If a company doens't hire someone because they're too old, then let them suffer the natural consequences of not getting the most effective people for the job. If a company hires a young person because they can pay them cheap and exploit them - make your own company, hire tham away, pay them more and pick the cream of the crop at will.
Of course, sometimes companies take advantage of the system to expolit people, like communisim. Other times they take advantage of phoney property rights like copyright and patnet monopolies, other times they take advantage of false barriers to entry - like excessive regulation of the railroad industry, or RF frequencies. Not to mention our centralized monitary/tax system routinely rips people off, and locks people into the system when it comes to credit or money. - But from my experience, these problems have more to do with the publics poor belief systems than free markets.
Moral: societies that have more libertarian values have more economic prosperity for the little guy.
The purpose of sex is to procreate, and the purpose of marrage is to raise kids in a stable evnironment. Granted that things don't always happen that way, and those are aren't the only purposes (eg having lots of fun:) , but those are the main ones.
Ignoring those purposes, has historically proven to have unpleasant social consequences, and the more it's gotten away from, the more sex becomes like a drug.
Ok, I know this is going to offend someone if not get nailed for this, and I know there are a lot of "homosexuals" who could do a better job of raising kids than some of the deadbeat heterosexuals out there, and there also a lot who care for and respect their partners more than many heterosexual partners do. But, I sill think it's crazy that anyone would want to put a relationship thats defined by,say, anal sex on the same level as one that's defined by procreation, and also crazy that the government should support it and subsidize it at societies expense. Arguments like "we deserve freebe benefits, because some old people who can't have kids get freebes" - just doesn't cut it for me. But, if it's "gay" marrage is about benefits, then fine, but I don't think it should be put on the same level as a heterosexual marrage, really.
"Punishing people who violate my private property rights is the government's place. Duh. "
Yeah, but the purpose of punishing people isn't to get payback, but secure liberties. Why have some massive central federal authority to do that when we can do it ourselves?
If anything, that shows you can't seperate technology and politics. Besides, if it wasn't about political freedom - then Einstein would have remained in germany, and worked for Hitler.
In the information age, there is no neutral technology that can distinguish between free speech content and copyright content - in the end, to impose them, you half to have someone watching and approving. So if we loose the battle to secure freedom in the technology space, then we will loose the battle in the free speech space too - and the conesequences that go with that are well known.
After I saying that, I was thinking, perhaps Linus should be discredtied - not in reguards to being the father of Linux, but for being so neutral about freedom.
When I think of Linus, I think of Charles Lindburg - he was prestigious hero, and a brilliant person. But when he went on a visit to Germany, all he could see was the armada of beautiful planes, and the amazing technology. He came back to the USA, and proclaimed that we shouldn't fight Hitler. The point being, Lindburg was a brilliant hero who was right about technology, but dead wrong about the importance of freedom - his stance didn't help him or us. This is how I feel about Linus, I'm thankfull he put Linux under the GPL, and that he's responsible for bringing us this cool technology - but I think his casual/neutral attitudes about freedom really suck, and in the long term will cause alot of uneeded harm. The goal shouldn't be to win a popularity contest, or to fit in, but to secure our freedoms in the technology space. Heck, that's the force that made Linux grow so much compaired to other alternatives to begin with.
What amazes me is how so many people feel that there is nothing wrong with having a technology bias, but then these same people turn arround and think you're a fruit for having a freedom bias. But political freedom isn't voodoo, it's provven itself more than enough - it's not just an opinion or wishfull thinking. I just can't understand why so many people who should know better seem simply ashamed of it.
In old world media, who creates something of value is more important than what gets created. Hence there is often alot of slander, lies, and outright fraud (and a lot of crapy media). In Hollywood, it's so bad it's pratically institutionalized.
I think the enemies of Linux are trying a similar strategy based on the addage "if you kill the shepard - the sheep will scatter", "If you lie about something long enough or hard enough, people will believe it". They can't discredit Linux for technological or commercial reasons anymore, so their only option is to discredit Linus. With billions at stake, it could get nasty.
After reading this, I finally understand why my company is not putting Linux on the desktop. It's because all the linux IT people are making such a killing for the company in the server space, they don't want to waste their resources on the desktop, which everyone needs to use, but in terms of revenue generation (for my company at least) means little.
Copyright and patent monopolies are outrageous, and I don't think I should lie about it because alot of business folks don't want to have their dainty little ears hurt. In fact, they are the ones who should be the most offended by it, beacuse if anything - they are NOT free market.
If the government gave someone a monopoly on growing grapes, and then called it a free makket property right because people could buy and sell shares of that monopoly - most right minded business people would see it for what it is - another bullshit government regulation that inteferes with free markets, and in the long run hurts business and consumer alike. Well it is even more so with 'intellectual' 'property'. It is not property at all, it is a fraud at best, and destroyes lifes and culture to say the least.
this is a bad thing because they're playing up to the role of "the evil pirate" though since their aim to protect copyright infringer
It is a good thing, because piracy is where you board a ship and murder people, but illegal copying has no such netative social consequence. Saying illegal copying hurts letitimate p2p is like saying that speaking out against the government hurts letitimate free speech.
I have a brain that works, and when I see a elementary school teacher getting paid $19,500 a year, and an athlete playing a child's game 3 months out of the year for $50 million, not only am I allowed to say "What the fuck?", it would be wrong not to.
You know, it's sorta of ironic that this very problem is caused by copyright monopolies. Copyrights create a culture where it's more important to dissamate media that can turn heads or get attention than media that has educational or service value in peoples lives.
Another example is how tabloids can be so inexpensive, but college textbooks cost more to buy than to xerox.
Copyrights may promote the creation of works, but that does not mean they promote the creation of usefull or quality works.
....but refusal to even _try_ to change the law demonstrates only a childish arrogance....
Why should people jump thru pre staged hoops, like a dog, when a run arround is simply more effective. You should read my reply to my reply - the about Harriet Tubman. Here too defiance causes more change then participation.
OK, I know it's bad form to repy to my own post. But every time defiance is sugested as a solution - someone else relpies and says something like "... self centered childish teens that would rather steal than ask mommy for the money to buy a cd... ", I swear, it's true, or they say something like "... with civil disobedience you have a duty to accept whatever punishment the system dishes out...(or youre just greedy coward - is often on)"
So let me just address it now. First off, in the information age it is no longer a copyright issue, it is a free speech issue, because there is no technology that naturally distinguish between free speech content and copyright content. Second, did Harriet Tubman deserve to be punished for forming the underground railroad, should she have gracefully accepted whatever punishment that came to her, should society have gracefully accepted her almost certain death penalty if she were caught because she knew it was against the law and did it anyhow? Just think about it....
Alot of times, when a system goes to hell, peoples first instinct is to try and 'force it' to work. After all, it took so much to set up - it would be such a waste. But I think things are different here. The system is stacked against us, and the right to copy openly available information freely exists inspite of government coercion, not because of it.
The freedom restrictions caused by copying monopolies are far more effectively addressed by defiance, encryption, and p2p.
Microsoft is making the exact same mistakes IBM made twenty five years ago.
I wish and hope this is true, but I deply fear this time it will be different. The way I see it is that there are all these companies, with all these defensive patent portfolios, who are all in violation of some sort of patents themselves. The only thing that keeps all hell from breaking loose is that most large companies have an unspoken detant to not aggressively enforce each others patents - less you have lawsuit hell.
If MS can't compete against Linux in the marketplace, than this detant will blow wide open and all hell will break loose. Once it does everyone else will be forced to escalate, and God only knows where it will end. I've herd of people being killed over a dispute involving $5 bucks that got of hand, but when it involves say 5 trillion - God help us. I say, brace for impact, all hell is about to break loose.
One very important lesson. The monopoly and especially lock in are the most important things. Even more important than short term profitability. Even more important than staying within the law.
That's what kills me. IBM was a wonderfull example of how such hard ball practices fail, in the early 90's they got nailed harder than anybody. If MS was smart, they would realise that free (as in freedom) software will dethrone their monopoly and do anything but waste resources challenging it. Oh well, brace for impact, all hell is about to break loose.
Well you see, as society came to rely more and more on industrial technology - a skilled and mobile workforce became essential. This was a disaster to the plantation system that relied on just the opposite to uphold slavery.
At first the southern states tried to react to it by imposing harsher and harsher laws, to where you couldn't even legally teach a black person how to read, and slavery was made to last forever and for every generation. Then they tried to micro-regulate the industrial northern states, who eventually completely got fed up and went gung-ho anti slavery. Then they tried to react to it by fencing themselves off from the northern states and forming a seperate country, at that point all hell broke loose.
Well now we are in the information age which demands the uninhibited flow of open information. Is it a disaster for those who rely on the copyright monopoly system. At first they tried to extend copyrights to forever, and impose insane punishments. Then they tried to microregulate everybody with the DMCA. Now they are trying to fence themselves off from the rest of the world by using DRM.
Brace for impact, all hell is almost certainly about to break loose.
You obviously didn't get it about "the back of the bus". Like how Rosa Parks couldn't legally sit at the front of the bus because she wasn't white, or the same with using a "whites-only" restroom.
Everyone here is talking about whether piracy is right or wrong. Duh. It's wrong.
Of cource piracy is wrong, but were not talking about people who board ships and murder people here, we're talking about illegal copying - which is not wrong in the slightest. No more wrong than refusing to go to the back of the bus (if you get it)
I think you're the one that's missing the point. In the eyes of the internet, there is no difference between free speech content and copyright content - when you set up soneone with power to censor one, than its unaviodable that they also will have power over the other. Copyrights are immoral, they are unenforcable, and they have no place in the information age. They simply need to go.
Yes, but you're thinking of copyrights being more like a property right, and their removal more like the system coercively taking away someones property. Infact, just the opposite is true, copying does not coerce at all, but restricting what people copy is very coercive.
Your point makes perfect sense in a world of physical property and physical limits, but is useless when applied information where my copy does not deprive you of yours. Just like if 100 million more people copy Linux, the system will not become over burdoned but enhanced as more and more people enhance and add to it. Their copys do not deprive other people of theres, but there enhancements benefit eveybody. (Ironically, the same was even true for proprietary software, where the ones that had the most restrictive copying schemes have always lost out of becomming a defacto standard)
So I'll give to you that Communisim is not scalable, and I'll even go beyond that to say communisim is just plain evil, and free bandwidth coerced at others peoples expense is wrong too. But as far as copyrights are concerned, there removal is not communist, and the free rider problem is not a problem.
When I worked with AIX, with one of their "upgrades" - they unbundeled the built in C compiler and now sold same one as a seperate package for up to $2500, the old versions also allowed unlimited user accounts - but the "upgrade" changed that so that you had a limited number of user accounts and had to buy a license to get more.
I've had similar experiences with SCO and Solaris "upgrades".
Not to mention that UNIX would become so fragmented that every few years every UNIX vendor would try to agree another universal standard, and more or less nobody would pay attention to it.
Because of the GPL, these kind of things simply will not happen in a Linux world, not that people won't try, but as soon as they do people there will be alternatives, and it's guaranteed people will use them and those who try impose will become less relavent. In addition, people like IBM, HP, and DELL will be more than happy to go along with that because for many of them OS software is a loss leader for hardware sales not an end in itself. They save a hell of a lot more spiltting UNIX development between all of them than each seperately developing their own OS.
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If a company doens't hire someone because they're too old, then let them suffer the natural consequences of not getting the most effective people for the job. If a company hires a young person because they can pay them cheap and exploit them - make your own company, hire tham away, pay them more and pick the cream of the crop at will.
Of course, sometimes companies take advantage of the system to expolit people, like communisim. Other times they take advantage of phoney property rights like copyright and patnet monopolies, other times they take advantage of false barriers to entry - like excessive regulation of the railroad industry, or RF frequencies. Not to mention our centralized monitary/tax system routinely rips people off, and locks people into the system when it comes to credit or money. - But from my experience, these problems have more to do with the publics poor belief systems than free markets.
Moral: societies that have more libertarian values have more economic prosperity for the little guy.
The purpose of sex is to procreate, and the purpose of marrage is to raise kids in a stable evnironment. Granted that things don't always happen that way, and those are aren't the only purposes (eg having lots of fun
Ignoring those purposes, has historically proven to have unpleasant social consequences, and the more it's gotten away from, the more sex becomes like a drug.
Ok, I know this is going to offend someone if not get nailed for this, and I know there are a lot of "homosexuals" who could do a better job of raising kids than some of the deadbeat heterosexuals out there, and there also a lot who care for and respect their partners more than many heterosexual partners do. But, I sill think it's crazy that anyone would want to put a relationship thats defined by ,say, anal sex on the same level as one that's defined by procreation, and also crazy that the government should support it and subsidize it at societies expense. Arguments like "we deserve freebe benefits, because some old people who can't have kids get freebes" - just doesn't cut it for me. But, if it's "gay" marrage is about benefits, then fine, but I don't think it should be put on the same level as a heterosexual marrage, really.
"Punishing people who violate my private property rights is the government's place. Duh. "
Yeah, but the purpose of punishing people isn't to get payback, but secure liberties. Why have some massive central federal authority to do that when we can do it ourselves?
Words of wisdom .... spam may be annoying, but it's alot easier to keep spam under controll than it is to keep government in it's place.
Think Einstein and the atomic bomb.
If anything, that shows you can't seperate technology and politics. Besides, if it wasn't about political freedom - then Einstein would have remained in germany, and worked for Hitler.
In the information age, there is no neutral technology that can distinguish between free speech content and copyright content - in the end, to impose them, you half to have someone watching and approving. So if we loose the battle to secure freedom in the technology space, then we will loose the battle in the free speech space too - and the conesequences that go with that are well known.
After I saying that, I was thinking, perhaps Linus should be discredtied - not in reguards to being the father of Linux, but for being so neutral about freedom.
When I think of Linus, I think of Charles Lindburg - he was prestigious hero, and a brilliant person. But when he went on a visit to Germany, all he could see was the armada of beautiful planes, and the amazing technology. He came back to the USA, and proclaimed that we shouldn't fight Hitler. The point being, Lindburg was a brilliant hero who was right about technology, but dead wrong about the importance of freedom - his stance didn't help him or us. This is how I feel about Linus, I'm thankfull he put Linux under the GPL, and that he's responsible for bringing us this cool technology - but I think his casual/neutral attitudes about freedom really suck, and in the long term will cause alot of uneeded harm. The goal shouldn't be to win a popularity contest, or to fit in, but to secure our freedoms in the technology space. Heck, that's the force that made Linux grow so much compaired to other alternatives to begin with.
What amazes me is how so many people feel that there is nothing wrong with having a technology bias, but then these same people turn arround and think you're a fruit for having a freedom bias. But political freedom isn't voodoo, it's provven itself more than enough - it's not just an opinion or wishfull thinking. I just can't understand why so many people who should know better seem simply ashamed of it.
In old world media, who creates something of value is more important than what gets created. Hence there is often alot of slander, lies, and outright fraud (and a lot of crapy media). In Hollywood, it's so bad it's pratically institutionalized.
I think the enemies of Linux are trying a similar strategy based on the addage "if you kill the shepard - the sheep will scatter", "If you lie about something long enough or hard enough, people will believe it". They can't discredit Linux for technological or commercial reasons anymore, so their only option is to discredit Linus. With billions at stake, it could get nasty.
Now we won't have quality material on TV
After reading this, I finally understand why my company is not putting Linux on the desktop. It's because all the linux IT people are making such a killing for the company in the server space, they don't want to waste their resources on the desktop, which everyone needs to use, but in terms of revenue generation (for my company at least) means little.
Copyright and patent monopolies are outrageous, and I don't think I should lie about it because alot of business folks don't want to have their dainty little ears hurt. In fact, they are the ones who should be the most offended by it, beacuse if anything - they are NOT free market.
If the government gave someone a monopoly on growing grapes, and then called it a free makket property right because people could buy and sell shares of that monopoly - most right minded business people would see it for what it is - another bullshit government regulation that inteferes with free markets, and in the long run hurts business and consumer alike. Well it is even more so with 'intellectual' 'property'. It is not property at all, it is a fraud at best, and destroyes lifes and culture to say the least.
this is a bad thing because they're playing up to the role of "the evil pirate" though since their aim to protect copyright infringer
It is a good thing, because piracy is where you board a ship and murder people, but illegal copying has no such netative social consequence. Saying illegal copying hurts letitimate p2p is like saying that speaking out against the government hurts letitimate free speech.
I have a brain that works, and when I see a elementary school teacher getting paid $19,500 a year, and an athlete playing a child's game 3 months out of the year for $50 million, not only am I allowed to say "What the fuck?", it would be wrong not to.
You know, it's sorta of ironic that this very problem is caused by copyright monopolies. Copyrights create a culture where it's more important to dissamate media that can turn heads or get attention than media that has educational or service value in peoples lives.
Another example is how tabloids can be so inexpensive, but college textbooks cost more to buy than to xerox.
Copyrights may promote the creation of works, but that does not mean they promote the creation of usefull or quality works.
Why should people jump thru pre staged hoops, like a dog, when a run arround is simply more effective. You should read my reply to my reply - the about Harriet Tubman. Here too defiance causes more change then participation.
OK, I know it's bad form to repy to my own post. But every time defiance is sugested as a solution - someone else relpies and says something like "... self centered childish teens that would rather steal than ask mommy for the money to buy a cd ... ", I swear, it's true, or they say something like "... with civil disobedience you have a duty to accept whatever punishment the system dishes out ...(or youre just greedy coward - is often on)"
....
So let me just address it now. First off, in the information age it is no longer a copyright issue, it is a free speech issue, because there is no technology that naturally distinguish between free speech content and copyright content. Second, did Harriet Tubman deserve to be punished for forming the underground railroad, should she have gracefully accepted whatever punishment that came to her, should society have gracefully accepted her almost certain death penalty if she were caught because she knew it was against the law and did it anyhow? Just think about it
Alot of times, when a system goes to hell, peoples first instinct is to try and 'force it' to work. After all, it took so much to set up - it would be such a waste. But I think things are different here. The system is stacked against us, and the right to copy openly available information freely exists inspite of government coercion, not because of it.
The freedom restrictions caused by copying monopolies are far more effectively addressed by defiance, encryption, and p2p.
MS probably has an agreement with the big hardware vendors. You install our DRM crap and we'll make it mandatory for everyone to get a new computer.
Microsoft is making the exact same mistakes IBM made twenty five years ago.
I wish and hope this is true, but I deply fear this time it will be different. The way I see it is that there are all these companies, with all these defensive patent portfolios, who are all in violation of some sort of patents themselves. The only thing that keeps all hell from breaking loose is that most large companies have an unspoken detant to not aggressively enforce each others patents - less you have lawsuit hell.
If MS can't compete against Linux in the marketplace, than this detant will blow wide open and all hell will break loose. Once it does everyone else will be forced to escalate, and God only knows where it will end. I've herd of people being killed over a dispute involving $5 bucks that got of hand, but when it involves say 5 trillion - God help us. I say, brace for impact, all hell is about to break loose.
One very important lesson. The monopoly and especially lock in are the most important things. Even more important than short term profitability. Even more important than staying within the law.
That's what kills me. IBM was a wonderfull example of how such hard ball practices fail, in the early 90's they got nailed harder than anybody. If MS was smart, they would realise that free (as in freedom) software will dethrone their monopoly and do anything but waste resources challenging it. Oh well, brace for impact, all hell is about to break loose.
Well you see, as society came to rely more and more on industrial technology - a skilled and mobile workforce became essential. This was a disaster to the plantation system that relied on just the opposite to uphold slavery.
At first the southern states tried to react to it by imposing harsher and harsher laws, to where you couldn't even legally teach a black person how to read, and slavery was made to last forever and for every generation. Then they tried to micro-regulate the industrial northern states, who eventually completely got fed up and went gung-ho anti slavery. Then they tried to react to it by fencing themselves off from the northern states and forming a seperate country, at that point all hell broke loose.
Well now we are in the information age which demands the uninhibited flow of open information. Is it a disaster for those who rely on the copyright monopoly system. At first they tried to extend copyrights to forever, and impose insane punishments. Then they tried to microregulate everybody with the DMCA. Now they are trying to fence themselves off from the rest of the world by using DRM.
Brace for impact, all hell is almost certainly about to break loose.
You obviously didn't get it about "the back of the bus". Like how Rosa Parks couldn't legally sit at the front of the bus because she wasn't white, or the same with using a "whites-only" restroom.
Everyone here is talking about whether piracy is right or wrong. Duh. It's wrong.
Of cource piracy is wrong, but were not talking about people who board ships and murder people here, we're talking about illegal copying - which is not wrong in the slightest. No more wrong than refusing to go to the back of the bus (if you get it)
I think you're the one that's missing the point. In the eyes of the internet, there is no difference between free speech content and copyright content - when you set up soneone with power to censor one, than its unaviodable that they also will have power over the other. Copyrights are immoral, they are unenforcable, and they have no place in the information age. They simply need to go.
Yes, but you're thinking of copyrights being more like a property right, and their removal more like the system coercively taking away someones property. Infact, just the opposite is true, copying does not coerce at all, but restricting what people copy is very coercive.
Your point makes perfect sense in a world of physical property and physical limits, but is useless when applied information where my copy does not deprive you of yours. Just like if 100 million more people copy Linux, the system will not become over burdoned but enhanced as more and more people enhance and add to it. Their copys do not deprive other people of theres, but there enhancements benefit eveybody. (Ironically, the same was even true for proprietary software, where the ones that had the most restrictive copying schemes have always lost out of becomming a defacto standard)
So I'll give to you that Communisim is not scalable, and I'll even go beyond that to say communisim is just plain evil, and free bandwidth coerced at others peoples expense is wrong too. But as far as copyrights are concerned, there removal is not communist, and the free rider problem is not a problem.
When I worked with AIX, with one of their "upgrades" - they unbundeled the built in C compiler and now sold same one as a seperate package for up to $2500, the old versions also allowed unlimited user accounts - but the "upgrade" changed that so that you had a limited number of user accounts and had to buy a license to get more.
I've had similar experiences with SCO and Solaris "upgrades".
Not to mention that UNIX would become so fragmented that every few years every UNIX vendor would try to agree another universal standard, and more or less nobody would pay attention to it.
Because of the GPL, these kind of things simply will not happen in a Linux world, not that people won't try, but as soon as they do people there will be alternatives, and it's guaranteed people will use them and those who try impose will become less relavent. In addition, people like IBM, HP, and DELL will be more than happy to go along with that because for many of them OS software is a loss leader for hardware sales not an end in itself. They save a hell of a lot more spiltting UNIX development between all of them than each seperately developing their own OS.