Americans work so hard because of rampant run-away capitalism. We're stuck in the middle of a society that's all about money, and you don't have the option to opt-out. You want to go live like people did 5000 or 10000 years ago? Want to try the hunter-gatherer type life? Not a chance. You can't even find the land to live on, let alone start picking fruit that someone else owns, or go hunting for your food.
You know, you don't have to live like a hunter-gatherer to simplify your life. Many Americans have these problems because they need a large income to satisfy their excessive desires. They see luxuries (new cars, movies, eating out, houses) as being absolutely essential to their well-being. Why? Maybe they're spoiled. Maybe it's a keeping-up-with-the-joneses attitude where if their neighbors bust their asses to get cool stuff, then they do too. Perhaps commercials convince them they have to have certain things. Too many people are trying to live way beyond their current means, when they don't really have to. It's a choice. Not having that Playstation 2 (or Playstation 1) is a choice. Not having that large TV is a choice. Not having that new car is a choice (usually). These aren't grand irrestible forces that we just have to bow to -- people have the ability to say no to luxury. But instead they redefine luxuries as "essentials." They have made the decision that increased working hours and more financial stress is worth the extras that they get from it. Myself, I don't think it's worth it, but then again I was taught to "spend wisely," something which has clearly fallen out of favor.
Obviously I am speaking in generalities and there are always exceptions. But I still believe that hyper-capitalism can only drag you down with it if you're willing to play along with it.
Fine, let's see you haul lumber or pull a boat in your 30mpg vehicle. Some people who own trucks actually have work to do. Dumbass.
Some, yes, of course. Some. A small percentage. I think the writer was more critical of SUV owners than truck owners, though he did paint rather broad strokes.
Have you seen China recently? It may be a very harsh stance to take, but this is something China really -needs-. India needs it even more, but they're not likely to do such a thing. Now, I don't know if I agree in forced abortions, but there should be great incentives towards not having children in overpopulated areas.
Just a year ago, we narrowly escaped imposition of a brutal military dictatorship which would have outlawed Christianity entirely. This is no joke. Secret documents were leaked and have found their way into the patriotic resistance underground. This material has been widely disseminated. No one is fooled.
That's a pretty inflammatory accusation. I'm going to have to ask you for some evidence of this "brutal military dictatorship". Otherwise, you'll have to agree this sounds way too paranoid to be true.
Ahhh, come on, BVis, he was just freestyle bullshitting.:) I thought it was kindof funny. Until he mentioned Y2K, I thought he was ranting about Al Gore being elected.
Yes, but that's fighting to prevent others from trying to deny that right. That's a little different from the original poster who stated that these rights are not inherent but that only those who fight for them and are 'honorable' are worthy of them.
he kid wearing it was pretty clearly going out of his way to be an asshole, and he succeeded
Then are gays that wear "Gay Pride" shirts assholes too? Or are they just proud of their lifestyle? It works both ways.
Something tells me if he wandered around with a shirt labeled "white pride" he would have gotten his ass kicked in short order. Then again, I see 'gay pride' and 'black pride' and 'white pride' and 'straight pride' as being pretty damned silly. Being gay is nothing to be proud of. Being straight is nothing to be proud of. They just are. Take pride in actual accomplishments.
-Bleugh- And here I thought games like Final Fantasy and, say, Diablo would be safe from such tie-ins merely due to the genre. Well, I won't be too disappointed until they do something like having an ultimate weapon named the "K-mart sword of Blue Light." Then the vomit will truly fly.
Basically you are fined X-days wages for an offence, so if you are a top ice-hockey player, and drive too quickly in your ferrari, you can get fined (the equiv. of) tens of thousands of dollars for a simple speeding offence! (and it has happened)
If that was true, then MS should be pushing now to sell NT server to everyone.
Why would they? Server is more expensive, and MS wants the money. People wouldn't buy Windows 2000 for the workstations if they had to buy an expensive server license.
Maybe they will.. and when you register it, it will strip out server specific apps (domain admin, dhcp server, etc) based on your serial number.
I thought that was the current system, with the "stripping out" being done before the CD is pressed. Same core, same basic utilities.
You know, the whole innocent until proven guilty thing?
That applies only towards the government in a criminal trial. I'm not certain about civil trials, but I don't think 'innocent until proven guilty' applies to that even.
Now this here is a textbook-quality example of why it is so hard to tell from written messages whether someone is trying to be funny or not. Taken seriously, this person seems to be suggesting that normal people, or at least normal slashdot people, should be willing to evaluate the relative advantages of 0.7, 0.8, 0.8.0.x, and 0.8.1 builds of a web browser over the course of a month or so. Taken as a joke, HiThere is pointing out how some of us have jobs or go to school.
It's not an unreasonable demand if you take it in the context that he's beta-testing various versions. You upgrade, if it happens to be worse, report the bugs and downgrade. If you're running Mozilla, you're a beta-tester. There's a reason there is no Mozilla 1.0 (and don't get me started on AOL's decision to release a beta as a full version...)
I take it you're all for Communism, then? Cuba's got lots of room, I hear, with all those people risking their lives to escape it.
Of course, Cuba's problems have less to do with Communism and more to do with the US's attitude towards the country. When you do as much as you can to crush a country in a non-militaristic manner, it has a bit of an effect. Just like with the Iraq embargo: try to drive the country into the ground so that the people will get fed up and elect/revolt/whatever it takes to put into power an administration more friendly to the United State's leadership. Too bad it doesn't seem to work that way.
The point I'm trying to get at is, Scientology is just doing what any other religion has done in the past, its trying to protect itself.
First of all, this does not somehow absolve Scientology for any hate or blame that it has accumulated for such reprehensible actions, just has religions who had persecuted in the past deserved the anger they received then. "They're trying to protect themselves" is absolutely no justification for what they do. If they can't succeed honestly, then perhaps they shouldn't succeed at all.
Second, you're falling for the scam. Scientology is not a religion. It's a business which sued individuals at the IRS (not just the IRS itself, individuals) until the IRS gave in and declared them tax exempt religion status. This has exactly the same weight as a "confession" from someone under extreme torture might have. That is, none. Scientology is a scam, and an expensive one. Don't fall for the "it's an alternative religion" hype. It's a business, first and foremost.
When are you idiots going to realize that this world does not revolve around money?!
Incorrect, the world does revolve around money. Or, more correctly, it revolves around power, but money brings power and vice versa. You might not like this, you might not think this is the way things should be (and I would certainly agree with you on that), but that is the way are.
Money has nothing to do with a good life.
Tell that to a homeless person.
Could you imagine an even distribution of wealth? Could you imagine the world without any concept of wealth?
And do you know what would be so great about that? We would all be working our hardest simply to make sure we were all equal. But no, in our society, back in reality, we will always be fighting over the almighty dollar. It isn't worth it.
That is due to human nature. If you can come up with some type of mind-altering ray that causes everyone to work for the good of the people, then you might have something. But until then, there is no feasible system that will work better than what we have now. People need incentive to do well, and it has to be more than a "good of the community" type. In our society, there has to be personal gain involved in return for hard work, because there will be people who will decide "I get roughly the same no matter how much I work. So maybe I don't need to work so hard.. or work at all." How will you save such a society from the slackers? What will save that society from the downward slide? The idealistic idea of wealth being spread out equally to all citizens just cannot work because unscrupulous people will take advantage of that situation for a free ride. And I find that to be an even more immoral situation than the one we live in now.
I'd rather listen to music that people make for the love of music itself anyway.
You'll have a hell of a lot less than that too after all the members of the good bands have to get full-time jobs in various industry because their music won't pay for the time spent recording, writing, [practicing, etc. Our society revolves around money, whether we want it to or not. Food costs money. Housing costs money. Band equipment costs a lot of money. The artists NEED to bring a fair amount of money in somehow.
Well - let's do a little thought experiment. I've bought a song and rip it. I have it on my hard drive and say "Please, listen to this." I'm not charging anything for the person to listen to it. I could either invite 8 million people into my cramped apartment to listen to my stereo, or let them listen on their computers. I see no difference. You claim that one is legal (letting them listen at my home) but the other is illegal.
So - I claim that they are one and the same.
They aren't. Now, say if you had live365.com stream all your mp3's, that would be legal for a few reasons:
You're not giving the music to them, you're letting them listen to it. There's a big difference. With Napster, you're giving users the music, like if you let them walk into your apartment and let them make tapes of your cds. Yes, there are ways to record the stream, but there are also ways of recording radio broadcasts, and that doesn't make broadcasting illegal.
Shoutcast has payed lisencing fees, so you can legally broadcast your big-name labels.
I have no problem with the concept of paying an artist for his work - once - not every time I want to listen to it. Would you pay someone every time you fired up your copy of Quake? No?
Watch out! If Microsoft is successful, the idea of paying once for software is going to go out of style.
The RIAA has never sued on behalf of the artists, they've sued on behalf of the record companies. Just take a look at the "industry standard agreement" that basically makes artists fucking slaves to record companies.
By the way... what ever happened to Courtney Love's lawsuit asking for a share of the money when the RIAA won a major lawsuit a little while back? I haven't heard anything about it since it was filed.
And - the "music" sucks. I can listen to an entire Led Zeppelin album - every one of them (which I've purchased) - and it is all good. Some of today's albums have a single decent tune (or none at all) and the rest of the album sucks.
Well, basically if there's only one good song on the album, the artist sucks, no matter how good that song is. There are good and talented artists out there who can write really good music, but you'll rarely find them pushed by Tower or radio or record stores. Mediocrity sells these days -- in the US.
I will not admit I am breaking any law- every single song I have downloaded on Napster I already owned.
Guess what? That's still illegal, look at the my.mp3.com case. Yes it's rediculous, yes it's a stupid decision, and yes, that makes downloading material for which you do not have permission illegal.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.. I've done it to, as a "try before you buy" measure. A FAQ for one of the bands I listen to suggested another band, so I downloaded a few mp3s of that band off of Napster. I liked them so much I soon had an order shipped off for 4 of that band's CDs. So I'd say there are cases in which this is justified.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, you don't have to live like a hunter-gatherer to simplify your life. Many Americans have these problems because they need a large income to satisfy their excessive desires. They see luxuries (new cars, movies, eating out, houses) as being absolutely essential to their well-being. Why? Maybe they're spoiled. Maybe it's a keeping-up-with-the-joneses attitude where if their neighbors bust their asses to get cool stuff, then they do too. Perhaps commercials convince them they have to have certain things. Too many people are trying to live way beyond their current means, when they don't really have to. It's a choice. Not having that Playstation 2 (or Playstation 1) is a choice. Not having that large TV is a choice. Not having that new car is a choice (usually). These aren't grand irrestible forces that we just have to bow to -- people have the ability to say no to luxury. But instead they redefine luxuries as "essentials." They have made the decision that increased working hours and more financial stress is worth the extras that they get from it. Myself, I don't think it's worth it, but then again I was taught to "spend wisely," something which has clearly fallen out of favor.
Obviously I am speaking in generalities and there are always exceptions. But I still believe that hyper-capitalism can only drag you down with it if you're willing to play along with it.
Unfortunately, proftpd is name for buggy as hell = drives me insane. :(
Despite that, I still run proftpd, since I like the features and configuration. ;)
The firestorm had been building for decades, ever since the nation of Israel was created. Sharon's visit was just the lit match.
Some, yes, of course. Some. A small percentage. I think the writer was more critical of SUV owners than truck owners, though he did paint rather broad strokes.
That's a pretty inflammatory accusation. I'm going to have to ask you for some evidence of this "brutal military dictatorship". Otherwise, you'll have to agree this sounds way too paranoid to be true.
Ahhh, come on, BVis, he was just freestyle bullshitting. :) I thought it was kindof funny. Until he mentioned Y2K, I thought he was ranting about Al Gore being elected.
Then are gays that wear "Gay Pride" shirts assholes too? Or are they just proud of their lifestyle? It works both ways.
Something tells me if he wandered around with a shirt labeled "white pride" he would have gotten his ass kicked in short order. Then again, I see 'gay pride' and 'black pride' and 'white pride' and 'straight pride' as being pretty damned silly. Being gay is nothing to be proud of. Being straight is nothing to be proud of. They just are. Take pride in actual accomplishments.
Hehehe, sounds like Teemu. :)
Why would they? Server is more expensive, and MS wants the money. People wouldn't buy Windows 2000 for the workstations if they had to buy an expensive server license.
Maybe they will.. and when you register it, it will strip out server specific apps (domain admin, dhcp server, etc) based on your serial number.
I thought that was the current system, with the "stripping out" being done before the CD is pressed. Same core, same basic utilities.
That applies only towards the government in a criminal trial. I'm not certain about civil trials, but I don't think 'innocent until proven guilty' applies to that even.
It's not an unreasonable demand if you take it in the context that he's beta-testing various versions. You upgrade, if it happens to be worse, report the bugs and downgrade. If you're running Mozilla, you're a beta-tester. There's a reason there is no Mozilla 1.0 (and don't get me started on AOL's decision to release a beta as a full version...)
Of course, Cuba's problems have less to do with Communism and more to do with the US's attitude towards the country. When you do as much as you can to crush a country in a non-militaristic manner, it has a bit of an effect. Just like with the Iraq embargo: try to drive the country into the ground so that the people will get fed up and elect/revolt/whatever it takes to put into power an administration more friendly to the United State's leadership. Too bad it doesn't seem to work that way.
First of all, this does not somehow absolve Scientology for any hate or blame that it has accumulated for such reprehensible actions, just has religions who had persecuted in the past deserved the anger they received then. "They're trying to protect themselves" is absolutely no justification for what they do. If they can't succeed honestly, then perhaps they shouldn't succeed at all.
Second, you're falling for the scam. Scientology is not a religion. It's a business which sued individuals at the IRS (not just the IRS itself, individuals) until the IRS gave in and declared them tax exempt religion status. This has exactly the same weight as a "confession" from someone under extreme torture might have. That is, none. Scientology is a scam, and an expensive one. Don't fall for the "it's an alternative religion" hype. It's a business, first and foremost.
Incorrect, the world does revolve around money. Or, more correctly, it revolves around power, but money brings power and vice versa. You might not like this, you might not think this is the way things should be (and I would certainly agree with you on that), but that is the way are.
Money has nothing to do with a good life.
Tell that to a homeless person.
Could you imagine an even distribution of wealth? Could you imagine the world without any concept of wealth?
And do you know what would be so great about that? We would all be working our hardest simply to make sure we were all equal. But no, in our society, back in reality, we will always be fighting over the almighty dollar. It isn't worth it.
That is due to human nature. If you can come up with some type of mind-altering ray that causes everyone to work for the good of the people, then you might have something. But until then, there is no feasible system that will work better than what we have now. People need incentive to do well, and it has to be more than a "good of the community" type. In our society, there has to be personal gain involved in return for hard work, because there will be people who will decide "I get roughly the same no matter how much I work. So maybe I don't need to work so hard.. or work at all." How will you save such a society from the slackers? What will save that society from the downward slide? The idealistic idea of wealth being spread out equally to all citizens just cannot work because unscrupulous people will take advantage of that situation for a free ride. And I find that to be an even more immoral situation than the one we live in now.
The database only. Serving out that database costs money.
We didn't need Slashdot to teach us that.
I'd rather listen to music that people make for the love of music itself anyway.
You'll have a hell of a lot less than that too after all the members of the good bands have to get full-time jobs in various industry because their music won't pay for the time spent recording, writing, [practicing, etc. Our society revolves around money, whether we want it to or not. Food costs money. Housing costs money. Band equipment costs a lot of money. The artists NEED to bring a fair amount of money in somehow.
So - I claim that they are one and the same.
They aren't. Now, say if you had live365.com stream all your mp3's, that would be legal for a few reasons:
- You're not giving the music to them, you're letting them listen to it. There's a big difference. With Napster, you're giving users the music, like if you let them walk into your apartment and let them make tapes of your cds. Yes, there are ways to record the stream, but there are also ways of recording radio broadcasts, and that doesn't make broadcasting illegal.
- Shoutcast has payed lisencing fees, so you can legally broadcast your big-name labels.
I have no problem with the concept of paying an artist for his work - once - not every time I want to listen to it. Would you pay someone every time you fired up your copy of Quake? No?Watch out! If Microsoft is successful, the idea of paying once for software is going to go out of style.
The RIAA has never sued on behalf of the artists, they've sued on behalf of the record companies. Just take a look at the "industry standard agreement" that basically makes artists fucking slaves to record companies.
By the way... what ever happened to Courtney Love's lawsuit asking for a share of the money when the RIAA won a major lawsuit a little while back? I haven't heard anything about it since it was filed.
And - the "music" sucks. I can listen to an entire Led Zeppelin album - every one of them (which I've purchased) - and it is all good. Some of today's albums have a single decent tune (or none at all) and the rest of the album sucks.
Well, basically if there's only one good song on the album, the artist sucks, no matter how good that song is. There are good and talented artists out there who can write really good music, but you'll rarely find them pushed by Tower or radio or record stores. Mediocrity sells these days -- in the US.
Guess what? That's still illegal, look at the my.mp3.com case. Yes it's rediculous, yes it's a stupid decision, and yes, that makes downloading material for which you do not have permission illegal.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.. I've done it to, as a "try before you buy" measure. A FAQ for one of the bands I listen to suggested another band, so I downloaded a few mp3s of that band off of Napster. I liked them so much I soon had an order shipped off for 4 of that band's CDs. So I'd say there are cases in which this is justified.