An extremist is someone who believes themselves to be absolutely unquestionably right, without considering the opinion of the opposition. Sounds like yourself. Just because Lessig is willing to look at both sides of the issue, which you obviously aren't capable of, doesn't mean he's a sellout to either side. He's simply willing to actualy expend some thought about the problem, instead of demanding one way or the other all the time.
Bullshit, I used to believe in copyrights stronger than anybody. It was not easy to reject them, but I was honest with myself which it is so easy for me to see that Lessig is not. Some people in other nations consider me extremist because I believe in free speech, free press, and freedom of religion - but I am not extreme, they are just full of themselves. It is not that I am unwilling to consider the alternatives, it is only because I accept facts as they are - full of myself or not.
I think Lessig is one of the foremost thinkers when it comes to modern intellectual property law. His thoughts are, of course, more evolutionary than revolutionary and closer to the mainstream concepts of IP rights and responsibilities than many of us are aware. His ideas have great impact on the way many of us think about IP law.
Nope, you are wrong. Lessig is an intellectual coward at best. 150 years ago Lessig would have been called a cooperationalist - you know, one of those morally shallow enlightened individuals who wanted the free states to compromize with the slave states.
Well the same is true today with Lessig and copyrights. He pays absolutely no tribute to the thought that the "right" to restrict what other people copy is actually just a way of violating them. Yes his position sounds educated, yes it sounds reasonable, but so was it 150 years ago - then as now all his values of right and wrong are relative.
Copyrights are wrong, they ruin culture, and manipulate peoples lives. As copyright monopolies die the death they deserve to die, and society moves into the information age - I think history will jude him
as an intellectual coward just like it did the cooperationalists.
In a way Lessig is a sellout to the big media industries. They've exploited him time and time again to get people to hold off on outright copyright rebellion. Every time we've had it up to here with the likes of the RIAA and SCO, Lessing would come out and scream from the rooftoops that abolition of copyright is too radical, and those who see copyrights for the evil that they are get labeled as extremists.
Sadly, Lessig is the extremist, and even nurotic. If a mugger wanted to beat an ole lady with a baseball bat 10 times, and I wanted to force it so that she would be beat 0 times - Lessing would come in and say we were both extremists and suggest we beat her 5 times. He has absolutely no non relative morality.
I still remember your eloquent criticism of both patents and copyrights.
I renember you too. Especially how you could sum things up in one or two brilliantly deep sentences - the same things that it might take me years and countless thousands of words to express. People don't understand, I used to believe deeply in copyrights and patnets. Being truthfull enough to myself to see them for the evil they were was not easy and a very lonely unpopular path. It's nice to have friends along that path. Thanks.
Back in the 1850's the plantation masters said that they had no incentive to grow cotton without slaves on the plantation. Now people say that they have no incentive to create pharmacuticals unless they can lock out 10 million africans dying of AIDS from getting generics. You tell me which is morally better. I wander, how many people are going to die this time?
Back then they would say things like "don't you believe in free markets, we paid for those slaves dammit. We went thru the troubble of importing them. Look at the prosperous plantation system - it's proof that we're right and that slavery is good for America. If you don't like salvery you're free not to own slaves"
Today they say "don't you believe in free markets, we paid to create those patents dammit. We went thru the troubble of inventing them. Look at the prosperous technology industry - it's proof that we're right and that patents are good for America. If you don't like patents you're free to create your own inventions and not patent them"
Of course, back then, it totally ignored the fact that slavery was based off of controll over peoples free will rather than natural limits in supply and demand. How ironic, patent information has no natural limits in supply and demand either, only artifical controll over the way people use them.....
Whishfull thinking is believing that freedom will just magically come to people if they don't fight or push for it. I've seen alot of technologies come and go, alot of platforms come and go, and alot of people simply become obsolete because they simply didn't understand that freedom mattered. Sorry, but getting the mob behind one particular technology or platform isn't going to make it magically more suceptable to freedom.
Here, the end in itself is not Java nor to co-opt the masses, it is freedom from another attempt at control. After that, the rest will take care of itself, just as it did with GNU/Linux.
Well, what I mean is that in the states I am taxed on sales, property, income, commerce, and a massive variety of other things - including a fradulent social security system that to say the least isn't sociable or security.
I'm being taxed to death. Not to mention zoneing and building laws here in CA have mannaged to drive the avg cost of a house into the millionaire range (ok the FED helped too). Of course there are things like 401k and medical savings accounts, but those are only there to reverse compensate for the fact that we are getting nailed so badly tax wise that we could never save for retirement without these "hoops" to jump thru.
I don't really mind people offshoring, but my question is - is there a way to take advantage of it to keep myself from getting taxed and bureauocrated to death and break from the system?
We should just start swearing up and down that controlling content, administering copyrights, and stoping forbidden information and file sharing will be easy once a secure and private p2p infrastructure is in place.
Then once it's in place, give em the finger.....then again, it practically already is in place.
...But your hypothetical of "we coulda got from there to here without government" is just ridiculous. Seriously, business has fought every single law which tried to help workers. You would probably still be slaving away in a coal mine for 16 hours a day, if you hadn't lost an arm working in a mill at 8 years old if it weren't for people who believed that there was a role for government.
You are wrong. In fact from my history, I seem to renember that many like the rail road barrons, the oil barrons, the shipping tycoons, and steal industry were heavially proped up by the government. For example, taxpayers financed the railroads to the tune of 44K/mile, and that was back then. With that money they built monopolies that noone could compete with. Then they promptly abused those monopolies... and then people cry for regulation?
...Last, how long do you think it would take before there would be NO education in your libertarian utopia except for those wealthy enough to pay for it? Exactly one generation, is my bet. It's in the best interests of any ruling class (whether economic or hereditary) to maintain a poorly educated subservient underclass, and why would they do any different?
You are also blatently wrong there, and contrary to fact. Areas like Hong Kong had no public schools for the longest time, but somehow 90% people seemed to get get a good education, even better than in the states. BTW: you might like to know that my parents paid less to send me to a high ranked private boarding school than the taxpayers paid to send the kids down the road to gettho high. Yeah they got an education all right.
What fascinates me about libertarians is that they start from the premise that all government power is evil because people are evil, and then assume that if there are no checks on the on the aggregation and control of economic power, that somehow, that world would no longer have any evil wielders of power in it. People are evil. You need balances against government, and against private power. It's proper for government to serve its citizens, and try to protect them. Just because you're feeling twisted up about paying your taxes doesn't mean that government is inherently evil, or that "no government" is inherently good.
WTF, I never said I was against government, I'm against getting screwed by government. Perhaps in your mind the only viable government is one screws people over with heavy coercive taxes, but that is disengenuious - 90% of the rest of us do just fine without having to coerce other peoples assets from them, somehow I think government will survive too.
If you believe that people are inherently evil, then you have no business believeing that they belong in a democracy.
People have rights that exist inspite of government, not because of it. They organize in the form of government to secure those rights, not to create them. Government is a servent, but if government coerce peoples assets from them for whatever cause then they are acting like a master. The best way to keep private power in check is to make sure that they don't have their biggest tool - an overpowerfull state.
Perhaps a better question would be "Why didn't it stay ARPANET forever, when it could have?"
... and theres your problem right there. you just take the crap spoonfed to you on faith
In regards to my cow-like mentality about government, please provide your suggestions for replacing it. I suspect it will read similar to Lord of the Flies.
Screw you. I never said replace it. I said get the taxes off my back. Perhaps you can't see a government existing unless it can ream people silly. Quite a lack of vision to say the least.....
Have you done much reading on the conditions of the working class in the 19th and early 20th century?
Yeah I did, and the funny thing is that their conditions were still better than most of the worlds at the time. What made America different, that they were more libertarian. What about those fantasys that nothing would ever change from the 19 century without the government to come about and rescue the oppressed worker. Well bullshit.
I'm always amazed at this libertarian fantasy that if government would just get out of the way, a thousand beautiful and perfect little roses of private enterprise and charity would blossom. It's a fantasy which could only arise among those who have no sense of history or of the benefits they reap on a daily basis from the involvement of government.
I'm always amazed that people who aren't libertarian can not only blow off history as it was, but that they even blow off the facts in their own lifetime. Like all those people breaking their neck to get over the berlin wall, or cross into HK - to be oppressed by those greedy capitalists I assume.
Unproductive tax-financed programs like ARPANET never amount to anything....
well, if it was such a great honkey-dory... would you like to guess why it didn't stay ARPANET forever.
It's attitudes like this that I really hate. It's a cow-like mentality that if the government didn't do it, no other soultion would be as nice, as workable, doable, etc....
Roads, the Internet, basic scientific research, education, unemployment, national defense, police, firefighters, food safety regulation, zoning enforcement, environmental safety regulations, occupational safety regulations, the 40 hour work week, parks, and the list goes on.
Anti-tax wingnuts amaze me, because they seem to think that nothing they use is touched by the government, when in reality, government is responsible for the vast majority of the things that make life for most people livable, and not some 19th century poorhouse sweatshop hell.
What amazes me is that cow mentailty attitude that if the government doesn't do it, than no one else will, no other solution will be good enough, nice enough, workable. That the only way is to coerce revenue from the masses. Well bullshit. 90% of the rest of us don't need that kind of coercive power to get results. Only a cow would just take it on faith that the government does.
Yes, let's do away with funding all levels of government because you saw something in a movie.
Thanks, but what I really want to do away with is those dumb ass citizens who actually think that something productive is happening when people pay taxes. Taxes are a necissary evil at best, rape at worst.
If there's one thing I've learnt about government, it's far better to fight for pardon than to for ask permission. How do you know how far you can go, if you never even bother to test the waters. It reminds me of those movies where everybody was afraid not to cower to local bully, but if they all did they would all have been better off.
Everything about Apple says pretty but not free. So let the lesson be learn't that just because something looks good doesn't mean that it is. Apple Inc should really be called Poison Apple.
They're like that pretty girlfriend who suckers you in hook, line, and sinker - and you let her get away with it or don't pay attention because she is sooooo pretty. Next thing you know, you have no money, no pretty girlfriend, and one big agonizing heartache that you never really get over.
Please pal, I know you won't listen to me till it's too late, I know you're beyond hope, I know you can't help it, probably can't even muster up the will-power, you may even get mad at me. But if you know what's good for you, you would dump her hard before it's too late and never look back.
Look, how about I set you up with that penguin gal - I know she's not as pretty, but I promise you'll really get to like her as time goes on, and most importantly she won't leave you high and dry when you need her the most. She'll stick with you thru thick and thin.
The problem is that freedom is an end in itself, not freedom from MS, but just plain ole freedom. By the way Sun acts with their OS, and Java, it doesn't seem like they want freedom or want to be accountable to it. Rather they want a forced market share.
It's almost as if like MS and Sun have decided to share the pie, but make sure they get to keep the biggest pieces by shooting the cook. That way no newcommers get a piece of pie too, and so they won't half to compete (accept against each other) to keep the biggest shares.
Copyright is a limited time (ha!) license by the government that they will enforce your ability to limit distribution.
Copyright is not equal to property or ownership.
Really, try to think a bit before you post.
I totally agree. In a way nothing has changed. Restricting what other people can copy has nothing to do with property rights, or even creativity rights. Because of copyrights, they were enabled to be abusive and monopolistic to begin with. Then when copyright enforcement became threatened they started to file tons of lawsuits to keep alternatives at bay while offering other download venues for cheap prices. Now that they have a market toehold they are leveraging copyrights to choke off alternetive distribution and raise prices as they do to finance it.
Moral: liberty is an is an end in itself, not pricing, not artificial markets, not unjust property rights, not distribution of profits, not creation of music, or even the artists. There are a lof of good sounding cuases that people can sell their freedoms down the river for, but only one major reason to have liberty - and that is to have more freedom in the future.
Conclusion: Anything less than the outright abolition of copyright monopolies is just going to delay the inevitable and make the situation worse.
One thing that I don't see mentioned is that as the gnu/linux base grows larger, so do the proportion of competent developers who can spot and fix code security problems before they go mainstream. With MS, the number of people looking to spot code security problems reamins constant no matter how big the user base.
Although I've herd MS say that the reason Linux hasn't had as many big security problems is because they aren't used as much, I think the truth will turn out to be just the opposite. Not to mention that a hacker who finds a security flaw in Linux is more tempted to get fame by reporting it, and that fame becomes more prestigious as Linus grows, but a hacker who finds a security flaw in windows will be more tempted to gain fame by exploiting it.
"We're asking people to pay their taxes that are legitimately due," he said. "And if we don't have people pay the taxes that are due, then we have to ask the people that are stepping forward to pay more. And that's not fair."
First off, I find that argument outrageous. It's like saying if someone rapes your siter that it's only fair that they get your wife too! After all, if she doesn't get it - the rapeist will do someone else, right?
Even more outrageous are the people who say it's allright because we live in a democracy - it's like saying if five gang bangers and a virgin got stranded on an island, and vote on who to get pegged - then it would be ok!
Are peoples values really so shallow and relative?
Second, you are making the assumption that people who cheat on taxes aren't already paying an outrageous amount of taxes allready. From your apartment, to your house, your gas, and the stores - alot of times you get taxed before you can even cheat out of it. Our tax system is anything but just - we should be rooting for the tax cheats not jealous of them.
PS: if you dare want to suggest that the IRS can't be as bad as rapist, bring it on, I'm ready for you.
Last I read, Nevada and Florida are the only two states that don't share their info with the IRS.
Other states don't have state income taxes, and so don't keep track of as much.... NV, FL, TX, TN, and a few more I believe. ( I forgot wether TN had no income taxes, or really low ones, there are also some other northern states I know I forgot to mention)
Also, I believe Nevada and Wyoming are the only states that allow bearer shares - which means you can hold ownership of a company without your name being on public record, a competent lawyer can have their name on the public record instead - which is supposed to protect against tax hounds and personal liabilities.
In my Busisness 101 class, they taught that every business has a barrier to entry, and the higher the barrier to entry is the more you can charge high prices if you are in that business because it is harder for competitors to get in and compete.
Under that, there are what I would call natural barriers to entry, and artificial barriers to entry. A natural barrier to entry might be a semiconductor plant - where in order to get started in your market you half to first get a 100Million dollar FAB. An artifical barrier to entry usually comes in the form of frviolous government regulations and laws.
This is a classis case of MS putting up an artificial barrier to entry for Linux companies. It helps noone else, and even worse the regulations and bureauocracy set up will continue to hinder everybody long after MS is becomes irrelavent. Our only hope is that other large companies like IBM will see that it's not in their best interest for this to happen and make a play to block it.
Speaking of India. I hear there's a remote village there where if one person in the village gets something special - everyone gangs up on him and takes away whatever they can for themselves. Needless to say, instead of everybody striving to get alittle something, everybody ends up with nothing.
Unfortunately many have that problem here in the USA too - and isn't it ironic that of all the poor people who have migrated to the USA, the demogaphics that want to tax the rich the most are the ones that consistently end up remaining the most poor.
The worst part is that people are so green with envy that they don't realise that our tax system doesn't even tax wealth - it taxes income. That means the guy sitting on a billion worth in assets will barely even notice a tax increase while the small business person who busts his ass to earn his first 300K will get his teeth and nuts kicked in. Not only that, but the billionaire will get more tax deductions to boot - WTF do you think the Kennedys want to "tax the rich" for the sake of the little guy?
Taxes don't hurt the rich, they hurt the little people who are trying to become rich.
First off, copyrights wern't created because books were being coppied without the creators consent as they starved in the streets. They were created for publishers who wanted to take works out of the public domain and keep their competitors from printing the same works, and by Kings who wanted to censor the press by granting such publisher monopolies in return for them agreeing not to publish bad things about the monarchy. So your premise is bogus.
Ironically, so is your conclusion. The simple observable measurable fact is - that for every creator that copyrights have financially benefited, there are thousands who they haven't helped a bit, hindered or even destroyed.
Your other implied premise, that noone will create worthwhile information without copyright monopolies, is also bogus.
So are you going to turn away 2 million concert goers nationwide who are willing to pay an average of over $40 a pop to see you entertain because they can copy your music online? Yeah, things will change when copyrights go away, so what, they need to change.
.... why not store some nuclear waste under your bed...
Actually, I'd love to - and actually our armed forces have it by their side every night (it's called depleted uranium). Almost all the other stuff could be processed if it wern't for the regulations. And you can burry that stuff in my backyard any day of the week - especially for the price they're doing it in Nevada. Shit I'd be so rich, I could only wish.
.... They tried to build one in my state several years ago. A lot of it was public (taxpayer) funded. After the cost overruns were 3 times what the power company said it would cost, the government finally pulled the plug. It was really just a form of corporate welfare.
Well, that (and regulatory costs) are good arguments for the government stay the F*** out of the nuclear business. But, it's a rather poor argument against nuclear energy.
So how manny people in the states did you say have died from nuclear power related deaths?
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An extremist is someone who believes themselves to be absolutely unquestionably right, without considering the opinion of the opposition. Sounds like yourself. Just because Lessig is willing to look at both sides of the issue, which you obviously aren't capable of, doesn't mean he's a sellout to either side. He's simply willing to actualy expend some thought about the problem, instead of demanding one way or the other all the time.
Bullshit, I used to believe in copyrights stronger than anybody. It was not easy to reject them, but I was honest with myself which it is so easy for me to see that Lessig is not. Some people in other nations consider me extremist because I believe in free speech, free press, and freedom of religion - but I am not extreme, they are just full of themselves. It is not that I am unwilling to consider the alternatives, it is only because I accept facts as they are - full of myself or not.
I think Lessig is one of the foremost thinkers when it comes to modern intellectual property law. His thoughts are, of course, more evolutionary than revolutionary and closer to the mainstream concepts of IP rights and responsibilities than many of us are aware. His ideas have great impact on the way many of us think about IP law.
Nope, you are wrong. Lessig is an intellectual coward at best. 150 years ago Lessig would have been called a cooperationalist - you know, one of those morally shallow enlightened individuals who wanted the free states to compromize with the slave states.
Well the same is true today with Lessig and copyrights. He pays absolutely no tribute to the thought that the "right" to restrict what other people copy is actually just a way of violating them. Yes his position sounds educated, yes it sounds reasonable, but so was it 150 years ago - then as now all his values of right and wrong are relative.
Copyrights are wrong, they ruin culture, and manipulate peoples lives. As copyright monopolies die the death they deserve to die, and society moves into the information age - I think history will jude him as an intellectual coward just like it did the cooperationalists.
In a way Lessig is a sellout to the big media industries. They've exploited him time and time again to get people to hold off on outright copyright rebellion. Every time we've had it up to here with the likes of the RIAA and SCO, Lessing would come out and scream from the rooftoops that abolition of copyright is too radical, and those who see copyrights for the evil that they are get labeled as extremists.
Sadly, Lessig is the extremist, and even nurotic. If a mugger wanted to beat an ole lady with a baseball bat 10 times, and I wanted to force it so that she would be beat 0 times - Lessing would come in and say we were both extremists and suggest we beat her 5 times. He has absolutely no non relative morality.
I still remember your eloquent criticism of both patents and copyrights.
I renember you too. Especially how you could sum things up in one or two brilliantly deep sentences - the same things that it might take me years and countless thousands of words to express. People don't understand, I used to believe deeply in copyrights and patnets. Being truthfull enough to myself to see them for the evil they were was not easy and a very lonely unpopular path. It's nice to have friends along that path. Thanks.
Back in the 1850's the plantation masters said that they had no incentive to grow cotton without slaves on the plantation. Now people say that they have no incentive to create pharmacuticals unless they can lock out 10 million africans dying of AIDS from getting generics. You tell me which is morally better. I wander, how many people are going to die this time?
Back then they would say things like "don't you believe in free markets, we paid for those slaves dammit. We went thru the troubble of importing them. Look at the prosperous plantation system - it's proof that we're right and that slavery is good for America. If you don't like salvery you're free not to own slaves"
Today they say "don't you believe in free markets, we paid to create those patents dammit. We went thru the troubble of inventing them. Look at the prosperous technology industry - it's proof that we're right and that patents are good for America. If you don't like patents you're free to create your own inventions and not patent them"
Of course, back then, it totally ignored the fact that slavery was based off of controll over peoples free will rather than natural limits in supply and demand. How ironic, patent information has no natural limits in supply and demand either, only artifical controll over the way people use them.....
Whishfull thinking is believing that freedom will just magically come to people if they don't fight or push for it. I've seen alot of technologies come and go, alot of platforms come and go, and alot of people simply become obsolete because they simply didn't understand that freedom mattered. Sorry, but getting the mob behind one particular technology or platform isn't going to make it magically more suceptable to freedom.
Here, the end in itself is not Java nor to co-opt the masses, it is freedom from another attempt at control. After that, the rest will take care of itself, just as it did with GNU/Linux.
Well, what I mean is that in the states I am taxed on sales, property, income, commerce, and a massive variety of other things - including a fradulent social security system that to say the least isn't sociable or security.
I'm being taxed to death. Not to mention zoneing and building laws here in CA have mannaged to drive the avg cost of a house into the millionaire range (ok the FED helped too). Of course there are things like 401k and medical savings accounts, but those are only there to reverse compensate for the fact that we are getting nailed so badly tax wise that we could never save for retirement without these "hoops" to jump thru.
I don't really mind people offshoring, but my question is - is there a way to take advantage of it to keep myself from getting taxed and bureauocrated to death and break from the system?
We should just start swearing up and down that controlling content, administering copyrights, and stoping forbidden information and file sharing will be easy once a secure and private p2p infrastructure is in place.
....then again, it practically already is in place.
Then once it's in place, give em the finger.
You are wrong. In fact from my history, I seem to renember that many like the rail road barrons, the oil barrons, the shipping tycoons, and steal industry were heavially proped up by the government. For example, taxpayers financed the railroads to the tune of 44K/mile, and that was back then. With that money they built monopolies that noone could compete with. Then they promptly abused those monopolies ... and then people cry for regulation?
You are also blatently wrong there, and contrary to fact. Areas like Hong Kong had no public schools for the longest time, but somehow 90% people seemed to get get a good education, even better than in the states. BTW: you might like to know that my parents paid less to send me to a high ranked private boarding school than the taxpayers paid to send the kids down the road to gettho high. Yeah they got an education all right.
What fascinates me about libertarians is that they start from the premise that all government power is evil because people are evil, and then assume that if there are no checks on the on the aggregation and control of economic power, that somehow, that world would no longer have any evil wielders of power in it. People are evil. You need balances against government, and against private power. It's proper for government to serve its citizens, and try to protect them. Just because you're feeling twisted up about paying your taxes doesn't mean that government is inherently evil, or that "no government" is inherently good.
WTF, I never said I was against government, I'm against getting screwed by government. Perhaps in your mind the only viable government is one screws people over with heavy coercive taxes, but that is disengenuious - 90% of the rest of us do just fine without having to coerce other peoples assets from them, somehow I think government will survive too. If you believe that people are inherently evil, then you have no business believeing that they belong in a democracy.
People have rights that exist inspite of government, not because of it. They organize in the form of government to secure those rights, not to create them. Government is a servent, but if government coerce peoples assets from them for whatever cause then they are acting like a master. The best way to keep private power in check is to make sure that they don't have their biggest tool - an overpowerfull state.
Perhaps a better question would be "Why didn't it stay ARPANET forever, when it could have?"
... and theres your problem right there. you just take the crap spoonfed to you on faith
In regards to my cow-like mentality about government, please provide your suggestions for replacing it. I suspect it will read similar to Lord of the Flies.
Screw you. I never said replace it. I said get the taxes off my back. Perhaps you can't see a government existing unless it can ream people silly. Quite a lack of vision to say the least .....
Yeah I did, and the funny thing is that their conditions were still better than most of the worlds at the time. What made America different, that they were more libertarian. What about those fantasys that nothing would ever change from the 19 century without the government to come about and rescue the oppressed worker. Well bullshit.
I'm always amazed at this libertarian fantasy that if government would just get out of the way, a thousand beautiful and perfect little roses of private enterprise and charity would blossom. It's a fantasy which could only arise among those who have no sense of history or of the benefits they reap on a daily basis from the involvement of government.I'm always amazed that people who aren't libertarian can not only blow off history as it was, but that they even blow off the facts in their own lifetime. Like all those people breaking their neck to get over the berlin wall, or cross into HK - to be oppressed by those greedy capitalists I assume.
well, if it was such a great honkey-dory... would you like to guess why it didn't stay ARPANET forever.
It's attitudes like this that I really hate. It's a cow-like mentality that if the government didn't do it, no other soultion would be as nice, as workable, doable, etc ....
Roads, the Internet, basic scientific research, education, unemployment, national defense, police, firefighters, food safety regulation, zoning enforcement, environmental safety regulations, occupational safety regulations, the 40 hour work week, parks, and the list goes on.
Anti-tax wingnuts amaze me, because they seem to think that nothing they use is touched by the government, when in reality, government is responsible for the vast majority of the things that make life for most people livable, and not some 19th century poorhouse sweatshop hell.
What amazes me is that cow mentailty attitude that if the government doesn't do it, than no one else will, no other solution will be good enough, nice enough, workable. That the only way is to coerce revenue from the masses. Well bullshit. 90% of the rest of us don't need that kind of coercive power to get results. Only a cow would just take it on faith that the government does.
Yes, let's do away with funding all levels of government because you saw something in a movie.
Thanks, but what I really want to do away with is those dumb ass citizens who actually think that something productive is happening when people pay taxes. Taxes are a necissary evil at best, rape at worst.
If there's one thing I've learnt about government, it's far better to fight for pardon than to for ask permission. How do you know how far you can go, if you never even bother to test the waters. It reminds me of those movies where everybody was afraid not to cower to local bully, but if they all did they would all have been better off.
Everything about Apple says pretty but not free. So let the lesson be learn't that just because something looks good doesn't mean that it is. Apple Inc should really be called Poison Apple.
They're like that pretty girlfriend who suckers you in hook, line, and sinker - and you let her get away with it or don't pay attention because she is sooooo pretty. Next thing you know, you have no money, no pretty girlfriend, and one big agonizing heartache that you never really get over.
Please pal, I know you won't listen to me till it's too late, I know you're beyond hope, I know you can't help it, probably can't even muster up the will-power, you may even get mad at me. But if you know what's good for you, you would dump her hard before it's too late and never look back.
Look, how about I set you up with that penguin gal - I know she's not as pretty, but I promise you'll really get to like her as time goes on, and most importantly she won't leave you high and dry when you need her the most. She'll stick with you thru thick and thin.
The problem is that freedom is an end in itself, not freedom from MS, but just plain ole freedom. By the way Sun acts with their OS, and Java, it doesn't seem like they want freedom or want to be accountable to it. Rather they want a forced market share.
It's almost as if like MS and Sun have decided to share the pie, but make sure they get to keep the biggest pieces by shooting the cook. That way no newcommers get a piece of pie too, and so they won't half to compete (accept against each other) to keep the biggest shares.
I totally agree. In a way nothing has changed. Restricting what other people can copy has nothing to do with property rights, or even creativity rights. Because of copyrights, they were enabled to be abusive and monopolistic to begin with. Then when copyright enforcement became threatened they started to file tons of lawsuits to keep alternatives at bay while offering other download venues for cheap prices. Now that they have a market toehold they are leveraging copyrights to choke off alternetive distribution and raise prices as they do to finance it.
Moral: liberty is an is an end in itself, not pricing, not artificial markets, not unjust property rights, not distribution of profits, not creation of music, or even the artists. There are a lof of good sounding cuases that people can sell their freedoms down the river for, but only one major reason to have liberty - and that is to have more freedom in the future.
Conclusion: Anything less than the outright abolition of copyright monopolies is just going to delay the inevitable and make the situation worse.
One thing that I don't see mentioned is that as the gnu/linux base grows larger, so do the proportion of competent developers who can spot and fix code security problems before they go mainstream. With MS, the number of people looking to spot code security problems reamins constant no matter how big the user base.
Although I've herd MS say that the reason Linux hasn't had as many big security problems is because they aren't used as much, I think the truth will turn out to be just the opposite. Not to mention that a hacker who finds a security flaw in Linux is more tempted to get fame by reporting it, and that fame becomes more prestigious as Linus grows, but a hacker who finds a security flaw in windows will be more tempted to gain fame by exploiting it.
"We're asking people to pay their taxes that are legitimately due," he said. "And if we don't have people pay the taxes that are due, then we have to ask the people that are stepping forward to pay more. And that's not fair."
First off, I find that argument outrageous. It's like saying if someone rapes your siter that it's only fair that they get your wife too! After all, if she doesn't get it - the rapeist will do someone else, right?
Even more outrageous are the people who say it's allright because we live in a democracy - it's like saying if five gang bangers and a virgin got stranded on an island, and vote on who to get pegged - then it would be ok!
Are peoples values really so shallow and relative?
Second, you are making the assumption that people who cheat on taxes aren't already paying an outrageous amount of taxes allready. From your apartment, to your house, your gas, and the stores - alot of times you get taxed before you can even cheat out of it. Our tax system is anything but just - we should be rooting for the tax cheats not jealous of them.
PS: if you dare want to suggest that the IRS can't be as bad as rapist, bring it on, I'm ready for you.
Last I read, Nevada and Florida are the only two states that don't share their info with the IRS.
.... NV, FL, TX, TN, and a few more I believe. ( I forgot wether TN had no income taxes, or really low ones, there are also some other northern states I know I forgot to mention)
Other states don't have state income taxes, and so don't keep track of as much
Also, I believe Nevada and Wyoming are the only states that allow bearer shares - which means you can hold ownership of a company without your name being on public record, a competent lawyer can have their name on the public record instead - which is supposed to protect against tax hounds and personal liabilities.
In my Busisness 101 class, they taught that every business has a barrier to entry, and the higher the barrier to entry is the more you can charge high prices if you are in that business because it is harder for competitors to get in and compete.
Under that, there are what I would call natural barriers to entry, and artificial barriers to entry. A natural barrier to entry might be a semiconductor plant - where in order to get started in your market you half to first get a 100Million dollar FAB. An artifical barrier to entry usually comes in the form of frviolous government regulations and laws.
This is a classis case of MS putting up an artificial barrier to entry for Linux companies. It helps noone else, and even worse the regulations and bureauocracy set up will continue to hinder everybody long after MS is becomes irrelavent. Our only hope is that other large companies like IBM will see that it's not in their best interest for this to happen and make a play to block it.
Speaking of India. I hear there's a remote village there where if one person in the village gets something special - everyone gangs up on him and takes away whatever they can for themselves. Needless to say, instead of everybody striving to get alittle something, everybody ends up with nothing.
Unfortunately many have that problem here in the USA too - and isn't it ironic that of all the poor people who have migrated to the USA, the demogaphics that want to tax the rich the most are the ones that consistently end up remaining the most poor.
The worst part is that people are so green with envy that they don't realise that our tax system doesn't even tax wealth - it taxes income. That means the guy sitting on a billion worth in assets will barely even notice a tax increase while the small business person who busts his ass to earn his first 300K will get his teeth and nuts kicked in. Not only that, but the billionaire will get more tax deductions to boot - WTF do you think the Kennedys want to "tax the rich" for the sake of the little guy?
Taxes don't hurt the rich, they hurt the little people who are trying to become rich.
First off, copyrights wern't created because books were being coppied without the creators consent as they starved in the streets. They were created for publishers who wanted to take works out of the public domain and keep their competitors from printing the same works, and by Kings who wanted to censor the press by granting such publisher monopolies in return for them agreeing not to publish bad things about the monarchy. So your premise is bogus.
Ironically, so is your conclusion. The simple observable measurable fact is - that for every creator that copyrights have financially benefited, there are thousands who they haven't helped a bit, hindered or even destroyed.
Your other implied premise, that noone will create worthwhile information without copyright monopolies, is also bogus.
So are you going to turn away 2 million concert goers nationwide who are willing to pay an average of over $40 a pop to see you entertain because they can copy your music online? Yeah, things will change when copyrights go away, so what, they need to change.
Actually, I'd love to - and actually our armed forces have it by their side every night (it's called depleted uranium). Almost all the other stuff could be processed if it wern't for the regulations. And you can burry that stuff in my backyard any day of the week - especially for the price they're doing it in Nevada. Shit I'd be so rich, I could only wish.
Well, that (and regulatory costs) are good arguments for the government stay the F*** out of the nuclear business. But, it's a rather poor argument against nuclear energy.
So how manny people in the states did you say have died from nuclear power related deaths?