It's something people who have money are willing to pay for.
Then stop defending Apple as some superior user experience and admit you actually have money to burn, thats why you bought it. Ive used tons of different laptops with equal or better user experience than Macs. Apple just gives you a better looking setup with some extra ergonomics. You cannot possibly tell me that they are charging whats fair for their products when they make more profit per PC than any of the other manufacturers.
"Specwhore" is a stupid way of referring to a "responsible purchase". The only reason Apple gets away with those prices is because idiots keep paying that price for them.These idiots are the ones sold on Apple as some kind of elite club or status symbol. The rest of the people that buy them have money to burn. Why defend Apple's ridiculous prices as "a better user experience" when its really "I just have money to burn". Be honest. Believe me, I would like to have an Apple Macbook as I do like the OS, but they are too expensive to be justifiable. You can get the same user experience and clean design out of an HP with an aluminum chassis with Ubuntu installed.
Another reason people are so obsessed with them is that they have made themselves become status symbols by their cost and appearance. If you fork out 2000 for a laptop people look at you like you have money. Also, people are under the impression that increased cost means better performance. You can get a better equipped laptop for 500-1000 cheaper than Apple provides. Another thing people like is the pretty aluminum chassis and nice transitions in the OS. They get dazzled by it, thinking its a higher quality machine than it really is. Windows 7 sort of learned that lesson (though they havent got their yet) and HP is making aluminum / magnesium chassis now. I like the Apple OS from a functional standpoint, since it is in fact Unix based and is optimized for battery and cpu/ram efficiency, but beyond that the rest is eye-candy which apparently every idiot and their dog buy into these days.
Not really. If you spend as many hours and years as I have making and recording these things you would be pissed too. It would be like someone coming along and taking your house away you spent time fixing up. Its not effort on a material thing but its still effort, and its a pain in the ass at times. People can enjoy it, just like they can enjoy a new patio, so that's what the work is for. "Fair use" should be broadly expanded in music, but I don't want someone taking credit for things I created after the copyright expires after (hypothetically) 10 years simply because I was an unknown musician. Current copyright law is about twice to three times as long as it should be in my opinion.
I would be for an exponentially increasing tax after the death of the person who created the work and absolutely NO term limits. It would give an incentive to the offspring to do exactly what you said. Release more works if they exists, release compilations, etc.. The first year the tax could be 50 bucks. The second year it could be 100 bucks. The third year its 200. After 10 years it would be 51200. Of course, it can be tweaked to be mostly unaffordable after 14-20 years. This way, if the copyright was still making a lot of money the person could afford to keep the copyright, otherwise, it goes to public domain. As am amateur musician, I would be pissed off if in my lifetime someone told me I no longer have the copyright to my own music. However, I don't want my kids to inherit it and get a free ride off of it (in the incredibly unlikely chance it becomes popular) since they didn't actually create it. Ill make sure my kids have what they need as children, and help them some through college. If they are very lucky, don't piss me off, and work hard I may leave them a house (assuming I ever get one).
Im not sure what you mean. What I said was the fact that they have a rich parent automatically gives them access to better education, better clothing, better everything. So, even if their father leaves them no inheritance, they still have benefited from his wealth and have way more opportunities to succeed and live well in life than 90 percent of the rest of the world.
I specifically said that I think its wrong to hand your kids a pile of money at death. Handing them a business is completely different that handing them intellectual property that lasts 100 years. They don't have to put ANY effort into maintaining the copyright, so it is not even comparable to your hardware business analogy. Perhaps Chris Tolkien released more of his fathers work over time, but it still was already there for him to use. He didn't have to put as much effort into releasing it as his father did creating it. Furthermore, the length of copyright is completely asinine and stifles innovation and new creative works as shown by this article, especially when you have asshat offspring that sues everyone because they think they have some right to what their father created.
Even Warren Buffett, who is not generally in favor of big inheritances, has said he will leave his children enough money to do whatever they want (just "not nothing").
That is because Warren Buffet is a hypocrite. His children already have the benefit of having him as a father, i.e. access to top schools, access to high quality food, access to social connections, access to luxury clothing and accessories, access to technological items that make their lives easier, and probably a nice car... all courtesy of daddy. You cannot say they are disadvantaged if their dad leaves them nothing, because if they even put a half-assed effort in developing a skill or a career on their father's tab they still have a much greater likelihood of having a better life than 90 percent of the hardest working amongst the lower class. Frankly, they deserve nothing unless they used the resources handed to them efficiently, and that would mean applying themselves in something worth a shit. Your analogy is very bad. There is a difference between leaving your offspring the rights to a creative work they had absolutely nothing to do with and leaving them the money you made from it. Leaving your offspring intellectual property is just a step away from leaving them titles such as "Baron" or "King", etc.
Who said he didn't get more taxes out of the poor? Reagan lowered taxes to the top tax bracket from 70% to 50% and the lowest bracket from 14% to 11%. That wasn't a proportional decrease. The rich were paying 70 percent what they used to, and the poor were paying 80 percent what they used to. Now, I don't think that a 70 percent tax rate is fair, but the lowest income bracket shouldn't even be taxed above 10 percent. There are innumerable other things Reagan did to funnel money away from the average person you can research on your own. During Reagan, the rich got richer and more poor people got jobs. However, the poor still were poor, they were just getting taxed instead of being unemployed. The long term result of that is actually less tax dollars because wealthy people find ways around getting their money taxed. Too much wealth in a few peoples hands gives them too much power to walk all over everyone else and influence government to their benefit. Like Ive said before, Republicans try to get short term gains at any cost even if its unsustainable in the long term. If you vote Republican you vote for rich people to get super rich at the expense of the middle class, if you vote for Democrat you also vote for rich people to get rich, however, the Democrats are more into making people complacent with undeserved benefits courtesy of the middle class.
You realize that the majority of technological advances through human history have been from war technology? There are innumerable applications for lasers like this, more peaceful ones than not. Furthermore, why should the US car what anyone else thinks? Humans come from tribes and tribes fight eachother for resources. Nations are like big tribes. The Chinese are pulling an economic war with the rest of the world, and also spying on everyone. Why shouldn't the US be able to show the Chinese we still have some abilities they don't have and they can't just do whatever they want to us. If we were defenseless you would see quite a few nations trying to step all over us, and probably all over Canada as well.
Money's value is not fixed, but a closed system as described can only survive if it literally is a true communism which would include selflessness amongst the people. Unfortunately, people accumulate wealth, some better than others, and eventually in a closed system they would be the only ones with money. Some would be savers, some would be spenders. Overall the money would flow to a group of people who are less than majority, and they would be getting taxed more or less the same as everyone else. Sure, money's value changes, but that doesn't make anything better. Then the ones who have all the money can set the "value" of it by spending it as they see fit. The only way around that is to print more money, which ends up devaluing it for everyone but actually hurting the not-rich more than the rich since the rich can dilute the change a little by buying properties or other goods. Unless you can create or obtain useful products or structures for less net work/time than you get out of it, there is no creation of wealth. Like I said, wealth creation is basically what we build up against entropy.
You are right, there has never been free speech because some asshole comes along and imposes what he thinks it means on another person. You can shout fire in a crowded theatre, and promptly get banned from ever coming back. Such is the nature of freedom. Burn your bridge of credibility, and its like the "Boy Who Cried Wolf". As far as I can tell, its not illegal to NOT murder people but talk about doing it. The circumstances where it is illegal to talk about murder seems completely subjective and easy to bend to ones own agenda. That is not justice. How can you say if someone actually would do something or if its just talk? If you need a hypothetical lesson, see "The Minority Report" by Phillip K. Dick (not the shitty movie). People talk about killing people all the time. Look at any violent film we let teenagers watch. They talk about killing people that are not fictional characters some times. Why can't I do it? As long as I intend not to it doesn't matter. As soon as I try to, it does matter. Fraud, by definition, is not free speech. Fraud is trying to close an agreement with false provisions or promises (SEE lying AND social contract). Maybe you should consider coming up with a rational, and definitive line between what constitutes "Too free" speech and "Just-enough free" speech rather than arbitrarily assigning one without any consideration of the philosophical ramifications of it while failing to list rational reasoning behind your argument.
There are no flaws in my logic. Quantifier : I said if "Everyone" has a government job then it is so. That's the way the US is going. Its not good to have more government jobs, because not only does that mean a bigger government (and thus more taxes to support it) it also means less workforce in actual production. Its better to have a healthy industry producing products that are exchanged for money and then other products we need. Yes, we are using a sophisticated barter system. However, wealth is created through the labors of each of us. For example, I can create a steam powered saw that can cut wood. It will save other peoples productive-time chopping it down themselves with an axe. Then they can spend their time using the wood from the machine to build their own other products, such as a house or a new tool. Wealth is basically what humans have built up themselves against entropy. It stretches back to our ancestors and the origin of life itself. Back to the topic at hand, unfortunately all we have to barter in the US is "Intellectual Property", and Apple/Intel/IBM/etc. are the forerunners of that. Our laws do not apply overseas and the Chinese and others are more than willing to steal knowledge from us. That is the problem with knowledge, it wants to be free. All it takes is one person to understand the new knowledge and then they have it forever. For example, if your tribe invented the bow and arrow, and mine only had spears, as soon as one of my tribe figured out the bow and arrow we would use it back against you. We cannot subsist on arbitrary laws people can break at any time. Its better to invest in a strong industry. Its either that, or invest in a strong military and force everyone to agree with your own point of view. That is precisely what the US is doing.
You apparently do not understand that Anonymous is composed of activist nerds. This means they probably have a variety of contradictory personality traits like agreeing with gun control and being pacifists, while having no problem DDoS'ing websites, hacking bank accounts, and mass-libeling people in their moms basement.
I don't understand how people say there are limits to free speech. There are no limits outlined in the constitution. I could threaten you, and as long as I don't do what I said I would do, It is still free speech.
Actually..... Freedom of Speech has no limits if you actually mean "Freedom of speech". That includes threats, solicitation of murder, etc. etc. It stops short of actions. I.e. if I actually follow through on anything I say related to murder/solicitation/threats then I am punished.
Well, throughout history its always been one group infringing upon another one so I fail to see how this is different than our present or any past situations.
If everyone has a government job, and they pay taxes to the government, then where does the money come from to pay their salaries? After all, you don't pay 100 percent of your salary back to make up for your wage. Ideally you save some of it, or invest it in property, or pay for your kids food and clothing. Its simple algebra. You cannot support a society filled with government jobs unless your society is out plundering and setting up colonies. Really, you need to produce something you can trade for something else that is more valuable to your society (i.e. something you don't have or something everyone wants to make their life easier). With the exception of some US companies, that simply doesn't happen here. Its one reason the Chinese are overtaking us as the #1 world economy. Im not suggesting its necessary to be the best economy, as its better that your people are happy like in the Scandinavian countries, but all the same. Government jobs rely on private sector jobs for funding.
Im glad someone said it. Look at Greece. Their employment was mostly filled with Government jobs. Then, the money ran out to pay people and there were riots in the streets over pensions and wages being reduced or dissolved. A society that only has government jobs ends up burning itself out of capital.
Well, when you cut taxes on the wealthy, and then keep spending money, the poor end up having to pay for it. This is precisely what is happening. The Democrats and Republicans are both doing it. I suspect its meant to get the politicians and their friends as wealthy as possible before the shit hits the fan. Im not sure what is actually going to happen, maybe another war, a depression or maybe a small revolution (Texas keeps talking about succession, I know I live in Texas), but something is going to happen that isnt good for the average American.
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It's something people who have money are willing to pay for.
Then stop defending Apple as some superior user experience and admit you actually have money to burn, thats why you bought it. Ive used tons of different laptops with equal or better user experience than Macs. Apple just gives you a better looking setup with some extra ergonomics. You cannot possibly tell me that they are charging whats fair for their products when they make more profit per PC than any of the other manufacturers.
"Specwhore" is a stupid way of referring to a "responsible purchase". The only reason Apple gets away with those prices is because idiots keep paying that price for them.These idiots are the ones sold on Apple as some kind of elite club or status symbol. The rest of the people that buy them have money to burn. Why defend Apple's ridiculous prices as "a better user experience" when its really "I just have money to burn". Be honest. Believe me, I would like to have an Apple Macbook as I do like the OS, but they are too expensive to be justifiable. You can get the same user experience and clean design out of an HP with an aluminum chassis with Ubuntu installed.
Another reason people are so obsessed with them is that they have made themselves become status symbols by their cost and appearance. If you fork out 2000 for a laptop people look at you like you have money. Also, people are under the impression that increased cost means better performance. You can get a better equipped laptop for 500-1000 cheaper than Apple provides. Another thing people like is the pretty aluminum chassis and nice transitions in the OS. They get dazzled by it, thinking its a higher quality machine than it really is. Windows 7 sort of learned that lesson (though they havent got their yet) and HP is making aluminum / magnesium chassis now. I like the Apple OS from a functional standpoint, since it is in fact Unix based and is optimized for battery and cpu/ram efficiency, but beyond that the rest is eye-candy which apparently every idiot and their dog buy into these days.
Not really. If you spend as many hours and years as I have making and recording these things you would be pissed too. It would be like someone coming along and taking your house away you spent time fixing up. Its not effort on a material thing but its still effort, and its a pain in the ass at times. People can enjoy it, just like they can enjoy a new patio, so that's what the work is for. "Fair use" should be broadly expanded in music, but I don't want someone taking credit for things I created after the copyright expires after (hypothetically) 10 years simply because I was an unknown musician. Current copyright law is about twice to three times as long as it should be in my opinion.
I would be for an exponentially increasing tax after the death of the person who created the work and absolutely NO term limits. It would give an incentive to the offspring to do exactly what you said. Release more works if they exists, release compilations, etc.. The first year the tax could be 50 bucks. The second year it could be 100 bucks. The third year its 200. After 10 years it would be 51200. Of course, it can be tweaked to be mostly unaffordable after 14-20 years. This way, if the copyright was still making a lot of money the person could afford to keep the copyright, otherwise, it goes to public domain. As am amateur musician, I would be pissed off if in my lifetime someone told me I no longer have the copyright to my own music. However, I don't want my kids to inherit it and get a free ride off of it (in the incredibly unlikely chance it becomes popular) since they didn't actually create it. Ill make sure my kids have what they need as children, and help them some through college. If they are very lucky, don't piss me off, and work hard I may leave them a house (assuming I ever get one).
Im not sure what you mean. What I said was the fact that they have a rich parent automatically gives them access to better education, better clothing, better everything. So, even if their father leaves them no inheritance, they still have benefited from his wealth and have way more opportunities to succeed and live well in life than 90 percent of the rest of the world.
I specifically said that I think its wrong to hand your kids a pile of money at death. Handing them a business is completely different that handing them intellectual property that lasts 100 years. They don't have to put ANY effort into maintaining the copyright, so it is not even comparable to your hardware business analogy. Perhaps Chris Tolkien released more of his fathers work over time, but it still was already there for him to use. He didn't have to put as much effort into releasing it as his father did creating it. Furthermore, the length of copyright is completely asinine and stifles innovation and new creative works as shown by this article, especially when you have asshat offspring that sues everyone because they think they have some right to what their father created.
Even Warren Buffett, who is not generally in favor of big inheritances, has said he will leave his children enough money to do whatever they want (just "not nothing").
That is because Warren Buffet is a hypocrite. His children already have the benefit of having him as a father, i.e. access to top schools, access to high quality food, access to social connections, access to luxury clothing and accessories, access to technological items that make their lives easier, and probably a nice car... all courtesy of daddy. You cannot say they are disadvantaged if their dad leaves them nothing, because if they even put a half-assed effort in developing a skill or a career on their father's tab they still have a much greater likelihood of having a better life than 90 percent of the hardest working amongst the lower class. Frankly, they deserve nothing unless they used the resources handed to them efficiently, and that would mean applying themselves in something worth a shit. Your analogy is very bad. There is a difference between leaving your offspring the rights to a creative work they had absolutely nothing to do with and leaving them the money you made from it. Leaving your offspring intellectual property is just a step away from leaving them titles such as "Baron" or "King", etc.
I'd like to hear more about this video game. Not necessarily the ideas, just progress, etc. It sounds like it would be fun.
Who said he didn't get more taxes out of the poor? Reagan lowered taxes to the top tax bracket from 70% to 50% and the lowest bracket from 14% to 11%. That wasn't a proportional decrease. The rich were paying 70 percent what they used to, and the poor were paying 80 percent what they used to. Now, I don't think that a 70 percent tax rate is fair, but the lowest income bracket shouldn't even be taxed above 10 percent. There are innumerable other things Reagan did to funnel money away from the average person you can research on your own. During Reagan, the rich got richer and more poor people got jobs. However, the poor still were poor, they were just getting taxed instead of being unemployed. The long term result of that is actually less tax dollars because wealthy people find ways around getting their money taxed. Too much wealth in a few peoples hands gives them too much power to walk all over everyone else and influence government to their benefit. Like Ive said before, Republicans try to get short term gains at any cost even if its unsustainable in the long term. If you vote Republican you vote for rich people to get super rich at the expense of the middle class, if you vote for Democrat you also vote for rich people to get rich, however, the Democrats are more into making people complacent with undeserved benefits courtesy of the middle class.
You realize that the majority of technological advances through human history have been from war technology? There are innumerable applications for lasers like this, more peaceful ones than not. Furthermore, why should the US car what anyone else thinks? Humans come from tribes and tribes fight eachother for resources. Nations are like big tribes. The Chinese are pulling an economic war with the rest of the world, and also spying on everyone. Why shouldn't the US be able to show the Chinese we still have some abilities they don't have and they can't just do whatever they want to us. If we were defenseless you would see quite a few nations trying to step all over us, and probably all over Canada as well.
Money's value is not fixed, but a closed system as described can only survive if it literally is a true communism which would include selflessness amongst the people. Unfortunately, people accumulate wealth, some better than others, and eventually in a closed system they would be the only ones with money. Some would be savers, some would be spenders. Overall the money would flow to a group of people who are less than majority, and they would be getting taxed more or less the same as everyone else. Sure, money's value changes, but that doesn't make anything better. Then the ones who have all the money can set the "value" of it by spending it as they see fit. The only way around that is to print more money, which ends up devaluing it for everyone but actually hurting the not-rich more than the rich since the rich can dilute the change a little by buying properties or other goods. Unless you can create or obtain useful products or structures for less net work/time than you get out of it, there is no creation of wealth. Like I said, wealth creation is basically what we build up against entropy.
It worked out really well for Greece.
You are right, there has never been free speech because some asshole comes along and imposes what he thinks it means on another person. You can shout fire in a crowded theatre, and promptly get banned from ever coming back. Such is the nature of freedom. Burn your bridge of credibility, and its like the "Boy Who Cried Wolf". As far as I can tell, its not illegal to NOT murder people but talk about doing it. The circumstances where it is illegal to talk about murder seems completely subjective and easy to bend to ones own agenda. That is not justice. How can you say if someone actually would do something or if its just talk? If you need a hypothetical lesson, see "The Minority Report" by Phillip K. Dick (not the shitty movie). People talk about killing people all the time. Look at any violent film we let teenagers watch. They talk about killing people that are not fictional characters some times. Why can't I do it? As long as I intend not to it doesn't matter. As soon as I try to, it does matter. Fraud, by definition, is not free speech. Fraud is trying to close an agreement with false provisions or promises (SEE lying AND social contract). Maybe you should consider coming up with a rational, and definitive line between what constitutes "Too free" speech and "Just-enough free" speech rather than arbitrarily assigning one without any consideration of the philosophical ramifications of it while failing to list rational reasoning behind your argument.
There are no flaws in my logic. Quantifier : I said if "Everyone" has a government job then it is so. That's the way the US is going. Its not good to have more government jobs, because not only does that mean a bigger government (and thus more taxes to support it) it also means less workforce in actual production. Its better to have a healthy industry producing products that are exchanged for money and then other products we need. Yes, we are using a sophisticated barter system. However, wealth is created through the labors of each of us. For example, I can create a steam powered saw that can cut wood. It will save other peoples productive-time chopping it down themselves with an axe. Then they can spend their time using the wood from the machine to build their own other products, such as a house or a new tool. Wealth is basically what humans have built up themselves against entropy. It stretches back to our ancestors and the origin of life itself. Back to the topic at hand, unfortunately all we have to barter in the US is "Intellectual Property", and Apple/Intel/IBM/etc. are the forerunners of that. Our laws do not apply overseas and the Chinese and others are more than willing to steal knowledge from us. That is the problem with knowledge, it wants to be free. All it takes is one person to understand the new knowledge and then they have it forever. For example, if your tribe invented the bow and arrow, and mine only had spears, as soon as one of my tribe figured out the bow and arrow we would use it back against you. We cannot subsist on arbitrary laws people can break at any time. Its better to invest in a strong industry. Its either that, or invest in a strong military and force everyone to agree with your own point of view. That is precisely what the US is doing.
You apparently do not understand that Anonymous is composed of activist nerds. This means they probably have a variety of contradictory personality traits like agreeing with gun control and being pacifists, while having no problem DDoS'ing websites, hacking bank accounts, and mass-libeling people in their moms basement.
I don't understand how people say there are limits to free speech. There are no limits outlined in the constitution. I could threaten you, and as long as I don't do what I said I would do, It is still free speech.
Actually..... Freedom of Speech has no limits if you actually mean "Freedom of speech". That includes threats, solicitation of murder, etc. etc. It stops short of actions. I.e. if I actually follow through on anything I say related to murder/solicitation/threats then I am punished.
Well, throughout history its always been one group infringing upon another one so I fail to see how this is different than our present or any past situations.
If everyone has a government job, and they pay taxes to the government, then where does the money come from to pay their salaries? After all, you don't pay 100 percent of your salary back to make up for your wage. Ideally you save some of it, or invest it in property, or pay for your kids food and clothing. Its simple algebra. You cannot support a society filled with government jobs unless your society is out plundering and setting up colonies. Really, you need to produce something you can trade for something else that is more valuable to your society (i.e. something you don't have or something everyone wants to make their life easier). With the exception of some US companies, that simply doesn't happen here. Its one reason the Chinese are overtaking us as the #1 world economy. Im not suggesting its necessary to be the best economy, as its better that your people are happy like in the Scandinavian countries, but all the same. Government jobs rely on private sector jobs for funding.
Im glad someone said it. Look at Greece. Their employment was mostly filled with Government jobs. Then, the money ran out to pay people and there were riots in the streets over pensions and wages being reduced or dissolved. A society that only has government jobs ends up burning itself out of capital.
We are a Republic. There are no real Democracy's in the entire world.
Well, when you cut taxes on the wealthy, and then keep spending money, the poor end up having to pay for it. This is precisely what is happening. The Democrats and Republicans are both doing it. I suspect its meant to get the politicians and their friends as wealthy as possible before the shit hits the fan. Im not sure what is actually going to happen, maybe another war, a depression or maybe a small revolution (Texas keeps talking about succession, I know I live in Texas), but something is going to happen that isnt good for the average American.
I suspect your great grandfather had more freedom than you, and he probably knew what it was really like.
The Republican party is a get rich quick scheme, and the Democratic part is, well, a get rich quick scheme. They just target different markets.