Most slashdotters do not advocate copyright violation. That is a myth unsupported by facts. Give examples of good comments defending copyright being modded down or admit you are lying, your choice.
I'm not waxing nostalgic for anything, thank you very much. Nor am I decrying the ways of the evil anything. I believe we were discussing cooperation versus competition. You brought up the example of the slaves and the pyramid. I pointed out that that was a bad example, as the pyramids were built by volunteers. Don't try emotionally charged straw man arguments with me, they won't work.
Your misinformation about the pyramids does not speak well about your understanding of the rest of history. The Pharaoh was a living God. Would a living God have to force slaves to build his tomb? No. Every Egyptian wanted to work on the pyramids, to take part in that immense religious ritual, and they were well paid and well taken care of. Archeologists know a lot about the conditions of pyramid workers, because many were buried nearby. Bones show signs of being professionally set. The workers were well fed and lived in better housing than most.
Working on your God's tomb was an honer, a privilege bestowed on the best and the brightest, not a labor of slaves.
History is written by conquerors. By "big men" who do big things. Is it any wonder that they might overemphasis the role of such big men, and downplay the stories of the mass of humanity? The vast majority of humans quietly cooperate and move the species forward, while the "big men" play at their games of war and conquest.
Hey, that's not fair! I know Amicus Brief, he's not a redneck. He may be backwards, uneducated, opinionated, a hick, white trash, a redneck, and an idiot, but the man is no redneck!
You should read a bit more about modern sociological, games theory, psychological, and economic experiments, which show that your worldview is incorrect. People are generally nice, because cooperation is evolutionarily advantageous.
History does not show that people act primarily in their own self interest. That is simply a false view of history, which is more about cooperation than competition. (although, cooperation at the species wide level facilities our species competition with others, so it is a fuzzy boundary.) In fact, people will commonly accept harm to themselves in order to promote fairness. Most people have a built in notion of fairness, and an instinctive aversion to unfairness, because fairness is good for the species, and our genes do not operate primarily on an individual level, but as a species wide gene pool working for the mutual benefit of the species, not the individual. Your genes do not care how they get passed on, if you have to die so that several other people with similar genes can reproduce, from your genes point of view, they HAVE reproduced. Just not through you, directly.
Competition only makes sense when other, better options aren't available.
I not saying go fuck yourself, I am saying, stop whining, you look foolish when you whine about imaginary things. If you don't like it, engage in politics and try to change it. OR move away. But simply whining about how unfair it is that a group of people are telling you what you can and can't do with THEIR mutually owned property is ridiculous. This is our country, fair or not, we claimed it. Now you and people like you want to own it without playing by the rules we have set up. You want to tell us our rules are unfair, and you should have the right to live here without playing by the same rules we have all agreed to.
If you believe in property rights, and freedom of association, and contract, then you have to believe in government. Because that is all government is: individuals freely associating together, claiming and managing mutual property for mutual benefit, through a contract agreed to by all participants. That is an important point: if you don't agree to the contact, you are not a member of our mutual aid society, and have no claim on our mutually held property (AKA, The United States) whether you were born here or not. It isn't being born here that gives you rights to the property here, it is agreeing to the contract that gives you those rights.
In short, my rights as a citizen, and the legitimacy of my government derive from axioms supported by libertarians: freedom of association, contract, and property rights. If you would like to claim that our government is illegitimate, you will need to show that those axioms are invalid, or that they don't apply in this case. I doubt you can do that.
You are very, very confused and reading things into my post that I never wrote or even implied. You seem to have this very definite idea of who I am, and what I am arguing for, and you couldn't be more off the mark. You think I am some sort of piracy advocate, and in order to think that, you have invented things out of whole cloth in your mind.
Who says I am violating copyright? Who says I am seeing copyrighted works and shows? This isn't even about copyright, this is about society in general and how our legal system caters to those with money.
Please try to understand what others are saying before you begin to argue with them. You end up looking pretty stupid when you make outrageous assumptions unsupported by facts.
People are generally nice, unless they live in a society where there are two sets of rules. When being nice gets you taken advantage of, people become dicks out of self defense. That doesn't mean they want to be dicks, it means they have to, because they have no real access to justice. Modern economic experiments show that people would rather be fair and practice reciprocity than act in their own self interest.
In any case, even if that IS the way things are, and people are just not generally very nice, it does not mean that is the way they should be.
That was a compromise. Why exactly are you arguing the point? What is your goal? Are you trying to argue that we should have two sets of rules? Or are you just being pedantic?
Yes, I and the other owner/citizens of this country are dictating what people can and can't do with our property, aka, The United States of America. Well, not dictating so much as mutually agreeing through the decision making process of representative democracy operating in a Republican form of mutual-benefit association.
I think it is fair for you to pay the same price for the benefits that you receive as every other citizen. If you don't like the bargain, go shop for a better one. You may not like it, but you are not king and you do not get to dictate to others what we do with our property. You do not get to set the rules. You can choose not to play by the rules. You can go somewhere else and look for a more agreeable set of rules. But what you absolutely do not get to do is say, "I was born here and therefore this place is mine and you guys don't get to tell me what to do." Sorry, you were born into an ongoing society, and you can either accept the rules of that society, attempt to change the rules within societal frameworks, go outlaw, shop around for a better deal, or become a hermit. Those are your only options. Whining and throwing a fit and telling us that we don't get to tell you what to do won't have any effect. We do get to tell you what to do, that is the bargain. You stay here, and receive the benefits of staying here, and you do what we tell you. If you don't want to be told what to do, well, you must not really want to be living with other people. Living with others means being told what to do, even if that is just "No hitting biting or pinching."
Get used to it or be alone for the rest of your life, if you think society's rules are hard to handle, wait until you get into a committed relationship.
I don't want to play the game of "Who is can screw over whom?" and I don't want players of that game to force people to play it against their will, which is what they are doing.
Of course the author should sue. If she has the money. That is the 'two sets of rules' part, if you have the money, you can buy justice, if not, well, good luck.
I am not justifying violating anyone's copyright, why are you making up stories in your head about what I say?
Then you aren't a serf, the state is not your lord and master, and you are engaging in serious hyperbole. Don't try to tell other people how to run their mutual benefit societies, a.k.a. "The Dread Evil State."
Hi, I'm from America, and I'm guessing you are not. Here in America, "Libertarian" means ONLY anarcho-capitalist of the "absolute personal property rights" type, and nothing else. I realize that in the rest of the world the word "libertarian" simply means "anarchist" but I'm not from the rest of the world.
I'm an anarchist. It's a good, descriptive word, much better than "libertarian" Specifically, I am a social anarchist of the anarcho-syndicalist stripe. NOT a libertarian. In America, it is better to call yourself an anarchist if that is what you are, and not confuse people by calling yourself a libertarian, which basically means "selfish prick" over here.
Pretty good. I haven't seen any kings lurking about for several hundred years. The assholes are always knocking at the door, trying to exploit us, and sometimes they manage to do so for a while, but in general, I'm not a slave or a serf, and I have freedom, and rights, so, yeah, it is working better than the alternatives.
Compromise means everyone agrees. It may not be exactly what everyone wanted, but this is real life, you do not always get everything you want. When you compromise, you agree to that compromise. Compromise is the only way to reach agreement if you are not already there.
I want to work with other like minded individuals for mutual benefit and protection. To do so, I have voluntarily joined a group of individuals who are already doing so. We work together, through our elected representatives, to protect each other's rights, to help those in need, and to provide mutual benefit.
If you don't like the goals of this group, or their methods, you are free to withdraw from said group, join another, start your own or become a hermit. What you DO NOT get to do is dictate to this group how we will act.
I'm not a serf, and the state is not my lord. If anything, I am a customer. I can shop for my governance here, or go elsewhere. As I currently feel I am getting good value for my money, I continue to stay. If I really felt I was getting a bad bargain, I would shop around.
No, the intention was there from the beginning that every citizen be treated equally. We just had some backwards ideas about what should constitute a citizen.
But I'm sure you are just nit-picking, I mean, you do agree that equality before the law is a worthy goal for all societies, right?
Right, but the country started out with the express intention of NOT having two sets of rules. So I feel it is important to point out that we have failed in that respect, so that we may attempt to correct our failure and hold everyone accountable in the same way.
Humans love justice. We are social creatures, and in order for society to work, people must play by the same set of rules. When they do not, our innate and genetically determined sense of social justice kicks in. Almost all humans feel a desire to act fairly towards others, and to punish those who do not act fairly, even if punishing the other harms ourselves.
Revenge is just a rather crude form of justice. It satisfies the instinct to punish unfairness. But there are more elegant and less harmful ways of achieving fairness and justice than crude revenge.
We live in a society with two sets of rules. They basically boil down to this: if a big guy does it to a little guy, it's okay. If a little guy does it to a big guy, the little guy is gonna get stomped. That is the real American Dream: to become an Important Person, so you can play by the more advantageous set of rules and tell the little people what to do.
Yes, but I prefer an honest good citizen. We don't want "The State" to take care of us. We are the state, and we formed it to keep assholes from getting their way. We take care of each other, because we need to band together to protect ourselves from the powerful who would exploit us. Remember, "anarchy" does not mean "no state." It means "no rulers." "No State" would be written "anocracy."
Libertarians prefer absolute property rights, where each man is the petty tyrant of his tiny domain. They love rent, it's a great source of income.
But, what is really telling in your defense of libertarianism, the point that absolutely and unequivocally proves my point, is where you say, "Libertarians prefer... agreement to compromise."
Slashdot Mirror
Most slashdotters do not advocate copyright violation. That is a myth unsupported by facts. Give examples of good comments defending copyright being modded down or admit you are lying, your choice.
I'm not waxing nostalgic for anything, thank you very much. Nor am I decrying the ways of the evil anything. I believe we were discussing cooperation versus competition. You brought up the example of the slaves and the pyramid. I pointed out that that was a bad example, as the pyramids were built by volunteers. Don't try emotionally charged straw man arguments with me, they won't work.
Your misinformation about the pyramids does not speak well about your understanding of the rest of history. The Pharaoh was a living God. Would a living God have to force slaves to build his tomb? No. Every Egyptian wanted to work on the pyramids, to take part in that immense religious ritual, and they were well paid and well taken care of. Archeologists know a lot about the conditions of pyramid workers, because many were buried nearby. Bones show signs of being professionally set. The workers were well fed and lived in better housing than most.
Working on your God's tomb was an honer, a privilege bestowed on the best and the brightest, not a labor of slaves.
History is written by conquerors. By "big men" who do big things. Is it any wonder that they might overemphasis the role of such big men, and downplay the stories of the mass of humanity? The vast majority of humans quietly cooperate and move the species forward, while the "big men" play at their games of war and conquest.
Hey, that's not fair! I know Amicus Brief, he's not a redneck. He may be backwards, uneducated, opinionated, a hick, white trash, a redneck, and an idiot, but the man is no redneck!
Yes, I got marked +5 informative because my posts are so unclear. Perhaps you should take a remedial reading comprehension class.
You should read a bit more about modern sociological, games theory, psychological, and economic experiments, which show that your worldview is incorrect. People are generally nice, because cooperation is evolutionarily advantageous.
History does not show that people act primarily in their own self interest. That is simply a false view of history, which is more about cooperation than competition. (although, cooperation at the species wide level facilities our species competition with others, so it is a fuzzy boundary.) In fact, people will commonly accept harm to themselves in order to promote fairness. Most people have a built in notion of fairness, and an instinctive aversion to unfairness, because fairness is good for the species, and our genes do not operate primarily on an individual level, but as a species wide gene pool working for the mutual benefit of the species, not the individual. Your genes do not care how they get passed on, if you have to die so that several other people with similar genes can reproduce, from your genes point of view, they HAVE reproduced. Just not through you, directly.
Competition only makes sense when other, better options aren't available.
I not saying go fuck yourself, I am saying, stop whining, you look foolish when you whine about imaginary things. If you don't like it, engage in politics and try to change it. OR move away. But simply whining about how unfair it is that a group of people are telling you what you can and can't do with THEIR mutually owned property is ridiculous. This is our country, fair or not, we claimed it. Now you and people like you want to own it without playing by the rules we have set up. You want to tell us our rules are unfair, and you should have the right to live here without playing by the same rules we have all agreed to.
If you believe in property rights, and freedom of association, and contract, then you have to believe in government. Because that is all government is: individuals freely associating together, claiming and managing mutual property for mutual benefit, through a contract agreed to by all participants. That is an important point: if you don't agree to the contact, you are not a member of our mutual aid society, and have no claim on our mutually held property (AKA, The United States) whether you were born here or not. It isn't being born here that gives you rights to the property here, it is agreeing to the contract that gives you those rights.
In short, my rights as a citizen, and the legitimacy of my government derive from axioms supported by libertarians: freedom of association, contract, and property rights. If you would like to claim that our government is illegitimate, you will need to show that those axioms are invalid, or that they don't apply in this case. I doubt you can do that.
You are very, very confused and reading things into my post that I never wrote or even implied. You seem to have this very definite idea of who I am, and what I am arguing for, and you couldn't be more off the mark. You think I am some sort of piracy advocate, and in order to think that, you have invented things out of whole cloth in your mind.
Who says I am violating copyright? Who says I am seeing copyrighted works and shows? This isn't even about copyright, this is about society in general and how our legal system caters to those with money.
Please try to understand what others are saying before you begin to argue with them. You end up looking pretty stupid when you make outrageous assumptions unsupported by facts.
People are generally nice, unless they live in a society where there are two sets of rules. When being nice gets you taken advantage of, people become dicks out of self defense. That doesn't mean they want to be dicks, it means they have to, because they have no real access to justice. Modern economic experiments show that people would rather be fair and practice reciprocity than act in their own self interest.
In any case, even if that IS the way things are, and people are just not generally very nice, it does not mean that is the way they should be.
That was a compromise. Why exactly are you arguing the point? What is your goal? Are you trying to argue that we should have two sets of rules? Or are you just being pedantic?
Yes, I and the other owner/citizens of this country are dictating what people can and can't do with our property, aka, The United States of America. Well, not dictating so much as mutually agreeing through the decision making process of representative democracy operating in a Republican form of mutual-benefit association.
I think it is fair for you to pay the same price for the benefits that you receive as every other citizen. If you don't like the bargain, go shop for a better one. You may not like it, but you are not king and you do not get to dictate to others what we do with our property. You do not get to set the rules. You can choose not to play by the rules. You can go somewhere else and look for a more agreeable set of rules. But what you absolutely do not get to do is say, "I was born here and therefore this place is mine and you guys don't get to tell me what to do." Sorry, you were born into an ongoing society, and you can either accept the rules of that society, attempt to change the rules within societal frameworks, go outlaw, shop around for a better deal, or become a hermit. Those are your only options. Whining and throwing a fit and telling us that we don't get to tell you what to do won't have any effect. We do get to tell you what to do, that is the bargain. You stay here, and receive the benefits of staying here, and you do what we tell you. If you don't want to be told what to do, well, you must not really want to be living with other people. Living with others means being told what to do, even if that is just "No hitting biting or pinching."
Get used to it or be alone for the rest of your life, if you think society's rules are hard to handle, wait until you get into a committed relationship.
I don't want to play the game of "Who is can screw over whom?" and I don't want players of that game to force people to play it against their will, which is what they are doing.
Of course the author should sue. If she has the money. That is the 'two sets of rules' part, if you have the money, you can buy justice, if not, well, good luck.
I am not justifying violating anyone's copyright, why are you making up stories in your head about what I say?
Then you aren't a serf, the state is not your lord and master, and you are engaging in serious hyperbole. Don't try to tell other people how to run their mutual benefit societies, a.k.a. "The Dread Evil State."
Hi, I'm from America, and I'm guessing you are not. Here in America, "Libertarian" means ONLY anarcho-capitalist of the "absolute personal property rights" type, and nothing else. I realize that in the rest of the world the word "libertarian" simply means "anarchist" but I'm not from the rest of the world.
I'm an anarchist. It's a good, descriptive word, much better than "libertarian" Specifically, I am a social anarchist of the anarcho-syndicalist stripe. NOT a libertarian. In America, it is better to call yourself an anarchist if that is what you are, and not confuse people by calling yourself a libertarian, which basically means "selfish prick" over here.
Pretty good. I haven't seen any kings lurking about for several hundred years. The assholes are always knocking at the door, trying to exploit us, and sometimes they manage to do so for a while, but in general, I'm not a slave or a serf, and I have freedom, and rights, so, yeah, it is working better than the alternatives.
Compromise means everyone agrees. It may not be exactly what everyone wanted, but this is real life, you do not always get everything you want. When you compromise, you agree to that compromise. Compromise is the only way to reach agreement if you are not already there.
I want to work with other like minded individuals for mutual benefit and protection. To do so, I have voluntarily joined a group of individuals who are already doing so. We work together, through our elected representatives, to protect each other's rights, to help those in need, and to provide mutual benefit.
If you don't like the goals of this group, or their methods, you are free to withdraw from said group, join another, start your own or become a hermit. What you DO NOT get to do is dictate to this group how we will act.
Are you saying you like living in a country with two sets of rules?
Christ, that's one metaphor too many. But hopefully you get my point.
As long as they were not thinking outside the bus and throwing each other under the box, I think so.
I'm not a serf, and the state is not my lord. If anything, I am a customer. I can shop for my governance here, or go elsewhere. As I currently feel I am getting good value for my money, I continue to stay. If I really felt I was getting a bad bargain, I would shop around.
No, the intention was there from the beginning that every citizen be treated equally. We just had some backwards ideas about what should constitute a citizen.
But I'm sure you are just nit-picking, I mean, you do agree that equality before the law is a worthy goal for all societies, right?
Right, but the country started out with the express intention of NOT having two sets of rules. So I feel it is important to point out that we have failed in that respect, so that we may attempt to correct our failure and hold everyone accountable in the same way.
Humans love justice. We are social creatures, and in order for society to work, people must play by the same set of rules. When they do not, our innate and genetically determined sense of social justice kicks in. Almost all humans feel a desire to act fairly towards others, and to punish those who do not act fairly, even if punishing the other harms ourselves.
Revenge is just a rather crude form of justice. It satisfies the instinct to punish unfairness. But there are more elegant and less harmful ways of achieving fairness and justice than crude revenge.
Everyone is just happy to rip everyone work. But if a media corp do that, boo-hoo.
Cry babies.
I have question. How is cry-babby formed?
We live in a society with two sets of rules. They basically boil down to this: if a big guy does it to a little guy, it's okay. If a little guy does it to a big guy, the little guy is gonna get stomped. That is the real American Dream: to become an Important Person, so you can play by the more advantageous set of rules and tell the little people what to do.
Yes, but I prefer an honest good citizen. We don't want "The State" to take care of us. We are the state, and we formed it to keep assholes from getting their way. We take care of each other, because we need to band together to protect ourselves from the powerful who would exploit us. Remember, "anarchy" does not mean "no state." It means "no rulers." "No State" would be written "anocracy."
Libertarians prefer absolute property rights, where each man is the petty tyrant of his tiny domain. They love rent, it's a great source of income.
But, what is really telling in your defense of libertarianism, the point that absolutely and unequivocally proves my point, is where you say, "Libertarians prefer... agreement to compromise."
Normal people reach agreement through compromise.