That's because the scientists are of a demographics that have trouble finding female subjects to practice on, period. I'm sure it's a concept that Slashdotters can relate to.
You don't watch enough movies and television. In the world of fiction, the incompetent or negligent employees are in on it. Get fired. Walk away in shame. And secretly gets a cut of the millions.
As someone who doesn't vote and have to explain why it doesn't matter.
The popular vote on a State by State basis, does not matter if you don't live in a potential swing state.
I live in MA. There's frankly no chance in hell I've had to worry about a Republican gaining the popular vote in MA in the last god knows how many elections. Whether I (and every lazy person) go to vote or not, will not make the democrats lose, since there's enough motivated democrats to vote.
Now if their idea of "Electoral vote based on the national popular vote. Then yes, my vote even though it didn't effect the MA electoral. Can still matter as in 1 in 122 million in Iowa, as opposed to sheer pointless.
Now ironically, when Romney was on the ballot, even though he screwed up MA and showed disdain for "the democrat saps in MA that voted him as governor". I might be concerned there were actual people who would have voted him as president.
Personally I'd be happy to see more states deciding to do this. They may not be able to effect the constitution. But they can use the rules to accomplish in their area, what they wanted changed.
I'd say the majority of the voting age files taxes. With e-file they trust their process enough to hand out an ID and passcode. They should do the same for online voting, and if they get duplicate votes, track down the duplicates involved and either prosecute for false voting or verify the real vote. If only they kept track people's SS when they died...so we don't have voters from the grave.
If you are implying someone other than foreigner, rights under US law applies, presumably if they were a US citizen. I don't know about you, but my rights as a US citizen has been pretty much shot a decade ago. The people in power just hide it well that most people don't think of it. Traffic cop abuse is a big errosion where they're just making money for the sake of it. Which is funny because we have plenty of legitimate offenders that don't get fined.
If you were saying no one has any rights left under US law....then specifying out that a foreigner would not either, is redundant.
True, I remember the original story of how Warcraft 1 was suppose to be Warhammer. But since then, Warcraft 3's game engine was incredible change from 1's. And Warcraft Online DID come out before Warhammer Online.
Warcraft developed their own lore, if anything Warcraft ripped off it's game mechanics from every other game that came before it, but that's common place in the game industry.
So the only IP you're referring to is the concept of Orcs, humans, elves, and the likes fighting in battles? There's prior art that Games Workshop would never have the IP to it, and Blizzard is even less likely.
So I would not say GW ripped off Blizzard, but I would also not say Blizzard ripped off GW. They neither were very original except the lore, and even then, it's stretching it, since lore is basically fantasy books, and there's not that much originality in that field either. Don't get me wrong, I love fantasy books.
That's what psychology is, sweeping generalizations based on common factors and presumptions, to develop models of behavior, theories/hypothesis, and presumably thinking, because how can we truly know what the subject is thinking.
You complain that that the mnemonic isn't always good for other people. That's not the point of a mnemonic unless you're teaching it to someone. People make mnemonics for themselves, and System Admin or CIO usually have the importance to put their necessity to remember something above, say his assistant or someone else from another department who's not in charge of say the network.
You want hard mnemonics? Try the bones. Erg. Makes me cringe whenever I hear that there are that many bones in a body and doctors have to memorize them all. Course they won't make sense to me at all, but they don't need to make it make sense to me do they?
Probably because this update isn't an update for Firefox. It's an update for.Net framework which I assume you DO have a add/remove.
They are updating an MS software,.Net that you installed on your own volition. It had a flaw, an incompatibility with Firefox. Due to policy of being more open than they were previously, they decided to address that incompatibility by adding an update for people with.Net.
Java, Shockwave, and Flash is the same. You don't install 2 different software, one for IE and one for Firefox. You install one, that can either effect both or either. Only caveat is when you install for example Java with IE installed, and then install Firefox, Firefox doesn't have Java installed for it. So you need to reinstall it.
Hating MS is chic, but lets not all jump to bad conclusions, even if it does seem likely.
Although I agree with almost everything you said, I'd hardly describe Socialism as a combination of Commmunism and Totalitarism,. If Democracy is on the left of a spectrum, with Communism more to the right, totalitarism next and dictatorship to the extreme, socialism would fall between democracy and communism.
I find Socialism to be a compromise or trying to take the best out of Democracy and Communism and has little Totalitarism in it, just a stronger government in the interest of the people. Canada I think is the shining beacon of Socialism in the world and they have elected officials, albeit as corrupt and unscrupulous as US leaders.
I think categorizing totalitarian and dictatorships as the evil socialism in the past has been more of a propoganda we all grew up with.
I also think you're optimistic about hoping the US' stance was a mistake and not a cunning yet dangerous game for profit. Call me a conspiracy nut, but removing a large portion of the asset from financial institutions for personal profit, claiming the company is hurting, showing how THAT hurts the country, and requesting tax money to replace the asset they took out or the economy is done for, is a pretty gutsy blackmail.
ISP getting 50 billion from the government to subsidize services and improve infrastructure for the future, them pocketing the money, and keeping things more or elss the same, and 10 years later limit customers actions so they don't have to increase infrastructure quickly, and then ask for more money is a good gamble.
The auto industry, pocketing much money, low on innovation, lobbying against the trend in technology, and then a bail out when their business model falls to compete. Why put your own money into loans or as equity when you can get low or no interest loans from the government?
Luxury now. wealth now. consequences later. That's what drives policy. People like Mardoff just saw the game and jumped in and played it well, they all had to know it'd eventually collapse around them, so they enjoy it as much as possible in the moment.
First you said, China agreed to TRIPP because they needed to, and I was pointing out how such an action neither show they needed to, nor have their subsequent actions over the decade showed they cared much.
Using a car analogy to explain just because you do something that's beneficial doesn't mean that you had no alternative even if it's less beneficial. Further more, I was explaining to you, why people can do something...yet not mean it. I would have thought that such a concept wouldn't need MORE explanation but I guess it does.
Second you said,
China would have considerably less to export if it were not for US, and other countries that support IP, outsourcing the work to them. The Chinese economy is built almost entirely of product export and foreign outsourcing.
So I made a comparison of economics on a national scale to economics between countries to generalize a relationship to China, comparing them to Walmart, and how other countries, even those that support IP isn't going to stop doing business with them. And if you're saying that, you're not saying they would stop doing business with them...then what? How are they going to hurt them if they aren't stopping business with them.
Recent history has shown that countries are willing to overlook things. The last Olympics was big example, especially with all the protests over it. Hrm, wasn't the US a participant despite the protests? Now I can understand where you'd think that the US might hold IP policing to a higher priority than accused human rights violations, accusation of invading and occupying Tibet, and the lack of a Democracy when the US would invade and occupy another country over it. I know that with the financial problems in the country, the federal deficit, and lots of states making major cuts like California (no I don't live in CA), they are wasting time trying to create (or did they succeed, I don't recall) a Federal IP Policing agency for the benefits of corporations with the power of federal agents.
I never once even implied that all other countries would stop doing business with China. I very specifically stated "US, and other countries that support IP."
You're under the impression other countries will stop doing business with China if they do not take the WTO's agreement as seriously as the Western countries want them to?
And if you're nitpicking at words, I didn't say either that all countries would stop doing business with China, I just said other countries.
I also pointed out in my first post that, losing some or even a lot of business isn't likely a concern to China's government. They have other options. Other people to sell to. Other things to sell like Arms which we can all agree on they have been refraining from openly selling extremely dangerous weapons because they don't want to thumb their noses at the UN countries yet. Their population is already largely poor and in theory suffering by US standards and it doesn't deter the government in any way.
First, we're not delving into any complicated world economy or political discussion. These are all fairly simple concepts that have been talked about for decades, that we're just rehashing.
Second, the simple fact of partially capitulating or agreeing to pointless requests and not actually following through with it, does not mean anything. Organizations, companies, people in general have been doing it for millenniums.
Look at it as, taking a loss for a greater gain. Nodding your head and agreeing to shut them up. Agreeing to something minor to avoid drawing attention to the real issue. (Like this article is implying)
The fact that China's back at the table after 14 years of not doing much regarding TRIPS besides the occasional high-profile raids (which they probably have their own reasons why it was beneficial to them), doesn't show that they were forced to agree to it due to necessity. It only shows that they paid lip service and got some benefits out of it.
Here's a car analog for you. You change your engine oil every 3,000 miles because it makes it easier for the engine and you get some benefit. Doesn't mean the engine needed the oil change, it could have gone to 6,000 miles. Or even 9,000 though that'd be silly.
Here's another analogy, I like analogies. Wal-mart and chain supermarkets does things cheap, they hurt local business, they have horrendous practices, they have activists against them. Yet...hordes of people will still go to them, and get excited when they expand. It's not because people hated the local business, but it's because people do what they need to do, sometimes have little other choices, and come on the savings.
You're under the impression other countries will stop doing business with China if they do not take the WTO's agreement as seriously as the Western countries want them to? Some sort of embargo? On behalf of the US leading the charge? THAT'S laughable.
And as far as politics go, my examples from earlier? Think back into history.
19, that's almost 20. You should feel old. The average non-poor family 10 - 20 year old is likely to be as technologically sophisticated as any non-professional in the country. Kids have been doing drugs and having sex half your life already. And pregancies have started in the last quarter of your life. You need to catch up because it's all downhill from here man.
The US rely too much on potential foreign nationals in their infrastructure, that's a weakness.
And the Chinese government does not view it's population as something to protect, they view them as commodoties.
Mao made a joke on his visit to the US president, I think it was Carter at the time, in discussing trade agreements, he said they had an excess of women, would you like to take some?
When you view things as commodoties, you can easily sacrifice them if it furthers your goal in the long run.
You're right though, a land war between the US and China is unreasonable. Technology is the forefront of any massive battles, and wiping out a nation with a heavy reliance on technology in their infrastructure is a better way. Communication satellites? Network attack?
And whats the point in occupying the US? Their closed culture has a disdain for westerners and western values. It's not like they can't reverse engineer any technology they happen to find surviving. And its not like they are short on people to populate the new country, or even cheap slave level labor.
As far as NEEDING the US. They're not exactly that rich that they're importing alot of luxuries from the US...does the US still manufacture anything they export to China that China couldn't if push came to shove manufacture themselves or import from someone else who would LOVE to have China's business?
China doesn't NEED to export to the US. There are plenty of other countries in the world, and push comes to shove, they can always increase arm trade to places that hate the US. Win-win there really. And even if they are hit financially a bit, they'll simply let the population suffer....more. Commodoties, only as useful as they remain useful, when they become a liability, they are no longer useful and are therefore expendable as long as THAT is beneficial.
Art of War, know your enemy. Survival trait, if wild assumptions makes you an ass, wild assumptions in a fight will make you a dead ass.
And not to mention...they actually track trade deficit with China don't they?
Export to China $66 billion. Import from China $312 billion. Seems like US needs Chinese goods more than they need US. US economy could not handle a hit to massive inflation losing a source of cheap products.
No I think US supremacy in this world is a fallacy long since forgotten by the rest of the world. At most, hate of the US supremacy is remembered still.
Although I do agree with you, arbituary and selective justice is no justice at all. Too bad the "business" model of that has been put in practice for so many years in terms of motor vehicle violations, moving and parking, as well as various civil and criminal cases. General business regulations. One law for the politicians and elite of society and another for the masses.
Nothing new here, just watching the same ol' parade keep passing on by.
I went to RPI for engineering, and though I understand what you might mean, I think you're blowing it out of proportions. There's a level of mockery due to the fact that the average CS curriculum is light-weight compared to an engineering curriculum. Engineering is packed with core courses while CS had enough flexibility to do 2 majors and a minor without straining your course load. But it was all good-natured ribbing, not any real animosity. I remember there was things like, you're a CS major? And what else do you take? Or the jealousy that CS majors have so little courses and so few in the early mornings compared to Engineering which has trouble scheduling all their classes. At the worst of the jokes was probably, comparing the CS degree as the fallback for people who can't cut it in Engineering. But hey, look at it this way, it could have been worse. You could have been an English or Art History major.
No, of course doing business is a choice. And they could not do business with China. Hell all of America could decide to not do business with China. Would they ever? No, because not only is China a growing superpower, large consumer market, and cheap labor, but their fingers are so deeply embedded into the Global Economy, you'd need to amputee yourself to get them out. America can spite themselves and their hypocritical moral high ground by cutting their wrist during an already hemorrhaging time.
Of course by that token...they are following their home countries' laws to a degree. Assisting the government to combat dissidents and terrorists. Was I dreaming when they rerouted data sniffing to just outside of Langley? Did I somehow get the country mixed up when they were warrentless tapping lines to spy on Americans? Is the UK's sniffing through all emails not prophetic of US's next step in the erosion of civil liberties? Did those poor people imagine suffering at the hands of Gitmo and Abu?
Why don't we just have all the companies move to this magical land where the minority moralist in this country can feel at home and live in an enclosed economic and industrial bubble like the Amish try to.
Why should we demand them to stop doing business at all with China is the point. Or how can we. Shouldn't they stop doing business in America first. Shouldn't the consumers stop buying cheap below standard Asian goods before they start crying foul.
I don't even know where all this indignation with china is going or trying to accomplish or the point of all the companies pulling out of countries with governments America doesn't like, including itself.
These companies aren't willing to stand up to their own government, why should they stand up against other governments? And if you want to disregard local law over the internet, then free reign to porn in all non-porn allowed states under a certain age. Free reign to online gambling. Age of consent is much lower in foreign countries, that should be applied as well. Who cares about respecting other countries' laws and policies, when we should all follow the lowest denominator in the global community. Why stop at the internet, if you export goods to countries, ignore their safety regulations. You have your own, why care about others. So what if America test their meat, vegetable, dairies. So what if their cars have to pass safety and emissions standards. Companies should have the right to ignore local laws when they don't like them.
You may not be happy about the way China runs their country, but America is hardly in any position to judge what's appropriate and whats not. Hell America has been tow-tied in following the shoes of UK's oppressive police state, UK, US, and Australia is only wetting themselves thinking of what China has accomplished. And why should another country follow suit in America's dismay failures all over. If someone is walking off a bridge, are you going to stupidly follow, or are you going to say, hey that's not a good path, let me take a detour.
Try leading a revolt in your own country before walking over to other countries like hypocrits and telling them what to do. Iraq worked out oh so well, don't you think.
It's ridiculous the knee-jerk reaction we get to China. A bunch of "children" flaunt at the adult's rules and go "na na na, look at me, I'm playing with something that you told me not to". And the adult takes the thing away from the child. And to assert their authority, they broaden the punishment, "just because you flaunted yourself at me, I'll take away the other toys too". In an earlier Tibet thread, I posted a history lesson about China/Tibet. http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=643307&cid=24594219 You may not like, China for censorship and filtering, but look at your own government first, it's just varying degrees of the same thing. You may not like them using violence to put down dissidents to their national peace, but again, look at your own government. You may not like them for not granting Tibet their independence, but who are you to demand another country give into that? I'd be amused if Hawaii gets a clue and demand their independence and kick the white men off their property. It's their way of running their country, and may be different from what we consider normal, but your hypocrisy reeks coming from a "Tolerance to different ways of doing things" and then demanding they not do things the way they are. Every society has differing standards of morals, differing priorities, and differing national interest. Where as the US may block stuff because it deems them too violent, or too provocative, or too sexual, bad for societal morale. They blocked pro-tibet things because they deemed it objectionable and I think it's frankly insulting. I'm sure the block on all of Itunes is temporary and once they figure out how to block specific songs, they'll release the block on all of Itunes.
Granted this is offtopic from the original Youtube issue, which is completely separate. But I've been listening to the debates regarding China vs Tibet for years and its ridiculous how people gloss over history and the point, to only focus only on the last few decades. I'm not a historian and granted the stories passed down over the millenniums are "written" by the victors. I do like interesting stories and war-torn territories over such a large land-mass gets romanticized a lot.
To start off, yes I'm a Chinese in America, though I never held much for tradition.
1. China as a 4,000+ year historic territory has gone through an ungodly number of revisions for various reasons including conquest and depending who was the victor of "China", which territories was included during those periods. But the most important point is that ethnically/heritage, the Han Chinese was the population and sometimes ruling power of the territory. This includes Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, the Southeast Peninsula, up to Mongol, debatably Japan, and I'm not quite sure how far west, but large portion of what is Asia and west to India if not parts of it. So yes, for better or worse, current "China" has a tenuous claim to most of Asia as their territory, and though I cannot attest to their current or future aspiration, I can only surmise that they plan on "reclaiming" all the territory like they did in recent history with Taiwan and Tibet at both their leisure, international tolerated "acceptance", and ability to do so economically and militarily. I suppose you can argue that Rome does not have a current claim over Europe and northern Africa.
2. There is history to China's involvement with Tibet within the last 2,000 years.
3. Blood-marriage between the ruling power of "Tibet" with direct relative of the ruling power of "China". I believe in old European feudal system, such marriages are used for ties of alliances, support, and unification. The currently formed countries in Europe come to mind.
4. In an retroactively-ironic twist, Tibet expanded into territory then China and historically unaccepted by such territories, and in turn China reclaimed the territories.
4. Later, the Mongols invaded and conquered large portions of "China" and "Tibet" and formed a unified territory under Mongol rule. It was then replaced by non-Mongol rule, by presumably Han Chinese rule. Tibet eventually replaces Chinese rule and accepts a local power.
5. At some point an ironic opposite peaceful Buddhist religion and historically bad Tibetan controlling power formed.
6. The ruling power with Mongol influence was eventually toppled by the local populace with the aid of China and whether the populace wanted it, we won't know, became part of that Chinese Dynasty.
7. European encroachment into Asia as seen in India, Tibet, China, and the penisula. China defends Tibet as their territory.
8. The then Dalai Lama, who with obvious tenuous claim to leadership to Tibet with the claim as the immortal leader/ruler of Tibet, declares independence from China. Further international governmental movements still acknowledge China's claim or attempt to Tibet without any known (by me) unacceptance.
9. So my point is the more current "invasion" would be construed by "China" as reinforcement of their territory and putting down of dissidents to their rule.
10. Whether or not the putting down of dissidents, or violent method is acceptable or right or if it even happened, though I suppose it's general acceptance some degree of it happened, we have to acknowledge that they deem it as an effective manner and different cultures do things differently. How much the international community tolerates may impact them to either change their ways or face repercussions, as we've seen with various International ventures into other sovereignties' business. *coughs* Iraq (lightly touching on it). Or is that greed...or hubris. Would that be any more right? If Iraq had won and they had maintained their original status quo.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because the scientists are of a demographics that have trouble finding female subjects to practice on, period. I'm sure it's a concept that Slashdotters can relate to.
You don't watch enough movies and television.
In the world of fiction, the incompetent or negligent employees are in on it. Get fired. Walk away in shame. And secretly gets a cut of the millions.
As someone who doesn't vote and have to explain why it doesn't matter.
The popular vote on a State by State basis, does not matter if you don't live in a potential swing state.
I live in MA. There's frankly no chance in hell I've had to worry about a Republican gaining the popular vote in MA in the last god knows how many elections. Whether I (and every lazy person) go to vote or not, will not make the democrats lose, since there's enough motivated democrats to vote.
Now if their idea of "Electoral vote based on the national popular vote. Then yes, my vote even though it didn't effect the MA electoral. Can still matter as in 1 in 122 million in Iowa, as opposed to sheer pointless.
Now ironically, when Romney was on the ballot, even though he screwed up MA and showed disdain for "the democrat saps in MA that voted him as governor". I might be concerned there were actual people who would have voted him as president.
Personally I'd be happy to see more states deciding to do this. They may not be able to effect the constitution. But they can use the rules to accomplish in their area, what they wanted changed.
I'd say the majority of the voting age files taxes. With e-file they trust their process enough to hand out an ID and passcode. They should do the same for online voting, and if they get duplicate votes, track down the duplicates involved and either prosecute for false voting or verify the real vote. If only they kept track people's SS when they died...so we don't have voters from the grave.
I think you need to rephrase again.
If you are implying someone other than foreigner, rights under US law applies, presumably if they were a US citizen. I don't know about you, but my rights as a US citizen has been pretty much shot a decade ago. The people in power just hide it well that most people don't think of it. Traffic cop abuse is a big errosion where they're just making money for the sake of it. Which is funny because we have plenty of legitimate offenders that don't get fined.
If you were saying no one has any rights left under US law....then specifying out that a foreigner would not either, is redundant.
True, I remember the original story of how Warcraft 1 was suppose to be Warhammer. But since then, Warcraft 3's game engine was incredible change from 1's. And Warcraft Online DID come out before Warhammer Online.
Warcraft developed their own lore, if anything Warcraft ripped off it's game mechanics from every other game that came before it, but that's common place in the game industry.
So the only IP you're referring to is the concept of Orcs, humans, elves, and the likes fighting in battles? There's prior art that Games Workshop would never have the IP to it, and Blizzard is even less likely.
So I would not say GW ripped off Blizzard, but I would also not say Blizzard ripped off GW. They neither were very original except the lore, and even then, it's stretching it, since lore is basically fantasy books, and there's not that much originality in that field either. Don't get me wrong, I love fantasy books.
That's what psychology is, sweeping generalizations based on common factors and presumptions, to develop models of behavior, theories/hypothesis, and presumably thinking, because how can we truly know what the subject is thinking.
You complain that that the mnemonic isn't always good for other people. That's not the point of a mnemonic unless you're teaching it to someone. People make mnemonics for themselves, and System Admin or CIO usually have the importance to put their necessity to remember something above, say his assistant or someone else from another department who's not in charge of say the network.
You want hard mnemonics? Try the bones. Erg. Makes me cringe whenever I hear that there are that many bones in a body and doctors have to memorize them all. Course they won't make sense to me at all, but they don't need to make it make sense to me do they?
Probably because this update isn't an update for Firefox. It's an update for .Net framework which I assume you DO have a add/remove.
They are updating an MS software, .Net that you installed on your own volition. It had a flaw, an incompatibility with Firefox. Due to policy of being more open than they were previously, they decided to address that incompatibility by adding an update for people with .Net.
Java, Shockwave, and Flash is the same. You don't install 2 different software, one for IE and one for Firefox. You install one, that can either effect both or either. Only caveat is when you install for example Java with IE installed, and then install Firefox, Firefox doesn't have Java installed for it. So you need to reinstall it.
Hating MS is chic, but lets not all jump to bad conclusions, even if it does seem likely.
I remember when the i7 was on newegg for 2-4 grand just for the processor. They may be estimating this based on that old price.
Although I agree with almost everything you said, I'd hardly describe Socialism as a combination of Commmunism and Totalitarism,.
If Democracy is on the left of a spectrum, with Communism more to the right, totalitarism next and dictatorship to the extreme, socialism would fall between democracy and communism.
I find Socialism to be a compromise or trying to take the best out of Democracy and Communism and has little Totalitarism in it, just a stronger government in the interest of the people. Canada I think is the shining beacon of Socialism in the world and they have elected officials, albeit as corrupt and unscrupulous as US leaders.
I think categorizing totalitarian and dictatorships as the evil socialism in the past has been more of a propoganda we all grew up with.
I also think you're optimistic about hoping the US' stance was a mistake and not a cunning yet dangerous game for profit. Call me a conspiracy nut, but removing a large portion of the asset from financial institutions for personal profit, claiming the company is hurting, showing how THAT hurts the country, and requesting tax money to replace the asset they took out or the economy is done for, is a pretty gutsy blackmail.
ISP getting 50 billion from the government to subsidize services and improve infrastructure for the future, them pocketing the money, and keeping things more or elss the same, and 10 years later limit customers actions so they don't have to increase infrastructure quickly, and then ask for more money is a good gamble.
The auto industry, pocketing much money, low on innovation, lobbying against the trend in technology, and then a bail out when their business model falls to compete. Why put your own money into loans or as equity when you can get low or no interest loans from the government?
Luxury now. wealth now. consequences later. That's what drives policy. People like Mardoff just saw the game and jumped in and played it well, they all had to know it'd eventually collapse around them, so they enjoy it as much as possible in the moment.
Fine, I'll explain my rant as you called it.
First you said, China agreed to TRIPP because they needed to, and I was pointing out how such an action neither show they needed to, nor have their subsequent actions over the decade showed they cared much.
Using a car analogy to explain just because you do something that's beneficial doesn't mean that you had no alternative even if it's less beneficial. Further more, I was explaining to you, why people can do something...yet not mean it. I would have thought that such a concept wouldn't need MORE explanation but I guess it does.
Second you said,
China would have considerably less to export if it were not for US, and other countries that support IP, outsourcing the work to them. The Chinese economy is built almost entirely of product export and foreign outsourcing.
So I made a comparison of economics on a national scale to economics between countries to generalize a relationship to China, comparing them to Walmart, and how other countries, even those that support IP isn't going to stop doing business with them. And if you're saying that, you're not saying they would stop doing business with them...then what? How are they going to hurt them if they aren't stopping business with them.
Recent history has shown that countries are willing to overlook things. The last Olympics was big example, especially with all the protests over it. Hrm, wasn't the US a participant despite the protests? Now I can understand where you'd think that the US might hold IP policing to a higher priority than accused human rights violations, accusation of invading and occupying Tibet, and the lack of a Democracy when the US would invade and occupy another country over it. I know that with the financial problems in the country, the federal deficit, and lots of states making major cuts like California (no I don't live in CA), they are wasting time trying to create (or did they succeed, I don't recall) a Federal IP Policing agency for the benefits of corporations with the power of federal agents.
I never once even implied that all other countries would stop doing business with China. I very specifically stated "US, and other countries that support IP."
You're under the impression other countries will stop doing business with China if they do not take the WTO's agreement as seriously as the Western countries want them to?
And if you're nitpicking at words, I didn't say either that all countries would stop doing business with China, I just said other countries.
I also pointed out in my first post that, losing some or even a lot of business isn't likely a concern to China's government. They have other options. Other people to sell to. Other things to sell like Arms which we can all agree on they have been refraining from openly selling extremely dangerous weapons because they don't want to thumb their noses at the UN countries yet. Their population is already largely poor and in theory suffering by US standards and it doesn't deter the government in any way.
First, we're not delving into any complicated world economy or political discussion. These are all fairly simple concepts that have been talked about for decades, that we're just rehashing.
Second, the simple fact of partially capitulating or agreeing to pointless requests and not actually following through with it, does not mean anything.
Organizations, companies, people in general have been doing it for millenniums.
Look at it as, taking a loss for a greater gain.
Nodding your head and agreeing to shut them up.
Agreeing to something minor to avoid drawing attention to the real issue. (Like this article is implying)
The fact that China's back at the table after 14 years of not doing much regarding TRIPS besides the occasional high-profile raids (which they probably have their own reasons why it was beneficial to them), doesn't show that they were forced to agree to it due to necessity. It only shows that they paid lip service and got some benefits out of it.
Here's a car analog for you. You change your engine oil every 3,000 miles because it makes it easier for the engine and you get some benefit. Doesn't mean the engine needed the oil change, it could have gone to 6,000 miles. Or even 9,000 though that'd be silly.
http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/xw/t272113.htm
To lead off with, to point out there are other countries.
Here's another analogy, I like analogies.
Wal-mart and chain supermarkets does things cheap, they hurt local business, they have horrendous practices, they have activists against them. Yet...hordes of people will still go to them, and get excited when they expand. It's not because people hated the local business, but it's because people do what they need to do, sometimes have little other choices, and come on the savings.
You're under the impression other countries will stop doing business with China if they do not take the WTO's agreement as seriously as the Western countries want them to? Some sort of embargo? On behalf of the US leading the charge? THAT'S laughable.
And as far as politics go, my examples from earlier? Think back into history.
19, that's almost 20. You should feel old. The average non-poor family 10 - 20 year old is likely to be as technologically sophisticated as any non-professional in the country. Kids have been doing drugs and having sex half your life already. And pregancies have started in the last quarter of your life. You need to catch up because it's all downhill from here man.
The US rely too much on potential foreign nationals in their infrastructure, that's a weakness.
And the Chinese government does not view it's population as something to protect, they view them as commodoties.
Mao made a joke on his visit to the US president, I think it was Carter at the time, in discussing trade agreements, he said they had an excess of women, would you like to take some?
When you view things as commodoties, you can easily sacrifice them if it furthers your goal in the long run.
You're right though, a land war between the US and China is unreasonable. Technology is the forefront of any massive battles, and wiping out a nation with a heavy reliance on technology in their infrastructure is a better way. Communication satellites? Network attack?
And whats the point in occupying the US? Their closed culture has a disdain for westerners and western values. It's not like they can't reverse engineer any technology they happen to find surviving. And its not like they are short on people to populate the new country, or even cheap slave level labor.
As far as NEEDING the US. They're not exactly that rich that they're importing alot of luxuries from the US...does the US still manufacture anything they export to China that China couldn't if push came to shove manufacture themselves or import from someone else who would LOVE to have China's business?
China doesn't NEED to export to the US. There are plenty of other countries in the world, and push comes to shove, they can always increase arm trade to places that hate the US. Win-win there really. And even if they are hit financially a bit, they'll simply let the population suffer....more. Commodoties, only as useful as they remain useful, when they become a liability, they are no longer useful and are therefore expendable as long as THAT is beneficial.
Art of War, know your enemy. Survival trait, if wild assumptions makes you an ass, wild assumptions in a fight will make you a dead ass.
And not to mention...they actually track trade deficit with China don't they?
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2008
11 out of the 12 months.
Export to China $66 billion. Import from China $312 billion. Seems like US needs Chinese goods more than they need US. US economy could not handle a hit to massive inflation losing a source of cheap products.
No I think US supremacy in this world is a fallacy long since forgotten by the rest of the world. At most, hate of the US supremacy is remembered still.
Ashamed to live in the western world today?
As opposed to the last couple decades?
Although I do agree with you, arbituary and selective justice is no justice at all. Too bad the "business" model of that has been put in practice for so many years in terms of motor vehicle violations, moving and parking, as well as various civil and criminal cases. General business regulations. One law for the politicians and elite of society and another for the masses.
Nothing new here, just watching the same ol' parade keep passing on by.
I went to RPI for engineering, and though I understand what you might mean, I think you're blowing it out of proportions. There's a level of mockery due to the fact that the average CS curriculum is light-weight compared to an engineering curriculum. Engineering is packed with core courses while CS had enough flexibility to do 2 majors and a minor without straining your course load. But it was all good-natured ribbing, not any real animosity. I remember there was things like, you're a CS major? And what else do you take? Or the jealousy that CS majors have so little courses and so few in the early mornings compared to Engineering which has trouble scheduling all their classes. At the worst of the jokes was probably, comparing the CS degree as the fallback for people who can't cut it in Engineering. But hey, look at it this way, it could have been worse. You could have been an English or Art History major.
No, of course doing business is a choice. And they could not do business with China. Hell all of America could decide to not do business with China. Would they ever? No, because not only is China a growing superpower, large consumer market, and cheap labor, but their fingers are so deeply embedded into the Global Economy, you'd need to amputee yourself to get them out. America can spite themselves and their hypocritical moral high ground by cutting their wrist during an already hemorrhaging time.
Of course by that token...they are following their home countries' laws to a degree. Assisting the government to combat dissidents and terrorists. Was I dreaming when they rerouted data sniffing to just outside of Langley? Did I somehow get the country mixed up when they were warrentless tapping lines to spy on Americans? Is the UK's sniffing through all emails not prophetic of US's next step in the erosion of civil liberties? Did those poor people imagine suffering at the hands of Gitmo and Abu?
Why don't we just have all the companies move to this magical land where the minority moralist in this country can feel at home and live in an enclosed economic and industrial bubble like the Amish try to.
Why should we demand them to stop doing business at all with China is the point. Or how can we. Shouldn't they stop doing business in America first. Shouldn't the consumers stop buying cheap below standard Asian goods before they start crying foul.
I don't even know where all this indignation with china is going or trying to accomplish or the point of all the companies pulling out of countries with governments America doesn't like, including itself.
These companies aren't willing to stand up to their own government, why should they stand up against other governments?
And if you want to disregard local law over the internet, then free reign to porn in all non-porn allowed states under a certain age. Free reign to online gambling. Age of consent is much lower in foreign countries, that should be applied as well. Who cares about respecting other countries' laws and policies, when we should all follow the lowest denominator in the global community.
Why stop at the internet, if you export goods to countries, ignore their safety regulations. You have your own, why care about others. So what if America test their meat, vegetable, dairies. So what if their cars have to pass safety and emissions standards. Companies should have the right to ignore local laws when they don't like them.
You may not be happy about the way China runs their country, but America is hardly in any position to judge what's appropriate and whats not. Hell America has been tow-tied in following the shoes of UK's oppressive police state, UK, US, and Australia is only wetting themselves thinking of what China has accomplished.
And why should another country follow suit in America's dismay failures all over. If someone is walking off a bridge, are you going to stupidly follow, or are you going to say, hey that's not a good path, let me take a detour.
Try leading a revolt in your own country before walking over to other countries like hypocrits and telling them what to do. Iraq worked out oh so well, don't you think.
It's ridiculous the knee-jerk reaction we get to China. A bunch of "children" flaunt at the adult's rules and go "na na na, look at me, I'm playing with something that you told me not to". And the adult takes the thing away from the child. And to assert their authority, they broaden the punishment, "just because you flaunted yourself at me, I'll take away the other toys too".
In an earlier Tibet thread, I posted a history lesson about China/Tibet. http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=643307&cid=24594219
You may not like, China for censorship and filtering, but look at your own government first, it's just varying degrees of the same thing. You may not like them using violence to put down dissidents to their national peace, but again, look at your own government. You may not like them for not granting Tibet their independence, but who are you to demand another country give into that? I'd be amused if Hawaii gets a clue and demand their independence and kick the white men off their property.
It's their way of running their country, and may be different from what we consider normal, but your hypocrisy reeks coming from a "Tolerance to different ways of doing things" and then demanding they not do things the way they are.
Every society has differing standards of morals, differing priorities, and differing national interest.
Where as the US may block stuff because it deems them too violent, or too provocative, or too sexual, bad for societal morale. They blocked pro-tibet things because they deemed it objectionable and I think it's frankly insulting. I'm sure the block on all of Itunes is temporary and once they figure out how to block specific songs, they'll release the block on all of Itunes.
Granted this is offtopic from the original Youtube issue, which is completely separate. But I've been listening to the debates regarding China vs Tibet for years and its ridiculous how people gloss over history and the point, to only focus only on the last few decades. I'm not a historian and granted the stories passed down over the millenniums are "written" by the victors. I do like interesting stories and war-torn territories over such a large land-mass gets romanticized a lot.
To start off, yes I'm a Chinese in America, though I never held much for tradition.
1. China as a 4,000+ year historic territory has gone through an ungodly number of revisions for various reasons including conquest and depending who was the victor of "China", which territories was included during those periods. But the most important point is that ethnically/heritage, the Han Chinese was the population and sometimes ruling power of the territory. This includes Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, the Southeast Peninsula, up to Mongol, debatably Japan, and I'm not quite sure how far west, but large portion of what is Asia and west to India if not parts of it. So yes, for better or worse, current "China" has a tenuous claim to most of Asia as their territory, and though I cannot attest to their current or future aspiration, I can only surmise that they plan on "reclaiming" all the territory like they did in recent history with Taiwan and Tibet at both their leisure, international tolerated "acceptance", and ability to do so economically and militarily. I suppose you can argue that Rome does not have a current claim over Europe and northern Africa.
2. There is history to China's involvement with Tibet within the last 2,000 years.
3. Blood-marriage between the ruling power of "Tibet" with direct relative of the ruling power of "China". I believe in old European feudal system, such marriages are used for ties of alliances, support, and unification. The currently formed countries in Europe come to mind.
4. In an retroactively-ironic twist, Tibet expanded into territory then China and historically unaccepted by such territories, and in turn China reclaimed the territories.
4. Later, the Mongols invaded and conquered large portions of "China" and "Tibet" and formed a unified territory under Mongol rule. It was then replaced by non-Mongol rule, by presumably Han Chinese rule. Tibet eventually replaces Chinese rule and accepts a local power.
5. At some point an ironic opposite peaceful Buddhist religion and historically bad Tibetan controlling power formed.
6. The ruling power with Mongol influence was eventually toppled by the local populace with the aid of China and whether the populace wanted it, we won't know, became part of that Chinese Dynasty.
7. European encroachment into Asia as seen in India, Tibet, China, and the penisula. China defends Tibet as their territory.
8. The then Dalai Lama, who with obvious tenuous claim to leadership to Tibet with the claim as the immortal leader/ruler of Tibet, declares independence from China. Further international governmental movements still acknowledge China's claim or attempt to Tibet without any known (by me) unacceptance.
9. So my point is the more current "invasion" would be construed by "China" as reinforcement of their territory and putting down of dissidents to their rule.
10. Whether or not the putting down of dissidents, or violent method is acceptable or right or if it even happened, though I suppose it's general acceptance some degree of it happened, we have to acknowledge that they deem it as an effective manner and different cultures do things differently. How much the international community tolerates may impact them to either change their ways or face repercussions, as we've seen with various International ventures into other sovereignties' business. *coughs* Iraq (lightly touching on it). Or is that greed...or hubris. Would that be any more right? If Iraq had won and they had maintained their original status quo.