I wonder how much this kind of fraud contributes to artificially(?) raising the unemployment rate. Maybe it's quite a bit lower than the reported rate due to the fraud?
The unemployment rate is not calculated by tallying the number of people collecting unemployment, though this is a commonly-repeated media myth. See snopes.com.
The confusion is this: the definition of "unemployment" is the same as that used by the unemployment benefits system -- but it measures both those who do not collect, and those whose benefits have expired but still meet the definition. This does lead to underreporting of the unemployment rate, as is commonly stated in the media, but not exactly for the over-simplified reason that they just use unemployment collection rates to determine the figure.
It doesn't matter if Microsoft charges what you perceive to be too much for their products.
No, I didn't mean to say it did. I don't mean to speak of value at all; but rather of intent. I think the value of Microsoft's products to be negative, but that is not germane. The fact that they act entirely without scruples is, however -- at least so long as they attempt to appeal to mine.
Comparisons to real property are not appropriate for software, but to try to make the mansion example fit -- it is rather like the seller has lied to me about the property, hidden its faults and history, but when it comes time to negotiate a price, asks me to say honestly what I can afford to pay. I cannot afford to pay much for a house, in any event, but when honest friends of mine ask me to pay what I can for what I take, but costs them money (e.g., beer), I do not attempt to cheat them. The shady real estate dealer deserves no such treatment, nor does Microsoft.
When you infringe someone's copyright, you are not directly affecting their lives in any way whatsoever. You have taken nothing from them. What they posess after you've made your copy is exactly what they possessed before you made the copy. In terms of how it affects them, there is absolutely no difference among (a) you made a copy and didn't pay them, (b) you didn't make a copy and didn't pay them, or (c) you never even existed in the first place.
While this may appear to be true, and even is true some of the time, there is an important way in which installing software can affect others (whether or not you pay). That is in document, network, API/ABI, or hardware compatibility. This is irrelevant for, e.g., games; but every copy of Office helps Microsoft sell more copies of Office, at least if you naively share documents saved in the default format. Every use of MSIE hurts web standards; and every use of Firefox, or Opera for that matter, bolsters them.
This is a minor point in the copyright discussion, but it's an important one generally. What software one user installs can affect what software or hardware others can use. There are more people involved in your software installation behavior than just you and the software's author.
Let's not forget that we're (at least supposedly) talking about software, not music. Although the copyright law is virtually identical, the issues involved are quite different (and the law is rather absurd in this respect; it was designed before software-programmable computers even existed).
And even when you care about the company you bought it from... you act because it's in your interest to act because YOU care about the company.
My issue is here. I don't care for the companies producing proprietary software. When they ask me to choose to give them money, I see no reason to comply. They can give me no reason. This is not the case for free software.
Incidentally, whenever I do have, on occasion, the need to use proprietary software, the reason is always the proprietary software companies forcing the issue with incompatibility wars. This is not the sort of behavior I would ever reward; it should be actively discouraged. Not all proprietary software vendors are guilty of it, but almost all of the large ones are. In particular, I find the behavior of paying for Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office far more anti-social, in the big picture, than acquiring copies illegally. Paying for Windows or Office hurts everyone; installing illegally hurts at most yourself and your correspondents.
Actually from my own research, it's much more likely that the participants knew that it was wrong but have developed fairly compex ways of justifying their activity. It's called "neutralization", whereby deviants 'neutralize' the social controls that normally inhibit illegal behaviour. This theory was originally put forward in 1957 by Sykes and Matza, and you can read about it here and here.
You could say the same thing about the media lobbyists creating the copyright law, etc. Research on psychology cannot presume anybody "knows" what is wrong, because that presumes the researchers have that knowledge themselves.
That copyright infringement is wrong is a difficult case to make; directly it hurts no one. That copyright is wrong is much easier; it directly deprives most people of access to most of the world's artistic work, and also prevents us from doing a lot of great things.
From an economic perspective, copyright is just a very bad mechanism to fund a public good. Copyright infringement, on the whole, most likely increases the efficiency of the mechanism, by increasing the number of copies, and thus the value, of the copyrighted works.
The basic fact is that we can copy material whether we have authorization or not. Those who would profit from our purchasing it wish us to purchase it, and they appeal to our altruism -- they want us to purchase their copies because we want them to have our money, as if they were a charity. This is not far-fetched, in general. There's nothing wrong or silly about asking for charity. Charity and altruism are things I am willing to offer, and many others are too.
But are the people asking for charity here people who would ever give the same to us? They claim to be in need, and us to be able to help; but if we are in need, will they help? Will Microsoft ever lower its prices just because it can afford to and it would save us money? Or do they price their software wherever it makes them the most money?
If corporations base all their decisions entirely on their own personal profit, how can they ever expect us to sacrifice our personal profit for their good? Is that fair?
I believe in sharing, but when I share with others, and they don't share back, I stop sharing. I only pay for free software.
He was talking about using N2O in his fuel. However, I don't think, as the OP suggested, it has negative environment impact, except that your car may not last as long, so society will have to produce and dispose of more cars.
A: Nothing that has anything to do with your point. Am I close?
I thought you didn't see my point.
The poster before me was suggesting that Slashdot-like software could not be created without advertising money. But, in fact, all of the software Slashdot uses is free software, and nobody needs advertising money, or any money, to use it. The point is, in general, that free software, however far-fetched it sounds to someone who has never heard of it, actually does exist, and nobody needs to pay people to make it (even though many years after it existed some people started to get payed for it some of the time).
Forgive me, but I don't quite see your point. Are you saying that, because these tools are 'free' as in they don't cost you anything, anything that is created with them should be free too?
No.
How about the people that use them? Should they not expect to be paid for their work?
If someone offered to pay them for their work, and they completed their work, they should expect to be payed.
Just because you don't want to pay for something doesn't mean that the costs for that thing go away.
I wasn't saying anything should be free. I was saying that a free slashdot, a slashdot without revenue, created and provided for entirely by its users, is technologically possible, and not at all far-fetched. I was saying that it is possible to make the costs go away, or anyway to distribute them among the users, and so make them negligible.
- Someone still has to pay for the bandwidth for your hosting of the thunderbird plugin and RSS feed.
This is actually on point, congratulations. First let me point out that free hosting for mozilla plugins is already available; if it were not, though, there are thousands of sites that host free software for free; and if there were not, there are peer-to-peer networks like coral cache and gnutella.
- Who the hell wants to download a plugin to view your moderated discussion group? Web accessible is way more popular and convenient.
This is not on point, since as I said it would have everything but the users.
- How does the plugin work? It seems easy in theory but it has to do a lot more than you think (hint: more than a couple of days even for your uber self)
Whether I could really do it in a day is not on point. If complete duplication of slashdot features was required, I concede it would take longer, but the point is that the primary functionality is already provided in thunderbird.
OK. So you're being sarcastic, I get that. But just in case someone else doesn't: let's pretend that the talent is free anyway. These things still cost money.
They do cost money. But if nobody was willing to pay, they wouldn't cost anything. All it really takes to make a TV show, other than the talent, is a camera and bittorrent seed. Radio broadcasting also costs nothing: HAMs broadcast video all the time. The expense is only an artifact of the system in place. And the talent, the people with the message, want it out. Take away the money, and the quality of the product will go up, not down, because the people with something to say will stay, and the rest will go.
If nobody could make money publishing, Tom Clancy might stop writing, but Gore Vidal would not. Britney Spears would surely stop singing, but the only thing most musicians really require to perform is an audience.
Now, I'm not saying those of truly valuable talent should have to work a 9-5, or live in poverty, or both, but I'm absolutely confident that, where necessary, they do, and that it injures art only in the slightest. On the other hand, advertising and copyright have a terrible effect: the former ruins everything it touches, at least in television, because it requires everything to have mass appeal; the latter does not affect quality so much as quantity, by reducing the size of audiences, which defeats the purpose of creating the content in the first place.
Bandwidth (or do you think free geocities account will do it for you). Your site will be/. with a thunderous laugh...actually without paying a high end hosting company your site will be/.'d with a quite chuckle and a "that was cute."
I think you must not know what Usenet is. Look it up.
Then there is maintenance. Yea you could probably whip up something similar to/. in a day or two (though I would wager a lot more time then that for something innovative and complex) - but what about maintenance. I have a feeling a lot of these people are working on/. many hours of the day. Do you plan to quit your day job for this site?
Thousands of people are working on slashdot's software every hour of every day. Linux, MySQL, Perl, gcc, Slashcode... Q: what do all of these things have in common?
Free content is perfectly possible to have in many places right now. For instance livejournal. It's perfectly possible to have your own webserver which serves a few pages through ADSL.
And it's possible to have your own webserver which serves a billion pages through ADSL, via coral cache.
The viewing of the ads is irrelevant. What matters is that the people maintaining a [website] have enough incoming revenue to continue that activity.
To get down to the core, what matters is actually whether they have enough (1) content and (2) bandwidth. Many sites, like Slashdot, get the content for free from the users. The bandwidth, also, could be provided by the users -- it would just require a different network client.
If no one will pay people to make a run a quality show, what will you be left with? Taxpayer-subsidized entertainment? Local access shows run by high schools?
If nobody is buying up all the talent anymore, who do you think will create the local access shows?
If the people who make this site are losing money (and they are not wealthy enough to keep it going) the site will be lost.
Who do you think makes this site? Is it Andover.net? Or is it you and me?
I could create a free slashdot in a single day of programming: an rss feed, a thunderbird plugin, and a new Usenet group is all it would take. The only thing missing would be the users. But that's the only important thing.
Bennie Smith is entirely correct -- if ad blocking becomes standard in popular browsers, that will be the end of free content on the web.
That is a very strong qualification. "The web", by its nature, makes it difficult for "content-consumers" to provide their own bandwidth (coralcache notwithstanding). So much for "the web", then. It would not be difficult to switch to another, better type of network that did not suffer from this limitation. We could even add support for it to web browsers, or web proxies. That, of course, is what coralcache does, and freenet as well.
Good riddance. The real value of the internet has never been, will never be, and is only hindered by, commercial content. Slashdot, for example, provides value exclusively through its user base -- and this is a microcosm of the entire network. If slashdot could not find funding, its users would go elsewhere; and if nobody could find funding, user-bases would organize themselves to create the same value, without anyone (but the ISPs) making money off it. That is how Usenet works.
The internet is a peer-to-peer network. What the commercial internet provides is broadcast, the ability for one person to speak to many, and we can do that anyway with netnews, freenet, bittorrent, coralcache, etc. -- without a middle-man providing the bandwidth.
To say the middle-man is required because he is ubiquitous is faulty logic. It's (slightly) easier to rely on existing ad-based services than to create peer-to-peer services ourselves -- so while they exist, they will be more popular. But that does not make them necessary, and if they went away, making alternatives necessary, free software implementing peer-to-peer content distribution would step in.
This would create a far better internet than we have, or rather would make the better subset of the internet that already exists a much larger one. If anything, the end of the commercial internet is a reason to use AdBlock, not to refrain.
but the reason he called it (effectively) "nowhere" is because the idea is implausible in a practical sense
What gives you that idea? It seems to me, rather, that More was continuing in the tradition of Plato's Republic -- describing society as he wished it to be. Most of his utopian reforms would seem quite practical today, such as freedom of religion and a generally cosmopolitan attitude toward individual difference. These were radical in More's time, indeed he was hanged for being Catholic, but they have been achieved to great extent in the U.S., and are "utopian" nowhere.
The Kibbutz and Amish, representing the most successful utopian projects in history, have effected many of the more socialist reforms suggested by Utopia -- which are really the only "utopian" ones, in the modern sense of the word. (I count the immunity to fashion among socialist reforms). Failed utopias have also implemented successful socialist schemes -- and subsequently failed for completely unrelated reasons.
If you have time to waste, you might want to read Utopia and see how far-fetched it really is. Class and sexual equality, full employment, universal education, universal healthcare, democratic government -- by modern standards, it's typical left-wing fare. The Utopians also abolished only most slavery and allowed engaged couples to see each other naked before marriage (but not have sex) -- outright reactionary to us, but still radically utopian in 1500.
Why would reforms be needed in utopia? (Do you mean, by chance, the reforms necessary to fulfill utopian goals?)
Yes; I mean that separating any current society from Utopia is a series of reforms, each inherently plausible. Likewise for any other utopia -- although with some exceptions (particularly the fully-collective raising of children, so popular among utopians, which has been tried and failed many times. Parenthood, it seems, is one of few things truly in our nature).
It seems to me completely possible for individuals to to get on with their lives along the lines of Utopia, or the Republic, or Walden Two, or anything else -- the question is only whether you can get them there, or even rather how quickly you can, how many generations it takes. The most bizarre Utopia with which I am familiar (the Republic) is substantially less bizarre than several societies which have actually existed (e.g., the Spartans).
Finally, if bigger heads really implied greater intelligence, wouldn't you expect offensive linemen on professional football teams to be some of the most intelligent people in the U.S.?
They are fighting over what all wars have fought over: power. One side want's to assert themselves over the other, in some way.
Right. But the question is, what power?
The Trade Confederation wanted money, OK (I don't remember that, but OK). But what did they want with it? Why do they even have money anymore? What would anyone be willing to trade for money in the SW universe?
Anyway, the war between Jedi and Sith is still unexplained.
Concerning war happening for no good reason... I agree, this war isn't for a good reason. However, it has reasons nonetheless.
It's not the insufficiency of the reason to which I object, but the unreality. I would agree that wars are fought for no good reason -- but they're still not fought for anything like the Jedis' reasons.
And an interesting side note: Utopia originally meant "Nowhere" when it was fisrt used. The reasoning behind the epistomology was that a perfect place cannot exist. (Particualrly because humanity defines it's existence through misery & strife, but I digress).
I think you mean etymology; and this is false. "Utopia" means "nowhere", but the name is taken from Thomas More's book titled "Utopia" -- which describes and defines the modern notion of "utopia" as paradise. The idea that anything about Utopia or utopia is impossible is in any case reactionary nonsense. It's only the whole to which any objections can be mounted, because then the assertion is vague. Every individual element is plausible and indeed often historical. The difficulty with utopia is just the difficulty of effecting any reform: it would certainly be possible to drive on the left side of the road in the US, but try to implement that policy!
Slashdot Mirror
The confusion is this: the definition of "unemployment" is the same as that used by the unemployment benefits system -- but it measures both those who do not collect, and those whose benefits have expired but still meet the definition. This does lead to underreporting of the unemployment rate, as is commonly stated in the media, but not exactly for the over-simplified reason that they just use unemployment collection rates to determine the figure.
Comparisons to real property are not appropriate for software, but to try to make the mansion example fit -- it is rather like the seller has lied to me about the property, hidden its faults and history, but when it comes time to negotiate a price, asks me to say honestly what I can afford to pay. I cannot afford to pay much for a house, in any event, but when honest friends of mine ask me to pay what I can for what I take, but costs them money (e.g., beer), I do not attempt to cheat them. The shady real estate dealer deserves no such treatment, nor does Microsoft.
This is a minor point in the copyright discussion, but it's an important one generally. What software one user installs can affect what software or hardware others can use. There are more people involved in your software installation behavior than just you and the software's author.
Incidentally, whenever I do have, on occasion, the need to use proprietary software, the reason is always the proprietary software companies forcing the issue with incompatibility wars. This is not the sort of behavior I would ever reward; it should be actively discouraged. Not all proprietary software vendors are guilty of it, but almost all of the large ones are. In particular, I find the behavior of paying for Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office far more anti-social, in the big picture, than acquiring copies illegally. Paying for Windows or Office hurts everyone; installing illegally hurts at most yourself and your correspondents.
That copyright infringement is wrong is a difficult case to make; directly it hurts no one. That copyright is wrong is much easier; it directly deprives most people of access to most of the world's artistic work, and also prevents us from doing a lot of great things.
From an economic perspective, copyright is just a very bad mechanism to fund a public good. Copyright infringement, on the whole, most likely increases the efficiency of the mechanism, by increasing the number of copies, and thus the value, of the copyrighted works.
The basic fact is that we can copy material whether we have authorization or not. Those who would profit from our purchasing it wish us to purchase it, and they appeal to our altruism -- they want us to purchase their copies because we want them to have our money, as if they were a charity. This is not far-fetched, in general. There's nothing wrong or silly about asking for charity. Charity and altruism are things I am willing to offer, and many others are too.
But are the people asking for charity here people who would ever give the same to us? They claim to be in need, and us to be able to help; but if we are in need, will they help? Will Microsoft ever lower its prices just because it can afford to and it would save us money? Or do they price their software wherever it makes them the most money?
If corporations base all their decisions entirely on their own personal profit, how can they ever expect us to sacrifice our personal profit for their good? Is that fair?
I believe in sharing, but when I share with others, and they don't share back, I stop sharing. I only pay for free software.
He was talking about using N2O in his fuel. However, I don't think, as the OP suggested, it has negative environment impact, except that your car may not last as long, so society will have to produce and dispose of more cars.
What we need is a hole in Paypal's head.
Usenet content is free in the same sense of "free" that anything online can be free. You still need to pay for access to the infrastructure.
The poster before me was suggesting that Slashdot-like software could not be created without advertising money. But, in fact, all of the software Slashdot uses is free software, and nobody needs advertising money, or any money, to use it. The point is, in general, that free software, however far-fetched it sounds to someone who has never heard of it, actually does exist, and nobody needs to pay people to make it (even though many years after it existed some people started to get payed for it some of the time).
No. If someone offered to pay them for their work, and they completed their work, they should expect to be payed. I wasn't saying anything should be free. I was saying that a free slashdot, a slashdot without revenue, created and provided for entirely by its users, is technologically possible, and not at all far-fetched. I was saying that it is possible to make the costs go away, or anyway to distribute them among the users, and so make them negligible.If nobody could make money publishing, Tom Clancy might stop writing, but Gore Vidal would not. Britney Spears would surely stop singing, but the only thing most musicians really require to perform is an audience.
Now, I'm not saying those of truly valuable talent should have to work a 9-5, or live in poverty, or both, but I'm absolutely confident that, where necessary, they do, and that it injures art only in the slightest. On the other hand, advertising and copyright have a terrible effect: the former ruins everything it touches, at least in television, because it requires everything to have mass appeal; the latter does not affect quality so much as quantity, by reducing the size of audiences, which defeats the purpose of creating the content in the first place.
I could create a free slashdot in a single day of programming: an rss feed, a thunderbird plugin, and a new Usenet group is all it would take. The only thing missing would be the users. But that's the only important thing.
The internet is a peer-to-peer network. What the commercial internet provides is broadcast, the ability for one person to speak to many, and we can do that anyway with netnews, freenet, bittorrent, coralcache, etc. -- without a middle-man providing the bandwidth.
To say the middle-man is required because he is ubiquitous is faulty logic. It's (slightly) easier to rely on existing ad-based services than to create peer-to-peer services ourselves -- so while they exist, they will be more popular. But that does not make them necessary, and if they went away, making alternatives necessary, free software implementing peer-to-peer content distribution would step in.
This would create a far better internet than we have, or rather would make the better subset of the internet that already exists a much larger one. If anything, the end of the commercial internet is a reason to use AdBlock, not to refrain.
The Kibbutz and Amish, representing the most successful utopian projects in history, have effected many of the more socialist reforms suggested by Utopia -- which are really the only "utopian" ones, in the modern sense of the word. (I count the immunity to fashion among socialist reforms). Failed utopias have also implemented successful socialist schemes -- and subsequently failed for completely unrelated reasons.
If you have time to waste, you might want to read Utopia and see how far-fetched it really is. Class and sexual equality, full employment, universal education, universal healthcare, democratic government -- by modern standards, it's typical left-wing fare. The Utopians also abolished only most slavery and allowed engaged couples to see each other naked before marriage (but not have sex) -- outright reactionary to us, but still radically utopian in 1500.
Yes; I mean that separating any current society from Utopia is a series of reforms, each inherently plausible. Likewise for any other utopia -- although with some exceptions (particularly the fully-collective raising of children, so popular among utopians, which has been tried and failed many times. Parenthood, it seems, is one of few things truly in our nature).It seems to me completely possible for individuals to to get on with their lives along the lines of Utopia, or the Republic, or Walden Two, or anything else -- the question is only whether you can get them there, or even rather how quickly you can, how many generations it takes. The most bizarre Utopia with which I am familiar (the Republic) is substantially less bizarre than several societies which have actually existed (e.g., the Spartans).
Bigger brains, not bigger heads.
Anyway, the war between Jedi and Sith is still unexplained.
It's not the insufficiency of the reason to which I object, but the unreality. I would agree that wars are fought for no good reason -- but they're still not fought for anything like the Jedis' reasons.I think you mean etymology; and this is false. "Utopia" means "nowhere", but the name is taken from Thomas More's book titled "Utopia" -- which describes and defines the modern notion of "utopia" as paradise. The idea that anything about Utopia or utopia is impossible is in any case reactionary nonsense. It's only the whole to which any objections can be mounted, because then the assertion is vague. Every individual element is plausible and indeed often historical. The difficulty with utopia is just the difficulty of effecting any reform: it would certainly be possible to drive on the left side of the road in the US, but try to implement that policy!