Well, I think this has just become a running joke. I think it is much more than just "the Linux community" that thinks Microsoft is full of shit with their lies and marketing ploys.
Microsoft continues to lose all credibility as anything other than a "me too" technology company. Microsoft makes money on the kickbacks it dishes out to idiot CIOs and by its policy of designing vendor lock-in into everything they make, not on the merits of their products.
Smart CIOs would ban MS products from the office, not standardize on them.
This is different. This is more like saying that every time you use the word 'the' while talking on the phone, you owe the government 1 cent. Shhhh...Quiet! Do we really need to be giving them any more good ideas? next week a house committee will spend half a million on a study group for your brilliant "the" idea, the week after that it will be a quarterly estimated tax on "is" usage, depending what the meaning of "is" is.
I was thinking of modding you Insightful, but I think +5 Funny is appropriate enough.
Insightful, because you hit the nail right on the head. The small Internet broadcasters aren't going to take a deal that would make it uneconomical for them to grow bigger later on. The prospect of just scraping by with no hope of future growth is not a good deal for them.
This sounds very much like the mafia letting someone get into the business on the condition that they don't move into bigger territory later on.
With government, there is a system of checks and balances. In the free market, there are no checks and balances to curb the runaway positive feedback loop of wealth accumulation. There are no checks to stop the exploitation of the natural failure modes of the free market: information imbalance, natural monopoly, and externalities. I have yet to hear a Libertarian give a cogent explanation of how their system would deal with those three factors. Comparing the benefits of the government over the free market is not a valid comparison. A free market is not a market that can operate without rules of ownership imposed by force through law. If I take something from you against your will, that isn't a free market. That is anarchy. A free market requires consistent governing rules which have some enforcement mechanism. Government doesn't have to mean a separate group of people acting above the law applying force arbitrarily, government has been shown to work best when the governing system is based on a system of laws rather than based on discretionary authority.
One solution to the concentration of wealth over time consistent with Libertarian philosophy is that individual liberty does not require that the government give corporations the same rights as individual people to accumulate wealth. Much of the imbalance in the market can be traced to too much accumulation and concentration of property and information into that imaginary legal entity that is called a corporation. These corporations are controlled by individuals that receive vast wealth through their operations, but yet they assume much less risk and liability than if they were individual owners. Given that the corporation is a legal contrivance created by government, as a Libertarian, I don't see any reason that corporations can't be limited by a set of rules different than for individuals. And with much more strict limitations on corporate wealth and increased liability, then I don't see the accumulation of individual wealth as cause for as much concern. That and limiting the inheritance of wealth and you have a system that allows individuals to accumulate the wealth that they can during their own lifetimes and to use it freely, but puts a real natural upper limit on what accumulation of wealth is possible because of the productive life spans of most people.
So you see, as a Libertarian, I view the problems of concentration of wealth as one of a government creation through flawed laws, not because of a lack of restraint on the individual. The accumulations of individual wealth has always relied on contrivances of government, as governments seem to prefer the control of wealth in the hands of fewer people over which it can exercise greater political control. In this way the system of corporations now is not much less contrived and unnatural a way to control wealth than a feudal one was.
It is an interesting argument, one that I am inclined to agree with. But the courts aren't likely to just throw out 200 years of law based on a reinterpretation, even if it is a correct and beneficial one, of the scope of the first amendment.
I think the courts are more likely to reconcile two overlapping provisions of the constitution. Fair use provisions allow Congress to say that it is not "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" with copyright laws and patents can be published and talked about, just not built without permission.
True - but microsoft is so big, and so rich, they'll act like a lightening rod for any patent infringement suits with their software. The deepest pockets get sued first.
And they've already paid millions for various patent infringement cases against them. No one bothered to go after the users. Seems that holds true for Linux too, as long as bigger fish (IBM, Sun, Google, Sony, Every major electronics manufacturer, and the US Government) are all using Linux in both large server deployments and embedded devices then people should feel pretty comfortable deploying it on a few dozen or a few hundred of their own servers or desktops.
And given all the other risk factors of dealing with proprietary software being peddled by a company that has had such unreliable and unfair business practices seems that Linux looks better and better every day.
be safe by staying with an all-Windows environment It is an easy argument to counter. Microsoft doesn't indemnify its customers either. If Windows infringes some patents, then your company is just as liable for using it as they would be Linux. It is not a compelling risk, but it is the same risk as Linux.
Millions of consumer devices have been produced with embedded Linux software, you don't think Sony and the rest of them did their homework on Linux?
Unless you're an idiot CIO who has willingly drunk the Microsoft Cool Aid (or been paid to), then I think you can rest assured that people know exactly what Microsoft is trying to do now and aren't going to automatically believe what they have to say about their competition.
Which article of the constitution, or, rather, any constitution, gives patents authority? Article I section 8 of the US Constitution "The Congress shall have power"... "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;" - US Constitution
Basically, anything that takes large amounts of information and makes it readily accessible. I would change that to be: Anything that takes large amounts of information that changes often and makes it readily accessible in small chunks at a time.
Corporations like Microsoft and Google want us to go that route, because then *they* get to control even more of our lives. But why would *we* want that? Exactly, this idea is more a business model to normalize the revenue of software companies. Software companies don't like the book publisher model as much anymore, they would rather be on par with utility companies and no longer be really discretionary.
Monthly billing is a good way to squeeze more overall money from people. There are many examples of services which are able to get much more money from people by charging a monthly fee, rather than a one time fee. It is just basic psychology, shelling out $50 a month for cable tv is easier than $600 once a year. Pretty much every other industry has tried to do this with varying degrees of success. Cars have leases and/or monthly payment plans, Houses have mortgages, Utilities and Cable TV are once a month billing, Health plans are also once a month, The ubiquity of credit cards (businesses' would prefer store credit) means just about everything can be purchased for a monthly fee.
Ever buy a car from a dealership? The first thing they try to do is determine the maximum you can afford per month and get away from how much you think the car is worth or are willing to pay. Squeeze every last penny.
No judgement is offered as to why the experimenter falsified results; the accusation is merely that the results have been falsified. It can be directly demonstrated true or false by repeating the experiment per the notes and observing those results. No. falsify and false are two different things. You can prove that the results were false by repeating the experiment and getting different results, but you cannot prove that the results were falsified that way.
If nothing even vaguely like the experimenter's claimed results appear in the new experiment then the original results were false. After ruling out other potential causes (e.g. unrecorded error in one of the experiments) you're left with fraud. No. Fraud must be shown by evidence that there was intent to falsify results. Testimony by a grad student, copies of the undoctored results, etc. Simply repeating the experiment and getting a different result is not enough.
As it happens, I was neither arguing for nor against the claim that Taleyarkhan committed fraud. I really don't know that answer. I was merely expressing my distaste at Taleyarkhan's use of false arguments in his defense when a more direct path should have been available. I don't buy it. A person has a right to question the motives of their accuser. He made no false argument. He might have gone over the top rhetorically in a couple places, but he raises valid questions about the intent of his accusers and the process which is being followed. No less valid as questions that Rep. Miller raised about the previous inquiry. In no way did I take it to mean that Taleyarkhan was claiming that his results were valid because Rep. Miller was an asshole. These are two separate arguments.
This will be my last post on the subject. I would encourage you to research the subject of logical fallacy, as the understanding which you have expressed in this thread is deeply flawed. Thanks for being condescending. I think you are the one that is way off on this one. Taleyarkhan wasn't making a false argument, he was making a new claim independent of the others.
The only question of scientific fact and of scientific merit here is whether the results of the experiment were accurate or not. I agree that on that question, an ad hominem response is a false argument. But an accusation of fraud, purposely falsifying results, is itself an appeal to motive. It is in effect saying you can't trust the results because you can't trust the person.
Accusation of fraud is a question of motive far more insidious than an accusation of political motivation. But you can prove fraud in the same way that you can prove political motivation, with circumstantial evidence. If Taleyarkhan had a print out of results and whited out the ones he didn't like, then that is evidence of fraud. Just as if the Congressman decided to ignore conflicting evidence and only report on the evidence that would support a preconceived result, then that is evidence of a political motivation.
Your own mistake is making a false argument, "Big red flag in my book", funny actually. Was that the point? If so, well played. As I understand the implication of that statement, you are attacking Taleyarkhan's credibility because he made an ad hominem attack and not addressing the accusation of political motivation itself, which can be either proven or disproven. How is that not a logical fallacy and very hypocritical?
How is it different again? I think you are making arbitrary distinctions.
What if Rep. Miller is playing politics and isn't motivated simply by his love and devotion to scientific truth? Isn't that a valid accusation to make? How is it less valid than questioning the motivation of the professor? This isn't a we found "Y" situation, this is a you said "X" and we found "Y" and "X" depending on who you ask and we think it was "X" because you seem a little sketchy. That ain't science.
here is how I see it: - Scientist A makes claim X, publishes. - Some scientists can't verify claim. - Scientist A assists other scientists with verifying claim. (nothing unusual... to a point, but possible a line was crossed and other experiments can't be considered truly independent) - some complaints are made, University investigates and finds that scientist showed lack of good judgment in his involvement with what were supposed to be "independent" experiments. - Congressional committee disagrees with University and tells them to try again and this time come up with the right answer (research misconduct). "I sincerely hope that the next inquiry will be conducted in a manner worthy of your great institution," Mr. Miller wrote. Meaning that the first one and by implication its conclusions wasn't. - Professor accuses politicians of political motivation.
So Rep Miller questions the integrity of a professor and of Purdue's administration and nobody should question his for making the allegation. This isn't a factual dispute, it is purely about intentions at this point. If Rep. Miller has conducted the experiment and came up with different results, then said the professor was wrong, then you are right his integrity would have nothing to do with it. But that isn't the case.
I'm sorry, but you can't say that something is a problem but that there's no need for a solution. If nothing needs to be changed, then there is no problem. There you go again, telling people what they can and cannot do. If your house is on fire and it is too late to save it, then maybe you start worrying about where you are going to live next. Some problems take care of themselves, nature is like that.
So there is a problem? Hmmm... Right, I'm done. Either you're simply trolling me and attempting to raise my blood pressure, in which case we're both wasting our time Yes, you are wasting your time if you are hoping to be persuasive, you aren't.
or you're simply not capable of the level of cognition required to carry on an intelligent debate, in which case I'm wasting my time. *waves* Clearly we are all over matched by your vast intellect. Good to see hypocrisy is alive and well in the world.
Instead Taleyarkhan responded with an Appeal to motive, a logical fallacy. Big red flag in my book. An appeal to motive? Are you nuts?:)
An appeal to motive is what an accusation of fraud is. They aren't just questioning his results or theory, they are questioning his integrity. He is perfectly right to question their motives and not just their assertions, since they are questioning his.
Just because I agree that there is a finite supply on energy and a potential harm to our environment, doesn't mean that I agree that there needs to be a solution. The only way out of this problem is through technology that replaces oil and natural gas, any other suggestion is merely redecorating and burden shifting.
Very valid points. Thank you for turning this back into an actual debate. i didn't think there was one.
I'm not sure I see the relevance of your statement. Of course I want to see my value system used; it's the reason people argue about anything. The core of a debate is that person A is doing something person B thinks is ill-advised, and person B thinks they have a better way. Imposing your solution on someone else, after you decide that you have "won" the debate, is not the natural outcome of a debate.
I don't think the assumption that cities are a bad thing is valid. In terms of resources, they certainly tend to create inefficiencies. I would argue that, historically speaking, cities can only exist when resources are plentiful enough to allow excess.
America, for example, has vast tracts of land that are habitable but simply not used. Where exactly? Seems there is very little arable land that hasn't been put to productive use, or is being used for timber. We are truly dependent on petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides to sustain such high yields that we have.
why shouldn't people who use more energy than they require be encouraged to reduce their consumption? You were hardly using words of encouragement. You were using words, politically charged words, crafted to make it easier to scapegoat a class of people so that we might harm them without feeling guilty later on. You have too many kids, charge a fee. You drive too many miles then surcharge. These ideas are designed to increase control over others by the political classes, not actually addressing the real challenges in a substantial way.
To me greater authoritarianism isn't worth a little perceived safety. And I don't think it is within your right to say otherwise.
While I agree that we should try to reduce and mitigate CO2 emissions in order to slow the effects of global warming, I don't see how you can reduce emissions substantially in a short period of time without draconian measures. Even with draconian measures, which would have their own dire consequences, most models I have seen would still see some decades of continued warming until things maybe leveled out.
Why shouldn't we just do the best we can using reasonable measures and then deal with the consequences? So far systems of CO2 rationing have not worked and in places where people need to heat their homes in the winter, CO2 rationing isn't likely to work.
Seems that whenever you try to do a cost benefit analysis with the entire world including many variables that you cannot control or predict, then you are going out on a limb especially the farther out you extrapolate. If we perfect fusion for instance, then we don't worry about global warming anymore, sure it might still happen, but with nearly limitless cheap power you could mitigate nearly any effect.
No it isn't prudent to rely on technology we don't have, but if we don't come up with new technology, then civilization will naturally go into decline due to resource exhaustion regardless of global warming. But that same decline will happen if we impose too much rationing on resources, so really either way we are out of luck in the next 100-200 years unless new technology can keep civilization going.
Way to debate. I can see you took a special course in college. *sigh* If you're not going to carry your end of the discussion, we're both wasting our time here. I think it was a valid point. You are calling a class of people selfish based on the way they allocate resources for themselves, yet you are the one that wants to allocate resources for them based on your own value system. You are being hypocritical and misleading, a few people using more resources than others is not the problem and their elimination is not the solution.
The fact that you are using a computer at all tells me that you require about the same amount of resources as I do and I suspect that blaming others just makes you feel better about your own contribution to Global Warming, Pollution, and Loss of Wildlife and Habitat. Even if you go off, buy a hundred acres and live in a way that is individually carbon neutral then you are still taking up space that means that someone else is probably forced into a city where they will ultimately pollute more, burn fossil fuels and obliterate any semblance of a natural habitat.
This is not an issue of morality. We must solve our energy problems not by nominal increases in efficiency. If you think that we can save civilization by saving 5% then we are doomed.
Linux needs to stand on its own merits. What? You know how well that worked for Mac OS, oh wait... it did work. Apple was ultimately successful by not trying to match Windows application by application, but offering applications that addressed what people needed and wanted and it helps that there are popular applications that are only available for OS X.
No problem. Glad to help keep a balance with the head-in-the-sand, screw-the-consequences perspective.;) Didn't know that not trying to put everyone in neat little buckets was "head-in-the-sand". Sure go ahead, blame that one guy driving an SUV for no reason while you are destroying the world 99% just as much as that guy. I hope you are content blaming others for your own problems.
And that's a valid point. Oh, wait. We've got cheap, plentiful prophylactics and no shortage of people. Why do they have 4-5 kids, again? Thanks again for the enviro-fascist perspective.
If you need to tow something "on occasion" you could borrow/rent a proper towing vehicle for that. Ever need a uhaul on moving day in college?... better book that months in advance. Society can't function at such high resource efficiencies without losing flexibility. And you can't just have a fleet of utility vehicles to meet every possible need just sitting in strategically placed parking lots. Talk about inefficiency, manufacturing millions of cars just in case we need them?
Better for the people who need utility vehicles to just buy them, but what should be changed is car insurance and car taxes which should be on the driver not the car. That would make it affordable for many more people that need a utility vehicle to keep it around without driving it and buy a commuter car for their common transportation needs.
Used to be that people that needed individual transportation would have a horse, and those that had greater transport requirements would also have a buggy that they could hook up. Very efficient use of resources. Perhaps cars with more variable horsepower could have a towing capacity for times when you need it and reduced power to save gas when it is just you.
I know the earthy crunchy types don't have much compassion for those people with 4-5 kids, but that is a situation where you can't always just ferry your children a couple at a time back and forth from places.
So, there will be situations where utility vehicles are needed more than just a couple predictable times a year, so you need to let people have that flexibility without society punishing them arbitrarily.
And you really think Joe User is going to administer his own email server instead of using Gmail? It depends. I don't think your arguments about administration are relevant, because administration could be no more difficult that managing your account now over the web. Really it comes down to cost versus benefit. If the free webmail providers become too annoying (with ads or some other "feature") or too inflexible with rolling out features that people actually want and the ISPs don't go out of their way to block services in order to try to lock-in customers to their offerings, then the "hassle" of turning on a mail server or some other service on your home network becomes worthwhile. Really, if you can configure your own computer for Internet access, then you shouldn't have any problem setting up a basic mail server for a few people or a web server or just about any other type of service.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I think this has just become a running joke. I think it is much more than just "the Linux community" that thinks Microsoft is full of shit with their lies and marketing ploys.
Microsoft continues to lose all credibility as anything other than a "me too" technology company. Microsoft makes money on the kickbacks it dishes out to idiot CIOs and by its policy of designing vendor lock-in into everything they make, not on the merits of their products.
Smart CIOs would ban MS products from the office, not standardize on them.
I was thinking of modding you Insightful, but I think +5 Funny is appropriate enough.
Insightful, because you hit the nail right on the head. The small Internet broadcasters aren't going to take a deal that would make it uneconomical for them to grow bigger later on. The prospect of just scraping by with no hope of future growth is not a good deal for them.
This sounds very much like the mafia letting someone get into the business on the condition that they don't move into bigger territory later on.
One solution to the concentration of wealth over time consistent with Libertarian philosophy is that individual liberty does not require that the government give corporations the same rights as individual people to accumulate wealth. Much of the imbalance in the market can be traced to too much accumulation and concentration of property and information into that imaginary legal entity that is called a corporation. These corporations are controlled by individuals that receive vast wealth through their operations, but yet they assume much less risk and liability than if they were individual owners. Given that the corporation is a legal contrivance created by government, as a Libertarian, I don't see any reason that corporations can't be limited by a set of rules different than for individuals. And with much more strict limitations on corporate wealth and increased liability, then I don't see the accumulation of individual wealth as cause for as much concern. That and limiting the inheritance of wealth and you have a system that allows individuals to accumulate the wealth that they can during their own lifetimes and to use it freely, but puts a real natural upper limit on what accumulation of wealth is possible because of the productive life spans of most people.
So you see, as a Libertarian, I view the problems of concentration of wealth as one of a government creation through flawed laws, not because of a lack of restraint on the individual. The accumulations of individual wealth has always relied on contrivances of government, as governments seem to prefer the control of wealth in the hands of fewer people over which it can exercise greater political control. In this way the system of corporations now is not much less contrived and unnatural a way to control wealth than a feudal one was.
It is an interesting argument, one that I am inclined to agree with. But the courts aren't likely to just throw out 200 years of law based on a reinterpretation, even if it is a correct and beneficial one, of the scope of the first amendment.
I think the courts are more likely to reconcile two overlapping provisions of the constitution. Fair use provisions allow Congress to say that it is not "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" with copyright laws and patents can be published and talked about, just not built without permission.
And they've already paid millions for various patent infringement cases against them. No one bothered to go after the users. Seems that holds true for Linux too, as long as bigger fish (IBM, Sun, Google, Sony, Every major electronics manufacturer, and the US Government) are all using Linux in both large server deployments and embedded devices then people should feel pretty comfortable deploying it on a few dozen or a few hundred of their own servers or desktops.
And given all the other risk factors of dealing with proprietary software being peddled by a company that has had such unreliable and unfair business practices seems that Linux looks better and better every day.
Millions of consumer devices have been produced with embedded Linux software, you don't think Sony and the rest of them did their homework on Linux?
Unless you're an idiot CIO who has willingly drunk the Microsoft Cool Aid (or been paid to), then I think you can rest assured that people know exactly what Microsoft is trying to do now and aren't going to automatically believe what they have to say about their competition.
Monthly billing is a good way to squeeze more overall money from people. There are many examples of services which are able to get much more money from people by charging a monthly fee, rather than a one time fee. It is just basic psychology, shelling out $50 a month for cable tv is easier than $600 once a year. Pretty much every other industry has tried to do this with varying degrees of success. Cars have leases and/or monthly payment plans, Houses have mortgages, Utilities and Cable TV are once a month billing, Health plans are also once a month, The ubiquity of credit cards (businesses' would prefer store credit) means just about everything can be purchased for a monthly fee.
Ever buy a car from a dealership? The first thing they try to do is determine the maximum you can afford per month and get away from how much you think the car is worth or are willing to pay. Squeeze every last penny.
The only question of scientific fact and of scientific merit here is whether the results of the experiment were accurate or not. I agree that on that question, an ad hominem response is a false argument. But an accusation of fraud, purposely falsifying results, is itself an appeal to motive. It is in effect saying you can't trust the results because you can't trust the person.
Accusation of fraud is a question of motive far more insidious than an accusation of political motivation. But you can prove fraud in the same way that you can prove political motivation, with circumstantial evidence. If Taleyarkhan had a print out of results and whited out the ones he didn't like, then that is evidence of fraud. Just as if the Congressman decided to ignore conflicting evidence and only report on the evidence that would support a preconceived result, then that is evidence of a political motivation.
Your own mistake is making a false argument, "Big red flag in my book", funny actually. Was that the point? If so, well played. As I understand the implication of that statement, you are attacking Taleyarkhan's credibility because he made an ad hominem attack and not addressing the accusation of political motivation itself, which can be either proven or disproven. How is that not a logical fallacy and very hypocritical?
How is it different again? I think you are making arbitrary distinctions.
What if Rep. Miller is playing politics and isn't motivated simply by his love and devotion to scientific truth? Isn't that a valid accusation to make? How is it less valid than questioning the motivation of the professor? This isn't a we found "Y" situation, this is a you said "X" and we found "Y" and "X" depending on who you ask and we think it was "X" because you seem a little sketchy. That ain't science.
here is how I see it:
- Scientist A makes claim X, publishes.
- Some scientists can't verify claim.
- Scientist A assists other scientists with verifying claim. (nothing unusual... to a point, but possible a line was crossed and other experiments can't be considered truly independent)
- some complaints are made, University investigates and finds that scientist showed lack of good judgment in his involvement with what were supposed to be "independent" experiments.
- Congressional committee disagrees with University and tells them to try again and this time come up with the right answer (research misconduct). "I sincerely hope that the next inquiry will be conducted in a manner worthy of your great institution," Mr. Miller wrote. Meaning that the first one and by implication its conclusions wasn't.
- Professor accuses politicians of political motivation.
So Rep Miller questions the integrity of a professor and of Purdue's administration and nobody should question his for making the allegation. This isn't a factual dispute, it is purely about intentions at this point. If Rep. Miller has conducted the experiment and came up with different results, then said the professor was wrong, then you are right his integrity would have nothing to do with it. But that isn't the case.
An appeal to motive is what an accusation of fraud is. They aren't just questioning his results or theory, they are questioning his integrity. He is perfectly right to question their motives and not just their assertions, since they are questioning his.
Just because I agree that there is a finite supply on energy and a potential harm to our environment, doesn't mean that I agree that there needs to be a solution. The only way out of this problem is through technology that replaces oil and natural gas, any other suggestion is merely redecorating and burden shifting.
To me greater authoritarianism isn't worth a little perceived safety. And I don't think it is within your right to say otherwise.
While I agree that we should try to reduce and mitigate CO2 emissions in order to slow the effects of global warming, I don't see how you can reduce emissions substantially in a short period of time without draconian measures. Even with draconian measures, which would have their own dire consequences, most models I have seen would still see some decades of continued warming until things maybe leveled out.
Why shouldn't we just do the best we can using reasonable measures and then deal with the consequences? So far systems of CO2 rationing have not worked and in places where people need to heat their homes in the winter, CO2 rationing isn't likely to work.
Seems that whenever you try to do a cost benefit analysis with the entire world including many variables that you cannot control or predict, then you are going out on a limb especially the farther out you extrapolate. If we perfect fusion for instance, then we don't worry about global warming anymore, sure it might still happen, but with nearly limitless cheap power you could mitigate nearly any effect.
No it isn't prudent to rely on technology we don't have, but if we don't come up with new technology, then civilization will naturally go into decline due to resource exhaustion regardless of global warming. But that same decline will happen if we impose too much rationing on resources, so really either way we are out of luck in the next 100-200 years unless new technology can keep civilization going.
The fact that you are using a computer at all tells me that you require about the same amount of resources as I do and I suspect that blaming others just makes you feel better about your own contribution to Global Warming, Pollution, and Loss of Wildlife and Habitat. Even if you go off, buy a hundred acres and live in a way that is individually carbon neutral then you are still taking up space that means that someone else is probably forced into a city where they will ultimately pollute more, burn fossil fuels and obliterate any semblance of a natural habitat.
This is not an issue of morality. We must solve our energy problems not by nominal increases in efficiency. If you think that we can save civilization by saving 5% then we are doomed.
Better for the people who need utility vehicles to just buy them, but what should be changed is car insurance and car taxes which should be on the driver not the car. That would make it affordable for many more people that need a utility vehicle to keep it around without driving it and buy a commuter car for their common transportation needs.
Used to be that people that needed individual transportation would have a horse, and those that had greater transport requirements would also have a buggy that they could hook up. Very efficient use of resources. Perhaps cars with more variable horsepower could have a towing capacity for times when you need it and reduced power to save gas when it is just you.
I know the earthy crunchy types don't have much compassion for those people with 4-5 kids, but that is a situation where you can't always just ferry your children a couple at a time back and forth from places.
So, there will be situations where utility vehicles are needed more than just a couple predictable times a year, so you need to let people have that flexibility without society punishing them arbitrarily.