Precisely. And that is a wonderful reason to oppose it. The more we drain the State's ability to fund itself, the better.
My hope is that the Internet will eventually allow individuals to engage in monetary transations that will go completely undetected by the government. Encryption goes a long way in allowing this, but also required is a way to run ecommerce applications anonymously. (The FreeNet project at Sourceforge might help in accomplishing this.) I envision a future in which secure Internet technologies will finally allow individuals to break away from State and corporate control.
There is nothing more beautiful than the possibility of Intenet commerce allowing individuals to escape taxation and regulation, and of the government being defunded as a result:-) Unfortunately, today's ecommerce companies are far too willing to participate and cooperate with the State's agenda.
"First, if you're one of the many adult Americans who doesn't bother to vote, you have no one to blame but yourself for letting corrupt politicians get into office and stay there."
I'm so tired of hearing this nonsense. You don't get it -- I *doesn't matter* who is elected. If you vote for a representative, you are effectively saying, "I have given up my right to make decisions for myself. Please make them for me." When you vote, you are authorizing a person to make decisions on behalf of yourself and others, and hence it is the *voter* who has nobody but himself to blame when unjust decisions are made by the legislature. When people don't vote, they withdraw their support for the current system, and politicians cannot hide behind the facade that they "represent" people. Why do you think politicians get nervous when there is a low voter turn-out? -- because they're unable to con people that their position is legitimate.
If you want to make change, you have to engage in direct action and civil disobendience. For you to sit and beg those in power to be considerate of your needs is just pathetic. If you want to empower yourself, you engage yourself in a contradiction by attempting to bring it about through begging and pleading.
"I'm not against patents, but rather against broad patents."
How does one draw the line between a "broad" and "non-broad" patent in a way that's not completely arbitrary?
I'm against patents, period. People should be free to use all ideas that they discover. IMO, Property is only justified if one person's use of something prevents the original user from accessing it. Because I'm free to use an idea without preventing you from doing the same, you would not have a similar justification for prohibiting me from using the idea. You might profit less if I use your idea, but guaranteed profit is not a right. If you happen to profit from a venture, then you have a right to keep what you acquire, but *potential* profit is not yet your property. If potential profit is not your property, then it can not be used as a justification for declaring an idea as your property.
Yes, the general public really is that afraid of a general purpose computer. I prefer a desktop too, as to most other Slashdotters. We prefer the flexibility that it provides. However, there are a vast number of people that wish to benefit from the Internet, and yet are completely clueless and fearful of your standard workstation. Being uneducated is one thing, but the number of people who do not wish to educate themselves remains very large.
As a customer service representative for a large software company, I get clueless AOLers calling in everyday blaming us for the problems caused by their cluelessness regarding computers. I consider it a Good Thing that your average AOLer will likely be using a set-top box or a web pad in a couple of years. It leaves them with less room to screw things up. You might say that these devices won't encourage them to educate themselves about computers, but the fact is that they're not making any attempts to educate themselves as it is.
Government, as embodied in the form of the State, is necessarily flawed and opressive. It is the nature of every organization to propogate itself and to extend its scope of influence as far as possible. The government is not exempt from this principle. I wouldn't mind a government that existed for the sole purpose of defending individuals' rights to autonomy. However, the classical liberal model of government has been abandoned entirely. Government is not about providing a legal framework in which each member of society can pursue their goals in a manner that is compossible with that of others. The government is an organization of individuals who are no more enlightened or unselfish than anybody else which aims to satisfy its own needs -- this may involve lobbying to expand its own power or accepting donations for large corporations. The whole notion that government can be "reformed", when the very nature of government is to grow whenever there is a new excuse for it to step in to the daily affairs of people, couldn't possibly be more naive. Those who are concerned about freedom must withdraw their support for this entity, as self-presevation and propagation are the only goals that matter to it. Individuals within the government might be genuinely concerned about specific issues, but these concerns only fuel the further growth of this monster. The only way the government will ever come close to shrinking back to a size that would prevent it from perpetrating numerous injustices each day is if it was unable to claim popular support. The government justifies its growth by claiming that it is responding to popular concerns, and by pointing to voting turn-outs. Why do you think that those who run the government become so nervous when there is a low voter turn-out? Because as a result, the facade that they enjoy popular support crumbles away. Right now, the best thing that you can do is to *not* vote and to cease begging your "representatives" for mercy, hand-outs, what-have-you. If there was zero voter turn-out at the next election, the consequences would be unprecedented. It would finally be made clear that the government represents nobody It would finally be made clear that the government represents nobody. About time, I say -- the very notion of representation is disingenuous. One can only represent oneself.
When KDE2 is released with the Konqueror hybrid file manager/web browser/ftp client/image viewer, Netscape will be permanently removed from my system. As it stands, KFM is fast, light, and aesthically pleasing, and I use it whenever I don't need SSL, JavaScript, or Java. If Konqueror retains the good features of KFM, I see it as finally satisfying the need for a lean and mean and yet full featured open-source browser. I've heard that table support is being improved as well, which is necessary. I've tried Mozilla, and it's still not only unstable (being an alpha release) and lacking in needed features, but it's just plain UGLY. Konqueror seems to hold equal if not greater promise, and yet it doesn't seem to be drawing the same publicity as Mozilla. Probably because it's not derived from Netscape code, and possibly also because Gnome enthusiasts will have little use for it.
Suppose I like the car you're driving and decide that I want one just like it. As this is a futuristic setting, I take out my molecular replicator (which as of so far has not been invented), zap your automobile and create an exact replica for myself. Your car is unscathed, and you may continue to use it just as you did before. The only difference is that I now too have a car. I haven't stolen anything from you in this situation. "Stealing" requires taking something away from you, which I haven't done.
Broadband and compression technology will allow for an infinitely larger number of stations to come into existence, as the cost to an individual or business of setting one up wouldn't exceed the cost of a server and the tracks being played. If you don't like the playlists of the hundreds of thousands of stations that will be accessible to you, you'll be free to create your own. Contrast that with the necessity to have access to a mountain of radio equipment, antennas. and whatever the hell else that is necessary to set up your average FM radio station. If it's easy for me to listen to a fairly specific genre of music at any given time (or even a station that revolves around a specific artist), then casual music fans such as myself won't have a very large incentive to actually to purchase music. The ownly reason why we purchase CDs is because we cannot rely on FM radio to deliver our favorite music in a consistent fashion, if at all. Because FM radio is expensive, only commercially viable music is played -- only it can pay for the equipment, the high utility bills, etc. If one only needs to pay for a web server and a broadband connection, one can afford to play pretty much anything one wants.
What are you talking about? That rant has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. The fact is that online music distribution will have the complete opposite effect.. With CD's and cassettes, the costs of production and distribution are too high for any individual artist to afford, and hence only a select few of them can enjoy widespread exposure. Online distibution is dirt cheap in comparison, and any almost any musical artist can afford to distribute their works via stream or download. Not every artist will make a lot of money, but making money is not the primary goal of most musicians.
I completely fail to see how you draw your conclusions. Please explain to me how there is any factual basis in your preposterous claim that online distribution will be more expensive. All it requires is recording a track, encoding it into a digital format, and placing it on a web server. That doesn't guarantee that one will actually listen to you, but that's beside the point. Contrast online distribution with the current CD/Tape distribution model which requires mass production and retail strategies with distributors and resellers.
The "end of the pc" doesn't mean that we'll all be using a small screen. Webpads have decent size screens, and I imagine they'll soon be able to connect to keyboards and larger monitors. And if a sufficient number of web-based word processors pop up within the next couple of years, a PC will no longer be required to serve the computing needs of a good percentage of the population (e.g., AOLers). I imagine that in ten years or so, we'll see terminals the size of marbles interfacing with paper-thin monitors that cover one's entire bedroom wall.
I'm a libertarian, and I agreed with him. I favor a free market economy, but I agree with him that corporations are antithetical to a free market economy. I support free markets, and hence I oppose corporate capitalism. As a libertarian, I don't see that I'm wrong.
The "libertarians" who deny or fail to realize that corporate capitalism and free markets are mutually exclusive are the ones who are wrong.
Why shouldn't the government check corporatism when corporatism is the government's own monster? As a libertarian, I think that other libertarians need to realize that corporations are not free-market arrangements. They are fictional persons created by the state who benefit from countless infractions upon individual liberty, including but limited to state subsidy, favorable regulatory status, land grants, patents, special tax breaks, free access to state resources, limited legal liability, etc. Individuals deserve legal protection from these entities, and I think it's naive to say that the success of these companies should be solely left up to the consumers of their products. It is completely consonant with libertarianism to say that when an entity infringes upon individual rights, the entity should be forcibly stopped.
Although I myself am a libertarian, I can understand where you're coming from. However, one thing I would ask that you attempt to understand is that even within the very broad philosophical position termed "libertarianism", there are many conflicting factions. As a self-described "libertarian", I can honestly say that there are many other self-described "libertarians" who I would never want to associate with. I'm referring to the former Republicans who refuse to recognize that corporations are every bit as tyrannical as the government they oppose. They'll usually say that they oppose corporate welfare if asked, but they never place any emphasis on the evils of corporations. By and large, these "libertarians" seem to view corporations as a positive thing. I consider myself a libertarian who favors a free market economy, but it my opinion, corporate capitalism and free markets are mutually exclusive. Corporations profit off of countless state privelages, including but not limited to massive subsidies, favorable regulatory status (including monopoly privelges), land grants, patents, special tax cuts, limited legal liability, and privelaged access to state resources. Furthermore, they're almost never held accountable for ecological damage. As a libertarian, I hold that individuals have the right to freely exchange their products and services with other individuals, and to collaborate with each other in groups to work on productive projects. Corporations prosper by infringing upon this right, and hence I oppose them just as much as I oppose the government. I don't see any relevant difference between the two. My political philosophy doesn't even come close to pandering to corporate interests, and yet I favor a free market. It would be extremely inaccurate to describe me as a socialist. To the same extent, it's extremely inaccurate for well-intentioned leftists to consider corporate capitalism as an embodiment of the free market, and to despise the idea of a free market accordingly.
Slashdot Mirror
"Taxation funds the activities of the government"
Precisely. And that is a wonderful reason to oppose it. The more we drain the State's ability to fund itself, the better.
My hope is that the Internet will eventually allow individuals to engage in monetary transations that will go completely undetected by the government. Encryption goes a long way in allowing this, but also required is a way to run ecommerce applications anonymously. (The FreeNet project at Sourceforge might help in accomplishing this.) I envision a future in which secure Internet technologies will finally allow individuals to break away from State and corporate control.
There is nothing more beautiful than the possibility of Intenet commerce allowing individuals to escape taxation and regulation, and of the government being defunded as a result :-) Unfortunately, today's ecommerce companies are far too willing to participate and cooperate with the State's agenda.
It's not just the net that should be exempt. We all should. Taxation is theft.
"First, if you're one of the many adult Americans who doesn't bother to vote, you have no one to blame but yourself for letting corrupt politicians get into office and stay there."
I'm so tired of hearing this nonsense. You don't get it -- I *doesn't matter* who is elected. If you vote for a representative, you are effectively saying, "I have given up my right to make decisions for myself. Please make them for me." When you vote, you are authorizing a person to make decisions on behalf of yourself and others, and hence it is the *voter* who has nobody but himself to blame when unjust decisions are made by the legislature. When people don't vote, they withdraw their support for the current system, and politicians cannot hide behind the facade that they "represent" people. Why do you think politicians get nervous when there is a low voter turn-out? -- because they're unable to con people that their position is legitimate.
If you want to make change, you have to engage in direct action and civil disobendience. For you to sit and beg those in power to be considerate of your needs is just pathetic. If you want to empower yourself, you engage yourself in a contradiction by attempting to bring it about through begging and pleading.
"I'm not against patents, but rather against broad patents."
How does one draw the line between a "broad" and "non-broad" patent in a way that's not completely arbitrary?
I'm against patents, period. People should be free to use all ideas that they discover. IMO, Property is only justified if one person's use of something prevents the original user from accessing it. Because I'm free to use an idea without preventing you from doing the same, you would not have a similar justification for prohibiting me from using the idea. You might profit less if I use your idea, but guaranteed profit is not a right. If you happen to profit from a venture, then you have a right to keep what you acquire, but *potential* profit is not yet your property. If potential profit is not your property, then it can not be used as a justification for declaring an idea as your property.
Yes, the general public really is that afraid of a general purpose computer. I prefer a desktop too, as to most other Slashdotters. We prefer the flexibility that it provides. However, there are a vast number of people that wish to benefit from the Internet, and yet are completely clueless and fearful of your standard workstation. Being uneducated is one thing, but the number of people who do not wish to educate themselves remains very large.
As a customer service representative for a large software company, I get clueless AOLers calling in everyday blaming us for the problems caused by their cluelessness regarding computers. I consider it a Good Thing that your average AOLer will likely be using a set-top box or a web pad in a couple of years. It leaves them with less room to screw things up. You might say that these devices won't encourage them to educate themselves about computers, but the fact is that they're not making any attempts to educate themselves as it is.
Government, as embodied in the form of the State, is necessarily flawed and opressive. It is the nature of every organization to propogate itself and to extend its scope of influence as far as possible. The government is not exempt from this principle. I wouldn't mind a government that existed for the sole purpose of defending individuals' rights to autonomy. However, the classical liberal model of government has been abandoned entirely. Government is not about providing a legal framework in which each member of society can pursue their goals in a manner that is compossible with that of others. The government is an organization of individuals who are no more enlightened or unselfish than anybody else which aims to satisfy its own needs -- this may involve lobbying to expand its own power or accepting donations for large corporations. The whole notion that government can be "reformed", when the very nature of government is to grow whenever there is a new excuse for it to step in to the daily affairs of people, couldn't possibly be more naive. Those who are concerned about freedom must withdraw their support for this entity, as self-presevation and propagation are the only goals that matter to it. Individuals within the government might be genuinely concerned about specific issues, but these concerns only fuel the further growth of this monster. The only way the government will ever come close to shrinking back to a size that would prevent it from perpetrating numerous injustices each day is if it was unable to claim popular support. The government justifies its growth by claiming that it is responding to popular concerns, and by pointing to voting turn-outs. Why do you think that those who run the government become so nervous when there is a low voter turn-out? Because as a result, the facade that they enjoy popular support crumbles away. Right now, the best thing that you can do is to *not* vote and to cease begging your "representatives" for mercy, hand-outs, what-have-you. If there was zero voter turn-out at the next election, the consequences would be unprecedented. It would finally be made clear that the government represents nobody It would finally be made clear that the government represents nobody. About time, I say -- the very notion of representation is disingenuous. One can only represent oneself.
When KDE2 is released with the Konqueror hybrid file manager/web browser/ftp client/image viewer, Netscape will be permanently removed from my system. As it stands, KFM is fast, light, and aesthically pleasing, and I use it whenever I don't need SSL, JavaScript, or Java. If Konqueror retains the good features of KFM, I see it as finally satisfying the need for a lean and mean and yet full featured open-source browser. I've heard that table support is being improved as well, which is necessary. I've tried Mozilla, and it's still not only unstable (being an alpha release) and lacking in needed features, but it's just plain UGLY. Konqueror seems to hold equal if not greater promise, and yet it doesn't seem to be drawing the same publicity as Mozilla. Probably because it's not derived from Netscape code, and possibly also because Gnome enthusiasts will have little use for it.
Suppose I like the car you're driving and decide that I want one just like it. As this is a futuristic setting, I take out my molecular replicator (which as of so far has not been invented), zap your automobile and create an exact replica for myself. Your car is unscathed, and you may continue to use it just as you did before. The only difference is that I now too have a car. I haven't stolen anything from you in this situation. "Stealing" requires taking something away from you, which I haven't done.
Ummm...wrong
Broadband and compression technology will allow for an infinitely larger number of stations to come into existence, as the cost to an individual or business of setting one up wouldn't exceed the cost of a server and the tracks being played. If you don't like the playlists of the hundreds of thousands of stations that will be accessible to you, you'll be free to create your own. Contrast that with the necessity to have access to a mountain of radio equipment, antennas. and whatever the hell else that is necessary to set up your average FM radio station. If it's easy for me to listen to a fairly specific genre of music at any given time (or even a station that revolves around a specific artist), then casual music fans such as myself won't have a very large incentive to actually to purchase music. The ownly reason why we purchase CDs is because we cannot rely on FM radio to deliver our favorite music in a consistent fashion, if at all. Because FM radio is expensive, only commercially viable music is played -- only it can pay for the equipment, the high utility bills, etc. If one only needs to pay for a web server and a broadband connection, one can afford to play pretty much anything one wants.
I completely fail to see how you draw your conclusions. Please explain to me how there is any factual basis in your preposterous claim that online distribution will be more expensive. All it requires is recording a track, encoding it into a digital format, and placing it on a web server. That doesn't guarantee that one will actually listen to you, but that's beside the point. Contrast online distribution with the current CD/Tape distribution model which requires mass production and retail strategies with distributors and resellers.
The "end of the pc" doesn't mean that we'll all be using a small screen. Webpads have decent size screens, and I imagine they'll soon be able to connect to keyboards and larger monitors. And if a sufficient number of web-based word processors pop up within the next couple of years, a PC will no longer be required to serve the computing needs of a good percentage of the population (e.g., AOLers). I imagine that in ten years or so, we'll see terminals the size of marbles interfacing with paper-thin monitors that cover one's entire bedroom wall.
I'm a libertarian, and I agreed with him. I favor a free market economy, but I agree with him that corporations are antithetical to a free market economy. I support free markets, and hence I oppose corporate capitalism. As a libertarian, I don't see that I'm wrong.
The "libertarians" who deny or fail to realize that corporate capitalism and free markets are mutually exclusive are the ones who are wrong.
Why shouldn't the government check corporatism when corporatism is the government's own monster? As a libertarian, I think that other libertarians need to realize that corporations are not free-market arrangements. They are fictional persons created by the state who benefit from countless infractions upon individual liberty, including but limited to state subsidy, favorable regulatory status, land grants, patents, special tax breaks, free access to state resources, limited legal liability, etc. Individuals deserve legal protection from these entities, and I think it's naive to say that the success of these companies should be solely left up to the consumers of their products. It is completely consonant with libertarianism to say that when an entity infringes upon individual rights, the entity should be forcibly stopped.
Although I myself am a libertarian, I can understand where you're coming from. However, one thing I would ask that you attempt to understand is that even within the very broad philosophical position termed "libertarianism", there are many conflicting factions. As a self-described "libertarian", I can honestly say that there are many other self-described "libertarians" who I would never want to associate with. I'm referring to the former Republicans who refuse to recognize that corporations are every bit as tyrannical as the government they oppose. They'll usually say that they oppose corporate welfare if asked, but they never place any emphasis on the evils of corporations. By and large, these "libertarians" seem to view corporations as a positive thing. I consider myself a libertarian who favors a free market economy, but it my opinion, corporate capitalism and free markets are mutually exclusive. Corporations profit off of countless state privelages, including but not limited to massive subsidies, favorable regulatory status (including monopoly privelges), land grants, patents, special tax cuts, limited legal liability, and privelaged access to state resources. Furthermore, they're almost never held accountable for ecological damage. As a libertarian, I hold that individuals have the right to freely exchange their products and services with other individuals, and to collaborate with each other in groups to work on productive projects. Corporations prosper by infringing upon this right, and hence I oppose them just as much as I oppose the government. I don't see any relevant difference between the two. My political philosophy doesn't even come close to pandering to corporate interests, and yet I favor a free market. It would be extremely inaccurate to describe me as a socialist. To the same extent, it's extremely inaccurate for well-intentioned leftists to consider corporate capitalism as an embodiment of the free market, and to despise the idea of a free market accordingly.