One person's reactionary is another person's visionary.
The reality is that the rules being "pulled out of their asses" are all about the political realities and context.
You see, you seem to be caught in a bind here. Either you think the laws are badly thought out, or they are farsighted. You can't have it both ways.
Evidently, you don't think much about the reasons reasoned from religious POV. I agree with your first two proposed ethical principles: "What are the consequences" and "pecuniary considerations are secondary". There are more. And those guys making the rules should be taught how to reason so.
There is a magical stone which makes soup taste good. You take the stone and add to it carrot, potatoes, onions, and perhaps beef, if you like. Boil them in water, and the stone makes everything taste good.
The whole point that everyone else has argued here is that the restriction isn't that arbitrary. It allows people like writers and artists to sell their stuff and earn money in return. With copyright laws, some transactions in a market economy are possible. Without copyright laws, some transtions are impossible.
Actually you are wholly right, but so what? The fact is the copyright law grants people some rights, and people do treat them synonymously with property right. This difference will be important in other contexts (for example - inheritance issues), but it is unimportant in the current context.
You have learn to read better than that. Job's certainly did not say it took a PhD to figure that out. He is in effect saying that very smart people know that digital works cannot be totally protected from copying. It's not hilarious: his audience is more than the digerati, who understand this. His audience is also the people who produce the music, and he is in effect telling them not to chase the copy protection chimera.
What Steve Jobs is saying, if you don't get it, is that IN THE MEDIUM OF DIGITAL MUSIC, it is hard to persuade people to give up some convenience in the absense of legal alternatives.
Now I know how upstanding people will get all fired up how doing something out of mere convenience is immoral. To which I will answer that this is precisely why you are not Steve Jobs. The man see the market for something, and is interested legitimizing the activity. Like it or not, downloading music was, in 1999, morally ambiguous. Steve Jobs acknowledges this, and seeks to make it legally possible in 2003 for this convenience, becuase quite clearly, this is the way forward for a music distribution system.
Does reasoning morally impede the ability to reason with foresight. This is holding you back from improving, or supporting the improvement of the state of the world to one where both the consumer and the producer of the content can be satisfied?
So what else is new? Linus has showned that the framers of the US copyright law were unusually far sighted people, who saw that money was but one of the mediums of profit. Darl however in interpreting profit in monetary terms only, is wrong. He knows this of course, and is merely trying to confuse other people.
I agree, but I don't like your claim that there is nothing innately wrong with genetic modification, that what is wrong is how it is used.
We don't seem to have formulated any ethical principles or guidelines AT ALL in judging genetic research. We have reactionary people pulling "rules" out of their asses like "No stem cell research" and "no human cloning" without considering the political realities and context. I am frightened by THAT. I am also frightened by genetic engineering and what it can do, but my fear of the former (which have turned out to be true) overrides the latter.
You sir are an idiot. The poster you are answering to said, very clearly and firmly, "probability of life just got better". That was a firm, logical conclusion. You however, just presented me with a bunch of hunches and guesses.
If you were stating possibilities, then you will not say it was "infinite". That is very definite conclusion.
Why is having the knowledge that life, but not intelligent life is common in the universe useless? It would at least stop us from making the arrogant claim that God life on earth for man.
And yes I agree reality has not changed. However, nothing you said about how likely or how interesting, whether it is close enough to be detected, is grounded in reality. Very clearly those are your preferences and prejudices. Thank you.
A bastion of American software development is acting in a way that furthers neither America nor software development. No further criticism or comment is needed. In the immortal words of Hunter S. Thompson, res ipsa loquitur.
On the contrary, I find this attitude disgusting. A bastion of American software development may be acting in America's long term interests. Or it may be acting to serve a more deserving goal than America's interests (There are more deserving goal s than that - environmentalism is one).
The situation is completely and totally nonobvious and the attitude that no further comment is needed is narrowminded.
You are right, but nevertheless, that remains a possibility. Don't ever underestimate the depths to which amoral businesses with vested interests will go to. Once you think that way, the possibility that the culprit may well be any other Unix vendor muSt be COnsidered. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*.
The previous poster made a valid argument, but yours is just opinion. Opinions are like anuses, everyone has one.
Furthermore whatever the chances of there being life, the chance that there being interesting, contactable life surely must be a more difficult calculation that can only be answered by our descendents. Scientists prefer a valid hypothesis, teatable in our lifetime, compared to whatever interesting questions one can pose. Thus, on this grounds of science, the interesting scenario that you mention cannot be that interesting.
I'm glad we are on the same wavelength. The ability to comment intelligently on a subjective thing like art seems to be lost amongst otherwise some very intelligent slashdotters. The reasons about this can be speculated upon, but I am glad there are people like you are willing to show the way. I posted becuase I did not have moderator points to mod you up.
The rest of your points notwithstanding, the point that the previous poster was making is that one does not have to say the movie sucked. One explains why it sucked. That's fair comment. I agree that "The movie sucked becuase I did not like it" has null semantic content, and is redundant.
How of overpriced is attributed to our pecuniariness? How much over underperformance is due to overexpectations, and how muchy of oversue is due to ones own inability to assert one's rights? Why tar software companies with one big brush? I can think of a few software companies offhand that aren't like that. Wolfram Research is one.
I agree, except that I dispute that your claim that "GPL overridden by copyright law". There is no overriding. He who owns the source dictates what license applies, be it a MS style EULA, or GPL. When the originator of the source is questionable, then the question is not the validity of the licenses, but the applicability of it.
It is evident to me that Darl, in his constant reactionary responses, has no clue about the legal lanscape he is working in. He formed his opinions not by reason, but by greed. It appears that he is finally finding out what he is truly fighting. It may be too late to back out now.
Clearly Microsoft has transgressed upon some rules of proprietry, as you agree with the poster above. Punish them by not using their platform, consolidate your arguments against their software and tell your associates. Learn our mistakes never to buy from such vendors, should they spring up again. Nevermind the laws, leave it alone.
Slashdot Mirror
You see, you seem to be caught in a bind here. Either you think the laws are badly thought out, or they are farsighted. You can't have it both ways.
Evidently, you don't think much about the reasons reasoned from religious POV. I agree with your first two proposed ethical principles: "What are the consequences" and "pecuniary considerations are secondary". There are more. And those guys making the rules should be taught how to reason so.
Do you have to have a working JRE installed? What version are you using?
There is a magical stone which makes soup taste good. You take the stone and add to it carrot, potatoes, onions, and perhaps beef, if you like. Boil them in water, and the stone makes everything taste good.
The whole point that everyone else has argued here is that the restriction isn't that arbitrary. It allows people like writers and artists to sell their stuff and earn money in return. With copyright laws, some transactions in a market economy are possible. Without copyright laws, some transtions are impossible.
Actually you are wholly right, but so what? The fact
is the copyright law grants people some rights,
and people do treat them synonymously with property right. This difference will be important in other contexts (for example - inheritance issues), but it is unimportant in the current context.
You have learn to read better than that. Job's certainly did not say it took a PhD to figure that out. He is in effect saying that very smart people know that digital works cannot be totally protected from copying. It's not hilarious: his audience is more than the digerati, who understand this. His audience is also the people who produce the music, and he is in effect telling them not to chase the copy protection chimera.
Now I know how upstanding people will get all fired up how doing something out of mere convenience is immoral. To which I will answer that this is precisely why you are not Steve Jobs. The man see the market for something, and is interested legitimizing the activity. Like it or not, downloading music was, in 1999, morally ambiguous. Steve Jobs acknowledges this, and seeks to make it legally possible in 2003 for this convenience, becuase quite clearly, this is the way forward for a music distribution system.
Does reasoning morally impede the ability to reason with foresight. This is holding you back from improving, or supporting the improvement of the state of the world to one where both the consumer and the producer of the content can be satisfied?
So what else is new? Linus has showned that the framers of the US copyright law were unusually far sighted people, who saw that money was but one of the mediums of profit. Darl however in interpreting profit in monetary terms only, is wrong. He knows this of course, and is merely trying to confuse other people.
We don't seem to have formulated any ethical principles or guidelines AT ALL in judging genetic research. We have reactionary people pulling "rules" out of their asses like "No stem cell research" and "no human cloning" without considering the political realities and context. I am frightened by THAT. I am also frightened by genetic engineering and what it can do, but my fear of the former (which have turned out to be true) overrides the latter.
If you were stating possibilities, then you will not say it was "infinite". That is very definite conclusion.
Why is having the knowledge that life, but not intelligent life is common in the universe useless? It would at least stop us from making the arrogant claim that God life on earth for man.
And yes I agree reality has not changed. However, nothing you said about how likely or how interesting, whether it is close enough to be detected, is grounded in reality. Very clearly those are your preferences and prejudices. Thank you.
You sir are too blinded by your own personal agenda to see what the flaws in your argument are.
The universe is not infinite.
The probability of life may be very small.
The probability of intelligent life may be smaller still.
The certain conclusion you can come too, is that the chances of life is just became greater.
Eveyrthing you've said, is unsubstantiated opinion. It may sound likely to you, but we have no evidence either way.
On the contrary, I find this attitude disgusting. A bastion of American software development may be acting in America's long term interests. Or it may be acting to serve a more deserving goal than America's interests (There are more deserving goal s than that - environmentalism is one).
The situation is completely and totally nonobvious and the attitude that no further comment is needed is narrowminded.
You are right, but nevertheless, that remains a possibility. Don't ever underestimate the depths to which amoral businesses with vested interests will go to. Once you think that way, the possibility that the culprit may well be any other Unix vendor muSt be COnsidered. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*.
Furthermore whatever the chances of there being life, the chance that there being interesting, contactable life surely must be a more difficult calculation that can only be answered by our descendents. Scientists prefer a valid hypothesis, teatable in our lifetime, compared to whatever interesting questions one can pose. Thus, on this grounds of science, the interesting scenario that you mention cannot be that interesting.
I'm glad we are on the same wavelength. The ability to comment intelligently on a subjective thing like art seems to be lost amongst otherwise some very intelligent slashdotters. The reasons about this can be speculated upon, but I am glad there are people like you are willing to show the way. I posted becuase I did not have moderator points to mod you up.
The rest of your points notwithstanding, the point that the previous poster was making is that one does not have to say the movie sucked. One explains why it sucked. That's fair comment. I agree that "The movie sucked becuase I did not like it" has null semantic content, and is redundant.
How of overpriced is attributed to our pecuniariness? How much over underperformance is due to overexpectations, and how muchy of oversue is due to ones own inability to assert one's rights? Why tar software companies with one big brush? I can think of a few software companies offhand that aren't like that. Wolfram Research is one.
Are all software companies greedy?
So is Linus. I must have forgotten that I used to administrate a 64-bit Alpha machine.
Torvalds is married too.
But only on 32-bit machines! Wait til we get to the 64bit machines.
Chewbacca lives on Endor.
Do you really think the US govt is going to let him liquidate his assets just like that?
It is evident to me that Darl, in his constant reactionary responses, has no clue about the legal lanscape he is working in. He formed his opinions not by reason, but by greed. It appears that he is finally finding out what he is truly fighting. It may be too late to back out now.
Clearly Microsoft has transgressed upon some rules of proprietry, as you agree with the poster above. Punish them by not using their platform, consolidate your arguments against their software and tell your associates. Learn our mistakes never to buy from such vendors, should they spring up again. Nevermind the laws, leave it alone.