super cheap HDs and DVD-RW/RAM cost very little, I think there will be a more profound impact, negatively.
I'm not for ripping off artists either.
Sure sure. I'm curious though how you reconcile your views as not ripping off artists? Having played in various bands for close to 10 years now, it istrue that it's very close to impossible to make a living off selling CDs of (and playing) original music (and so as the FSF would say, who cares if the privileged few that do are screwed). However selling CDs did a whole bunch to pay for recording costs, practice space,support mini-tours, etc.
but many people seem to be stuck in the flawed mindset of "copyright law defines what is fair" and I was trying to point out soem of the status-quo assumptions you were making.
Well given the new abilities technology has allowed over time, why copyright law and intellectual property evolved (and their continued existence) seems quite logical to me. This is not to say I agree with every aspect of copyright law, but I do believe in the principle behind it.
I was originally going to point out to the original poster that very rarely do bands go in debt because (as you mentioned) the labels eat the cost. However...
The truth is that MOST CD's LOSE MONEY! From the publisher's point of view, until you have a hit (most CD's don't) you are a huge risk. They are risking $200,000 on you. Turn it around, if you had $200,000 in the bank would you be willing to risk it all on the next band that asked you for it?
"Failed" CDs that majors put out generally do not lose MUCH money, break even, or make so little profit/impact the band is just dropped.
Either way, majors do not lose significant dough to failed CDs. The $200,000 figure being thrown around here is way, way, way high for a band that hasn't already proven it has an bigtime audience except in weird, rare cases. Studio costs/tour support(if any)/etc aren't going to add up anywhere near that amount for a fledgling major band.
Of all the bands I've known anything about (or knew people in) who signed with majors (That'd be 311, Stick, Paw, Frogpond, Molly McGuire, and a couple I'm forgetting by now) ALL got jack didly on their first albums/ contracts. Enough for a pro-sounding album, some minimal help for touring, even some really crappy videos. The record companies weren't sweating too hard about breaking even. After all, most of these bands had some sort of decent following before being signed in the first place. This equals guaranteed CD sales. I'd be willing to bet most of those bands broke even or thereabouts given their local/regional support.
Anyway, there are bands that hang around on labels forever selling OK amounts of records per year and continuing on. Sonic Youth is a prime example. They don't make tons of money, but they do make money. Of course the focus is on creating the next one or two hit sensation to make gazillions off in a hurry, but there are some lurkers.
Your figures in the game industry are also a little off. There are way more than 20 games a year that make money! This is not to say there aren't a ton of losers, but sheesh. No one would be in the games industry if it was that tough. I've got an old friend who works at Legend Entertainment, who most recently put out Wheel of Time. However, Legend has been around for awhile longer than that putting out all kinds of stuff you've never heard of. They haven't made megabucks, and probably won't off WoT either, but they've expanded significantly and manage to pay everyones salaries and the bills. There are many companies out there like this (Interactive Magic, UbiSoft, etc), you just don't hear about them like you do with places like id.
The only problem - the definition of information. Do you consider music "information"?
In contrast, when you copy something the original owner still keeps his copy, with no degradation of its performance whatsoever.
True true. However, that's not the problem. The issue is does the creator have the freedom to control their creation. Do you have the right to say how much a copy of my music is worth, or do I? If I say you can buy a copy for $10, but you can't copy it, this takes nothing away from you - you have as many choices as before my CD existed and one more. If you break my terms, it takes something away from me in many ways, including the presentation/art on the CD/cover, a political message I stuck in the insert, and (most importantly) my ability to assign economic value to a copy and benefit. So yeah, I may still have a copy of my music that's perfect, but that's not the problem.
And yes, the artist (or the programmer when it comes to software) of course has a right to be paid for his/her work
Little lost on this given your preceeding statements.
. I would be glad to pay the artist directly for the use of their music
Well, that'd certainly be nice. All the principles aside, the Recording Industry as it stands right now is a nightmare. Having been involved in the music scene for many years, there is no one out there that despises it's current state more than I do.
In fact, I will copy MP3s of their CDs for myself and my friends for the express reason of hurting them and hastening their downfall.
Unfortunately, copying mp3s or CDs freely isn't going to make the recording industry go away. It just encourages them to fight harder, and they have vast resources. It allows them to justify hiking CD prices, push new copy protection, blah. I don't think they're quite convinced people copying music are willing to pay anything other than $0 for it.
MP3 does present a new distribution method for bands outside the clutches of labels, but unfortunately no band distributing free mp3s on the net is going to topple the system. Unless pay-for-mp3 becomes wildly more popular, bands getting any sort of attention will always jump ship to major labels (if given the opportunity) in hopes of making any money. Will micropay for mp3 get that popular? I don't know - but I imagine it will be difficult to convince John Q Public to pay $5 to download a CDs worth of mp3s when his friend already has them all waiting in a windows shared directory just across the cablemodem network.
-- Slaveowners didn't create their slaves (Well, they did some of the time, didn't they Mr. Jefferson).
-- Musicians create their music
and,
-- Slaves were humans. Most people agree these days, humans aren't property.
-- Music is not a living entity (unless you've taken an enormous amount of LSD), much less human. The property issue is stickier
These are really, really fundamental differences. This analogy is totally bogus.
You see, it's not about the record companies owning the music, it's about the musicians who created the music owning it.
That's the real issue. Do musicians have the freedom to control what they create? Including economic control? In my view, the musician who created the music is the person that gets to decide that, not you. This includes the freedom to decide what monetary value a copy of their CD (or song) has, and the terms they give you that copy under (Or, give that control to a record company). You've got the freedom to accept the terms and buy the CD, or not.
Civil disobedience is a valid and moral response to unjust laws. How else can a disenfranchised group fight a huge power?
I think the answer was in the quote you were responding to. Pirating music (It's amusing to call this Civil Disobedience) isn't pushing companies to do anything other than attempt to find new ways to burden us all in some new way or another. However, that doesn't seem to be your concern.
I choose which laws I obey based on whether or not I think those laws are just. I will not cede my moral judgement to someone I do not trust, nor will I blindly follow a government with a dubious (at best) moral standing.
I don't have a problem with this posistion. It is unfortunate it drags into these issues. If can copy = not property, there is no way for a musician (or a wide variety of artists, writers, etc) to make any money off their work other than do such things as try and whore themselves writing advertising jingles or what have you. This is not good. More fundamentally, I see that position as an attack on personal freedom. If I make a CD and sell it for $10 saying no copies allowed, I consider it my freedom to do so. You are free to accept these terms or not. If you violate it, then you're violating my freedom. You're saying I have no economic control, freedom, or choice about what I've created -- simply because (relatively current) technology allows you to copy it cheaply.
You might say, as many do, "but if I copy it, I'm not taking IT away from you, you still have the music!". The problem is in the IT. As far as I'm concerned, part of my freedom is the ability to put a monetary value (which includes 0) on something I create, whether it's easy to copy or not.
It boils down to - your thinking takes away my freedom/choice over my creation. My thinking takes nothing away from you - I've presented another choice (to buy the CD under my terms), but I haven't taken anything away.
It's unfortunate there's really no real middle ground.
"Thus I condensed and rendered my comments, in an attempt to get you to actually prove that I either: a) contradicted myself"
I think that's been made blatantly obvious.
"b) outright said that women are not capable engineers"
Well, this is the thickest part of your blind spot. You've made many statements as to what women are worse at, and why they are "not as able" to do certain things. Many of these things are related to CS/Engineering jobs. Yet you somehow feel that there's NO correlation or implication between them. You're posistion is seriously confused. You stuck your head over the ledge, but you refuse to say that means you're looking down.
"I said women are not nerds."
Which of course is ridiculous. Your "personal experience" must be one of the most enclosed bubbles on the planet.
"But I never once said that all good engineers are nerds."
Once again, you run into your strange dichotomy. Women aren't nerds. Nerdy qualities are required for many, many aspects of the CS/Engineering world. Yet once again there's no correlation! Amazing.
"One would have to question your bias even more when considering that I repeatedly stated that my mom is one of the best in her field (as an engineer)."
You heavily qualified what your mother's type of engineering was. Non-nerdy, not nuts and bolts, but some sort of more abstracted womanly sort of thing. You went on to praise that repeatedly, but the problem is in your strange, funny distinction in the first place. The fact you once again don't consider this a contradiction is just funny. Maybe what you really meant to say is "women are good as SOME types of engineers".
"You do not have a direct interest in this "
Eh? We're having a two-way conversation here. I suppose you prefer to talk without listening or having to defend your points, but hey, that's not the way these boards work. You of course are not forced to debate (or reply to) anything. In fact I'd recommend against it in your case - you're better at eroding your own case than making it.
"My experience is that most women, baring a few femi-nazis, are much cooler about my statements."
Hah - and I've had two egging me on to continue this conversation as they get such a kick out of your confused commentary. Let me give you a little tip: Women can be sexist too! Everyone carries bias - the individuals of the group included. I once heard a black man say that because data shows Asians generally do better on IQ/SAT/GRE scores than whites, and whites better than blacks, we can probably extrapolate that this flat out means something about the general intelligence of the groups, period. Amazing really. I've also heard more than one woman say the womans place is at home, taking care of her husband and children. Hell, there are many cultures around the world where its socially acceptible to physically harm your wife for doing something "wrong", and many women in the cultures support the idea. Too extreme you say? That's what I say about you.
"Likewise, many of them will even readily admit that women are not cut out for most military rolls (and others yet think, as such, should not even have some rolls which they could technically perform)...it goes beyond just the physical as well."
Hahah - oh my. The more you talk, the more grave digging you do. Certainly you're not sexist now? Or pehaps you are, but you're acceptibly sexist (because you have women who agree with your viewpoint, and thus it must be correct/okay)? Women can't handle military roles. Is this the same "male only focus thing"? Or perhaps because women lack aggressive tendencies? Perhaps women just lack the balls to kill (HAR HAR HAR). What stereotype will we identify and rest assured from your personal experience it's biological? Apparently your amount of bigotry/stereotyping is not sexist. How much further would we need to go before you considered it bigoted/sexist?
I think my cousin, a 2nd lieutenant graduated from the Air Force Academy would probably take exception to your assertion. She's probably some sort of lesbian femi-nazi (I LOVE people who use catchphrases from that wacky, hard nosed, truth-teller, Rush Limbaugh!), and uh let's see, been involved with academics, and therefore bred to liberal thinking. You know those folks in the military are all a bunch of leftist radicals.
"You, from the very beginning, boxed me in, and called me, in so many words, a sexist, a moron, you name it"
I slipped off the bandwagon towards the end as I just couldn't resist given your weak attempts at attacking me. However if you'll read my first posts, you'll notice I never attack YOU, I attack your statements or ideas. Calling your point stupid is a fundamentally different thing from calling YOU stupid. This is called mature debating, I'm sorry you couldn't make the distinction and handle it.
"I am currently in business school full time and working part time, amongst other things; I am not some little frat boy despite your assertions to the contrary."
Notice that you started the name-calling and typecasting. Once it became obvious you're incapable of staying away from it, I couldn't help but have a little fun myself. You're right though, you do sound sorta like a frat-boy, don't you?
"You likely have no experience with either, and as such have little to no respect for either, as you seem to believe the highest calling must can't be to actually CREATE anything, such as a company"
Wow. You certainly know a WHOLE lot about me, who I am, the way I think, and what's made me think that way about EVERYTHING by extrapolating from the 3-4 posts I've made in our fairly directed discussion. Problem is, you really don't have a clue beyond the very little I've told you, and your comments about my respect for creating a company/product or whatever is just hilarious. You seem to have a problem with taking one or two points (whether they've got any basis or not in the first place) and making a billion assumptions about everything else. Seems you took the same route to explaining me as you did to explaining women. I think we've got a trend here, no?
"With you, I evidently hit the nail right on the the head. The fact that you are a grad student, and likely leaning towards academia speaks volumes. That is...as long as you wish to play the name calling game."
Actually no, you didn't hit the nail on the head. I'm not a grad student, I'm not leaning toward academia. I've never said that, you just flat made it all up. I could go into great detail about my personal history, but as I already mentioned, it's not relevant to anything said here. I can just see it -- "Oh you mean you went to school X?! That place is a socialist femi-nazi breeding ground! Err wait, Bob Roberts university... hold on...". You seem really tied up in trying to dimiss my "background" rather than attacking my points.
Anyway, this has been fun, and you've provided some entertainment for me and a few friends who keep track of what I post here on occasion. I originally thought we may both become more mutally informed, but the entertainment will do. And the value of the entertainment has worn thin, and I am done!
"To automatically blame all disproportions of men to women in any field on social causes is a bit naive"
Perhaps. Certainly far less naive than the statements you've made concerning biological differences.
"and say that this then must mean that I must think that women are lesser engineers than men. I simply never said anything to that effect"
I can only repeat you so many times. If you don't feel your blanket, moronic typification of women as being bad at engineering related "thinking" or "ability to focus on careers", you're simply attempting to cover yourself.
"For example, I said something to the effect that my mom is at the top of her game as an engineer."
Actually, you've said quite a lot otherwise. It seems you don't put much time in thinking about what you say, as even when constantly confronted with it you act as if you're clueless. As with every post you've responded to - you completely dismiss my specific rebutalls/quotes and generalize your commentary. You're incapable of defending your points one by one - you constantly resort to repetitive general statements.
"The lack of the ability to be the kind of nerd I was referring, is not equivelent to not being able to perform every bit as well as that nerd."
Well, I'm glad I've helped show you that you painted yourself into a corner, because your above statement makes no sense. "All I've said about women's personality absolutely makes NO difference in their ability". Well then, it seems everything you've attempted to extrapolate means nothing. Women's inability to focus, or give up being mom, or whatever else are apparently absolutely trivial (how? Got me - sounded originally like you had something to say).
And the only reason I've continued to respond is the last part of your post here. It's absolutely perfect. The sure sign you've won a debate is when the person you're arguing with gets personally hostile, attempts to provoke you, and resorts to attempting to personally attack an anonymous person. Funny, really.
"I've come to the conclusion that you're just a meddlesome 3rd party."
Uh, right. Meddlesome third party. In the context of slashdot posting this means what? Nothing? Of course.
"You are here to argue (rather then attempt understand, or reach a conclusion) above all else"
Another pointless statement. I've already reached my conclusions, and you have already reached yours. The debate began when I began attacking the fact your conclusion's were drawn off some pretty ridiculous premises. You've got a lot to learn as to being able to defend them.
"I'd bet dollars to pesos that you're not a women"
I'm not a women , you're right. Nor have I ever claimed to be. "you're middle class college aged (including grad school) kid..." I'd say upper middle class would probably be a better description. As with everything else, you attempt to typecast me, as that obviously definies my ideas. Just as you do with women. You really seem uncomfortable dealing with anything as an individual quantity - it seems you don't have that capacity. You need to sort things into little groups that are all the same, it's much easier that way.
"all this tends to breed a certain kind of liberalism that i've seen all too often"
Ahh yes, you the "wise old man" dismissing my arguments as that of an uh, crazy upstart middle class grad student. Unfortunately you're wrong, but we'll skip my biography as you'll realize it's not relevant (And by the way, who are you, great wisened one? I would bet the clippings from my left toe you are a white, suburban high school or very early college kid). It's unfortunate that you're so unable to defend your posistion the best you can do is attempt "(there's something to get your panties in an uproar)"
Hah. Well, your true colors really come out here. Lost for any substance, you just gotta get my panties in a bunch over your immature attacks. "Oh see, I'm not a sexist, but you're so liberal you can't handle my anti-PC comments! HEE HEE". Unfortunately it also shows you don't have anywhere near the open mind, or gender-neutal posistion you seem to think you do. "Hey nigger, that'll get your scars burning". Not that offensive, but in the same vein and similarly pathetic. The shame about bigots like yourself is that you are so arrogant. I am sure you're mother would be dissapointed.
"Since you love to generalize, why must liberals, such as yourself, put words in everyone's mouth, and generally overstate your case."
Whoops. Well, at this point the best you can do is call me a "liberal", then dismiss my rebuttals to your specific words. One thing I'm definitely liberal about is quoting and responding specifically. You'll also note I haven't called you a bigot, reactionary boot-licker, or tried to typecast your ideas. I played with your words some, and that's unfair, but I got tired of your repeated assertion that "Me saying women aren't good at many aspects of engineering != Me saying women shouldn't GO into engineering". If anythings getting shoved in your mouth, it's your foot.
"Nor did I say they're just capable of attaining "decent" skills, or that consequently, they're only cut out for middle management."
You've said in a variety of ways women aren't as capable in many areas. Yet you claim this doesn't mean your defining what women are cut out for? Your posistion doesn't leave you middle ground to todder around in. Either women are less capable, as you claimed in a variety of ways, in which case there should be no worry over the lack of them in cs related fields. Virtually every argument you've made about the difference between the sexes has pointed out reasons why women are simply less capable in certain techinical areas. This would make sense, considering the point of this original story was explaining why there are few women in techincal fields.
"I don't think you understand, if I could have anyone's capabilities and intelligence, it would be hers. You either don't understand this, or YOU are trying to double talk."
You seem to be backpedaling in order to avoid looking like a sexist. You typecast your mother (and then generalize immensely off her) but then praise her intelligence. Same with your sisters. Same with "Well women aren't good and this and this, but I'm NOT saying they shouldn't do it!". The problem is not that you're saying exclude women outright. It's saying they're simply not suited in the first place because they're not "biologically" suited.
"I never said that any of these differences amount of incapability of performing the job"
No? ------------
"rather that many professional women start out in demanding fields, discover later in life, after graduating from grad school, law school, or what have you, that they want to raise children. This frequently requires a change of priorities...atleast for awhile...which means their ULTIMATE career paths are going to be altered."
Read: Only women are the affected parent having children. Only women want children. After that, many trash their careers. Therefore that's why you don't see them in similar careers as men, because they just don't have the time or drive to do it, they want to be mom.
"When is the last time you've seen a women lock themselves up in a room, and obsess about something to the exclusion of all else (e.g., body odor, hair, social life, etc) until they solve it, or come up empty handed?"
Read: Women can't focus over single tasks. They do not have the drive/interest/whatever to do this. Many tasks in the CS field require this kind of drive. Women don't have it, women aren't there.
"the differences between my mother and father typify the differences between the two highly skilled respective element of the sexes." "As an engineer, he was better than even my mom"
Read: My mom and dad are typical of women and men in technical fields. My father was a better engineer. Therefore, men are typically better engineers. This is why women have a hard time entering industry.
"One major difference I noticed about my father was that he was very much of the nerd or geek that I mentioned before (who will focus on something with such determination, that the rest of the world is just irrelevant). He loved his technology for the sake of technology. I can't say this about my mom."
Read: Women can't be geeks. Geeks have determination. Women do not. They really don't like technology for the sake of technology, it doesn't interest them.
"She loved technology for the sake of delivering a product...of helping people...or some greater end, other than her immediate edification. While my mom also has the ability to see any problem through, it just aint the same. There isn't that one track mind....the kind of mind which I've seen amongst many of the top scientists of today and the past. "
Read: My mom is a woman, and a mother, therefore she thinks of other's interests besides her own. She, like most women, doesn't have a one track mind. Like most women, this unfortunately means she's incapable of being a top scientist (or engineer like Dad). If not incapable, then definitely improbable and part of this is just the female genome. She may be good at other things I mentioned vaguely, but they don't lie in many techincal areas.
"In short, my mom is, in my opinion, at the top of her game as an engineer and entrepreneur"
Read: Mom is good at being a techincal manager. She is not as good as an engineer, like Dad.
". Very few men feel compelled to quit their jobs, or substancially reduce their hours for a couple year--that is a fact."
Read: Women want babies. When they have them they want to quit or substantially reduce their workload, unlike men. Thus they do not have time to devot themselves to careers (like engineering) as this requires more time than their children allow them.
"But that does not mean that I ever expect my sisters to behave the same way that thousands of young men have, through different cultures, through the decades. I don't confuse the ability to get things done, with the ability to lose sight of everything but ONE thing--in my experience, that is very much of a male attribute"
Read: I expect my sisters to do well, like mom, but not as "real" engineers, like dad. As women they lack the ability to lose themselves over one thing.
"Put simply, women are capable of doing the same job in engineering"
Read: Well, maybe capable, not obviously by all these other statements as capably as men. This may be partially social, but its certainly also partially biology.
----------------------
"You might not think my experience is sufficient, but that does not mean that I must ignore it."
Of course we all rely on our own experience to define our opinions and make judgements. However you seem to be quite myopic in considering other peoples experiences or ideas on the subject. The way you've experienced things, and the conclusions you've drawn, is the way it is, for no other reason than your "intuition". Your reality != everyones reality. Keeping this idea in mind, it really helps you open your mind.
"You can't do a great deal in this world, if all your actions must first be based on concrete proof. You seem to realize this on some level, as you're proceeding on many similar unproven claims (e.g., social over genetic)"
I fail to see what point you're trying to make. Many people base their entire lives around beliefs that are purely faith and little, if any, concrete evidence(such as say, Religion or the existence of God). Does this make them wrong? Who's to say, but it's certainly not scientific, as you have repeatedly alluded to.
"You seem to realize this on some level, as you're proceeding on many similar unproven claims (e.g., social over genetic)"
There is a wealth of evidence regarding societal influence on groups of people, and what people believed about them, and how that effected them. For America, see the last 150 years of Blacks, Women, and Native Americans in the US for a start. If you really want to argue that there's no "proof" society affected these groups in profoundly major ways, you're stretching beyond reason, and I'd guess you're smart enough to know that.
It's also quite obvious that whatever biological differences may play in peoples personality, it's absolutely dwarfed by the environment they've been brought up in. See the above groups I mentioned again. We can also safely say that virtually everyone is genetically different, and any random two people (male, female, whatever race or otherwise) are signficantly different genetically. How do genetic differences, race, gender, or otherwise play out as far as shaping personality: No one has any idea. I find it funny that you repeatedly dodged my mention of racial genetic differences -- pointing to that as defining a person is widely taboo these days. Yet defining a person behavior as "female" is still prevailent.
In the rare case of identical twins seperated at birth, it turns out if they're in wildly different enviroments, they turn out to be awfully different people (in beliefs, interests, disposistion, etc). I'd love to talk more about this, as I spent 4 years working in a genetics lab and spent plenty of time reading journals crossing over to the behavior/psychological aspects of the area, but I'm out of time.
Anyway, it's been an interesting conversation. Regards!
"As I said before, I know full well that women have the ability to focus"
You're double-talking. We can wordplay all day - "obsessive", "single-tracked", etc. I've seen plenty of women obsess, to the exclusion of virtually everything else, on one thing. I daresay even as much as someone tied up in coding.
More about your mother. You might consider for a moment that in a sample space of millions, talking about your mother may be interesting to you, but continually pointing to her attributes/traits as the way women are, in a technical field or otherwise, is stupid.
"Men, for whatever reason, don't assume the same roles in bringing up a child as a women does".
"For whatever reason". Consider our society over the last 100 years and perhaps the "reason" may become more apparent to you. You might also note the tradional gender parental stereotypes have very gradually grown closer over time (and continue to). I think we can pretty much rule out rapid evolutionary changes in our genetics as the cause.
"Very few men feel compelled to quit their jobs, or substancially reduce their hours for a couple year--that is a fact."
Oh it is a fact? Point me to your undisputable source please. The statement is asinine - yeah, some men do not feel compelled to cut back on work to spend time with their children, but many do. I've personally known two fathers who were the primary caregivers (Read: Stay at home/don't work) for their kids as a matter of choice after considering possibilities with their spouses. I've known many, many couples who both cutback somewhat on work when their child arrived, but relied primarily on a 3rd party to take care of their kid before it hit school age.
It's still much more prevailent, and socially acceptible, for women to take time off work to stay home or outright sacrifice their careers to be a "homemaker", but pointing to this as behavior born of specifically male/female genetical differences is a big jump to a conclusion. Similiarly, taking this even further by saying "We can explain virtually any discrepancy in behavior between men and women, such as the amount that enter CS related fields, just somewhat HAS to a matter of biology" is just going off a cliff.
"Nor can you claim that your social influences are proof either"
I would say social influences are a far more compelling argument. I'd encourage you to go live in a wildly different 3rd world country for a year and observe how radically environment shapes people.
Besides women, there are very few blacks working in CS these days. So I guess we can say "Well environment plays a part in it, but frankly biology must play a role here as well". Ut oh! Of course, the vast majority of humans are genetically different period, but let's not get too confused.
"I think that both social and chemical differences play a role, social more than chemical (atleast in non-nerdy fields, e.g., law, medicine (although many med schools have more women enrolled than men), business"
What about the non-nerdy fields? You mean, in non-nerdy fields, social differences play more of a role? And in nerdy fields, it's more "chemical"? Whew!
"I don't confuse the ability to get things done, with the ability to lose sight of everything but ONE thing--in my experience, that is very much of a male attribute"
Well, that's just flat ignorance, but I suppose there's nothing to be done.
--- "Well Jim, we can hire her, but as a woman I don't believe she has the one-track ability to sit and program for 8+ hours a day for months at a time on a single component of our project. Women aren't obsessive, you know. Well maybe they are, but not about ONE thing, that's a guy thing see. As I woman I believe she is more apt toward being like my mom, and mom is like this...."
"Huh? Uh okay, well doesn't programming involve many different aspects within that ONE thing? What the hell are you talking about anyway?"
"Hey Jim, we're starting Project X and we need to assemble a team. Since Nancy is female, she's going to be good as the project manager. However, she may want to have babies and quit work soon, so I'm not sure we should put her in the posistion. Bill's a good guy, and being male he has the male attribute of being focusing on a single goal, like programming is, and so I think he should be the lead programmer. His wife is having a kid soon too, but it's a fact men have no desire to cut back on work in order to spend time with their children, so I think we're solid there".
"Hey man, are you still drinking 8 cups of coffee before work? I think you need a vacation"
--- "Put simply, women are capable of doing the same job in engineering;"
Seems like what you've said contradicts this statement. When people talk about "getting women into Math/CS", they're not talking about training future middle managers with decent techincal know-how in IT companies. They're talking about down-n-dirty programmers, sysadmins, etc. According to you, women just aren't good at that.
"it is the underlying motivations and approach that I question"
Motivations and approach toward getting more women into the field, or the way women work in the field when they're there.
"Colleges are closing down their departments of computer science (Marshall University closed theirs a couple years ago because no one was graduating). Entry classesinto computer science is schrinking, the number getting past year 1 is shrinking even faster."
Strange. At the U of Texas at Austin the CS department has swelled (and continues) enormously. They can't fail students out and find ways to underpay PhD as lecture's fast enough. My impression from the people I talk to around there that this isn't some strange localized event. The secret is out that if you know something about computers, you can pretty much assure yourself a fine salary almost immediately and students are flocking to that around here. Unfortunately the result of this seems to be more people who really have no interest in CS/Computers, but rather getting a nice job.
Perhaps the overall # of degree's handed out is less, but as you allude to, this is more than likely because folks are not bothering with finishing college before entering industry.
"For one reason. It takes passion. You can be a doctor without passion.. maybe not a good one, but if you screw up a stich by a tenth of an inch, the patient doesn't die, no one even notices. You miss a semicolon or a comma, your software just does not work. It takes an obsessive passion to get into computers and not many people have that."
Running tests as a QA guy does not take passion. Nor does managing Oprah's website or being a sysadmin. It doesn't take passion to be a doctor though? Do you know many people willing to go through 8 years of school plus 3 years of residency working insane hours (and unlike grad school, you don't get to be a TA or draw salary off a lab grant) who just "kinda wanted to do it"?
Why is there a workforce shortage? Technology/internet explodes extremely quickly, everyone and their grandma begins to gain an understanding and an interest, it's going to take awhile before these people (or their kids) get the interest in making it a career.
"This is not to say that women should be home and barefoot (or any similar bullshit), but rather that many professional women start out in demanding fields, discover later in life, after graduating from grad school, law school, or what have you, that they want to raise children."
And many men think the same thing. In fact, my brother and his wife just got the notion recently and I have a new niece. You seem to imply men have no desire to raise children, and if the decision is made they're a neutral observer. That's absurd.
Having a child alters both the parents "priorities" QUITE profoundly. How people choose to share certain responsibilities is their own choice. Yes, 9 months is awhile to be pregnant, but it's far longer period than that where a child requires constant attention.
"I do believe there are fundamental genetic (nature, not nuture) differences between men and women. While I can't pinpoint them all"
Hah - I was really hoping you could pinpoint them all, as that would be quite a monumental achievement.
"I've seen plenty enough evidence of it, to say that the differences between men and women in the sciences is more than just social and upbringing."
You're ability to deliniate between what's nature, what's nuture, and that enough personal evidence is definite proof is amazing. I'm reminded of reading T. Jefferson papers on all the quasi-empircal proof that blacks were obviously an inferior race.
Are men and women genetically different? Yes! What does that mean as far as personality and attraction to the relatively extremely new field of CS? Got me, but asserting peoples interest in computers is mainly based on their genetic disposition (We must of course include males here as well) is ridiculous to me.
"When is the last time you've seen a women lock themselves up in a room, and obsess about something to the exclusion of all else (e.g., body odor, hair, social life, etc) until they solve it, or come up empty handed? We see plenty of male geeks/techies do this in large numbers. Yet, I'm hardpressed, despite my experience, to think of a single women like this in anything (not just computers...) "
If I were reading just this part of your message alone, I'd think this was some sort of joke. Women don't uh, have the ability to concentrate for long periods of time? Don't have single-minded focus to finish projects of ANY sort? I can only think that your experience interacting with women, and perhaps humans in general, is REALLY limited.
I'm sure your Dad and your Mother are both nice people. Attempting to claim their abilities and experiences are archetypes for the way women and men work within technical fields is just about as absurd as some of your other comments.
"More observations...look at girls and boys sports between at a very young age. Across many different cultures, the boys and girls start to differentiate themselves significantly, in terms of aggresion, and the like"
And gee, here's a thought - maybe a whole TON of that has to do with the way society and parents treat boys and girls differently! Crazy! Sticking dolls and make-up kits in the girls stocking while the boy gets hotwheels cars and construction sets. Hell, it's only really recently women were given a decent number of options as far as organized sports in the first place -- even now it's certainly not equal opportunity or encouragement.
Reading posts like yours, and many others, explains a whole lot about why women are scare in the technical field. It seems you treat them gender first, human second. You define abilities and traits you're damn sure are pretty much genetic differences. Even though you may claim to have an open mind about things, it seems pretty clear your have some set notions you start out with. You are, or will be, a woman's boss or teammate one day, and all this subtle baggage will be riding around with you.
Score 3 eh. Gee, you're right, pushing women to attain supermodel status/beauty rather than entering math/science/CS really isn't a problem. Men need the same encouragement. Honeslty, men really have little to go on as far as attempting to exploit themselves as sex objects. Sure we've got Maxim and GQ, but hardly any supermodels! We've really lost our focus when we're talking about attempting to encourage females, minorities, or whatever groups into math/science fields when we really should be pushing white males further and further into the types of oppression they've pushed on others for a couple hundred years in this country.
"Don't forget that patents and intellectual property are articficial constructs."
All laws are artificial constructs, including personal "physical" property. "Quite easy. New products get registered and published. Anyone is free to take them up, package them and sell them. Over the next yaer or two, surveys are done on the uptake of different types of products. Awards are given to creators based on how well used the products are, with a modifiying factor for the type and complexity of software." Your are grossly oversimplifying your idea. Unless your product warrants some sort of serivce you might sell, how are you going to make any money off packaging something? Considering we remove all IP laws, I can simply copy your product verbatim and sell it for a bare-minimum cost. The undercutting would be quite enormous, with the only potential hope being that you, somehow, are chosen for an award based on "user surverys" 1-2 years down the road? How are you going to track who "created" what, when there could be endless claims as to what software was derived from what, and who should get the real credit. Anyway this has been an interesting discussion, but as I said before you are basically repeating the idea of a software tax, which I had already mentioned. Regards -- Shiner Missionary
"People have been programmed to regard ideas as property, but this is a lie perpetuated by a combination of inertia and vested interests. If you look at the issue with an open mind, you can see that there is in fact no need for intellectual property at all."
While I do believe the current system is flawed, I don't believe that "property == physical"/"can copy == not property" quite fits the bill. I do not believe this is because I'm a puppet of the man unable to join the enlightened.
"There are many good ones, but I think my solution is relatively simple and effective"
Perhaps the general idea is simple, but the implementation is quite a nightmare. It's much like saying "Well, we'll just set up a government that passes laws and distributes money in a way we'll all find acceptible".
"Now, the incentive to innovate is created by a public body that is independant of the government, perhaps even with its own democratically elected committee. Its role is to reward those who create useful innovations with hard cash awards."
Consider what this would entail, particularly if we're talking on the scope you seem to be. Lets just consider software development - who decides who gets what out of the myraid of potential developers? I could go on for awhile here, but I'll limit this post to direct responses.
"Awards are only given if an innovation is a proven success, i.e. people take it up and use it effectively in the market"
How do you define success? "Effectiveness"? What is "the market"? The buisness world? Perhaps everyone in the universe may be using a small not-so-complex piece of code/software, but how are you going to measure that against an enormous code monstrosity that works beatifully but has very specialized use?
"Note that the product could be produced by anyone, not necessarily the inventor, which is a good thing because the market will now be competitive, driving economic growth and further innovation."
Disregarding further problems of favortism this could lead to, I have an problem with someone inventing something only to be washed aside after giving it all away. Competition can be a good motivator. Unrestricted competition (Hello MS) can be an extremely limiting force in a variety of ways.
"Funding for the awards will come out of general taxation. This is the fairest solution, since innovations now benefit society and the economy as a whole. I would estimate that this would be a fairly small addition to the tax burden, which would be more than compensated by greater economic progress."
I'm not sure I'm understanding you correctly, as it seems this would require an ENORMOUS increase in taxation to take what is now funded by "buisness" and begin funding ala the NSF. Now, this might mean you're paying tax and very little for a product instead of little tax and a lot for a product, but this still requires people to pay for developing things they may not want/care about/use. This can be a problem, even when you're talking about something you may consider universal (Welcome to the healthcare debate).
Anyway in general you sound like you're essentially talking about a "software tax", which I'd already mentioned.
"Open-source software gets around this because the cost of development is very small."
In terms of time, certainly not. Time may not be money, but most people seem to value it regardless of whether they're doing something they enjoy or not.
"I personally like Co-Source's funding model. I think that method gets at your objection that open-source has limited output in many areas. Developers there are asked to develop solutions, and are paid for the work they do, not for the output. ie, the output is forever free, there is simply a one-time charge for the work to produce it."
I think ESR has harped a lot about this, but it suffers from the same kind of limitations as funding your open source project via service/support. This requires a large entity with a lot of money to hire people to produce something. The problem -- there are many, many types of software that have no real use in buisness, or only very marginal application. Not only that, but when one buisness pours X dollars into that CRM program to streamline themselves, it doesn't seem to be a wild stretch to me that many are hesitant toward the idea of giving it away to their direct competitors.
"You also point out that currently we are doing pretty good having both open and closed source. That's great, I agree".
Perhaps that's the real answer unless something radical happens.
Slashdot Mirror
You can argue all you want about gun rights, but please don't tell me it's because you need to be ready to violently overthrow the government.
Ahh, it brings back memories of silly flamewars of old on local BBS messageboards and fidonet. Now instead of the hardware and the OS (IBM vs Apple vs Amiga vs Atari ST...) we've switched to the OS. The more things change....
Anyway, I just really don't think uploading music to pirate FTP sites is going to change jack squat. "mp3 radio" already happens in the form of shoutcast, and this makes little difference either - with virtually unlimited choices, no one bothers. mp3 has been around for awhile, but no one is making their music career off self-distributing mp3s. The music industry is far bigger than just distribution, and right now (and for a long time), there's not much mp3/the internet is going to do to change that.
Anyway, we'll see what happens, but right now mp3s influence on helping local/indie artists grow their audience has been minimal.
mp3 pirating is rampant. So rampant it's not even funny. The amount of 'legitamite' mp3 use (regarding copyrighted works - IE archival, or just them on the computer for the heck of it) is extremely minimal in comparison. Denying this is serious ignorance of reality.
Let's face it - if you already have a CD, having an mp3 copy of it is virtually worthless unless 1) You have a diamond rio or 2) You want to share/trade it with someone else. #2 is why mp3 has exploded, and why there are currently 10 gazillion ftp sites and napster clients running serving up all sorts of copyrighted work.
I'm not saying the RIAA and the music industry in general isn't sickening, but I find myself growing weary of these legitimate use arguments when it's damn well obvious most mp3 use is not legitimate. Atom bombs don't kill people, people kill people, right? If I had 5 bucks for every slashdot poster whining about fair use who was sitting with X gigs of pirated mp3s on his HD, I'd be rich.
In order to grow a national audience, a band must
1) Have a quality recording. I don't mean the music, but the recording itself. It is not cheap to record/master a pro-sounding album rather than what sounds like a local band demo (it doesn't matter how digitially perfect it is if it sounds like crap to start with). Labels make this possible for new bands via a loan of sorts. If you're trying to self-distribute, you're going to have a hard time pulling this off unless you've already got a large stash of money on your hands.
2) Get played on the radio, nationally. Armies of label folks call, and call, and call major radio stations across the country trying to push songs. You have no army by self-distributing other than word of mouth. Major radio stations are virtually controlled by the major lables. I have NEVER heard of an mp3 some DJ or radio station exec just randomly found and loved so much they began running it in heavy rotation. It does not happen.
3) Tour and get booked. If joe the promo guy for Sony Music in Chicago calls super-popular bar X about booking one of their bands, bar X listens. If you call claiming to be a self-distributed sensation, you're going to have to be generating some enormous word of mouth buzz to get in.
4) Every type of miscellany promo conceivable. A band can't do it on their own once they've reached a certain level.
Anyway, easy self-distribution is not the answer to crushing the music industry as we know it, particularly if self-distribution = giving your music away for free. Merchandising t-shirts and hats is great, but consider for a moment how many CDs and mp3s you have, and how many band t-shirts and hats you have. Consider how many people you know that trade mp3s that actually go out to buy CDs of the bands they already have mp3'ed songs of (Among my friends, I can say exactly 0 have done this).
Anyway, mp3 does provide a new distribution method, but how it's going to re-write the rules in the music industry is awfully shaky.
Where the heck is cable access a felony? In Texas, it's a $500 ticket. I only know this because recently a local cable company setup an amensty program for cable thieves.
My music is far more important, personal, and valuable in every sense of the word than any physical possesion I have. I would rather have someone steal my car than steal my songs for Nazi radio ads.
Well, that is a cop out. Under copyright law, Pepsi can't bastardize my song unless I allow it, nor can the Nazi's, nor can Jerry Springer. That's fair. I'll drop this though and hit your points. I've thought quite a bit about a NOIW world. I do not particularly like it, because I see it as restricting individual freedom. I am not a communitarian in most regards. I don't have a problem with some information being seen as universal, but I do not see all "information" that way. When "all code becomes GPL", "all music is free to copy", and we're in a NOIW, we'll find a huge sector of our society attempting to find ways to live. The FSF's brief answer to this, at least as far as supporting software goes, is to institute some sort of tax on hardware which would then get allocated to projects ala the NSF. Of course, dealing with software is just the tip of the iceberg - Tim O'Reilly needs money to write linux books, Puff Daddy needs money to write music, Maplethorpe needs money to take pictures. Disregarding the very problematic logistics of this, we're slowly talking about giving money to a entity's that encompass and "everything" and we have no choice in the matter. I do not like it when my choices are restricted. I also see plenty of negative effects arising (Is it more valuable to make music free, and allow more people to hear it, or to allow musicians to own their music, and by doing so making money, allowing them to create more?), but I'll cut short. Allowing people to choose the terms they share their creations under (Such as being able to between GPL/BSD) is the only choice compatible with personal freedom. Well, I do believe there's a need to overhaul the patent system, not abolish it... but as you said, this is a different beast. Well, since your code is still freely availible, it is still free, isn't it? Like I said, I'm not taking your car - I've taken a copy of what you've made, but you still have your copy. I've just used in under terms you've explicitly forbidden. We'll say my moral code allows this, since I'm not taking something from you. If your morality overides mine on copying my closed source program, I guess my morality overrides yours here too. We have problems.As I tried to point out in my last point, although the fundamental viewpoints are different, it's really about the right to control information. Saying you can't control information is controlling information! One point says you must keep my creation open(and yours too!). The other says you must keep my information closed. Telling me I can't sell a copy of my CD under "no copy" terms is crazy to me. Telling you I can use your CD for whatever "non-free" purpose I feel like is crazy to you. The only way we can co-exist is to respect each others terms.
If I were to sit down with you right now with DVD recording of my true alien abduction to the planet Zybol and say, "Okay Mr. Cookie Monster, here's this long contract I've drawn up which says I'll give this to you, but you can't copy it under any circumstances or tell anyone about it". An NDA of sorts. You sign the contract, you make the choice to agree to my terms and take the DVD. What's the problem with this? Now we move it to "you just can't copy it", ala, the terms you agree to when you buy a DVD right now. Are you saying two humans can not make a contract regarding "information"?
This is what bothers me the most. As far as I'm concerned, you can have whatever morality you want as long as you don't impose it on me, but here you do. MY morality says if you copy my CD under sonso terms, you're stealing it, period. Lots of problems arise when people feel their personal morality allows them to step onto the morality of others. You might say "Oh my no, you're imposing your morality on ME", in which case I say, I friggin CREATED it, thanks. Without me, it wouldn't exist! You take the freedom to choose how I control my creation. My terms take nothing from you - you, in fact, have another choice! Self-distribution becoming a viable reality for a variety of media would be very nice. However, your "I'll pay the artist directly" idea is a bit unclear. Do the artists get to dictate this price, or do you? Is it purely a volunteer effort on your part? The GPL is great. Open source is great. I'm glad it exists and it's thriving. At the same time, the closed source model provides plenty of its own benefits. Not the least of which is that you can make living off your work directly! This includes music, software (many, many types of software do not fall into an open source buisness model), writing, you name it. This is a good thing.Finally, I do wish you hadn't skipped my movie anecdote from my prior post. It's probably the most substantive argument I made on why IP is logical.
Sure sure. I've found our discussion quite pleasant. I've attempted to stick my noise in these kinds of issues a few times with people, but it almost always immediately degrades into bashing/name-calling. Your viewpoints have made me think about things in new ways, and that's always good.Don't believe Slashdot should carry movie reviews?
I've seen all sorts of debate on the meaning of "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters", here's your complete, very limited hassle solution. Don't thank me, it's been around for awhile.
Yes, information can be stored in a variety of ways. That's not the issue. The issue is whether property = matter. For instance, do you own the information to your genome? Should you allow a hospital to copy the information one day in the future, do you believe you no longer have control over whether they make further copies of it and pass it along, to say, insurance companies?
How can someone have the freedom to control their creations if they can NOT control the copies of it? In that case you only have freedom as long as you never allow a copy to be made. That is a highly restricted choice, incompatible with the word freedom.Say I freely distribute an mp3. Pepsi gets a copy and decides to play it as the background music for a commercial. Going by what you've said (and you may just haven't stated this clearly), I have no control over whether they use it or not - I allowed the music to be copied, and I don't have control over a copy of my "information". Now my intensly personal love ballad is being used in a Pepsi commercial played 20 times a day involving two ducks. Do you really find this posistion fair?
Let's examine a little further. Say I make the most amazing movie ever made. Everyone wants to see it. The only way I allow people to view it (once) is if they pay me X dollars, in which I will go wherever they are and play it for them. I stand right by the projector to make sure no one attempts to steal the physical media, and use armed thugs and metal detectors to make sure no one brings in recording devices.
So here I do have *unconditional* control over my creation, although I've got to go to ridiculous extremes to retain it. As long as I protect the physical media it's on like a caveman, everythings fine. People who feel the viewing price is worth it, pay it, those who don't, don't. I'm happy because the revenue this generates allows me to make more movies.
Now given that we're living in an age where I can make very high quality copies of the movie cheaply (unlike say, the 1930s) and many people have the means to view these copies, I want to dump this traveling movie gig and simply provide people copies while retaining the same freedom to control my movie. However, in your view, this is impossible. Heck, I can't even sell a single copy to a movie theater because once that's done, they're free to copy my movie and do whatever they please with it - such as converting it to DVD and selling copies for barely-over-cost profit. Does this seem logical?
Finally, let's say I take a large piece of your GPL'ed product and stick it into my commercial, closed source binary only, product. My view: You don't have the right to define the terms in which I can use your a copy of your information, period. If you find out, you scream bloody murder and sue the crap out of me, saying it's your creation, your terms (Note here your code is still out there, I'm not taking your proverbial car away). Now lets say I make my closed source program without your GPL'ed code. You buy a copy and redistribute it freely. Your view: Information is free, you can do whatever you like with your copy of it. If I find out, I scream bloody murder, and sue the crap out of you, saying its my creation, my terms.
So who's right? In my view, we both are. Respecting one means respecting the other. We both should have the freedom to control our creations, uncondtionally, however we see fit. The problem is when someone asserts they're free to break the creators terms if they don't agree with them.
Obviously in this instance I meant worth as in monetary worth. Certainly it's an individual choice as to what the monetary value of anything is. However, if you feel somethings overpriced, it doesn't mean you are allowed to steal it. Since you've made an implicit insinuation here, let's make something clear. The idea of property in ALL forms is a completely artificial construct. Whether that's the right to individual ownership, whether you can own a piece of land, whether I can own information, whatever. There is no fundamental human right to property in any form, period.As far as the CD's worth, yes, as before, if someone is selling you something, you make the choice whether you're willing to pay that or not.
Yeah, I often wonder what effect it's really had. Among my friends, mp3 trading is rampant, but how much that affects what they buy is a little shaky. Right now I don't think it's having much effect. As broadband continues to roll out, super cheap HDs and DVD-RW/RAM cost very little, I think there will be a more profound impact, negatively. Sure sure. I'm curious though how you reconcile your views as not ripping off artists? Having played in various bands for close to 10 years now, it istrue that it's very close to impossible to make a living off selling CDs of (and playing) original music (and so as the FSF would say, who cares if the privileged few that do are screwed). However selling CDs did a whole bunch to pay for recording costs, practice space,support mini-tours, etc. Well given the new abilities technology has allowed over time, why copyright law and intellectual property evolved (and their continued existence) seems quite logical to me. This is not to say I agree with every aspect of copyright law, but I do believe in the principle behind it.Either way, majors do not lose significant dough to failed CDs. The $200,000 figure being thrown around here is way, way, way high for a band that hasn't already proven it has an bigtime audience except in weird, rare cases. Studio costs/tour support(if any)/etc aren't going to add up anywhere near that amount for a fledgling major band.
Of all the bands I've known anything about (or knew people in) who signed with majors (That'd be 311, Stick, Paw, Frogpond, Molly McGuire, and a couple I'm forgetting by now) ALL got jack didly on their first albums/ contracts. Enough for a pro-sounding album, some minimal help for touring, even some really crappy videos. The record companies weren't sweating too hard about breaking even. After all, most of these bands had some sort of decent following before being signed in the first place. This equals guaranteed CD sales. I'd be willing to bet most of those bands broke even or thereabouts given their local/regional support.
Anyway, there are bands that hang around on labels forever selling OK amounts of records per year and continuing on. Sonic Youth is a prime example. They don't make tons of money, but they do make money. Of course the focus is on creating the next one or two hit sensation to make gazillions off in a hurry, but there are some lurkers.
Your figures in the game industry are also a little off. There are way more than 20 games a year that make money! This is not to say there aren't a ton of losers, but sheesh. No one would be in the games industry if it was that tough. I've got an old friend who works at Legend Entertainment, who most recently put out Wheel of Time. However, Legend has been around for awhile longer than that putting out all kinds of stuff you've never heard of. They haven't made megabucks, and probably won't off WoT either, but they've expanded significantly and manage to pay everyones salaries and the bills. There are many companies out there like this (Interactive Magic, UbiSoft, etc), you just don't hear about them like you do with places like id.
Regards
MP3 does present a new distribution method for bands outside the clutches of labels, but unfortunately no band distributing free mp3s on the net is going to topple the system. Unless pay-for-mp3 becomes wildly more popular, bands getting any sort of attention will always jump ship to major labels (if given the opportunity) in hopes of making any money. Will micropay for mp3 get that popular? I don't know - but I imagine it will be difficult to convince John Q Public to pay $5 to download a CDs worth of mp3s when his friend already has them all waiting in a windows shared directory just across the cablemodem network.
-- Slaveowners didn't create their slaves (Well, they did some of the time, didn't they Mr. Jefferson).
-- Musicians create their music
and,
-- Slaves were humans. Most people agree these days, humans aren't property.
-- Music is not a living entity (unless you've taken an enormous amount of LSD), much less human. The property issue is stickier
These are really, really fundamental differences. This analogy is totally bogus.
You see, it's not about the record companies owning the music, it's about the musicians who created the music owning it.
That's the real issue. Do musicians have the freedom to control what they create? Including economic control? In my view, the musician who created the music is the person that gets to decide that, not you. This includes the freedom to decide what monetary value a copy of their CD (or song) has, and the terms they give you that copy under (Or, give that control to a record company). You've got the freedom to accept the terms and buy the CD, or not.
You might say, as many do, "but if I copy it, I'm not taking IT away from you, you still have the music!". The problem is in the IT. As far as I'm concerned, part of my freedom is the ability to put a monetary value (which includes 0) on something I create, whether it's easy to copy or not.
It boils down to - your thinking takes away my freedom/choice over my creation. My thinking takes nothing away from you - I've presented another choice (to buy the CD under my terms), but I haven't taken anything away.
It's unfortunate there's really no real middle ground.
I think that's been made blatantly obvious.
"b) outright said that women are not capable engineers"
Well, this is the thickest part of your blind spot. You've made many statements as to what women are worse at, and why they are "not as able" to do certain things. Many of these things are related to CS/Engineering jobs. Yet you somehow feel that there's NO correlation or implication between them. You're posistion is seriously confused. You stuck your head over the ledge, but you refuse to say that means you're looking down.
"I said women are not nerds."
Which of course is ridiculous. Your "personal experience" must be one of the most enclosed bubbles on the planet.
"But I never once said that all good engineers are nerds."
Once again, you run into your strange dichotomy. Women aren't nerds. Nerdy qualities are required for many, many aspects of the CS/Engineering world. Yet once again there's no correlation! Amazing.
"One would have to question your bias even more when considering that I repeatedly stated that my mom is one of the best in her field (as an engineer)."
You heavily qualified what your mother's type of engineering was. Non-nerdy, not nuts and bolts, but some sort of more abstracted womanly sort of thing. You went on to praise that repeatedly, but the problem is in your strange, funny distinction in the first place. The fact you once again don't consider this a contradiction is just funny. Maybe what you really meant to say is "women are good as SOME types of engineers".
"You do not have a direct interest in this "
Eh? We're having a two-way conversation here. I suppose you prefer to talk without listening or having to defend your points, but hey, that's not the way these boards work. You of course are not forced to debate (or reply to) anything. In fact I'd recommend against it in your case - you're better at eroding your own case than making it.
"My experience is that most women, baring a few femi-nazis, are much cooler about my statements."
Hah - and I've had two egging me on to continue this conversation as they get such a kick out of your confused commentary. Let me give you a little tip: Women can be sexist too! Everyone carries bias - the individuals of the group included. I once heard a black man say that because data shows Asians generally do better on IQ/SAT/GRE scores than whites, and whites better than blacks, we can probably extrapolate that this flat out means something about the general intelligence of the groups, period. Amazing really. I've also heard more than one woman say the womans place is at home, taking care of her husband and children. Hell, there are many cultures around the world where its socially acceptible to physically harm your wife for doing something "wrong", and many women in the cultures support the idea. Too extreme you say? That's what I say about you.
"Likewise, many of them will even readily admit that women are not cut out for most military rolls (and others yet think, as such, should not even have some rolls which they could technically perform)...it goes beyond just the physical as well."
Hahah - oh my. The more you talk, the more grave digging you do. Certainly you're not sexist now? Or pehaps you are, but you're acceptibly sexist (because you have women who agree with your viewpoint, and thus it must be correct/okay)? Women can't handle military roles. Is this the same "male only focus thing"? Or perhaps because women lack aggressive tendencies? Perhaps women just lack the balls to kill (HAR HAR HAR). What stereotype will we identify and rest assured from your personal experience it's biological? Apparently your amount of bigotry/stereotyping is not sexist. How much further would we need to go before you considered it bigoted/sexist?
I think my cousin, a 2nd lieutenant graduated from the Air Force Academy would probably take exception to your assertion. She's probably some sort of lesbian femi-nazi (I LOVE people who use catchphrases from that wacky, hard nosed, truth-teller, Rush Limbaugh!), and uh let's see, been involved with academics, and therefore bred to liberal thinking. You know those folks in the military are all a bunch of leftist radicals.
"You, from the very beginning, boxed me in, and called me, in so many words, a sexist, a moron, you name it"
I slipped off the bandwagon towards the end as I just couldn't resist given your weak attempts at attacking me. However if you'll read my first posts, you'll notice I never attack YOU, I attack your statements or ideas. Calling your point stupid is a fundamentally different thing from calling YOU stupid. This is called mature debating, I'm sorry you couldn't make the distinction and handle it.
"I am currently in business school full time and working part time, amongst other things; I am not some little frat boy despite your assertions to the contrary."
Notice that you started the name-calling and typecasting. Once it became obvious you're incapable of staying away from it, I couldn't help but have a little fun myself. You're right though, you do sound sorta like a frat-boy, don't you?
"You likely have no experience with either, and as such have little to no respect for either, as you seem to believe the highest calling must can't be to actually CREATE anything, such as a company"
Wow. You certainly know a WHOLE lot about me, who I am, the way I think, and what's made me think that way about EVERYTHING by extrapolating from the 3-4 posts I've made in our fairly directed discussion. Problem is, you really don't have a clue beyond the very little I've told you, and your comments about my respect for creating a company/product or whatever is just hilarious. You seem to have a problem with taking one or two points (whether they've got any basis or not in the first place) and making a billion assumptions about everything else. Seems you took the same route to explaining me as you did to explaining women. I think we've got a trend here, no?
"With you, I evidently hit the nail right on the the head. The fact that you are a grad student, and likely leaning towards academia speaks volumes. That is...as long as you wish to play the name calling game."
Actually no, you didn't hit the nail on the head. I'm not a grad student, I'm not leaning toward academia. I've never said that, you just flat made it all up. I could go into great detail about my personal history, but as I already mentioned, it's not relevant to anything said here. I can just see it -- "Oh you mean you went to school X?! That place is a socialist femi-nazi breeding ground! Err wait, Bob Roberts university... hold on...". You seem really tied up in trying to dimiss my "background" rather than attacking my points.
Anyway, this has been fun, and you've provided some entertainment for me and a few friends who keep track of what I post here on occasion. I originally thought we may both become more mutally informed, but the entertainment will do. And the value of the entertainment has worn thin, and I am done!
Regards
Perhaps. Certainly far less naive than the statements you've made concerning biological differences.
"and say that this then must mean that I must think that women are lesser engineers than men. I simply never said anything to that effect"
I can only repeat you so many times. If you don't feel your blanket, moronic typification of women as being bad at engineering related "thinking" or "ability to focus on careers", you're simply attempting to cover yourself.
"For example, I said something to the effect that my mom is at the top of her game as an engineer."
Actually, you've said quite a lot otherwise. It seems you don't put much time in thinking about what you say, as even when constantly confronted with it you act as if you're clueless. As with every post you've responded to - you completely dismiss my specific rebutalls/quotes and generalize your commentary. You're incapable of defending your points one by one - you constantly resort to repetitive general statements.
"The lack of the ability to be the kind of nerd I was referring, is not equivelent to not being able to perform every bit as well as that nerd."
Well, I'm glad I've helped show you that you painted yourself into a corner, because your above statement makes no sense. "All I've said about women's personality absolutely makes NO difference in their ability". Well then, it seems everything you've attempted to extrapolate means nothing. Women's inability to focus, or give up being mom, or whatever else are apparently absolutely trivial (how? Got me - sounded originally like you had something to say).
And the only reason I've continued to respond is the last part of your post here. It's absolutely perfect. The sure sign you've won a debate is when the person you're arguing with gets personally hostile, attempts to provoke you, and resorts to attempting to personally attack an anonymous person. Funny, really.
"I've come to the conclusion that you're just a meddlesome 3rd party."
Uh, right. Meddlesome third party. In the context of slashdot posting this means what? Nothing? Of course.
"You are here to argue (rather then attempt understand, or reach a conclusion) above all else"
Another pointless statement. I've already reached my conclusions, and you have already reached yours. The debate began when I began attacking the fact your conclusion's were drawn off some pretty ridiculous premises. You've got a lot to learn as to being able to defend them.
"I'd bet dollars to pesos that you're not a women"
I'm not a women , you're right. Nor have I ever claimed to be. "you're middle class college aged (including grad school) kid..." I'd say upper middle class would probably be a better description. As with everything else, you attempt to typecast me, as that obviously definies my ideas. Just as you do with women. You really seem uncomfortable dealing with anything as an individual quantity - it seems you don't have that capacity. You need to sort things into little groups that are all the same, it's much easier that way.
"all this tends to breed a certain kind of liberalism that i've seen all too often"
Ahh yes, you the "wise old man" dismissing my arguments as that of an uh, crazy upstart middle class grad student. Unfortunately you're wrong, but we'll skip my biography as you'll realize it's not relevant (And by the way, who are you, great wisened one? I would bet the clippings from my left toe you are a white, suburban high school or very early college kid). It's unfortunate that you're so unable to defend your posistion the best you can do is attempt "(there's something to get your panties in an uproar)"
Hah. Well, your true colors really come out here. Lost for any substance, you just gotta get my panties in a bunch over your immature attacks. "Oh see, I'm not a sexist, but you're so liberal you can't handle my anti-PC comments! HEE HEE". Unfortunately it also shows you don't have anywhere near the open mind, or gender-neutal posistion you seem to think you do. "Hey nigger, that'll get your scars burning". Not that offensive, but in the same vein and similarly pathetic. The shame about bigots like yourself is that you are so arrogant. I am sure you're mother would be dissapointed.
Regards
Whoops. Well, at this point the best you can do is call me a "liberal", then dismiss my rebuttals to your specific words. One thing I'm definitely liberal about is quoting and responding specifically. You'll also note I haven't called you a bigot, reactionary boot-licker, or tried to typecast your ideas. I played with your words some, and that's unfair, but I got tired of your repeated assertion that "Me saying women aren't good at many aspects of engineering != Me saying women shouldn't GO into engineering". If anythings getting shoved in your mouth, it's your foot.
"Nor did I say they're just capable of attaining "decent" skills, or that consequently, they're only cut out for middle management."
You've said in a variety of ways women aren't as capable in many areas. Yet you claim this doesn't mean your defining what women are cut out for? Your posistion doesn't leave you middle ground to todder around in. Either women are less capable, as you claimed in a variety of ways, in which case there should be no worry over the lack of them in cs related fields. Virtually every argument you've made about the difference between the sexes has pointed out reasons why women are simply less capable in certain techinical areas. This would make sense, considering the point of this original story was explaining why there are few women in techincal fields.
"I don't think you understand, if I could have anyone's capabilities and intelligence, it would be hers. You either don't understand this, or YOU are trying to double talk."
You seem to be backpedaling in order to avoid looking like a sexist. You typecast your mother (and then generalize immensely off her) but then praise her intelligence. Same with your sisters. Same with "Well women aren't good and this and this, but I'm NOT saying they shouldn't do it!". The problem is not that you're saying exclude women outright. It's saying they're simply not suited in the first place because they're not "biologically" suited.
"I never said that any of these differences amount of incapability of performing the job"
No? ------------
"rather that many professional women start out in demanding fields, discover later in life, after graduating from grad school, law school, or what have you, that they want to raise children. This frequently requires a change of priorities...atleast for awhile...which means their ULTIMATE career paths are going to be altered."
Read: Only women are the affected parent having children. Only women want children. After that, many trash their careers. Therefore that's why you don't see them in similar careers as men, because they just don't have the time or drive to do it, they want to be mom.
"When is the last time you've seen a women lock themselves up in a room, and obsess about something to the exclusion of all else (e.g., body odor, hair, social life, etc) until they solve it, or come up empty handed?"
Read: Women can't focus over single tasks. They do not have the drive/interest/whatever to do this. Many tasks in the CS field require this kind of drive. Women don't have it, women aren't there.
"the differences between my mother and father typify the differences between the two highly skilled respective element of the sexes." "As an engineer, he was better than even my mom"
Read: My mom and dad are typical of women and men in technical fields. My father was a better engineer. Therefore, men are typically better engineers. This is why women have a hard time entering industry.
"One major difference I noticed about my father was that he was very much of the nerd or geek that I mentioned before (who will focus on something with such determination, that the rest of the world is just irrelevant). He loved his technology for the sake of technology. I can't say this about my mom."
Read: Women can't be geeks. Geeks have determination. Women do not. They really don't like technology for the sake of technology, it doesn't interest them.
"She loved technology for the sake of delivering a product...of helping people...or some greater end, other than her immediate edification. While my mom also has the ability to see any problem through, it just aint the same. There isn't that one track mind....the kind of mind which I've seen amongst many of the top scientists of today and the past. "
Read: My mom is a woman, and a mother, therefore she thinks of other's interests besides her own. She, like most women, doesn't have a one track mind. Like most women, this unfortunately means she's incapable of being a top scientist (or engineer like Dad). If not incapable, then definitely improbable and part of this is just the female genome. She may be good at other things I mentioned vaguely, but they don't lie in many techincal areas.
"In short, my mom is, in my opinion, at the top of her game as an engineer and entrepreneur"
Read: Mom is good at being a techincal manager. She is not as good as an engineer, like Dad.
". Very few men feel compelled to quit their jobs, or substancially reduce their hours for a couple year--that is a fact."
Read: Women want babies. When they have them they want to quit or substantially reduce their workload, unlike men. Thus they do not have time to devot themselves to careers (like engineering) as this requires more time than their children allow them.
"But that does not mean that I ever expect my sisters to behave the same way that thousands of young men have, through different cultures, through the decades. I don't confuse the ability to get things done, with the ability to lose sight of everything but ONE thing--in my experience, that is very much of a male attribute"
Read: I expect my sisters to do well, like mom, but not as "real" engineers, like dad. As women they lack the ability to lose themselves over one thing.
"Put simply, women are capable of doing the same job in engineering"
Read: Well, maybe capable, not obviously by all these other statements as capably as men. This may be partially social, but its certainly also partially biology.
----------------------
"You might not think my experience is sufficient, but that does not mean that I must ignore it."
Of course we all rely on our own experience to define our opinions and make judgements. However you seem to be quite myopic in considering other peoples experiences or ideas on the subject. The way you've experienced things, and the conclusions you've drawn, is the way it is, for no other reason than your "intuition". Your reality != everyones reality. Keeping this idea in mind, it really helps you open your mind.
"You can't do a great deal in this world, if all your actions must first be based on concrete proof. You seem to realize this on some level, as you're proceeding on many similar unproven claims (e.g., social over genetic)"
I fail to see what point you're trying to make. Many people base their entire lives around beliefs that are purely faith and little, if any, concrete evidence(such as say, Religion or the existence of God). Does this make them wrong? Who's to say, but it's certainly not scientific, as you have repeatedly alluded to.
"You seem to realize this on some level, as you're proceeding on many similar unproven claims (e.g., social over genetic)"
There is a wealth of evidence regarding societal influence on groups of people, and what people believed about them, and how that effected them. For America, see the last 150 years of Blacks, Women, and Native Americans in the US for a start. If you really want to argue that there's no "proof" society affected these groups in profoundly major ways, you're stretching beyond reason, and I'd guess you're smart enough to know that.
It's also quite obvious that whatever biological differences may play in peoples personality, it's absolutely dwarfed by the environment they've been brought up in. See the above groups I mentioned again. We can also safely say that virtually everyone is genetically different, and any random two people (male, female, whatever race or otherwise) are signficantly different genetically. How do genetic differences, race, gender, or otherwise play out as far as shaping personality: No one has any idea. I find it funny that you repeatedly dodged my mention of racial genetic differences -- pointing to that as defining a person is widely taboo these days. Yet defining a person behavior as "female" is still prevailent.
In the rare case of identical twins seperated at birth, it turns out if they're in wildly different enviroments, they turn out to be awfully different people (in beliefs, interests, disposistion, etc). I'd love to talk more about this, as I spent 4 years working in a genetics lab and spent plenty of time reading journals crossing over to the behavior/psychological aspects of the area, but I'm out of time.
Anyway, it's been an interesting conversation. Regards!
You're double-talking. We can wordplay all day - "obsessive", "single-tracked", etc. I've seen plenty of women obsess, to the exclusion of virtually everything else, on one thing. I daresay even as much as someone tied up in coding.
More about your mother. You might consider for a moment that in a sample space of millions, talking about your mother may be interesting to you, but continually pointing to her attributes/traits as the way women are, in a technical field or otherwise, is stupid.
"Men, for whatever reason, don't assume the same roles in bringing up a child as a women does".
"For whatever reason". Consider our society over the last 100 years and perhaps the "reason" may become more apparent to you. You might also note the tradional gender parental stereotypes have very gradually grown closer over time (and continue to). I think we can pretty much rule out rapid evolutionary changes in our genetics as the cause.
"Very few men feel compelled to quit their jobs, or substancially reduce their hours for a couple year--that is a fact."
Oh it is a fact? Point me to your undisputable source please. The statement is asinine - yeah, some men do not feel compelled to cut back on work to spend time with their children, but many do. I've personally known two fathers who were the primary caregivers (Read: Stay at home/don't work) for their kids as a matter of choice after considering possibilities with their spouses. I've known many, many couples who both cutback somewhat on work when their child arrived, but relied primarily on a 3rd party to take care of their kid before it hit school age.
It's still much more prevailent, and socially acceptible, for women to take time off work to stay home or outright sacrifice their careers to be a "homemaker", but pointing to this as behavior born of specifically male/female genetical differences is a big jump to a conclusion. Similiarly, taking this even further by saying "We can explain virtually any discrepancy in behavior between men and women, such as the amount that enter CS related fields, just somewhat HAS to a matter of biology" is just going off a cliff.
"Nor can you claim that your social influences are proof either"
I would say social influences are a far more compelling argument. I'd encourage you to go live in a wildly different 3rd world country for a year and observe how radically environment shapes people.
Besides women, there are very few blacks working in CS these days. So I guess we can say "Well environment plays a part in it, but frankly biology must play a role here as well". Ut oh! Of course, the vast majority of humans are genetically different period, but let's not get too confused.
"I think that both social and chemical differences play a role, social more than chemical (atleast in non-nerdy fields, e.g., law, medicine (although many med schools have more women enrolled than men), business"
What about the non-nerdy fields? You mean, in non-nerdy fields, social differences play more of a role? And in nerdy fields, it's more "chemical"? Whew!
"I don't confuse the ability to get things done, with the ability to lose sight of everything but ONE thing--in my experience, that is very much of a male attribute"
Well, that's just flat ignorance, but I suppose there's nothing to be done.
--- "Well Jim, we can hire her, but as a woman I don't believe she has the one-track ability to sit and program for 8+ hours a day for months at a time on a single component of our project. Women aren't obsessive, you know. Well maybe they are, but not about ONE thing, that's a guy thing see. As I woman I believe she is more apt toward being like my mom, and mom is like this...."
"Huh? Uh okay, well doesn't programming involve many different aspects within that ONE thing? What the hell are you talking about anyway?"
"Hey Jim, we're starting Project X and we need to assemble a team. Since Nancy is female, she's going to be good as the project manager. However, she may want to have babies and quit work soon, so I'm not sure we should put her in the posistion. Bill's a good guy, and being male he has the male attribute of being focusing on a single goal, like programming is, and so I think he should be the lead programmer. His wife is having a kid soon too, but it's a fact men have no desire to cut back on work in order to spend time with their children, so I think we're solid there".
"Hey man, are you still drinking 8 cups of coffee before work? I think you need a vacation"
--- "Put simply, women are capable of doing the same job in engineering;"
Seems like what you've said contradicts this statement. When people talk about "getting women into Math/CS", they're not talking about training future middle managers with decent techincal know-how in IT companies. They're talking about down-n-dirty programmers, sysadmins, etc. According to you, women just aren't good at that.
"it is the underlying motivations and approach that I question"
Motivations and approach toward getting more women into the field, or the way women work in the field when they're there.
Strange. At the U of Texas at Austin the CS department has swelled (and continues) enormously. They can't fail students out and find ways to underpay PhD as lecture's fast enough. My impression from the people I talk to around there that this isn't some strange localized event. The secret is out that if you know something about computers, you can pretty much assure yourself a fine salary almost immediately and students are flocking to that around here. Unfortunately the result of this seems to be more people who really have no interest in CS/Computers, but rather getting a nice job.
Perhaps the overall # of degree's handed out is less, but as you allude to, this is more than likely because folks are not bothering with finishing college before entering industry.
"For one reason. It takes passion. You can be a doctor without passion.. maybe not a good one, but if you screw up a stich by a tenth of an inch, the patient doesn't die, no one even notices. You miss a semicolon or a comma, your software just does not work. It takes an obsessive passion to get into computers and not many people have that."
Running tests as a QA guy does not take passion. Nor does managing Oprah's website or being a sysadmin. It doesn't take passion to be a doctor though? Do you know many people willing to go through 8 years of school plus 3 years of residency working insane hours (and unlike grad school, you don't get to be a TA or draw salary off a lab grant) who just "kinda wanted to do it"?
Why is there a workforce shortage? Technology/internet explodes extremely quickly, everyone and their grandma begins to gain an understanding and an interest, it's going to take awhile before these people (or their kids) get the interest in making it a career.
And many men think the same thing. In fact, my brother and his wife just got the notion recently and I have a new niece. You seem to imply men have no desire to raise children, and if the decision is made they're a neutral observer. That's absurd.
Having a child alters both the parents "priorities" QUITE profoundly. How people choose to share certain responsibilities is their own choice. Yes, 9 months is awhile to be pregnant, but it's far longer period than that where a child requires constant attention.
"I do believe there are fundamental genetic (nature, not nuture) differences between men and women. While I can't pinpoint them all"
Hah - I was really hoping you could pinpoint them all, as that would be quite a monumental achievement.
"I've seen plenty enough evidence of it, to say that the differences between men and women in the sciences is more than just social and upbringing."
You're ability to deliniate between what's nature, what's nuture, and that enough personal evidence is definite proof is amazing. I'm reminded of reading T. Jefferson papers on all the quasi-empircal proof that blacks were obviously an inferior race.
Are men and women genetically different? Yes! What does that mean as far as personality and attraction to the relatively extremely new field of CS? Got me, but asserting peoples interest in computers is mainly based on their genetic disposition (We must of course include males here as well) is ridiculous to me.
"When is the last time you've seen a women lock themselves up in a room, and obsess about something to the exclusion of all else (e.g., body odor, hair, social life, etc) until they solve it, or come up empty handed? We see plenty of male geeks/techies do this in large numbers. Yet, I'm hardpressed, despite my experience, to think of a single women like this in anything (not just computers...) "
If I were reading just this part of your message alone, I'd think this was some sort of joke. Women don't uh, have the ability to concentrate for long periods of time? Don't have single-minded focus to finish projects of ANY sort? I can only think that your experience interacting with women, and perhaps humans in general, is REALLY limited.
I'm sure your Dad and your Mother are both nice people. Attempting to claim their abilities and experiences are archetypes for the way women and men work within technical fields is just about as absurd as some of your other comments.
"More observations...look at girls and boys sports between at a very young age. Across many different cultures, the boys and girls start to differentiate themselves significantly, in terms of aggresion, and the like"
And gee, here's a thought - maybe a whole TON of that has to do with the way society and parents treat boys and girls differently! Crazy! Sticking dolls and make-up kits in the girls stocking while the boy gets hotwheels cars and construction sets. Hell, it's only really recently women were given a decent number of options as far as organized sports in the first place -- even now it's certainly not equal opportunity or encouragement.
Reading posts like yours, and many others, explains a whole lot about why women are scare in the technical field. It seems you treat them gender first, human second. You define abilities and traits you're damn sure are pretty much genetic differences. Even though you may claim to have an open mind about things, it seems pretty clear your have some set notions you start out with. You are, or will be, a woman's boss or teammate one day, and all this subtle baggage will be riding around with you.
Score 3 eh. Gee, you're right, pushing women to attain supermodel status/beauty rather than entering math/science/CS really isn't a problem. Men need the same encouragement. Honeslty, men really have little to go on as far as attempting to exploit themselves as sex objects. Sure we've got Maxim and GQ, but hardly any supermodels! We've really lost our focus when we're talking about attempting to encourage females, minorities, or whatever groups into math/science fields when we really should be pushing white males further and further into the types of oppression they've pushed on others for a couple hundred years in this country.
All laws are artificial constructs, including personal "physical" property. "Quite easy. New products get registered and published. Anyone is free to take them up, package them and sell them. Over the next yaer or two, surveys are done on the uptake of different types of products. Awards are given to creators based on how well used the products are, with a modifiying factor for the type and complexity of software." Your are grossly oversimplifying your idea. Unless your product warrants some sort of serivce you might sell, how are you going to make any money off packaging something? Considering we remove all IP laws, I can simply copy your product verbatim and sell it for a bare-minimum cost. The undercutting would be quite enormous, with the only potential hope being that you, somehow, are chosen for an award based on "user surverys" 1-2 years down the road? How are you going to track who "created" what, when there could be endless claims as to what software was derived from what, and who should get the real credit. Anyway this has been an interesting discussion, but as I said before you are basically repeating the idea of a software tax, which I had already mentioned. Regards -- Shiner Missionary
While I do believe the current system is flawed, I don't believe that "property == physical"/"can copy == not property" quite fits the bill. I do not believe this is because I'm a puppet of the man unable to join the enlightened.
"There are many good ones, but I think my solution is relatively simple and effective"
Perhaps the general idea is simple, but the implementation is quite a nightmare. It's much like saying "Well, we'll just set up a government that passes laws and distributes money in a way we'll all find acceptible".
"Now, the incentive to innovate is created by a public body that is independant of the government, perhaps even with its own democratically elected committee. Its role is to reward those who create useful innovations with hard cash awards."
Consider what this would entail, particularly if we're talking on the scope you seem to be. Lets just consider software development - who decides who gets what out of the myraid of potential developers? I could go on for awhile here, but I'll limit this post to direct responses.
"Awards are only given if an innovation is a proven success, i.e. people take it up and use it effectively in the market"
How do you define success? "Effectiveness"? What is "the market"? The buisness world? Perhaps everyone in the universe may be using a small not-so-complex piece of code/software, but how are you going to measure that against an enormous code monstrosity that works beatifully but has very specialized use?
"Note that the product could be produced by anyone, not necessarily the inventor, which is a good thing because the market will now be competitive, driving economic growth and further innovation."
Disregarding further problems of favortism this could lead to, I have an problem with someone inventing something only to be washed aside after giving it all away. Competition can be a good motivator. Unrestricted competition (Hello MS) can be an extremely limiting force in a variety of ways.
"Funding for the awards will come out of general taxation. This is the fairest solution, since innovations now benefit society and the economy as a whole. I would estimate that this would be a fairly small addition to the tax burden, which would be more than compensated by greater economic progress."
I'm not sure I'm understanding you correctly, as it seems this would require an ENORMOUS increase in taxation to take what is now funded by "buisness" and begin funding ala the NSF. Now, this might mean you're paying tax and very little for a product instead of little tax and a lot for a product, but this still requires people to pay for developing things they may not want/care about/use. This can be a problem, even when you're talking about something you may consider universal (Welcome to the healthcare debate).
Anyway in general you sound like you're essentially talking about a "software tax", which I'd already mentioned.
-- That's not MY brain on drugs
In terms of time, certainly not. Time may not be money, but most people seem to value it regardless of whether they're doing something they enjoy or not.
"I personally like Co-Source's funding model. I think that method gets at your objection that open-source has limited output in many areas. Developers there are asked to develop solutions, and are paid for the work they do, not for the output. ie, the output is forever free, there is simply a one-time charge for the work to produce it."
I think ESR has harped a lot about this, but it suffers from the same kind of limitations as funding your open source project via service/support. This requires a large entity with a lot of money to hire people to produce something. The problem -- there are many, many types of software that have no real use in buisness, or only very marginal application. Not only that, but when one buisness pours X dollars into that CRM program to streamline themselves, it doesn't seem to be a wild stretch to me that many are hesitant toward the idea of giving it away to their direct competitors.
"You also point out that currently we are doing pretty good having both open and closed source. That's great, I agree".
Perhaps that's the real answer unless something radical happens.