shit like this has always happened, it's just that now it doesn't stay behind closed doors and isn't covered up with "he needed killing"-vigilante justice. also, the internet has the power to turn anything that happens in the entire world into lurid sensationalism.
since everyone is already bashing liberals and government regulations, let's look at it from the other side.
what's the libertarian take on this, or, hypothetically, any project where the risks are in the $billions (ignoring effects on human life and welfare)? if things go wrong, then even if this guy goes into a private debtor's prison for life and somehow works at maximum capacity, there would be practically zero chance of him taking full responsibility for his harm. but the state shouldn't be able to stop him preemptively, so what's the deal? how will the open market take care of this (assuming for the moment that he has property licensed the property rights he needs to execute this project).
i guess he could take an insurance policy in theory, but even if an insurer were willing to cover this, the premium if correctly computed would probably be more than he could afford, so he would just go ahead and do it anyway.
what would happen in the real world is, of course, that private interests would have this guy arrested and maybe worse. but that's initiation of force (and libertarians would have to admit that private prisons would still exist in their paradise), so how do you solve the problem without initiating force?
you could say that the entrepreneur is "initiating force" by doing something very risky, but that's a definition which would admit many of the government regulations we have today.
it's usually cool. there are expensive bottled waters, but you can ask for tap.
i only had an issue once. starbucks told me i couldn't just order tap water, and then i told them I'd pay a reasonable price (rent is expensive after all). they were confused, and it went up to the manager (lol), who charged me 50 cents (including refills).
it's something i like about Manhattan. if someone tells you no, you can often tell them you're willing to pay, and they will change their mind quickly.
is there a serious libertarian politician who wants to curtail intellectual property law? everyone i've seen (i.e. all recent LP prez candidates and a few others) has been very pro-patent since it creates private property (which, to them, is freedom by definition) and helps business. or maybe it's because they have an authoritarian mindset and believe that IP puts more power in the hands of Effective Businessmen, who are good and virtuous by definition. whatever. is there one?
sure, i've seen libertarian bloggers complain about patents, but even they often would want to keep it around for "practical" (read: selfish) reasons. and not the ayn rand kind of selfish either; this is the kind of selfish where they (think they) benefit from state-granted monopolies, so they conveniently want to keep it around.
uh-huh, sure. on the one hand there is the letter of the law, and on the other hand is a fallacious induction.
the only reason they haven't swatted down this scheme is because linux doesn't pose enough of a threat to justify it (and, for some companies, it may even be at least indirectly helpful). if and when it does, however, i hope there are enough pooled free patents to enable the MAD strategy.
``Circumstantial proof that the person accused of inducing infringement knew of the patent, and knew that his or her activities would lead to infringement of the patent is generally sufficient to establish the requisite intent.''
a pie-in-the-sky but science fiction-sounding objective, vague enough to mean almost anything but providing many opportunities for defining convenient "subgoals" and spinoff projects along the way, and pitched to the military.
yup! this grant and its extensions may well keep a lab swimming in $$$ until the Singularity.
it's more efficient this way. oh, yes, occasionally there's a problem with legal liability, but once we can push through radical tort reform and get rid of meddlesome agencies like NHTSA, that problem will be solved.
to clarify, shortening the term is just one solution.
the other solution is to be much more vigilant in terms of prior art and non-obviousness. this will never happen, so adjusting the terms is all we have left.
bullshit. different fields have different timescales. yes, there are dangers involved, but what we have now is totally broken. two of your patent generations ago i was using a fucking commodore 64.
i don't disagree, but isn't 13 years of patent implicitly much longer now than it was then? i mean, it would take years for an invention to be produced in any quantity and finally make it across a few states. since an invention can nowadays be fabbed up within a week and sold in millions within a month, i'd say that the patent term, adjusted for production and innovation rate, should be on the order of months.
however there is perhaps greater risk today (there isn't, but then again we've also become much more risk-averse), so maybe we should be generous and leave the patent term at a year (with extension for a second year), at least for software and electronics.
i assume you meant Keith Olbermann. seeing as he was just fired from his last job, and replaced by Eliot Spitzer of all people, yeah, i think you're just about right. the media did go with that.
as for the rest of your example, yes, if Obama made a lie substantial enough to warrant such a comment (and similar standards were applied across the fence; this is the `problem' with fox news), it would be just fine.
yes, of course the allegations are unfounded. so what?
while it's not enough for a court of law (which is doubly moot, btw, since no laws were actually broken), i think it's enough to make one hesitate to give this politician any plaudits for his "principled stand."
it wouldn't be the first time. however, since a greater part of the population looks negatively at gamers, it doesn't seem reasonable in this case. maybe if she only sent them to the 18-29 male demographic, but still doubtful.
and, look, the difference between zomg! CONSPIRACY! and plain old dirty tricks is plausibility. faking the moon landing and causing 9/11 would take unbelievable amounts of coordination. but this? one short brain-storming session and a few off-the-record phone calls. it's a plan henry kissinger could set into motion while taking his morning shit.
if you're overly skeptical about there being shady dealings in politics, it just makes you naive, not rational.
no, i understand just fine. he gets to look like a white knight to the privacy people, while slurring his opponent to the christ-bothering meddlers at the same time through the side-channel. makes perfect sense.
it's great that you're willing to pay more for a service which removes value from the product. however, it's a bit ridiculous, since they were already skimming milk. in an efficient market, a dairy would sell skim milk for roughly the price of (whole milk)*1.2-(cream)+(marginal equipment and labor cost).
we need the varieties because many people find skim milk disgusting, but still want to starve themselves, so they will pick the lowest percentage they can tolerate drinking. for me, that would be 2%, if i cared to minimize an already minimal source of dietary fat, which i don't.
i barely have any idea what the fuck you're saying.
the point is that linux doesn't always "just work," even on new hardware, although it comes very close in some cases. i know; i ran ubuntu on an x61s for years. it worked great, except for when it didn't.
like i said, if apple ever screws up OS X by turning it into iOS, i will, sadly, have to go back to that configuration.
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that's what i meant by "arrested or worse," and yeah, that's exactly what would happen in reality. i was asking about libertarian fantasy land.
good point.
shit like this has always happened, it's just that now it doesn't stay behind closed doors and isn't covered up with "he needed killing"-vigilante justice. also, the internet has the power to turn anything that happens in the entire world into lurid sensationalism.
since everyone is already bashing liberals and government regulations, let's look at it from the other side.
what's the libertarian take on this, or, hypothetically, any project where the risks are in the $billions (ignoring effects on human life and welfare)? if things go wrong, then even if this guy goes into a private debtor's prison for life and somehow works at maximum capacity, there would be practically zero chance of him taking full responsibility for his harm. but the state shouldn't be able to stop him preemptively, so what's the deal? how will the open market take care of this (assuming for the moment that he has property licensed the property rights he needs to execute this project).
i guess he could take an insurance policy in theory, but even if an insurer were willing to cover this, the premium if correctly computed would probably be more than he could afford, so he would just go ahead and do it anyway.
what would happen in the real world is, of course, that private interests would have this guy arrested and maybe worse. but that's initiation of force (and libertarians would have to admit that private prisons would still exist in their paradise), so how do you solve the problem without initiating force?
you could say that the entrepreneur is "initiating force" by doing something very risky, but that's a definition which would admit many of the government regulations we have today.
a christmas story is an almost, if not completely, secular piece of americana.
it's usually cool. there are expensive bottled waters, but you can ask for tap.
i only had an issue once. starbucks told me i couldn't just order tap water, and then i told them I'd pay a reasonable price (rent is expensive after all). they were confused, and it went up to the manager (lol), who charged me 50 cents (including refills).
it's something i like about Manhattan. if someone tells you no, you can often tell them you're willing to pay, and they will change their mind quickly.
is there a serious libertarian politician who wants to curtail intellectual property law? everyone i've seen (i.e. all recent LP prez candidates and a few others) has been very pro-patent since it creates private property (which, to them, is freedom by definition) and helps business. or maybe it's because they have an authoritarian mindset and believe that IP puts more power in the hands of Effective Businessmen, who are good and virtuous by definition. whatever. is there one?
sure, i've seen libertarian bloggers complain about patents, but even they often would want to keep it around for "practical" (read: selfish) reasons. and not the ayn rand kind of selfish either; this is the kind of selfish where they (think they) benefit from state-granted monopolies, so they conveniently want to keep it around.
uh-huh, sure. on the one hand there is the letter of the law, and on the other hand is a fallacious induction.
the only reason they haven't swatted down this scheme is because linux doesn't pose enough of a threat to justify it (and, for some companies, it may even be at least indirectly helpful). if and when it does, however, i hope there are enough pooled free patents to enable the MAD strategy.
wow, you're a genius! no one's ever thought of that before.
``Circumstantial proof that the person accused of inducing infringement knew of the patent, and knew that his or her activities would lead to infringement of the patent is generally sufficient to establish the requisite intent.''
a pie-in-the-sky but science fiction-sounding objective, vague enough to mean almost anything but providing many opportunities for defining convenient "subgoals" and spinoff projects along the way, and pitched to the military.
yup! this grant and its extensions may well keep a lab swimming in $$$ until the Singularity.
it's more efficient this way. oh, yes, occasionally there's a problem with legal liability, but once we can push through radical tort reform and get rid of meddlesome agencies like NHTSA, that problem will be solved.
well, the worst often does come, just in limited quantities and usually to people much poorer than the predictors.
then don't read any real dystopian literature. you might decide to shoot yourself.
to clarify, shortening the term is just one solution.
the other solution is to be much more vigilant in terms of prior art and non-obviousness. this will never happen, so adjusting the terms is all we have left.
bullshit. different fields have different timescales. yes, there are dangers involved, but what we have now is totally broken. two of your patent generations ago i was using a fucking commodore 64.
yeah, patent term should scale with how regulated the industry is. pharma is an extreme outlier and should be handled separately.
i don't disagree, but isn't 13 years of patent implicitly much longer now than it was then? i mean, it would take years for an invention to be produced in any quantity and finally make it across a few states. since an invention can nowadays be fabbed up within a week and sold in millions within a month, i'd say that the patent term, adjusted for production and innovation rate, should be on the order of months.
however there is perhaps greater risk today (there isn't, but then again we've also become much more risk-averse), so maybe we should be generous and leave the patent term at a year (with extension for a second year), at least for software and electronics.
i assume you meant Keith Olbermann. seeing as he was just fired from his last job, and replaced by Eliot Spitzer of all people, yeah, i think you're just about right. the media did go with that.
as for the rest of your example, yes, if Obama made a lie substantial enough to warrant such a comment (and similar standards were applied across the fence; this is the `problem' with fox news), it would be just fine.
(sigh) normal light has polarity, also.
yes, of course the allegations are unfounded. so what?
while it's not enough for a court of law (which is doubly moot, btw, since no laws were actually broken), i think it's enough to make one hesitate to give this politician any plaudits for his "principled stand."
it wouldn't be the first time. however, since a greater part of the population looks negatively at gamers, it doesn't seem reasonable in this case. maybe if she only sent them to the 18-29 male demographic, but still doubtful.
and, look, the difference between zomg! CONSPIRACY! and plain old dirty tricks is plausibility. faking the moon landing and causing 9/11 would take unbelievable amounts of coordination. but this? one short brain-storming session and a few off-the-record phone calls. it's a plan henry kissinger could set into motion while taking his morning shit.
if you're overly skeptical about there being shady dealings in politics, it just makes you naive, not rational.
no, i understand just fine. he gets to look like a white knight to the privacy people, while slurring his opponent to the christ-bothering meddlers at the same time through the side-channel. makes perfect sense.
plausible deniability gets one the best of both worlds. nothing to see here.
they're made of a metamaterial designed by dr. manhattan.
kind of ironic, really.
it's great that you're willing to pay more for a service which removes value from the product. however, it's a bit ridiculous, since they were already skimming milk. in an efficient market, a dairy would sell skim milk for roughly the price of (whole milk)*1.2-(cream)+(marginal equipment and labor cost).
we need the varieties because many people find skim milk disgusting, but still want to starve themselves, so they will pick the lowest percentage they can tolerate drinking. for me, that would be 2%, if i cared to minimize an already minimal source of dietary fat, which i don't.
i barely have any idea what the fuck you're saying.
the point is that linux doesn't always "just work," even on new hardware, although it comes very close in some cases. i know; i ran ubuntu on an x61s for years. it worked great, except for when it didn't.
like i said, if apple ever screws up OS X by turning it into iOS, i will, sadly, have to go back to that configuration.