What news sources and/or publications would you suggest to stay informed?
About China? Good fucking luck. But you might start by getting involved. Be your own news source, instead of settling for second-hand sensationalism.
Alternatively, just read your favorite glossy magazine, and admit to yourself and to the rest of us that you're only interested in entertainment and whatever opinions agree with your preexisting prejudices.
Why should I touch on any of the points raised by Rolling Stone? It's a glossy magazine. It prints sensational stories to get money from entertainment-hungry westerners. The real question is, why should I trust it?
Despite its counterculture reputation and its focus as a music/gossip magazine, Rolling Stone is consistently one of the better sources of news analysis available.
Sure it is. Unless you're both more reputable than Rolling Stone, and conducting your own independent research to validate RS's claims, your opinion is worthless. But hey, pray to your glossy magazines, if that's what lets you sleep at night.
So what happens when they find a really *interesting* planet?
Nothing.
There's a logical contradiction in your argument. By definition, an "interesting" planet will generate interest.
By your logic, the Shoemaker-Levy comet would have gotten no media attention at all, on account of hundreds of years of astronomers using up their mainstream comet currency. But in fact Shoemaker-Levy got a lot of interest, from a wide range of people, precisely because it was "really interesting" in a way that most comets are not.
The artist? By all accounts, the movie will faithfully reproduce the look of the original story, so of course he's content. Now, where's the writer of the original story, anyway? Oh, wait... crap.
Starship Troopers: Profoundly unfaithful to the original story. It's a legitimate criticism of the movie, that can't be trivially dismissed as unrealistic expectations of hardcore Heinlein fans. It's also totally independent of any criticism (legitimate or not) of the quality of the movie per se.
I'm accusing Gibbons of preparing to dismiss any criticism of the movie's faithfulness to the original story--no matter how legitimate--as unrealistic. Gibbons is talking about the movie's faithfulness. So am I. So are the hypothetical "hardcore fans" that Gibbons mentions. I have no idea why you think we're having a conversation about the movie's quality.
Indeed there are other reasons to object to a movie. The fact that it is a badly-made movie is an obvious reason. But if you re-read my post, I'm sure you will realize that I am referring to a specific reason for objecting to Watchmen for which Gibbons has already crafted a straman dismissal--objecting on the grounds of lack of fidelity to the original story.
Ironically, I thought that V for Vendetta was a fine movie in its own right, but significantly unfaithful to the original story in a few very fundamental ways.
A few years ago, a baboon snatched a live human baby, tore open its skull, and ate its brain, in full view of the baby's mother. A source.
Now, as a strict materialist, I see no reason to think that this baboon does--or should--feel any remorse for its actions. They were clearly the result of mindless evolutionary processes, just like your own feelings about animal experiments. You feel bad because your species' biological evolution compels you to feel bad. With any luck, it will also compel you to feel better, knowing that my own amused disdain for your feelings is also a simple biological compulsion.
'There are hardcore fans out there who'll be satisfied with nothing less than a word-for-word, line-for-line, scene-for-scene recreation of the comic book. I didn't believe that was ever going to happen.'
Gibbons is clearly setting up a strawman dismissal of anybody who complains that the movie is insufficiently true to the book. Don't think it captured the original story faithfully enough, or skillfully enough? You're obviously a "hardcore" fan with unrealistic expectations.
What about security measures that have the opposite effect, of making the system less secure?
Aggressive password policies, for example, that require long strings of amnemonic gibberish that must be changed every month or so and may not bear any resemblance to previous long strings of gibberish.
The end result of this at my company is that we each use the same password for every security domain we have access to, and we tend to write it down.
I know I "see" something like a flash of light whenever someone turns on a fluorescent light with magnetic ballast in another room - so I don't think the idea of additional senses is completely crazy.
I know a guy who might be willing to give you a million dollars if you can demonstrate this ability under controlled conditions.
I agree, and it's got to be better than some of the things the US Army has invested millions of dollars in, like the "gay bomb".
Except that the US Army didn't invest millions of dollars in any such thing. What it did invest maybe thousands of dollars in was a brainstorming session on variety of possible chemical weapons. What they got were essentially the meeting minutes of that brainstorming session. That document indicates that, among other things, a chemical aphrodisiac was considered.
Nowhere is it even remotely suggested that a "gay bomb" was seriously considered for development, approved for funding, or even prototyped on spec.
I'm wary of slippery slope arguments like this one. For example, the college library already bans books, if for no other reason that budget and space constraints force them to pick and choose what books they will carry. I doubt they maintain a complete collection of Hustler magazine on the shelves, for example. And yet we haven't slid from that to widespread governmental book-banning.
When was the last time you saw explicit sex acts broadcast during prime time on network television? There's plenty of censorship going on all the time, especially from the government. And yet our society has not promptly slid into a totalitiarian regime of oppressive dissent-stifling. Indeed, the free and open expression of dissent seems to be a thriving and popular pastime in this country today.
As for being an ISP... A company that hoped to profit from providing internet service as its core business process would probably have very different opinions about raising the barrier to entry for network resources its customers are likely to want.
Anyway, this is all kind of beside the point; actually it's more that you seem to be moving the goalposts an awful lot.
First it was bad to call copyright infringment theft because it's not taking anything away from people. When it turns out that it actually is taking things away from people, that's okay because it's justifiable. When it turns out that there's no real justification other than the inconvenience of the law, it's bad to prohibit it because doing so infringes on the rights of the students. When it turns out the students don't actually have such rights, it's bad to prohibit it because it could lead to some other organization infringing on real rights at some other point in the future.
I get the impression that you don't really have any reason to object to the college's policy, other than current copyright law is inconvenient to you and convenient to large corporations that hold the copyrights to a lot of content you'd prefer to have unlimited use of.
Strictly speaking, we have empirical evidence that the entire works of Shakespeare can be produced by a finite amount of monkeys in a finite amount of time.
I'm not sure that unlimited access to the network resources of their choice, on a privately owned and operated network, is a privilege college students actually have. Unless, of course, that's the agreement the college made with them when they enrolled.
I gave an example of real human suffering, for want of a necessity of life, as a justification for breaking the law. You're comparing that to examples of human inconvenience, for want of a luxury item, as a justification for breaking the law.
This is what I'm talking about, when I say I have a hard time imagining a scenario where copyright violation is justified. Do you really think "inconvenience" is a good enough reason to break the law?
Entirely consistent with their environmentalist goals. That's part of their strategy to stop global warming [venganza.org].
Well as long as their use of force to compel others is consistent with their goals, that's okay, then. Plus, it totally lets me off the hook for supporting the Iraq war!
Help me out, here: I'm having a hard time imagining a justifiable case of copyright infringement. Are you thinking of some kind of civil disobedience, where the law is unjust and therefore should be ignored?
I mean, a guy can't get a job during the depression, so he steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. That's arguably justifiable: People are really, physically suffering. Where's the crime-justifying human suffering in some college kid not having free access to the latest hip-hop album, or whatever?
I don't see copyright infringement as being sufficiently different from theft as to create an inappropriate social stigma by labeling it as theft in casual conversation. It's not like we're equating jaywalking and rape, or something.
I get the impression that you believe that copyright infringement is no more immoral than jaywalking, and probably much less so, and that therefore any social stigmatization of copyright infringement is inappropriate. But in fact copyright violators are breaking the law, are depriving people of their rights and privileges, including their right and privilege to be the sole beneficiary of any profits from the distribution and sale of their work, and are in many cases causing personal distress and feelings of violation in the people whose copyrights they have infringed. Why shouldn't copyright infringement fall somewhere in the same moral category as petty theft, grand larceny, armed robbery, and identity theft?
Be honest: If I'd said "in most cases", you would've kicked off this little fagdance with "what about the other cases?". The fact is, your argument sounds just as sane to me as mine did to you.
Ah. Yeah, no, it was just a general overview of the situation, mainly to support the argument that when you violate a copyright, you really are taking something away from somebody. The legal details of what actually constitutes a copyright violation are totally irrelevant to the point I was making.
I think you may be suffering from a grave misunderstanding of the terms "ironic", and "point".
If you want to delve into the minutiae of the laws that govern copyright, be my guest. It's a free country, after all.
I'm just not sure I understand your purpose in coming here to tell me that the laws that govern copyright do, in fact, govern copyright. I'm pretty sure I covered that already. Have you considered taking holy orders and finding a choir to preach to?
You're arguing that the two terms are fundamentally different and should not be interchanged in casual (i.e., non-technical) debate. I'm arguing that they're similar enough to stand in for each other in casual debate, and also that insisting on a more formal semantic convention doesn't improve the quality of our debate anyway.
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About China? Good fucking luck. But you might start by getting involved. Be your own news source, instead of settling for second-hand sensationalism.
Alternatively, just read your favorite glossy magazine, and admit to yourself and to the rest of us that you're only interested in entertainment and whatever opinions agree with your preexisting prejudices.
Why should I touch on any of the points raised by Rolling Stone? It's a glossy magazine. It prints sensational stories to get money from entertainment-hungry westerners. The real question is, why should I trust it?
Sure it is. Unless you're both more reputable than Rolling Stone, and conducting your own independent research to validate RS's claims, your opinion is worthless. But hey, pray to your glossy magazines, if that's what lets you sleep at night.
"Bla bla bla... capitalist this... panopticon that... bla bla bla."
Rolling Stone magazine? Give me a break.
There's a logical contradiction in your argument. By definition, an "interesting" planet will generate interest.
By your logic, the Shoemaker-Levy comet would have gotten no media attention at all, on account of hundreds of years of astronomers using up their mainstream comet currency. But in fact Shoemaker-Levy got a lot of interest, from a wide range of people, precisely because it was "really interesting" in a way that most comets are not.
The artist? By all accounts, the movie will faithfully reproduce the look of the original story, so of course he's content. Now, where's the writer of the original story, anyway? Oh, wait... crap.
Starship Troopers: Profoundly unfaithful to the original story. It's a legitimate criticism of the movie, that can't be trivially dismissed as unrealistic expectations of hardcore Heinlein fans. It's also totally independent of any criticism (legitimate or not) of the quality of the movie per se.
I'm accusing Gibbons of preparing to dismiss any criticism of the movie's faithfulness to the original story--no matter how legitimate--as unrealistic. Gibbons is talking about the movie's faithfulness. So am I. So are the hypothetical "hardcore fans" that Gibbons mentions. I have no idea why you think we're having a conversation about the movie's quality.
Indeed there are other reasons to object to a movie. The fact that it is a badly-made movie is an obvious reason. But if you re-read my post, I'm sure you will realize that I am referring to a specific reason for objecting to Watchmen for which Gibbons has already crafted a straman dismissal--objecting on the grounds of lack of fidelity to the original story.
Ironically, I thought that V for Vendetta was a fine movie in its own right, but significantly unfaithful to the original story in a few very fundamental ways.
A few years ago, a baboon snatched a live human baby, tore open its skull, and ate its brain, in full view of the baby's mother. A source.
Now, as a strict materialist, I see no reason to think that this baboon does--or should--feel any remorse for its actions. They were clearly the result of mindless evolutionary processes, just like your own feelings about animal experiments. You feel bad because your species' biological evolution compels you to feel bad. With any luck, it will also compel you to feel better, knowing that my own amused disdain for your feelings is also a simple biological compulsion.
Gibbons is clearly setting up a strawman dismissal of anybody who complains that the movie is insufficiently true to the book. Don't think it captured the original story faithfully enough, or skillfully enough? You're obviously a "hardcore" fan with unrealistic expectations.
What about security measures that have the opposite effect, of making the system less secure?
Aggressive password policies, for example, that require long strings of amnemonic gibberish that must be changed every month or so and may not bear any resemblance to previous long strings of gibberish.
The end result of this at my company is that we each use the same password for every security domain we have access to, and we tend to write it down.
I know a guy who might be willing to give you a million dollars if you can demonstrate this ability under controlled conditions.
Except that the US Army didn't invest millions of dollars in any such thing. What it did invest maybe thousands of dollars in was a brainstorming session on variety of possible chemical weapons. What they got were essentially the meeting minutes of that brainstorming session. That document indicates that, among other things, a chemical aphrodisiac was considered.
Nowhere is it even remotely suggested that a "gay bomb" was seriously considered for development, approved for funding, or even prototyped on spec.
This is all well and good, except that you're not a human being at all. You are a cat.
I'm wary of slippery slope arguments like this one. For example, the college library already bans books, if for no other reason that budget and space constraints force them to pick and choose what books they will carry. I doubt they maintain a complete collection of Hustler magazine on the shelves, for example. And yet we haven't slid from that to widespread governmental book-banning.
When was the last time you saw explicit sex acts broadcast during prime time on network television? There's plenty of censorship going on all the time, especially from the government. And yet our society has not promptly slid into a totalitiarian regime of oppressive dissent-stifling. Indeed, the free and open expression of dissent seems to be a thriving and popular pastime in this country today.
As for being an ISP... A company that hoped to profit from providing internet service as its core business process would probably have very different opinions about raising the barrier to entry for network resources its customers are likely to want.
Anyway, this is all kind of beside the point; actually it's more that you seem to be moving the goalposts an awful lot.
First it was bad to call copyright infringment theft because it's not taking anything away from people. When it turns out that it actually is taking things away from people, that's okay because it's justifiable. When it turns out that there's no real justification other than the inconvenience of the law, it's bad to prohibit it because doing so infringes on the rights of the students. When it turns out the students don't actually have such rights, it's bad to prohibit it because it could lead to some other organization infringing on real rights at some other point in the future.
I get the impression that you don't really have any reason to object to the college's policy, other than current copyright law is inconvenient to you and convenient to large corporations that hold the copyrights to a lot of content you'd prefer to have unlimited use of.
Strictly speaking, we have empirical evidence that the entire works of Shakespeare can be produced by a finite amount of monkeys in a finite amount of time.
I'm not sure that unlimited access to the network resources of their choice, on a privately owned and operated network, is a privilege college students actually have. Unless, of course, that's the agreement the college made with them when they enrolled.
I gave an example of real human suffering, for want of a necessity of life, as a justification for breaking the law. You're comparing that to examples of human inconvenience, for want of a luxury item, as a justification for breaking the law.
This is what I'm talking about, when I say I have a hard time imagining a scenario where copyright violation is justified. Do you really think "inconvenience" is a good enough reason to break the law?
Well as long as their use of force to compel others is consistent with their goals, that's okay, then. Plus, it totally lets me off the hook for supporting the Iraq war!
Help me out, here: I'm having a hard time imagining a justifiable case of copyright infringement. Are you thinking of some kind of civil disobedience, where the law is unjust and therefore should be ignored?
I mean, a guy can't get a job during the depression, so he steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. That's arguably justifiable: People are really, physically suffering. Where's the crime-justifying human suffering in some college kid not having free access to the latest hip-hop album, or whatever?
I don't see copyright infringement as being sufficiently different from theft as to create an inappropriate social stigma by labeling it as theft in casual conversation. It's not like we're equating jaywalking and rape, or something.
I get the impression that you believe that copyright infringement is no more immoral than jaywalking, and probably much less so, and that therefore any social stigmatization of copyright infringement is inappropriate. But in fact copyright violators are breaking the law, are depriving people of their rights and privileges, including their right and privilege to be the sole beneficiary of any profits from the distribution and sale of their work, and are in many cases causing personal distress and feelings of violation in the people whose copyrights they have infringed. Why shouldn't copyright infringement fall somewhere in the same moral category as petty theft, grand larceny, armed robbery, and identity theft?
Be honest: If I'd said "in most cases", you would've kicked off this little fagdance with "what about the other cases?". The fact is, your argument sounds just as sane to me as mine did to you.
Ah. Yeah, no, it was just a general overview of the situation, mainly to support the argument that when you violate a copyright, you really are taking something away from somebody. The legal details of what actually constitutes a copyright violation are totally irrelevant to the point I was making.
I think you may be suffering from a grave misunderstanding of the terms "ironic", and "point".
If you want to delve into the minutiae of the laws that govern copyright, be my guest. It's a free country, after all.
I'm just not sure I understand your purpose in coming here to tell me that the laws that govern copyright do, in fact, govern copyright. I'm pretty sure I covered that already. Have you considered taking holy orders and finding a choir to preach to?
You're arguing that the two terms are fundamentally different and should not be interchanged in casual (i.e., non-technical) debate. I'm arguing that they're similar enough to stand in for each other in casual debate, and also that insisting on a more formal semantic convention doesn't improve the quality of our debate anyway.