You mean like the half a million children who died last year of HIV related illness? (Over 90% of these cases were acquired during childbirth or breastfeeding.)
Capitalism did not create the conditions that allowed that to happen. (No, really. No, it didn't. Don't even try. It just makes you sound stupid.)
Capitalism also, as I suggested, isn't the right way to help those kids. The fact that there are quite a few AIDS victims who were infected involuntarily is a justification for changing the way we fund drug development. It is not a justification for punishing people who have already done the hard work.
But so you can get a clue, try this: have someone hold your head under water for a while.
Yeah. Because getting AIDS is exactly like having someone hold my head under water.
Hint: AIDS doesn't come looking for you. You have to go looking for it. That means you are not entitled to any free drugz, kthxbye. You're "entitled" to pay for your mistakes in life, just as I am, and just as everyone else is. That's really about it.
The other poster does have a good point, though, in that the use of government-enforced patent monopolies to enforce predatory pricing really is beyond the pale. I am starting to think the right thing to do is to nationalize drug R&D and treat it the same way we do space exploration, highway construction, public health in general, and other necessary but unprofitable activities.
I wouldn't use AIDS drugs to justify this approach -- again, AIDS is something most of its victims chose to get, regardless of whether it's politically-correct to say so -- but I still tend to think of equal access to health care as a basic human right for which we should take responsibility as a society.
As things stand now, though, those AIDS drugs were developed with a great deal of (mostly) private capital. It is simply not OK to socialize benefits of capitalism while privatizing the risks, any more than the converse.
So you want them to spend 15+ years working in hope that they can maybe get a drug working when there's a great one sitting on the market right now?
Yeah, because the one that's just passively "sitting" on the market right now didn't just drop out of the sky, for free. Somebody spent the "10+ years" it took to create the drug. Somebody invested in the "drug-making infrastructure necessary to even start making AIDS drugs." Somebody took the risks needed to overcome the "odds of any drug beating AIDS."
So, yeah, I do want the Brazilians to spend 15+ years working on a drug, if the alternative is stealing the work of the people who did exactly that.
If you keep punishing the people who actually invest and produce, then you shouldn't be surprised when you eventually run out of good stuff to rip off.
And I don't mean a PC inside an updated Apple II enclosure. I think he would be the perfect person to design and sell a new computer targeting the home electronics hobbyist. Something very slow, like ~25Mhz, that could allow one to wire-wrap a daughterboard and just plug it in. Like people used to do in the '70s.
These pretty much already exist. Google "Chumby" (designed by Bunnie Huang of Xbox 1-hacking fame).
Also, the amount of fun you can have with a $20 ATmega128 board and a free copy of AVR-GCC is pretty impressive.
... as usual for these little exercises in question-begging, exactly what pernicious effects are likely to arise from exposing little Johnny to all of this violent and sexy evilness. Right? The only question was how.
A D420 is a relatively-nice laptop. I think one page on Michael Dell's corporate-blog thing mentioned that he used one himself. It is hard to configure a usable D420 for less than a couple $K.
I don't know about America, but considering some European regions, like many parts of Germany with its increasing neo-nazi plague (alongside a newly strengthening nationalist-patriotic mainstream), you can be quite sure that the more neo-nazi propaganda is being published through open channels, the more bones of victims to neo-nazi hate will be broken. Which won't just be coincidence, but cause and effect.
So what you're saying is that people are programmable devices.
Wow. Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's not that depressing an ethos.
Provide the source code under an open license. It's how we want it to happen.
It's not, however, how USERS want it to happen. Hint: if installing your program requires me to run a compiler, I'm just going to stikc with the closed-source Windows version, and maybe get some actual work done that week.
It's pretty damned obvious that quantum physics is just the PVS (potentially-visible set) scheme used by the simulator that runs the Universe. Just as a game doesn't bother rendering objects that aren't in anyone's view frustum, the Universe does not expend processing power rendering objects that aren't being hit by photons.
Yes, he did -- and the tendency for those not to have studied what he wrote is to not be able to make sense of his class distinctions, since they are not defined by wealth, as classes are defined under capitalism
Balderdash. All anyone needs to understand is that in order to enforce communism, you have to stick a gun in someone's back. That is not true of capitalism.
The one whose system requires the use of force loses. It really is that simple.
Could it be that we want energy so bad that we dismiss any criticism before even thinking about it?
I don't think so. Many, if not most of the higher-rated posts in this article are those that propose solutions to existing problems with nuclear energy, such as how to store or reprocess waste, what sort of engineering work would be needed for marine-based power plants, and so on. Others point out that yes, while nuclear energy can be dangerous when things go wrong, no other energy source is entirely safe either, and the health consequences of even a Chernobyl-scale disaster aren't really that dire compared to what we already tolerate from coal-fired plants.
On the other hand, if you listen to stereotypical "greens" for even a few minutes, you realize that they are basically just professional bellyachers. I don't see many of them in this thread. The typical Green is someone who didn't do all that well in science class, but who heard from someone else that some technology is inherently Bad. If we weren't confronted with energy problems, a Green would pick some other area of human endeavor to criticize from the sidelines, or else pick some other religion to extol to the masses. They haven't put much thought into the practical advantages and drawbacks of nuclear technology, and they aren't interested in open dialogue with those who have.
This type of person really isn't much different from the Jack Thompsons of the world who are convinced that video games are inherently Bad, the Carrie Nations of the world who are convinced that alcohol is inherently Bad, the evangelical Christians who are convinced that pornography is inherently Bad, or RIAA executives who are convinced that peer-to-peer networking is inherently Bad.
I don't believe M-rated video are entirely harmless objects for teenagers. A game with that rating got it for a reason.
That reason was because Congress threatened to impose legislation if the industry did not adopt a rating system. (See what happens when you give censors an inch? You find that they lie.)
At the end of the day, the First Amendment says that Congress (and yes, that includes all governmental bodies in the US) shall make no law regulating freedom of the press. It doesn't matter if a book, movie, or game turns 98.4% of children into flesh-rending zombies... Congress shall make no law.
So, if you want regulation of this nature, you need to repeal the First Amendment. It is literally that simple.
Treat M-Rated video games the same way as cigarettes and beer.
Except for the part about M-Rated video games not causing any demonstrable harm to anyone, that is.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean like the half a million children who died last year of HIV related illness? (Over 90% of these cases were acquired during childbirth or breastfeeding.)
Capitalism did not create the conditions that allowed that to happen. (No, really. No, it didn't. Don't even try. It just makes you sound stupid.)
Capitalism also, as I suggested, isn't the right way to help those kids. The fact that there are quite a few AIDS victims who were infected involuntarily is a justification for changing the way we fund drug development. It is not a justification for punishing people who have already done the hard work.
But so you can get a clue, try this: have someone hold your head under water for a while.
Yeah. Because getting AIDS is exactly like having someone hold my head under water.
Hint: AIDS doesn't come looking for you. You have to go looking for it. That means you are not entitled to any free drugz, kthxbye. You're "entitled" to pay for your mistakes in life, just as I am, and just as everyone else is. That's really about it.
The other poster does have a good point, though, in that the use of government-enforced patent monopolies to enforce predatory pricing really is beyond the pale. I am starting to think the right thing to do is to nationalize drug R&D and treat it the same way we do space exploration, highway construction, public health in general, and other necessary but unprofitable activities.
I wouldn't use AIDS drugs to justify this approach -- again, AIDS is something most of its victims chose to get, regardless of whether it's politically-correct to say so -- but I still tend to think of equal access to health care as a basic human right for which we should take responsibility as a society.
As things stand now, though, those AIDS drugs were developed with a great deal of (mostly) private capital. It is simply not OK to socialize benefits of capitalism while privatizing the risks, any more than the converse.
So you want them to spend 15+ years working in hope that they can maybe get a drug working when there's a great one sitting on the market right now?
Yeah, because the one that's just passively "sitting" on the market right now didn't just drop out of the sky, for free. Somebody spent the "10+ years" it took to create the drug. Somebody invested in the "drug-making infrastructure necessary to even start making AIDS drugs." Somebody took the risks needed to overcome the "odds of any drug beating AIDS."
So, yeah, I do want the Brazilians to spend 15+ years working on a drug, if the alternative is stealing the work of the people who did exactly that.
If you keep punishing the people who actually invest and produce, then you shouldn't be surprised when you eventually run out of good stuff to rip off.
Well, no, AVR-GCC is a port of GCC. It runs under Windows (via the WinAVR distribution) but was born and bred in GNU-land.
And I don't mean a PC inside an updated Apple II enclosure. I think he would be the perfect person to design and sell a new computer targeting the home electronics hobbyist. Something very slow, like ~25Mhz, that could allow one to wire-wrap a daughterboard and just plug it in. Like people used to do in the '70s.
These pretty much already exist. Google "Chumby" (designed by Bunnie Huang of Xbox 1-hacking fame).
Also, the amount of fun you can have with a $20 ATmega128 board and a free copy of AVR-GCC is pretty impressive.
If your wife's ex-lover is a confessed serial killer, the evidence against you has to be pretty damning for you not to create reasonable doubt.
Well, either that, or she was just into psychos.
... some analysts are questioning whether Nintendo's success may be bad for the industry overall.
Yeah, like Chris Hecker, who was run out of town on a rail for saying as much.
... as usual for these little exercises in question-begging, exactly what pernicious effects are likely to arise from exposing little Johnny to all of this violent and sexy evilness. Right? The only question was how.
A D420 is a relatively-nice laptop. I think one page on Michael Dell's corporate-blog thing mentioned that he used one himself. It is hard to configure a usable D420 for less than a couple $K.
I don't know about America, but considering some European regions, like many parts of Germany with its increasing neo-nazi plague (alongside a newly strengthening nationalist-patriotic mainstream), you can be quite sure that the more neo-nazi propaganda is being published through open channels, the more bones of victims to neo-nazi hate will be broken. Which won't just be coincidence, but cause and effect.
So what you're saying is that people are programmable devices.
Wow. Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's not that depressing an ethos.
In reality, what we say is
"La liberté des uns s'arrete ou commence celle des autres"
In America, what we say is
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."
I think our way works pretty well.
Provide the source code under an open license. It's how we want it to happen.
It's not, however, how USERS want it to happen. Hint: if installing your program requires me to run a compiler, I'm just going to stikc with the closed-source Windows version, and maybe get some actual work done that week.
It's pretty damned obvious that quantum physics is just the PVS (potentially-visible set) scheme used by the simulator that runs the Universe. Just as a game doesn't bother rendering objects that aren't in anyone's view frustum, the Universe does not expend processing power rendering objects that aren't being hit by photons.
Yes, he did -- and the tendency for those not to have studied what he wrote is to not be able to make sense of his class distinctions, since they are not defined by wealth, as classes are defined under capitalism
Balderdash. All anyone needs to understand is that in order to enforce communism, you have to stick a gun in someone's back. That is not true of capitalism.
The one whose system requires the use of force loses. It really is that simple.
Could it be that we want energy so bad that we dismiss any criticism before even thinking about it?
I don't think so. Many, if not most of the higher-rated posts in this article are those that propose solutions to existing problems with nuclear energy, such as how to store or reprocess waste, what sort of engineering work would be needed for marine-based power plants, and so on. Others point out that yes, while nuclear energy can be dangerous when things go wrong, no other energy source is entirely safe either, and the health consequences of even a Chernobyl-scale disaster aren't really that dire compared to what we already tolerate from coal-fired plants.
On the other hand, if you listen to stereotypical "greens" for even a few minutes, you realize that they are basically just professional bellyachers. I don't see many of them in this thread. The typical Green is someone who didn't do all that well in science class, but who heard from someone else that some technology is inherently Bad. If we weren't confronted with energy problems, a Green would pick some other area of human endeavor to criticize from the sidelines, or else pick some other religion to extol to the masses. They haven't put much thought into the practical advantages and drawbacks of nuclear technology, and they aren't interested in open dialogue with those who have.
This type of person really isn't much different from the Jack Thompsons of the world who are convinced that video games are inherently Bad, the Carrie Nations of the world who are convinced that alcohol is inherently Bad, the evangelical Christians who are convinced that pornography is inherently Bad, or RIAA executives who are convinced that peer-to-peer networking is inherently Bad.
Same genus, different species, that's all.
Sometimes I envy people like you. You do have a life, contrary to what the people flaming you are saying. You are happy, and you probably should be.
If that goddamned high-school history teacher hadn't handed me a copy of Solzhenitsyn, I could be that happy, too.
This is not censorship. This is about restricting sales of M-rated video games to adults.
What part of "Congress shall make no law" do you not understand?
I don't believe M-rated video are entirely harmless objects for teenagers. A game with that rating got it for a reason. That reason was because Congress threatened to impose legislation if the industry did not adopt a rating system. (See what happens when you give censors an inch? You find that they lie.) At the end of the day, the First Amendment says that Congress (and yes, that includes all governmental bodies in the US) shall make no law regulating freedom of the press. It doesn't matter if a book, movie, or game turns 98.4% of children into flesh-rending zombies... Congress shall make no law. So, if you want regulation of this nature, you need to repeal the First Amendment. It is literally that simple.
Right. So why are you arguing for laws keeping harmless objects out of the hands of teenagers, again?
Treat M-Rated video games the same way as cigarettes and beer. Except for the part about M-Rated video games not causing any demonstrable harm to anyone, that is.