> If I decided to actually go purchase a CD it would cost me over 25$, how much do you pay over there? > Things are practically for free where you are,
Free? Yeah right. A new CD here costs about $16-20US. While that is cheaper, it's CERTAINLY not "free" by any stretch. I will not spend $18 on music just as fast as I wouldn't spend $25 on music.
I can't speak on the topic of wages, as I'm uninformed on such things. It's possible, though not countrywide. I live in a below-average-wage area with a large number of people making less than $15K a year, many less than $10K, still some below $8K.
> Why is it americans feel compelled to use the word f&&ck so much? [...etc, blah blah]
I like responding to trolls.
Hate to break it to you, but we're not the only ones who say "fuck," (it's just a word, BTW, it won't really curse your life) and it started before G.W. As for killing babies, that was the American Military doing it, not the American public. Most people who sign up for the army voluntarily already have issues (IMO, of course), and the rest were forced to be there against their will, so naturally, they were pretty pissed off. When ordered to kill someone, they took out their aggression in the only way they were allowed. Killing whoever was there. That is pretty one-sided because in Vietnam, age was no indicator of alliance or willingness to die for your people. According to a sorta-friend of mine who is in Iraq, supposedly there are similar instances, but they are usually not so young and NOWHERE near the number.
I believe the excess of swearing may be because of our freedom of speech. We take that freedom into the idea that everyone should actually hear what we are saying, and shouting and using swear words makes you noticed. Doesn't make you more listenable, and probably less convincing to the general populace, but if your audience swears a lot too, they'll probably listen.
> taking away the the income they get from record sales is definatley hurting the artists in addition to the record producers.
Not "in addition to," "because of." The producers aren't willing to not be millionaires any more, so they steal from the struggling (and not-so-struggling) artists.
> What entitles anyone to consuming the stuff for free?
I don't know anyone who claims they are entitled to it. I am not entitled. I am also not willing to pay outrageous amounts of money to see the movie. If the theaters are mad that they don't make enough money, they have options: charge more for tickets, refuse to pay so damned much to the MPAA, or go into another line of business that is profitable.
So you say, "if you're not willing to pay, why should you be able to see it." Because it is there. I can get it, I can watch it in the way I want, for the price (less, actually -- I'd be willing to pay a few bucks to see a movie on the big screen, but not $15) I want. I don't have to go at their exact set times and watch an hour of commercials after I already paid. I am not an evil person for watching movies for free, regardless how much BS is thrown around about "theft." You are not a good person for paying to watch movies.
If no one is willing to pay that much money for something of no true value, then the business model is no longer profitable. In fast-changing times, people unwilling to participate in that change can't expect to not get left behind. Heck, they can't even expect it in stagnant times!
> Actually no court has EVER upheld DMCA anti-circumvention law. Seriously. It's been on the books seven years and never upheld once.
Out of curiosity, has it ever been truly challenged? I really don't know, but has any court made a final ruling specifically against it? And I don't include settlements, bargaining, or anything like that: I mean a real verdict. A simple yes/no answer is fine, I don't need details (although it would be nice).
(Warning, what follows may or may not be the blindly anticorporate ravings of a madman)
Perhaps the RIAA is noticing that Apple is succeeding where they said profit could not be made, so they are trying to force it open. That way, people will start pirating iTunes songs, causing Apple's profits to fall. They're hoping it will fail so that they can later point to it (after this is forgotten) as more reason why customers can't be trusted to use the things they bought.
Yes, but everything "better" would require that they evaluate themselves or other parts of the government, and we all know much of what they'd find and, at least partly, why they won't do it.
> If it is possible for someone to use nanotech to make machines that present a realistic threat to the general population, then by all means we can and should look at taking legal steps to prevent such abuse.
What I am saying is if someone is willing to use nanomachines as a weapon, new laws will likely make little to no impact. Killing people was already illegal, so making new laws about nanotech that might kill people seems like political posturing that would no no real good.
> she'd have to learn a whole new and totally different of perceving and interacting with the world, and her brain would have to re-pattern itself.
Why couldn't she just close her eyes to regain calmness? I know being blind isn't necessarily the same as just seeing black, but it would be something...
> We had over a million vacationers out here in the Black Hills last year for the Sturgis Rally alone,
Okay, that's fair. I grew up in West Virginia, one of the other places I listed, and I realize there is some tourism in every state. Heck I grew up in the middle of the 2nd or 3rd biggest tourist attraction in WV -- a bunch of freaking X-Mas lights (in a place called Oglebay, I had to drive through these assholes who park on the road to get out and take pictures of light arrangements. They never give a crap about the people who have to LIVE there. Jerks... I hate tourism. Of course, those pictures never come out well anyway -- ever taken a picture of lights at night? Not the easiest thing to do well, for an amateur photographer or these busloads moronic yutzes who travelled two days from the middle of Canada to be driven through a 30 minute tour of lights. Brilliant.
But enough bitching, back to the point. How many of those people at the Sturgis Rally are foreigners? It might not matter much, but the guy I was talking to wasn't American. I should have stated "what foreigner wants to come to the U.S. and see these small towns, etc." None, they want to go to big cities with all the lights (and I don't mean christmas lights) and Broadway, see the Hollywood sign... or go to the Sturgis Rally.:)
Yes but to be truly logical you have to be fair to both sides of an argument and take them based on their merits of truth, regardless if the source happens to have said some extremely stupid shit in the past. Yes, you have to "consider the source," but even if it's a slightly questionable source, you can't just dismiss them out of hand. What if "the press" is all in on a big conspiracy with the gub'mint? Then these "left-leaning sites" may be the only place the info is available. The idea is laughable, but I don't know for sure that they are wrong, so I can't logically assert that they are wrong. How's that for an understanding of logic? (What do you mean "crap?")
Wow, did you read any of this at all, or just see my comment, out of context, and jump on your horse? I said nothing about how anything is defined. The guy said "I demand that a vote be taken regarding the truth of evolution, but if it doesn't go my way I'm getting the fuck out." And I have a tiny mind? You're the one defending that fucking moron!
> If everyone voted that the earth is flat and that the moon is made of green cheese, would you consider the question settled?
THAT'S MY WHOLE FUCKING POINT YOU GODDAMNED IDIOT. READ BEFORE POSTING! guh... makes me want to kill everyone...
> But it will prevent people from profiting from those weapons, at least on the open market.
In the United States. On the open market. Of course, once something goes black market, the markup goes sky high, so the people who sell arms in that fashion would make EVEN MORE MONEY by it becoming illegal, allowing them to acquire and resell even more powerful stuff.
> We take N2 in a stable form, and get it to break "up" into a less stable form through a set of energy reactions and feedback loops.
How do you know that this doesn't happen on Jupiter, in a pond of Nitrogen? You don't. What you have descibed is humanity taking things out of their natural Earth-borne state. Most of what you have described (the part I understand at least) could technically be possible on another planet without humans.
But the big mistake, IMO is thinking that humans are not part of nature or even so far removed from it that we can break it somehow.
> So, your proposal would be that when voting on a certain subject the people who qualify as experts on it would have more votes than a Joe Sixpack?
No, what I'm saying is that there should be NO vote at all. Was there a freaking vote when computers were made? Some believe that they have ruined our species. Was there a vote when ANYTHING AT ALL WAS MADE???? So why the f#%* vote on this?
The people who decide whether or not something should be done are the ones who should know well enough whether it ought to happen. If they are wrong, there is someone we can point to and say well, this guy said it was safe, it's his responsibility to fix it. If the general public votes and says something is right and it turns out that it starts wiping out the population, everyone looks at everyone else while the politicians point fingers from their bomb shelters.
> it's a matter of estimating the risks and social consequence involved in building it in the first place.
Everything has risks. Walking outside carries a risk with it. That's what a LEGAL authority does, not a moral authority.
The LEGAL authorities are the ones who weigh risks and decide what is best for the people. A MORAL authority tells you that certain things are wrong because they fall under an arbitrary heading of "morally wrong." That includes stuff like sex, drugs, etc and includes things that are both illegal and COMPLETELY LEGAL.
We do not care about the morality of nanotech, we want to know whether it should be LEGAL* or not! And how do we find out? Researching it. * For sale to regular citizens for everyday use
> Those who surrender their moral decisions to someone else such as a religious or political leader are not moral people.
(I can't believe I'm about to make this argument, because I am "devoutly" Atheist, and even insult Christians whenever I can)
So anyone who follows the Ten Commandments, whether written by God or Moses, is not moral simply because they chose to follow someone else's description of it?
> they don't decide for themselves if the actions are moral or not
A big problem with that is that if they choose someone to follow, that is their choice of morality. Their basic idea of morality happens to coincide with someone else who is smarter than them, so they use that person as a role model.
Would you say that someone who believes in General Relativity is lacking scientific thought just because they didn't write it themselves?
> Please don't propagate the lie.
Believe me, I'm about the last one to support the intricate con called religion. Of course, belief might lead to faith.;)
> usually what they are clear about is the amount of risk, not a simple safe/unsafe categorization.
Of course, but that still does not mean there is any morailty attached to it unless someone chooses to put it there falsely. Weighing pros and cons is NOT what morality means. Taking Pros vs. Cons, seeing which is more desireable for the general populace (barring something extreme, like "we'll wipe out California & the rest of us will live like kings"), etc, are legal issues, not moral issues.
> The question of how to deal with uncertainty and risk is very much an ethical one. How much risk do I have the right to subject you to?
No, it's not an ethical issue unless you intentionally put someone else at risk. If there is no risk, there's no ethical question (also, "ethics" and "morals" are very different things, but that's another matter).
> People would still die by accidents and other means.
No way, after my finger gets cut off the nanobots go drag it back and sew it back on. My lung collapses, they sew it shut and form a micro-air pump to reinflate it. They can splice my neurons back together when my brain gets smashed. They have a constantly-updated map of my entire body in memory. After all, if we're talking in purely hypotheticals, the hypothetical machines will work and react exactly the way I want them to.:)
Slashdot Mirror
> and go in with some of these $2 bills.
Sweet deal, I've always wanted to pay $70 for $50 in cash!
> So if you want to paint your house with lead paint, you should be able to?
Yes. However, if doing so puts children at risk, I'm not sure it would be a good idea, and you'd still have to take responsibility for that.
> Should you then be allowed to sell that house?
As long as the new owners know that it's lead-based, sure.
As for the office, that is different, because there are already employee safety laws.
> If I decided to actually go purchase a CD it would cost me over 25$, how much do you pay over there?
> Things are practically for free where you are,
Free? Yeah right. A new CD here costs about $16-20US. While that is cheaper, it's CERTAINLY not "free" by any stretch. I will not spend $18 on music just as fast as I wouldn't spend $25 on music.
I can't speak on the topic of wages, as I'm uninformed on such things. It's possible, though not countrywide. I live in a below-average-wage area with a large number of people making less than $15K a year, many less than $10K, still some below $8K.
> Why is it americans feel compelled to use the word f&&ck so much? [...etc, blah blah]
I like responding to trolls.
Hate to break it to you, but we're not the only ones who say "fuck," (it's just a word, BTW, it won't really curse your life) and it started before G.W. As for killing babies, that was the American Military doing it, not the American public. Most people who sign up for the army voluntarily already have issues (IMO, of course), and the rest were forced to be there against their will, so naturally, they were pretty pissed off. When ordered to kill someone, they took out their aggression in the only way they were allowed. Killing whoever was there. That is pretty one-sided because in Vietnam, age was no indicator of alliance or willingness to die for your people. According to a sorta-friend of mine who is in Iraq, supposedly there are similar instances, but they are usually not so young and NOWHERE near the number.
I believe the excess of swearing may be because of our freedom of speech. We take that freedom into the idea that everyone should actually hear what we are saying, and shouting and using swear words makes you noticed. Doesn't make you more listenable, and probably less convincing to the general populace, but if your audience swears a lot too, they'll probably listen.
Just in case anyone actually wanted to know why.
> But since when did the artist's opinion count for anything?
:)
Whenever it matches with the RIAA's opinion
Then you'd be all over TV about how hard you have it.
> taking away the the income they get from record sales is definatley hurting the artists in addition to the record producers.
Not "in addition to," "because of." The producers aren't willing to not be millionaires any more, so they steal from the struggling (and not-so-struggling) artists.
> What entitles anyone to consuming the stuff for free?
I don't know anyone who claims they are entitled to it. I am not entitled. I am also not willing to pay outrageous amounts of money to see the movie. If the theaters are mad that they don't make enough money, they have options: charge more for tickets, refuse to pay so damned much to the MPAA, or go into another line of business that is profitable.
So you say, "if you're not willing to pay, why should you be able to see it." Because it is there. I can get it, I can watch it in the way I want, for the price (less, actually -- I'd be willing to pay a few bucks to see a movie on the big screen, but not $15) I want. I don't have to go at their exact set times and watch an hour of commercials after I already paid. I am not an evil person for watching movies for free, regardless how much BS is thrown around about "theft." You are not a good person for paying to watch movies.
If no one is willing to pay that much money for something of no true value, then the business model is no longer profitable. In fast-changing times, people unwilling to participate in that change can't expect to not get left behind. Heck, they can't even expect it in stagnant times!
> Actually no court has EVER upheld DMCA anti-circumvention law. Seriously. It's been on the books seven years and never upheld once.
Out of curiosity, has it ever been truly challenged? I really don't know, but has any court made a final ruling specifically against it? And I don't include settlements, bargaining, or anything like that: I mean a real verdict. A simple yes/no answer is fine, I don't need details (although it would be nice).
> Why is this just about Apple?
(Warning, what follows may or may not be the blindly anticorporate ravings of a madman)
Perhaps the RIAA is noticing that Apple is succeeding where they said profit could not be made, so they are trying to force it open. That way, people will start pirating iTunes songs, causing Apple's profits to fall. They're hoping it will fail so that they can later point to it (after this is forgotten) as more reason why customers can't be trusted to use the things they bought.
> Does Congress truly have nothing better to do?
Yes, but everything "better" would require that they evaluate themselves or other parts of the government, and we all know much of what they'd find and, at least partly, why they won't do it.
No, it was because of this statement:
> If it is possible for someone to use nanotech to make machines that present a realistic threat to the general population, then by all means we can and should look at taking legal steps to prevent such abuse.
What I am saying is if someone is willing to use nanomachines as a weapon, new laws will likely make little to no impact. Killing people was already illegal, so making new laws about nanotech that might kill people seems like political posturing that would no no real good.
> she'd have to learn a whole new and totally different of perceving and interacting with the world, and her brain would have to re-pattern itself.
Why couldn't she just close her eyes to regain calmness? I know being blind isn't necessarily the same as just seeing black, but it would be something...
> We had over a million vacationers out here in the Black Hills last year for the Sturgis Rally alone,
:)
Okay, that's fair. I grew up in West Virginia, one of the other places I listed, and I realize there is some tourism in every state. Heck I grew up in the middle of the 2nd or 3rd biggest tourist attraction in WV -- a bunch of freaking X-Mas lights (in a place called Oglebay, I had to drive through these assholes who park on the road to get out and take pictures of light arrangements. They never give a crap about the people who have to LIVE there. Jerks... I hate tourism. Of course, those pictures never come out well anyway -- ever taken a picture of lights at night? Not the easiest thing to do well, for an amateur photographer or these busloads moronic yutzes who travelled two days from the middle of Canada to be driven through a 30 minute tour of lights. Brilliant.
But enough bitching, back to the point. How many of those people at the Sturgis Rally are foreigners? It might not matter much, but the guy I was talking to wasn't American. I should have stated "what foreigner wants to come to the U.S. and see these small towns, etc." None, they want to go to big cities with all the lights (and I don't mean christmas lights) and Broadway, see the Hollywood sign... or go to the Sturgis Rally.
> Aren't nerds supposed to be logical?
Yes but to be truly logical you have to be fair to both sides of an argument and take them based on their merits of truth, regardless if the source happens to have said some extremely stupid shit in the past. Yes, you have to "consider the source," but even if it's a slightly questionable source, you can't just dismiss them out of hand. What if "the press" is all in on a big conspiracy with the gub'mint? Then these "left-leaning sites" may be the only place the info is available. The idea is laughable, but I don't know for sure that they are wrong, so I can't logically assert that they are wrong. How's that for an understanding of logic?
(What do you mean "crap?")
Wow, did you read any of this at all, or just see my comment, out of context, and jump on your horse? I said nothing about how anything is defined. The guy said "I demand that a vote be taken regarding the truth of evolution, but if it doesn't go my way I'm getting the fuck out." And I have a tiny mind? You're the one defending that fucking moron!
> If everyone voted that the earth is flat and that the moon is made of green cheese, would you consider the question settled?
THAT'S MY WHOLE FUCKING POINT YOU GODDAMNED IDIOT. READ BEFORE POSTING! guh... makes me want to kill everyone...
> my fabulous Improved Healthohol
:)
Screw the FDA... Healthohol made me feel great! Until the next morning, that is, when I had to take my next dose
> But it will prevent people from profiting from those weapons, at least on the open market.
In the United States. On the open market. Of course, once something goes black market, the markup goes sky high, so the people who sell arms in that fashion would make EVEN MORE MONEY by it becoming illegal, allowing them to acquire and resell even more powerful stuff.
> We take N2 in a stable form, and get it to break "up" into a less stable form through a set of energy reactions and feedback loops.
How do you know that this doesn't happen on Jupiter, in a pond of Nitrogen? You don't. What you have descibed is humanity taking things out of their natural Earth-borne state. Most of what you have described (the part I understand at least) could technically be possible on another planet without humans.
But the big mistake, IMO is thinking that humans are not part of nature or even so far removed from it that we can break it somehow.
> So, your proposal would be that when voting on a certain subject the people who qualify as experts on it would have more votes than a Joe Sixpack?
No, what I'm saying is that there should be NO vote at all. Was there a freaking vote when computers were made? Some believe that they have ruined our species. Was there a vote when ANYTHING AT ALL WAS MADE???? So why the f#%* vote on this?
The people who decide whether or not something should be done are the ones who should know well enough whether it ought to happen. If they are wrong, there is someone we can point to and say well, this guy said it was safe, it's his responsibility to fix it. If the general public votes and says something is right and it turns out that it starts wiping out the population, everyone looks at everyone else while the politicians point fingers from their bomb shelters.
> it's a matter of estimating the risks and social consequence involved in building it in the first place.
;)
Everything has risks. Walking outside carries a risk with it. That's what a LEGAL authority does, not a moral authority.
The LEGAL authorities are the ones who weigh risks and decide what is best for the people. A MORAL authority tells you that certain things are wrong because they fall under an arbitrary heading of "morally wrong." That includes stuff like sex, drugs, etc and includes things that are both illegal and COMPLETELY LEGAL.
We do not care about the morality of nanotech, we want to know whether it should be LEGAL* or not! And how do we find out? Researching it.
* For sale to regular citizens for everyday use
> Those who surrender their moral decisions to someone else such as a religious or political leader are not moral people.
(I can't believe I'm about to make this argument, because I am "devoutly" Atheist, and even insult Christians whenever I can)
So anyone who follows the Ten Commandments, whether written by God or Moses, is not moral simply because they chose to follow someone else's description of it?
> they don't decide for themselves if the actions are moral or not
A big problem with that is that if they choose someone to follow, that is their choice of morality. Their basic idea of morality happens to coincide with someone else who is smarter than them, so they use that person as a role model.
Would you say that someone who believes in General Relativity is lacking scientific thought just because they didn't write it themselves?
> Please don't propagate the lie.
Believe me, I'm about the last one to support the intricate con called religion. Of course, belief might lead to faith.
> usually what they are clear about is the amount of risk, not a simple safe/unsafe categorization.
Of course, but that still does not mean there is any morailty attached to it unless someone chooses to put it there falsely. Weighing pros and cons is NOT what morality means. Taking Pros vs. Cons, seeing which is more desireable for the general populace (barring something extreme, like "we'll wipe out California & the rest of us will live like kings"), etc, are legal issues, not moral issues.
> The question of how to deal with uncertainty and risk is very much an ethical one. How much risk do I have the right to subject you to?
No, it's not an ethical issue unless you intentionally put someone else at risk. If there is no risk, there's no ethical question (also, "ethics" and "morals" are very different things, but that's another matter).
> The country in discussion will be left in the dust in a handful of years.
Considering the topic is nanotechnology, "dust" seems as plausible as "grey goo."
> People would still die by accidents and other means.
:)
No way, after my finger gets cut off the nanobots go drag it back and sew it back on. My lung collapses, they sew it shut and form a micro-air pump to reinflate it. They can splice my neurons back together when my brain gets smashed. They have a constantly-updated map of my entire body in memory. After all, if we're talking in purely hypotheticals, the hypothetical machines will work and react exactly the way I want them to.
> So we should allow potentially dangerous substance to be used in products and let people buy them unknowingly?
That's why people call environmentalists "whackos," because they see everything as "If it's not my way, it must be the complete opposite."
Who the fuck said "unknowingly?" What if I WANT nanotechnology in my products, and know it. Is it then safe?
> let's remove the FDA and get all those drugs out onto the market faster!
:)
Well, if you valued progress over individuals, then that would be a valid sentiment. One I would agree with, assuming I'll never get sick or hurt.
I, of course, cannot assume that.