... is to execute (in the words of my chinese-american colleague) 9 generations: 3 generations past, 3 generations forward, and 3 generations side-to-side. Yup, that's right: parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, first, second, and third cousins. Buh-bye.
The strategy (which was successful for hundreds of years) was simple: eliminate anyone who might wish to avenge or follow in the shoes of the perpetrator, and provide damn good incentive to families to turn in traitors amongst themselves (only in the case of a family member turning in the perp was the family spared).
While harsh and brutal, it sure beats dropping nukes indiscriminantly and would probably prove to be most effective. Imagine the bin-Laden wealth being used to hunt down their own fugutive son/brother, for example (either by the family, or by confiscation following their executions).
As to the notion, "what about when they do that to your family" I would argue the are intending to do exactly just that to my family, indiscrimently and without any reasonable provocation whatsoever. That is what mass attacks like the one last Tuesday are all about, not to mention the future bio/chemical/and nuclear attacks the media is quietly preparing us to endure right now. By adopting harsh measures the danger to me and my family is in no way increased, indeed quite likely the opposite.
This is war. That means harsh measures, harsh actions, and doing whatever is necessary to win, no matter how distasteful. We didn't ask for this and we didn't start it, but by god we're going to finish it.
I didn't vote for Bush, but I recognize him as my elected president, especially now.
I do not recongnize him as my elected president because, in fact, he was not elected, he was appointed by the supreme court in a series of legal contortions that were... creative, to say the least.
However, as much as I may disagree with that decision, and have been opposed to Bush in the past (and, for that matter, remain opposed on numerous issues), I do recognize him as our lawful president.
*chuckle* I'll have to remember that, it's quite amusing.
And COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE in this context.
I agree. This is a time for unity and clear purpose. Though we can, and should, fight the government when it tries to take advantage of such situations to peel away our civil liberties, we should also remain steadfast in supporting our government in the war effort against the human filth that aided, abbetted, supported, planned, ordered, and carried out the atrocities in New York last week.
Until such a time as another person is elected president Bush Jr. is and remains our legitimate and lawful president and commander-in-chief, and in a time like this most especially deserves the respect that office entitles him to.
I heard that as "70% of Americans are willing to let terrorists tell us how to run our country".
That is absolutely correct, and in a sense it has already happened (at least) once. In 1980 the U.S. Embassy personnel in Tehran were hostages in the hands of Iranian revolutionaries who, at the time of the U.S. elections, were the defacto government of that country.
There have been allegations that Bush Sr. may have been involved in negotiations with the Iranians in Paris, on behalf of Reagan, to delay the release of the hostages until after the elections. Whether or not there is a shred of truth to such allegations (I would certainly hope not, but in light of some of the other actions our government, and in particular the Right, have taken I cannot dismiss it out of hand), it is a fact that by hanging on to the hostages until after the elections Iran basically "chose" our president for us.
The strategy may have been "Reagan will bring conflict between the US and USSR and that is good for Iran" or it may have been "we can fuck that bastard Carter in one additional fashion," but the reality is that, whatever the reasoning, whatever the background, and whatever the context the Iranians were in a position to directly affect the elections through their delayed release of the hostages, in effect choosing the president we would have for the next four (and, as it turned out, eight) years.
It would behoove us all to be a little smarter this time around. Intelligence (in both senses of the word) is what is going to win this war, far more than kneejerk reactions like these misguided people espouse. Whatever sacrifices we make should be very well considered and very precisely targeted, and proposals such as banning cryptography (something the French already tried and had to discard) or requiring back doors will do nothing -- anyone who would attempt to murder 50,000 people with a jumbo jet, and in so doing succeed in murdering 5,000, isn't about to stop using strong cryptography, steganography, or (more likely) verbal codewords just because the U.S. congress tells them they shouldn't.
Christianity is at its worst...
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Handling the Loads
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... with reactions such as you describe. Christianity is (even more than Islam) an evangelical religion, in which there are strong pressures built into the belief system to convert others to one's own way of thinking, generally under the guise of "saving their soul." I have personally experienced this sort of pyschological assault from Christian sects ranging from Catholic to Mormonism (yes, they do qualify as Christian in that they worship Christ, even if the other sects won't claim them).
I won't go into a long diatribe at the offensiveness of this mindset or this behavior, but rather reference it in order to point out that, as a genre of religion which is bent on conversion, i.e. selling their viewpoint to others, Christian sects tend to be obsessed with appearance as much as substance. Whether it is cloaked as "setting a good example to others," "representing your faith/church to others," or "demonstrating through actions what it is to be a good Christian," none of which are as blatent as the Mormon adage of "avoid the appearance of evil," the underlying message is clear: appearances are at least as important as substance. With a mindset like that, reinforced every sunday from one's spiritual leaders, is it any suprise that people who look even a little non-mainstream garner the reactions like you describe?
We should kick ass and eradicate our enemies. Not in the name of God, not in the name of some religion, but in the name our our country and our people, which have been attacked and shall be avenged. Keep church and state where they belong, separate, and obliterate the bastards who committed these atrocities last Tuesday in the name of our secular, democratic instutions, leaving each of us to pray, and to grieve, in our own fashion, according to our own beliefs. And never make the mistake that just because someone doesn't share your beliefs, ethnic background, or skin color that they are in any respect less capable of grieving than you.
It is not us, it is they who are on notice
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More WTC News
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We might have changed our policies in the ways you suggest before this happened. That is no longer even a remote possibility.
Indeed, despite a great deal of pro-israeli press in the United States the Palestinians have (or, after their public displays following these events, most likely had) gained a great deal of sympathy. So much so that our government was moving in the direction of supporting the Palestinians and criticizing Israel. It is likely those criticism would have grown more harsh, up to and including a shift in our alliance. If such a fundamental policy could change, it is almost certain that other polices could have as well, and probably would have with time. That possibility is, of course, no longer even remotely in existence.
Ditto for just about every other "change" you would like to see. This is war, and contrary to many posts here, we are very, very good at prosecuting wars. "But we can't see the enemy" you say. Ah, but we can see their supporters: those who give them aid, comfort, logistical support, and, ultimately, a place to go back to and mount their next operation. It is a myth that these people can operate without the support of some country which, in turn, can be obliterated using contentional (and some not-so-conventional) technqiues. These countries are now on notice that they are, in our eyes, precisely equal to the terrorist organizations which engaged in these atrocities.
(as an example of what happens to terrorist organizations when they lose a base of operations and the willingness of nations to harbor them consider Carlos the Jackal, who operating with the support and help of the eastern block and even the KGB until the CIA, working with Massad, successfully convinced his supporters he had betrayed them. Ultimately he and his organization lost every safe harbor, every possible retreat. Those who weren't killed now enjoy the hospitality of maximum security prisons and, undoubtably, the dubiouse joys of anal intercours among their fellows).
Just like world wars I and II, and other wars we have fought, the enemy has used guerilla tactics, sabatage, and other asymetrical means of attack in addition to conventional attack. And, just like in those wars, we will decimate the enemy and, most likely, require unconditional surrender before ending hostilities.
There will be no truce, no peace, no change until those who perpetrated and those who supported these acts are either defeated or dead.
You haven't seen America at war. No one has seen America at war since 1945. Police actions and other misguided efforts at gunboat foreign policies aside (and I disagree with most if not all of the American government's past foreign policies as much as you do) were not wars by our definitions at all, media hype and political gloating (on every side) aside.
You are, however, about to see America at war for the first time in 56 years, against an enemy we most certainly will find and will kill. Despite my fiery rhetoric of a couple of days ago (I said then I'd regret spouting off, and of course I do -- one often says things in the heat of rage one doesn't mean, later, in the more rational light of day, and I really do not want to see this go nuclear, though I suspect it very well may before all is said and done) I am not happy about this. It is a tragedy, but it is also a necessity: the time has come to employ the hardest, most difficult, and harshest strategies. It isn't about being nice, or building a better world, or "finding a fair solution," or even about justice. It is about winning, by whatever means required, with whatever strategies necessary.
No one asked for this war, but it is nevertheless here as of two days ago. We will prosecute it without mercy and without restraint, our enemies will be crushed by whatever means necessary, for however long it takes, and we will unequivocably win, by whatever means are required. This includes each and every country giving these vermin aid and comfort and, don't kid yourself, we do have the power and the ability to do this, and we most certainly have the will to do this.
Once we have destroyed the enemy we can talk about your reforms. Until then, I suggest staying out of our way.
While I respect what you say, I will be blunt. When you have been so attacked, when you have friends describe to you what it is like to listen over the phone while the colleagues burn alive, then have the line go silent never to ring again, when you have friends who have died en mass, then you may speak to me of turning the other cheak.
We will use our power to create a better world, by exterminating the vermin who are responsible for this atrocity, along with anyone and everywhen who gave them aid or comfort. We may feel guilty afterwords, and will certainly be an easy target for a world with an uneasy conscience that will cry loudly against our actions while secretly breathing a sigh of relief that someone did what needed to be done, but in the end the world will be a better place, and those that did this will cease to exist.
Very difficult to find everyone in the organization, and very difficult to march an army in to win the war.
We are at the beginning of a difficult war. Please don't get me wrong, I'd like to see each of these cowardly terrorist recieve slow and painful deaths, but we must be smart, rational, and alert to win.
They fight for mecca.
We level mecca.
They fight for palestine?
We sow the palistinian soil with kobalt and radioactive salt.
They fight for .
We nuke anything remotely associated with country/cause/religion.
We can win this sort of fight, on our own terms, if we so desire. Chances are, however, after a day to cool off and begin thinking rationally again, we will decide the moral and ethical costs of doing any of the above are simply too high.
Once I am rational again (having one's friend describe hearing his colleagues burn alive while he listens over the telephone doesn't tend to make one rational) I will probably not agree with exterminating those who did this and ending their history, once and for all. But that is tommorow. Today, I want each and every member of the society that spawned these vermin to die. Preferably by nuclear fire.
While no public accusations of blame were made by the U.S. government, senior officials, along with experts on terrorism, were unanimous in their belief that the attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile who leads the shadowy Al-Qaeda terrorist organization. [MSNBC]
Everyone has jumped to that conclusion because it fits his modus operandi so perfectly, including a boastful video tape alluding to such attacks that has circulated around the middle east in recent weeks (as did similar tapes prior to the attacks in Yemen, our embassies in Africa, etc.).
If and when we determine that it was, in fact, Osama bin Laden I fervently hope we eradicate the bastards and any country which has given him and his followers any form of aid and comfort. If said eradication were to include the use of nuclear weapons I, for one, would not be in the least upset by this. On the contrary, at this moment I would probably cheer. Guilt is for later, after we have killed the enemy and exterminated the vermin, eliminating the threat once and for all.
We kill as many as is needed to put an end to this kind of atrocity. If that means all of them, then so be it. I hope not, but this is war, and if it is us or them, I vote most emphatically that it be them.
I will probably regret expressing this opinion once emotions have calmed down, but after watching circa 50k people die live on television I, at this moment, have to agree.
This is war.
We find whoever did this. We kill them. We kill their families. We kill their friends, and we kill their allies.
If it turns out to be a domestic attack then the situation is more complicated, as protecting our democracy becomes paramount over revenge or even complete justice. However, if, as it appears, this was a foreign act (such as Bin Laden), then we should exterminate those who did this (such as his organization) as well as any and all who gave the enemy aid and comfort (e.g. hypothetically, if it was bin laden, Afghanistan most definitely, perhaps others as well).
The only way to secure one against these kinds of attacks is to completely exterminate those who would commit them. This is most definetely war, and we have the means to put an end to this, perminently.
... there's the apparent enthusiasm with which the United States is throwing itself into the technological backwater, with laws like the DMCA, proposed UCITA legislation, and the de facto support of the Microsoft Monopoloy at the expense of virtually every other player in the industry (and this expense hits American firms far harder than, say, European firms which enjoy at least some measure of trade protection via the EU and national import regulations).
Given that there are already websites distributing software the rest of the world is allowed to use, but those in the US are not (thanks to the DMCA -- and one must certify... or lie... that one is not on American soil before accessing said software) it is rather apparent that we are already something of a technological backwater in certain areas... indeed, our cryptography industry has never recovered from the business drain our (now largely reversed) cryptographic policies under Reagan, Bush, and early Clinton resulted in.
That being the case, those of us with IQ's greater than 160 would very much like to get the hell out of here! So the question remains: what options for similar immigration priveleges granted on the basis of intelligence are there in other countries?
Bill and his mates..Huh? There's no Bill in the article. If this is a reference to Bill Gates, it has to be the most contrived jab at Microsoft in the history of this site.
Except it is only a jab in the minds of those who are oversensitive to past "jabs" of a much more deserving sort: Microsoft's monopoly, the manner in which they held back computing technology for over a decade, etc. etc.
Saying Bill and his mates might want one of these is a reference to their wealth, nothing more. Unless you equate wealth with something negative, there is no "jab" in this at all. Indeed, even most of the anti-microsoft crowd (a growing group if there ever was one, and for numerous good reasons) aren't angry at Bill's wealth, merely the manner in which he got it and the cost that has meant to the rest of us, particularly those of us who care about the technology itself.
So in short, get over yourself. The author wasn't even poking fun at Microsoft or Bill Gates at all, just at the pricetag of these new supersonic biz-jets. Wait until tommorow's story about Microsoft's latest atrocity before overreacting, why don't you.
It'd be a great piece if he talked to the larger issue of any employee's right to privacy. It's kind of ironic that BOFH policies hit the news with judges, but what about the rest of us?
This is a very important issue, not just for the judiciary and rendering of justice, such as it is, in America, but in the long run for all of our individual rights in the workplace as well.
The Libertarian notion that constitutional protections stop at the private property line, and that it is therefor ok, even reasonable, for employers to invade and snoop the personal correspondence of their employees merely because such correspondence passes through their privately owned equipment or networks is responsible for more loss of individual privacy than all of the government's orwellian snooping combined, if for no other reason than that the focus of the privacy invasion is targeted so specifically by an entity against a relatively small group of people (their employees).
How then, are we to combat this remarkably Orwellian situation? First and foremost, by getting our government, in particular the judiciary, to understand what is going on and just what the stakes are. In so doing they will be sensitized to these issues, and rulings favoring individual employee rights over an employers property priveleges may perhaps become more common (after all, it is a felony for an employer to open an employee's private correspondence which has been sent by US Mail, even though the desk it is sitting on is privately owned by them, not the employee. Why should email, or web browsing, be any different?)
On the other hand, if judges are routinely subjected to this kind of invasive monitoring, and it becomes truly a widespread, acceptable practice within all branches of the government, then any argument for the protection of individual citizens' privacy will be correspondingly diluted. Our courts and judges may not grant a private citizen priveleges they themselves enjoy, but they certainly won't grant a private citizen priveleges, or rights, they themselves not only do not enjoy, and perhaps even have come to take the lake thereof for granted.
It is ironic that the judiciary is only now beginning to experience the kind of Orwellian monitoring and control all too many people have come to expect in their workplace, but perhaps this is exactly the catalyst that is needed to put an end to this nonsense in both the private and public spheres, once and for all.
Therefore all it does is make life in the US (and europe) cheaper. This will *not* alter the living conditions in poor countries!
I am confused by what you mean here. Do you mean that life in the US will become (less valuable) cheaper, or that the treatment and sustainance of life in the US for those who suffer bone marrow and other blood-replenishment problems will become (less expensive) cheaper?
WRT the so-called "third world" you are right, if the Western style patent system is allowed to reign supreme over the entire planet then all of these publicly funded areas of research (as well as any privately funded areas of research, of course) will be patented by universities and private corporations and any treatments developed will remain out of reach of most westerners and virtually everyone in the "third world." However, this is a direct result of the inherent flaws of widespread government monopoly entitlements granted to businesses (and in the United States that includes Universities) and the monopoly pricing that ensues. It has nothing whatsoever to do with any alleged flaws in the research itself, or any inherent costs in the methodologies developed.
Agreed. Also Verner Vinge for something different
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Harry Potter Wins Hugo
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Greg Egan is brilliant, and his Diaspora rates as one of my all time favorites.
Another excellent author, who manages to capture alien worldviews and put together a complex universe of wonder and suprise is Verner Vinge, in particular A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep.
His concept of differing physical laws dependent on location in space (implied indirectly to be a function of the mean gravitational density of the region) is AFAIK quite original. Just as you cannot have supersonic craft underwater, so too can you not have superluminal craft in the slow depths of space (which our Earth happens to be in). Actually you may be able to have supersonic submersibles, but at present it appears to be impractical, and it serves to illustrate the concept that technologies which work great in certain regions of space break down completely in regions which are "deeper."
As for villians, his (human) Emergents are one of the most chilling (un)civilizations I've yet seen described, and his description of transcendent evil in A Fire Upon the Deep has interesting implications (and applications) to the real world, and to real world ethics.
I've noticed that a lot of posters to this thread seem to have the opinion that article is a fairy tale. Anandtech seems to me to have a reputation for impartiality, their hardware reveiws are quite thourough and unbiased as far as I can see.
What you are seeing is the classic strategy of Microsoft shills and lackeys on slashdot using standard astroturfing techniques to slant the apparent tone of the conversation in a manner which is conducive to their PR goals. This has been followed by a few more reasonable people who have either been taken in by the "reasonable" tone of skepticism expressed (many astroturfing efforts have been laughed out of here and elsewhere because of the ludricous stances they have taken, however, Microsoft shills and PR-consultants have grown more subtle and clever over time, and have refined their astroturfing techniques quite a bit), or are falling prey to the misguided desire to appear more thoughtful by expressing skepticism, whether or not it is at all well founded.
As someone who has helped numerous companies, including my current employer, switch wholesale to GNU/Linux on both the desktop and server side I can say that the story rings very true. It should also be pointed out that there are numerous, confirmed instances of Microsoft threatening their customers with inflated licensing fees, expensive license audits, etc. in retaliation for deploying a competitor's product in-house. This sort of behavior was particularly common during the early Internet Explorer vs. Netscape struggle, and is playing no small part in the ongoing DOJ v Microsoft anti-trust trial. I suspect only the most ardent Microsoft apologist or supporter would have any shred of doubt as to the likelihood that such tactics will almost certainly be turned against firms trying to make the transition from Windows to GNU/Linux, and until a company is fully weaned from Microsoft (and these transitions can take months or even years, depending on the complexity and entrenchment of the existing legacy systems) they are vulnerable to this sort of retaliation.
When you can write even 1 paragraph in German...
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The Internet Backlash
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...without grammatical errors too numerous to mention then I'll have some vanishingly small interest in what you have to say. As it is, grammar and spelling Nazis like yourself contribute even less to this site than the endless series of "first post" and goats.cx posts those of us moderating at -1 are forced to endure, particularly when you point your oh-so-self-righteous I-can-spell-better-than-you-can-nya-nya finger at someone who isn't a native speaker of English and who has, despite that, written an article of eloquence and quality to which you can only longingly aspire.
When I hear Americans whining about NAFTA, however, it almost seems as though its a personal grudge against Canada, for allowing our corporations to do business there with only the same restrictions has American organizations, including sending Canadian employees and what not.
Actually anti-NAFTA rheotric in the US centers far more on Mexico than Canada... in fact, I can't think of a single instance I've heard anyone gripe about Canadian companies doing business here, although hearing gripes about American factories moving to Mexico for cheap labor has become almost cliched.
I am in favor of nationalization, and did favor NAFTA for a time. The EU has done some good, as has NAFTA. However, as things are currently being implimented NAFTA, the EU, the WTO, and above all WIPO are actively promoting Corporate profits and corporate rights at the expense of national sovereignty and individual rights on so many levels and fronts that one cannot enumerate them all. Extending copyrights in the US (Sony Bono Act, may the tree that killed him live a thousand years) to life+75 years, gutting any reasonable notion of "limited time" required under the US constitution is but one example. US efforts at an international cybercrime treaty and an international DMCA style treaty are two additional examples that will not only gut the rights of Canadians and Europeans, but also of Americans. International treaty has not only become a mechanism whereby corporations can persue policies which would be unconstitutional otherwise, but have also become a mechanism whereby national governments, through the auspecis of international law, can circumvent their own constitutional restraints at the direct expense of the people.
Having the Taliban's notions of propriety shoved down your throat in America seems farfetched, until you remember California extending and enforcing its laws overseas against individuals for committing the unpardanable sin of writing software in order to allow their computer's DVD player to play their legally purchased DVDs under a free operating system not officially blessed by the California Media Cartels. You may be skeptical of such scenerios, but I rather doubt after his experiences in the "land of the free" Dmitry Sklyarov is.
It isn't the concept of internaitonalization that is bad, it is the implimentation which has placed corporate benefits above individual rights and actively diluted national sovereignty without any consideration for the costs and repercussions. In fact, the current implimentation of internationalization is sufficiently bad that, IMHO, the entire process should be stopped and reversed until a better, more just implimentation can be devised.
I think it's time to make a big push for a new international treaty, akin to a geneva convention
Our fundamental rights to freedom of expression, speech, freedom from search and seizure, etc. are under concerted attack from numerous directions at the state, federal, and international level. At the international level this is happening on at least two fronts, with multinational treaty groups/trade regions (think European Union and NAFTA) and global treaties (think WTO and WIPO). It is quite likely that a part of the strategy to get everyone to knuckle under the kind of draconian world-wide laws those whom WIPO and the WTO represent desire (i.e. the corporations of Earth) is to deliberately make the current situation so untenable that we will demand something, anything, to replace the current situation.
How better to achieve that than to have every Tom, Dick, and Harry (e.g. California, France, and Australia) claim world-wide jurusdiction, such that the world's lowest common denominator (e.g. the Taliban) comes to impact each of our lives? Then a worldwide, standardized DMCA might look inviting... even though the rules are draconian, at least then we know what they are. And thus we all fall right into their trap, giving up our rights for a little dubious certaintly and playing right into their hands. What is worse, from the way the US Constitution is written it is entirely possible that international agreements, once ratified by congress, may in fact supercede constitutional protections (this is a highly debated point, but alas not the cut-and-dried your rights are protected from such things most of us like to believe... and reading the constitution doesn't shed much light on the issue, so in the end the interpretations of our increasingly unreliable Supreme Court will likely be all that stands between us and the Abyss).
Farfetched? A couple of years ago, before the DeCSS and Dmitry cases I might have thought so. But in todays climate I not only find it a reasonably possible scenerio, but a likely one.
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I would love to hear how. Outside of the government being the only source of R&D I fail to see how it would work in the drug industry.
See my other response. Quick options include government supported research (as you allude to), the formation of private research consortia with branding and certifications (e.g. there are free UNIX knockoffs, but only one UNIX brand which has stringent licensing and compliance requirements to use), research funded by private non-profits (think Jerry's Kids), etc.
I really have to get back to work and cannot reply to every point in your post, but a quick, off the cuff reply to one of your points follows.
Does this increase costs to the public during the patent period? Of course, because, as you point out a patent is a monopoly which does not set fair prices in the market sense (markets require multiple independent sellers and buyers to set prices). However, as the market sets fair prices it also weeds out inefficient producers. In a pure market enviroment jumping through the FDA's hoops will always be economically inefficient, thus an intelligent drug company manager will let the other companies do R&D and just copy their efforts.
Patents and government sponsored entitlements in the form of 20-year monopolies are not required to level the playing field in this respect. We are already dealing with government regulation and the added cost it entails. Rather than granting 20-year monopoly entitlements, why not require that any company marketing a drug, even if it is copied from a known formula, either go through the same testing process as the "inventor" before they are licensed to sell their knockoff, buy a "license" for the certified product from the company which has already done the research and gotten the license to sell their product (probably the "inventor" at least initially), or pay a fee to the licensing agency equal to said costs to the governing agency, which fee would then be applied to further government funded or subsidized research, a portion of which could even go back to the "inventor" if entitlements really are your thing.
Three choices in competition with one another, which level the playing field with respect to government-induced costs while avoiding monopoly entitlements and the kinds of corporate coercion such entitlements create (e.g. "we won't license this at any price!" "ok, we'll just match your cost and mimick your tests, or better yet, we'll pay the Federal Licensing Fee and help underwrite additional research in academia").
There are undoubtably other approaches which would work as well if you give it a little thought, but for now I really must get back to work.
Flerbiage: (n) 1. An incredibly stupid word invented by the Open Source movement as part of an incredible verbal contortion in an effort to discuss Liberty and Freedom without having to openly admit that they are discussing Liberty and Freedom.
Other than that, you make a very valid point: the DMCA does violate fundamental freedoms, liberties, and constitutional rights. See, no new word or verbal contortions required.:-)
Name one please. It's easy to stata there are alternatives but it's not as easy to develop a well thought out plan to replace the current IP system over a set period of time.
I'll do one better. I'll name two:
Government funded or subsidized research, either through private labs, academia, or a combination of the two. This has a long and venerable history of success (think: defense spending and the assorted technologies which have come out of it, as well as many of the medical breathroughs that have been made, many of which have subsequently been patented despite having been funded in large part from public moneys... an abuse if there ever was one which at one time was unthinkable but has recently become all too common, and another very good reason to get rid of government entitlements to 20-year monopolies).
Branding, either through coporate consortia or individually. Branded drugs (e.g. Bayer asperin) compete successfully with their generic counterparts even after patents expire. Consortiums can be formed to develop, market, and brand a new technology without relying on a government entitlement to a 20-year monopoly... product X being branded as "official product developed by Y" will have a trust/quality factor many people are willing to pay for which Tiawanese competitor Z cannot offer (trademark law being what it is). Some will opt for the knockoff, others will prefer to pay more for the brand name. Again, this has a long proven track record in cases where patents are overturned or rejected altogether, as well as in cases where they have (at long last) expired.
Competition will keep the prices fair and reasonable. It may take longer to recover an expensive R&D development, but it is recoverable.
Oh, and ad homonem attacks aside (where does Star Trek or television come into any of this, other than your absurd stereotyping?) I may have given you credit for more intelligence than you deserved (the above two scenerios would count as fairly obvious to me, and a number of others have occurred to me with a little thought, but for which I do not have time to enumerate as I have to get back to work), but that hardly makes the point I made "absurd" by any definition.
There are a few reasons this is a bad trend. Now they are using a public health problem as an excuse to void a valid international patent because they did not get the agreement they wanted. This plays very well in the press, "bad evil company would rather see people die than sell their stuff cheaper" instead of saying "country refuses to pay a fair price for drugs to save its own people"
Except that three assumptions here are inaccurate:
1) Monopolies do not yield anything remotely approaching "fair prices" without serious government intervention (e.g power companies and baby bells) and often not even then.
2) Monopolies aren't necessary for R&D expenses to be recouped, and a reasonable profit to be made.
3) You imply that the characterization of "bad evil company would rather see people die than sell their stuff cheaper" is unfair and inaccurate, when in fact the historical and contemporary evidence is rather strong to the contrary.
Software patents are bad. So are every other form of patent that grants government enforced monopolies and undermines the very free market upon which our economies depend. There are other ways to finance expensive R&D besides grantintg 20 year monopolies and allowing said monopolies to extort exhorbitant prices from dying people and leaving millions of less fortunates to die (or extorting payment from their impoverished governments).
To paraphrase another blindly pro-IP comment: This should make sick every one of you that has a Free (as in liberty) bone in their body. Ideas are not property, nor are inventions inherently something to be possessed, except as a result of arbitrary laws which have turned out to have the opposite effect as was intended, namely to slow progress rather than accelerate it, and now in the process are actively resulting in the suffering and death of millions. Frankly, I do not care if someone who thinks they have a god given right to a monopoly on an idea simply because they won the footrace to the patent office is pissed... I imagine King George (from whome we inherited this asinine system of entitlements in the first place) was pissed when the US declared independence and you know what? That didn't make it any less right to do so.
Probably? I think this sort of ethical blindspot is something Microsoft shares with most serious criminals, and differentiates them from most decent people... an inability to differentiate right and wrong even in some of the more obvious, less grey areas, of which this is one. Impersonating individual people (including dead people) in an effort to decieve and undermine the very fundamental, personal feedback upon which our democracy relies in no small part and thereby distorting the entire governance process... let me give you a hint: YES, IT IS WRONG. You are robbing people of their voice, stealing their identity and speaking out in their name without their knowledge and quite possibly against their wishes. Certainly the dead have no business lobbying legislators, even if they are known to vote for party machine candidates in Chicago elections from time to time (Mayor Daley being the quintessential example). This goes well beyond lobbying one's own point of view and agenda and is, at the very least, fraudulant.
This is wrong, pure and simple. There is no "grey" area here, no uncertainty, no "maybe" about it. And if this uncertainty is indicative of the ethical maturity of Microsoft and those who apologize and shill for them, and I think it probably is based upon their actions to date (not to mention some of the absurd forms the defense of those actions has taken), then I can only say that the worst behaviors attributed to Microsoft and its lackeys are emminently believable.
To underscore one aspect of why this is wrong in as dramatic a notion as possible, let me ask: how many of those impersonated are actually Macintosh users. GNU/Linux or FreeBSD users? None? Perhaps, but if they have impersonated thousands, then likely it is a number greater than zero, in which case Microsoft (or their "we must maintain deniability" outsourced PR subcontractor) is not only decietful in their representation of an astroturfed campaign, but are actually stealing people's voices to "campaign" for the opposite of what they want. And before someone starts bemoaning Americans' apathy and using that as an excuse, the right to say nothing is just as protected as the right to speak out, and saying nothing does not entitle someone else to put words in your mouth, certainly not in a political context, any more than not voting entitles someone else to cast your vote in addition to their own.
If what Microsoft and their paid shills did isn't defined as criminal under current law, it damn well should be.
Slashdot Mirror
... is to execute (in the words of my chinese-american colleague) 9 generations: 3 generations past, 3 generations forward, and 3 generations side-to-side. Yup, that's right: parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, first, second, and third cousins. Buh-bye.
The strategy (which was successful for hundreds of years) was simple: eliminate anyone who might wish to avenge or follow in the shoes of the perpetrator, and provide damn good incentive to families to turn in traitors amongst themselves (only in the case of a family member turning in the perp was the family spared).
While harsh and brutal, it sure beats dropping nukes indiscriminantly and would probably prove to be most effective. Imagine the bin-Laden wealth being used to hunt down their own fugutive son/brother, for example (either by the family, or by confiscation following their executions).
As to the notion, "what about when they do that to your family" I would argue the are intending to do exactly just that to my family, indiscrimently and without any reasonable provocation whatsoever. That is what mass attacks like the one last Tuesday are all about, not to mention the future bio/chemical/and nuclear attacks the media is quietly preparing us to endure right now. By adopting harsh measures the danger to me and my family is in no way increased, indeed quite likely the opposite.
This is war. That means harsh measures, harsh actions, and doing whatever is necessary to win, no matter how distasteful. We didn't ask for this and we didn't start it, but by god we're going to finish it.
I didn't vote for Bush, but I recognize him as my elected president, especially now.
... creative, to say the least.
I do not recongnize him as my elected president because, in fact, he was not elected, he was appointed by the supreme court in a series of legal contortions that were
However, as much as I may disagree with that decision, and have been opposed to Bush in the past (and, for that matter, remain opposed on numerous issues), I do recognize him as our lawful president.
*chuckle* I'll have to remember that, it's quite amusing.
And COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE in this context.
I agree. This is a time for unity and clear purpose. Though we can, and should, fight the government when it tries to take advantage of such situations to peel away our civil liberties, we should also remain steadfast in supporting our government in the war effort against the human filth that aided, abbetted, supported, planned, ordered, and carried out the atrocities in New York last week.
Until such a time as another person is elected president Bush Jr. is and remains our legitimate and lawful president and commander-in-chief, and in a time like this most especially deserves the respect that office entitles him to.
I heard that as "70% of Americans are willing to let terrorists tell us how to run our country".
That is absolutely correct, and in a sense it has already happened (at least) once. In 1980 the U.S. Embassy personnel in Tehran were hostages in the hands of Iranian revolutionaries who, at the time of the U.S. elections, were the defacto government of that country.
There have been allegations that Bush Sr. may have been involved in negotiations with the Iranians in Paris, on behalf of Reagan, to delay the release of the hostages until after the elections. Whether or not there is a shred of truth to such allegations (I would certainly hope not, but in light of some of the other actions our government, and in particular the Right, have taken I cannot dismiss it out of hand), it is a fact that by hanging on to the hostages until after the elections Iran basically "chose" our president for us.
The strategy may have been "Reagan will bring conflict between the US and USSR and that is good for Iran" or it may have been "we can fuck that bastard Carter in one additional fashion," but the reality is that, whatever the reasoning, whatever the background, and whatever the context the Iranians were in a position to directly affect the elections through their delayed release of the hostages, in effect choosing the president we would have for the next four (and, as it turned out, eight) years.
It would behoove us all to be a little smarter this time around. Intelligence (in both senses of the word) is what is going to win this war, far more than kneejerk reactions like these misguided people espouse. Whatever sacrifices we make should be very well considered and very precisely targeted, and proposals such as banning cryptography (something the French already tried and had to discard) or requiring back doors will do nothing -- anyone who would attempt to murder 50,000 people with a jumbo jet, and in so doing succeed in murdering 5,000, isn't about to stop using strong cryptography, steganography, or (more likely) verbal codewords just because the U.S. congress tells them they shouldn't.
... with reactions such as you describe. Christianity is (even more than Islam) an evangelical religion, in which there are strong pressures built into the belief system to convert others to one's own way of thinking, generally under the guise of "saving their soul." I have personally experienced this sort of pyschological assault from Christian sects ranging from Catholic to Mormonism (yes, they do qualify as Christian in that they worship Christ, even if the other sects won't claim them).
I won't go into a long diatribe at the offensiveness of this mindset or this behavior, but rather reference it in order to point out that, as a genre of religion which is bent on conversion, i.e. selling their viewpoint to others, Christian sects tend to be obsessed with appearance as much as substance. Whether it is cloaked as "setting a good example to others," "representing your faith/church to others," or "demonstrating through actions what it is to be a good Christian," none of which are as blatent as the Mormon adage of "avoid the appearance of evil," the underlying message is clear: appearances are at least as important as substance. With a mindset like that, reinforced every sunday from one's spiritual leaders, is it any suprise that people who look even a little non-mainstream garner the reactions like you describe?
We should kick ass and eradicate our enemies. Not in the name of God, not in the name of some religion, but in the name our our country and our people, which have been attacked and shall be avenged. Keep church and state where they belong, separate, and obliterate the bastards who committed these atrocities last Tuesday in the name of our secular, democratic instutions, leaving each of us to pray, and to grieve, in our own fashion, according to our own beliefs. And never make the mistake that just because someone doesn't share your beliefs, ethnic background, or skin color that they are in any respect less capable of grieving than you.
We might have changed our policies in the ways you suggest before this happened. That is no longer even a remote possibility.
Indeed, despite a great deal of pro-israeli press in the United States the Palestinians have (or, after their public displays following these events, most likely had) gained a great deal of sympathy. So much so that our government was moving in the direction of supporting the Palestinians and criticizing Israel. It is likely those criticism would have grown more harsh, up to and including a shift in our alliance. If such a fundamental policy could change, it is almost certain that other polices could have as well, and probably would have with time. That possibility is, of course, no longer even remotely in existence.
Ditto for just about every other "change" you would like to see. This is war, and contrary to many posts here, we are very, very good at prosecuting wars. "But we can't see the enemy" you say. Ah, but we can see their supporters: those who give them aid, comfort, logistical support, and, ultimately, a place to go back to and mount their next operation. It is a myth that these people can operate without the support of some country which, in turn, can be obliterated using contentional (and some not-so-conventional) technqiues. These countries are now on notice that they are, in our eyes, precisely equal to the terrorist organizations which engaged in these atrocities.
(as an example of what happens to terrorist organizations when they lose a base of operations and the willingness of nations to harbor them consider Carlos the Jackal, who operating with the support and help of the eastern block and even the KGB until the CIA, working with Massad, successfully convinced his supporters he had betrayed them. Ultimately he and his organization lost every safe harbor, every possible retreat. Those who weren't killed now enjoy the hospitality of maximum security prisons and, undoubtably, the dubiouse joys of anal intercours among their fellows).
Just like world wars I and II, and other wars we have fought, the enemy has used guerilla tactics, sabatage, and other asymetrical means of attack in addition to conventional attack. And, just like in those wars, we will decimate the enemy and, most likely, require unconditional surrender before ending hostilities.
There will be no truce, no peace, no change until those who perpetrated and those who supported these acts are either defeated or dead.
You haven't seen America at war. No one has seen America at war since 1945. Police actions and other misguided efforts at gunboat foreign policies aside (and I disagree with most if not all of the American government's past foreign policies as much as you do) were not wars by our definitions at all, media hype and political gloating (on every side) aside.
You are, however, about to see America at war for the first time in 56 years, against an enemy we most certainly will find and will kill. Despite my fiery rhetoric of a couple of days ago (I said then I'd regret spouting off, and of course I do -- one often says things in the heat of rage one doesn't mean, later, in the more rational light of day, and I really do not want to see this go nuclear, though I suspect it very well may before all is said and done) I am not happy about this. It is a tragedy, but it is also a necessity: the time has come to employ the hardest, most difficult, and harshest strategies. It isn't about being nice, or building a better world, or "finding a fair solution," or even about justice. It is about winning, by whatever means required, with whatever strategies necessary.
No one asked for this war, but it is nevertheless here as of two days ago. We will prosecute it without mercy and without restraint, our enemies will be crushed by whatever means necessary, for however long it takes, and we will unequivocably win, by whatever means are required. This includes each and every country giving these vermin aid and comfort and, don't kid yourself, we do have the power and the ability to do this, and we most certainly have the will to do this.
Once we have destroyed the enemy we can talk about your reforms. Until then, I suggest staying out of our way.
While I respect what you say, I will be blunt. When you have been so attacked, when you have friends describe to you what it is like to listen over the phone while the colleagues burn alive, then have the line go silent never to ring again, when you have friends who have died en mass, then you may speak to me of turning the other cheak.
We will use our power to create a better world, by exterminating the vermin who are responsible for this atrocity, along with anyone and everywhen who gave them aid or comfort. We may feel guilty afterwords, and will certainly be an easy target for a world with an uneasy conscience that will cry loudly against our actions while secretly breathing a sigh of relief that someone did what needed to be done, but in the end the world will be a better place, and those that did this will cease to exist.
Very difficult to find everyone in the organization, and very difficult to march an army in to win the war.
We are at the beginning of a difficult war. Please don't get me wrong, I'd like to see each of these cowardly terrorist recieve slow and painful deaths, but we must be smart, rational, and alert to win.
They fight for mecca.
We level mecca.
They fight for palestine?
We sow the palistinian soil with kobalt and radioactive salt.
They fight for .
We nuke anything remotely associated with country/cause/religion.
We can win this sort of fight, on our own terms, if we so desire. Chances are, however, after a day to cool off and begin thinking rationally again, we will decide the moral and ethical costs of doing any of the above are simply too high.
Once I am rational again (having one's friend describe hearing his colleagues burn alive while he listens over the telephone doesn't tend to make one rational) I will probably not agree with exterminating those who did this and ending their history, once and for all. But that is tommorow. Today, I want each and every member of the society that spawned these vermin to die. Preferably by nuclear fire.
While no public accusations of blame were made by the U.S. government, senior officials, along with experts on terrorism, were unanimous in their belief that the attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile who leads the shadowy Al-Qaeda terrorist organization. [MSNBC]
Everyone has jumped to that conclusion because it fits his modus operandi so perfectly, including a boastful video tape alluding to such attacks that has circulated around the middle east in recent weeks (as did similar tapes prior to the attacks in Yemen, our embassies in Africa, etc.).
If and when we determine that it was, in fact, Osama bin Laden I fervently hope we eradicate the bastards and any country which has given him and his followers any form of aid and comfort. If said eradication were to include the use of nuclear weapons I, for one, would not be in the least upset by this. On the contrary, at this moment I would probably cheer. Guilt is for later, after we have killed the enemy and exterminated the vermin, eliminating the threat once and for all.
We kill as many as is needed to put an end to this kind of atrocity. If that means all of them, then so be it. I hope not, but this is war, and if it is us or them, I vote most emphatically that it be them.
I will probably regret expressing this opinion once emotions have calmed down, but after watching circa 50k people die live on television I, at this moment, have to agree.
This is war.
We find whoever did this. We kill them. We kill their families. We kill their friends, and we kill their allies.
If it turns out to be a domestic attack then the situation is more complicated, as protecting our democracy becomes paramount over revenge or even complete justice. However, if, as it appears, this was a foreign act (such as Bin Laden), then we should exterminate those who did this (such as his organization) as well as any and all who gave the enemy aid and comfort (e.g. hypothetically, if it was bin laden, Afghanistan most definitely, perhaps others as well).
The only way to secure one against these kinds of attacks is to completely exterminate those who would commit them. This is most definetely war, and we have the means to put an end to this, perminently.
We should do so.
... there's the apparent enthusiasm with which the United States is throwing itself into the technological backwater, with laws like the DMCA, proposed UCITA legislation, and the de facto support of the Microsoft Monopoloy at the expense of virtually every other player in the industry (and this expense hits American firms far harder than, say, European firms which enjoy at least some measure of trade protection via the EU and national import regulations).
... or lie ... that one is not on American soil before accessing said software) it is rather apparent that we are already something of a technological backwater in certain areas ... indeed, our cryptography industry has never recovered from the business drain our (now largely reversed) cryptographic policies under Reagan, Bush, and early Clinton resulted in.
Given that there are already websites distributing software the rest of the world is allowed to use, but those in the US are not (thanks to the DMCA -- and one must certify
That being the case, those of us with IQ's greater than 160 would very much like to get the hell out of here! So the question remains: what options for similar immigration priveleges granted on the basis of intelligence are there in other countries?
thanks in advance...
Bill and his mates..Huh? There's no Bill in the article. If this is a reference to Bill Gates, it has to be the most contrived jab at Microsoft in the history of this site.
Except it is only a jab in the minds of those who are oversensitive to past "jabs" of a much more deserving sort: Microsoft's monopoly, the manner in which they held back computing technology for over a decade, etc. etc.
Saying Bill and his mates might want one of these is a reference to their wealth, nothing more. Unless you equate wealth with something negative, there is no "jab" in this at all. Indeed, even most of the anti-microsoft crowd (a growing group if there ever was one, and for numerous good reasons) aren't angry at Bill's wealth, merely the manner in which he got it and the cost that has meant to the rest of us, particularly those of us who care about the technology itself.
So in short, get over yourself. The author wasn't even poking fun at Microsoft or Bill Gates at all, just at the pricetag of these new supersonic biz-jets. Wait until tommorow's story about Microsoft's latest atrocity before overreacting, why don't you.
It'd be a great piece if he talked to the larger issue of any employee's right to privacy. It's kind of ironic that BOFH policies hit the news with judges, but what about the rest of us?
This is a very important issue, not just for the judiciary and rendering of justice, such as it is, in America, but in the long run for all of our individual rights in the workplace as well.
The Libertarian notion that constitutional protections stop at the private property line, and that it is therefor ok, even reasonable, for employers to invade and snoop the personal correspondence of their employees merely because such correspondence passes through their privately owned equipment or networks is responsible for more loss of individual privacy than all of the government's orwellian snooping combined, if for no other reason than that the focus of the privacy invasion is targeted so specifically by an entity against a relatively small group of people (their employees).
How then, are we to combat this remarkably Orwellian situation? First and foremost, by getting our government, in particular the judiciary, to understand what is going on and just what the stakes are. In so doing they will be sensitized to these issues, and rulings favoring individual employee rights over an employers property priveleges may perhaps become more common (after all, it is a felony for an employer to open an employee's private correspondence which has been sent by US Mail, even though the desk it is sitting on is privately owned by them, not the employee. Why should email, or web browsing, be any different?)
On the other hand, if judges are routinely subjected to this kind of invasive monitoring, and it becomes truly a widespread, acceptable practice within all branches of the government, then any argument for the protection of individual citizens' privacy will be correspondingly diluted. Our courts and judges may not grant a private citizen priveleges they themselves enjoy, but they certainly won't grant a private citizen priveleges, or rights, they themselves not only do not enjoy, and perhaps even have come to take the lake thereof for granted.
It is ironic that the judiciary is only now beginning to experience the kind of Orwellian monitoring and control all too many people have come to expect in their workplace, but perhaps this is exactly the catalyst that is needed to put an end to this nonsense in both the private and public spheres, once and for all.
Therefore all it does is make life in the US (and europe) cheaper. This will *not* alter the living conditions in poor countries!
I am confused by what you mean here. Do you mean that life in the US will become (less valuable) cheaper, or that the treatment and sustainance of life in the US for those who suffer bone marrow and other blood-replenishment problems will become (less expensive) cheaper?
WRT the so-called "third world" you are right, if the Western style patent system is allowed to reign supreme over the entire planet then all of these publicly funded areas of research (as well as any privately funded areas of research, of course) will be patented by universities and private corporations and any treatments developed will remain out of reach of most westerners and virtually everyone in the "third world." However, this is a direct result of the inherent flaws of widespread government monopoly entitlements granted to businesses (and in the United States that includes Universities) and the monopoly pricing that ensues. It has nothing whatsoever to do with any alleged flaws in the research itself, or any inherent costs in the methodologies developed.
Greg Egan is brilliant, and his Diaspora rates as one of my all time favorites.
Another excellent author, who manages to capture alien worldviews and put together a complex universe of wonder and suprise is Verner Vinge, in particular A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep.
His concept of differing physical laws dependent on location in space (implied indirectly to be a function of the mean gravitational density of the region) is AFAIK quite original. Just as you cannot have supersonic craft underwater, so too can you not have superluminal craft in the slow depths of space (which our Earth happens to be in). Actually you may be able to have supersonic submersibles, but at present it appears to be impractical, and it serves to illustrate the concept that technologies which work great in certain regions of space break down completely in regions which are "deeper."
As for villians, his (human) Emergents are one of the most chilling (un)civilizations I've yet seen described, and his description of transcendent evil in A Fire Upon the Deep has interesting implications (and applications) to the real world, and to real world ethics.
Why are you people so skeptical?
I've noticed that a lot of posters to this thread seem to have the opinion that article is a fairy tale. Anandtech seems to me to have a reputation for impartiality, their hardware reveiws are quite thourough and unbiased as far as I can see.
What you are seeing is the classic strategy of Microsoft shills and lackeys on slashdot using standard astroturfing techniques to slant the apparent tone of the conversation in a manner which is conducive to their PR goals. This has been followed by a few more reasonable people who have either been taken in by the "reasonable" tone of skepticism expressed (many astroturfing efforts have been laughed out of here and elsewhere because of the ludricous stances they have taken, however, Microsoft shills and PR-consultants have grown more subtle and clever over time, and have refined their astroturfing techniques quite a bit), or are falling prey to the misguided desire to appear more thoughtful by expressing skepticism, whether or not it is at all well founded.
As someone who has helped numerous companies, including my current employer, switch wholesale to GNU/Linux on both the desktop and server side I can say that the story rings very true. It should also be pointed out that there are numerous, confirmed instances of Microsoft threatening their customers with inflated licensing fees, expensive license audits, etc. in retaliation for deploying a competitor's product in-house. This sort of behavior was particularly common during the early Internet Explorer vs. Netscape struggle, and is playing no small part in the ongoing DOJ v Microsoft anti-trust trial. I suspect only the most ardent Microsoft apologist or supporter would have any shred of doubt as to the likelihood that such tactics will almost certainly be turned against firms trying to make the transition from Windows to GNU/Linux, and until a company is fully weaned from Microsoft (and these transitions can take months or even years, depending on the complexity and entrenchment of the existing legacy systems) they are vulnerable to this sort of retaliation.
...without grammatical errors too numerous to mention then I'll have some vanishingly small interest in what you have to say. As it is, grammar and spelling Nazis like yourself contribute even less to this site than the endless series of "first post" and goats.cx posts those of us moderating at -1 are forced to endure, particularly when you point your oh-so-self-righteous I-can-spell-better-than-you-can-nya-nya finger at someone who isn't a native speaker of English and who has, despite that, written an article of eloquence and quality to which you can only longingly aspire.
When I hear Americans whining about NAFTA, however, it almost seems as though its a personal grudge against Canada, for allowing our corporations to do business there with only the same restrictions has American organizations, including sending Canadian employees and what not.
... in fact, I can't think of a single instance I've heard anyone gripe about Canadian companies doing business here, although hearing gripes about American factories moving to Mexico for cheap labor has become almost cliched.
Actually anti-NAFTA rheotric in the US centers far more on Mexico than Canada
I am in favor of nationalization, and did favor NAFTA for a time. The EU has done some good, as has NAFTA. However, as things are currently being implimented NAFTA, the EU, the WTO, and above all WIPO are actively promoting Corporate profits and corporate rights at the expense of national sovereignty and individual rights on so many levels and fronts that one cannot enumerate them all. Extending copyrights in the US (Sony Bono Act, may the tree that killed him live a thousand years) to life+75 years, gutting any reasonable notion of "limited time" required under the US constitution is but one example. US efforts at an international cybercrime treaty and an international DMCA style treaty are two additional examples that will not only gut the rights of Canadians and Europeans, but also of Americans. International treaty has not only become a mechanism whereby corporations can persue policies which would be unconstitutional otherwise, but have also become a mechanism whereby national governments, through the auspecis of international law, can circumvent their own constitutional restraints at the direct expense of the people.
Having the Taliban's notions of propriety shoved down your throat in America seems farfetched, until you remember California extending and enforcing its laws overseas against individuals for committing the unpardanable sin of writing software in order to allow their computer's DVD player to play their legally purchased DVDs under a free operating system not officially blessed by the California Media Cartels. You may be skeptical of such scenerios, but I rather doubt after his experiences in the "land of the free" Dmitry Sklyarov is.
It isn't the concept of internaitonalization that is bad, it is the implimentation which has placed corporate benefits above individual rights and actively diluted national sovereignty without any consideration for the costs and repercussions. In fact, the current implimentation of internationalization is sufficiently bad that, IMHO, the entire process should be stopped and reversed until a better, more just implimentation can be devised.
I think it's time to make a big push for a new international treaty, akin to a geneva convention
... even though the rules are draconian, at least then we know what they are. And thus we all fall right into their trap, giving up our rights for a little dubious certaintly and playing right into their hands. What is worse, from the way the US Constitution is written it is entirely possible that international agreements, once ratified by congress, may in fact supercede constitutional protections (this is a highly debated point, but alas not the cut-and-dried your rights are protected from such things most of us like to believe ... and reading the constitution doesn't shed much light on the issue, so in the end the interpretations of our increasingly unreliable Supreme Court will likely be all that stands between us and the Abyss).
Our fundamental rights to freedom of expression, speech, freedom from search and seizure, etc. are under concerted attack from numerous directions at the state, federal, and international level. At the international level this is happening on at least two fronts, with multinational treaty groups/trade regions (think European Union and NAFTA) and global treaties (think WTO and WIPO). It is quite likely that a part of the strategy to get everyone to knuckle under the kind of draconian world-wide laws those whom WIPO and the WTO represent desire (i.e. the corporations of Earth) is to deliberately make the current situation so untenable that we will demand something, anything, to replace the current situation.
How better to achieve that than to have every Tom, Dick, and Harry (e.g. California, France, and Australia) claim world-wide jurusdiction, such that the world's lowest common denominator (e.g. the Taliban) comes to impact each of our lives? Then a worldwide, standardized DMCA might look inviting
Farfetched? A couple of years ago, before the DeCSS and Dmitry cases I might have thought so. But in todays climate I not only find it a reasonably possible scenerio, but a likely one.
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Really?
Indeed.
I would love to hear how. Outside of the government being the only source of R&D I fail to see how it would work in the drug industry.
See my other response. Quick options include government supported research (as you allude to), the formation of private research consortia with branding and certifications (e.g. there are free UNIX knockoffs, but only one UNIX brand which has stringent licensing and compliance requirements to use), research funded by private non-profits (think Jerry's Kids), etc.
I really have to get back to work and cannot reply to every point in your post, but a quick, off the cuff reply to one of your points follows.
Does this increase costs to the public during the patent period? Of course, because, as you point out a patent is a monopoly which does not set fair prices in the market sense (markets require multiple independent sellers and buyers to set prices). However, as the market sets fair prices it also weeds out inefficient producers. In a pure market enviroment jumping through the FDA's hoops will always be economically inefficient, thus an intelligent drug company manager will let the other companies do R&D and just copy their efforts.
Patents and government sponsored entitlements in the form of 20-year monopolies are not required to level the playing field in this respect. We are already dealing with government regulation and the added cost it entails. Rather than granting 20-year monopoly entitlements, why not require that any company marketing a drug, even if it is copied from a known formula, either go through the same testing process as the "inventor" before they are licensed to sell their knockoff, buy a "license" for the certified product from the company which has already done the research and gotten the license to sell their product (probably the "inventor" at least initially), or pay a fee to the licensing agency equal to said costs to the governing agency, which fee would then be applied to further government funded or subsidized research, a portion of which could even go back to the "inventor" if entitlements really are your thing.
Three choices in competition with one another, which level the playing field with respect to government-induced costs while avoiding monopoly entitlements and the kinds of corporate coercion such entitlements create (e.g. "we won't license this at any price!" "ok, we'll just match your cost and mimick your tests, or better yet, we'll pay the Federal Licensing Fee and help underwrite additional research in academia").
There are undoubtably other approaches which would work as well if you give it a little thought, but for now I really must get back to work.
Other than that, you make a very valid point: the DMCA does violate fundamental freedoms, liberties, and constitutional rights. See, no new word or verbal contortions required.
I'll do one better. I'll name two:
Competition will keep the prices fair and reasonable. It may take longer to recover an expensive R&D development, but it is recoverable.
Oh, and ad homonem attacks aside (where does Star Trek or television come into any of this, other than your absurd stereotyping?) I may have given you credit for more intelligence than you deserved (the above two scenerios would count as fairly obvious to me, and a number of others have occurred to me with a little thought, but for which I do not have time to enumerate as I have to get back to work), but that hardly makes the point I made "absurd" by any definition.
There are a few reasons this is a bad trend. Now they are using a public health problem as an excuse to void a valid international patent because they did not get the agreement they wanted. This plays very well in the press, "bad evil company would rather see people die than sell their stuff cheaper" instead of saying "country refuses to pay a fair price for drugs to save its own people"
... I imagine King George (from whome we inherited this asinine system of entitlements in the first place) was pissed when the US declared independence and you know what? That didn't make it any less right to do so.
Except that three assumptions here are inaccurate:
1) Monopolies do not yield anything remotely approaching "fair prices" without serious government intervention (e.g power companies and baby bells) and often not even then.
2) Monopolies aren't necessary for R&D expenses to be recouped, and a reasonable profit to be made.
3) You imply that the characterization of "bad evil company would rather see people die than sell their stuff cheaper" is unfair and inaccurate, when in fact the historical and contemporary evidence is rather strong to the contrary.
Software patents are bad. So are every other form of patent that grants government enforced monopolies and undermines the very free market upon which our economies depend. There are other ways to finance expensive R&D besides grantintg 20 year monopolies and allowing said monopolies to extort exhorbitant prices from dying people and leaving millions of less fortunates to die (or extorting payment from their impoverished governments).
To paraphrase another blindly pro-IP comment: This should make sick every one of you that has a Free (as in liberty) bone in their body. Ideas are not property, nor are inventions inherently something to be possessed, except as a result of arbitrary laws which have turned out to have the opposite effect as was intended, namely to slow progress rather than accelerate it, and now in the process are actively resulting in the suffering and death of millions. Frankly, I do not care if someone who thinks they have a god given right to a monopoly on an idea simply because they won the footrace to the patent office is pissed
Is it wrong? Probably.
... an inability to differentiate right and wrong even in some of the more obvious, less grey areas, of which this is one. Impersonating individual people (including dead people) in an effort to decieve and undermine the very fundamental, personal feedback upon which our democracy relies in no small part and thereby distorting the entire governance process ... let me give you a hint: YES, IT IS WRONG. You are robbing people of their voice, stealing their identity and speaking out in their name without their knowledge and quite possibly against their wishes. Certainly the dead have no business lobbying legislators, even if they are known to vote for party machine candidates in Chicago elections from time to time (Mayor Daley being the quintessential example). This goes well beyond lobbying one's own point of view and agenda and is, at the very least, fraudulant.
Probably? I think this sort of ethical blindspot is something Microsoft shares with most serious criminals, and differentiates them from most decent people
This is wrong, pure and simple. There is no "grey" area here, no uncertainty, no "maybe" about it. And if this uncertainty is indicative of the ethical maturity of Microsoft and those who apologize and shill for them, and I think it probably is based upon their actions to date (not to mention some of the absurd forms the defense of those actions has taken), then I can only say that the worst behaviors attributed to Microsoft and its lackeys are emminently believable.
To underscore one aspect of why this is wrong in as dramatic a notion as possible, let me ask: how many of those impersonated are actually Macintosh users. GNU/Linux or FreeBSD users? None? Perhaps, but if they have impersonated thousands, then likely it is a number greater than zero, in which case Microsoft (or their "we must maintain deniability" outsourced PR subcontractor) is not only decietful in their representation of an astroturfed campaign, but are actually stealing people's voices to "campaign" for the opposite of what they want. And before someone starts bemoaning Americans' apathy and using that as an excuse, the right to say nothing is just as protected as the right to speak out, and saying nothing does not entitle someone else to put words in your mouth, certainly not in a political context, any more than not voting entitles someone else to cast your vote in addition to their own.
If what Microsoft and their paid shills did isn't defined as criminal under current law, it damn well should be.