1. The average person off the street has only a cursory understanding of the law at best. Professional jurors would be subject to regular testing to prove their qualifications. People who are ignorant of the way laws work wouldn't qualify.
2. Right now we yank people away from their regular professions and tell them that they have to do this whole other job for a week or two before getting to go back. Not only does this have a huge negative impact on the economy, it's thoroughly idiotic. In no other situation does this make sense. Would you grab 12 random people and stick them in a room to fix your car? To teach a second-grade class? To audit accounting records? To cook a meal? No, of course not. You'd find a mechanic, a teacher, a CPA, a chef. Can an average person fix a car, or teach a class, or do taxes, or cook food? Usually, probably, maybe. But are you going to get the same level of consistent performance and accuracy that you would from a trained professional? Nope. So why do this for jurors?
3. Boom, instant jobs. Sure, we'd probably have to pay a meaningful wage for these people instead of the peanuts that jurors currently get as compensation, but the net benefit on the economy as a whole would be huge. I'm 100% libertarian and I'd still support the taxes necessary to make jurors into a professional class; the courts are one of the few legitimate functions of the government and it's worth paying the money to make sure they work properly.
Downsides? Well, it would be harder for people who break the law to get off without punishment by playing on the emotions of the jury. I don't believe that's a negative. It would be important to ensure unbiased hiring and selection; if the juror class was 90% white men there would be a lot of legitimate appeals. But with comparatively little training required to enter the profession, I doubt that would prove to be an issue.
Jury of my peers? I'd much rather have a jury of people who know what the hell they're doing.
The issue is that there is no agreed upon definition of how much is too little or too much. It seems that in this case simply not allowing any would be most prudent.
This is NOT a true statement. If it were true, we would be held at the mercy of whichever viewer were the most easily offended on all matters. I'm certain I could find people who are still offended by the sight of a man and a woman sleeping fully clothed in the same bed. Or those who are offended by the sight of black people, or gays, or Muslims, etc. etc.
There will never be an agreed-upon definition of how much is "too little" or "too much". There are too many people to ever come to such agreement in a way that satisfies everybody. The "most prudent" decision would be for people who are offended by something to simply TURN IT OFF, whether on behalf of yourself or your children.
I am disturbed by the fact that you don't want your kids growing up thinking that nudity is normal behavior. Nudity is the natural human state. By your own words you are equating it with profanity and violence; you are teaching your children that nudity is wrong and shameful on the same level as harming or insulting another person. This is NOT healthy.
Your analogy is flawed, and you completely ignored the rest of my questions. If you have one child, does having a second one diminish the specialness of the first? No, they are each unique and special in their own way. In the same way, each relationship you have with another person, sexual or not, is something unique and special. Having sexual relationships in your past does not diminish the sexual relationships of your present.
You would have a painter paint a painting of a bowl of fruit, and then never again paint anything other than bowls of fruit, as if painting a seascape or a portrait would somehow diminish the fruit painting! Simply absurd.
I'm deeply sorry that you've come to those conclusions. I've always felt that each time I come to love someone, my capacity to love others grows, not diminishes. Does your love for one parent take away from the amount you can love the other? For their sake, I really, really hope you don't hold this same philosophy with your children.
As for "perfect" sex, it doesn't exist. But let's suppose for a moment that you're a golfer and you win a huge tournament by shooting the best final round of your life. It's probably going to be the single greatest moment of your career as a golfer. Should you retire the next day, knowing that you've reached the peak of your golfing experiences? Should you never try tennis or bowling because you could never be as good at them as you are at golf? Of course not. It's the same way with sex. Maybe you luck out and your first sexual partner is amazing, such that future sexual partners don't measure up. But as we both agree, sex isn't everything. I'm sure that you can accept that your wife may not be the most attractive woman you've dated, or the funniest, or the tallest, or whatever property you choose to measure on; she may be the best in some respects but never in all of them. So why can't you accept that she doesn't have to be the best at sex?
No experience, sexual or not, is so amazing that you should live your life in such a way as to ensure that it only ever happens with one person.
With no one to compare to, your significant other is the best for you for now and for always!
Most of your post shows a good deal of sense, which is why this particular statement sticks out so much. Can you imagine if we followed this line of reasoning when making all our most important decisions?
The first car you try is the best if you never test-drive another one... may as well buy it.
The first house you look at it is the best if you stop there and don't look at any others.
The first college you visit is the one for you, so long as you never experience what another one might offer.
Sex is an important component of a successful marriage. Refraining from sex until marriage, so that you only ever have sex with one person and therefore have no standard of comparison, is a terrible idea. No other part of the relationship works this way, unless you're participating in arranged marriages. You evaluate prospective mates based on any number of important factors: their looks, their sense of humor, their passions, their interests, their attitude, etc. etc. Why shouldn't you treat sex the same way? Premarital sex, especially premarital sex with multiple partners before making your decision, is just one more way to know that the person you've chosen is the right one for you.
Sure, unsafe sex is bad. And yes, plenty of people prioritize sex as the most important thing when picking a mate, which is usually a mistake. But taking the opposite approach can be just as bad; if you conserve yourself until marriage and then the sex is bad (and you WILL know, even without anything to compare it to), then you're far more likely to get a divorce or have an extramarital affair.
It's really quite funny that you keep referencing Malthus when people have been predicting a Malthusian catastrophe for about 200 years and we haven't had one yet in spite of massive population growth. The numbers, the numbers! The numbers show that we can't possibly sustain the pace that we're on! Except that the numbers always change, and we always figure out newer and better ways of doing things. Yet you honestly believe that a world capable of creating spaceships and advanced medicines and the internet is going to be suddenly unable to feed itself.
No, what will happen is that new sources of energy will be discovered, either through new technologies or just new discoveries of caches of fossil fuels. And new methods of farming will be created that use less resources and produce more output. And the world population will keep on growing.
If laying a heavier tax on the usage of fossil fuels were to result in less consumption which in turn resulted in a weakening of our already fragile economy, it could certainly be considered drastic. We could argue the extent of the effect and whether or not it's necessary, but please don't dismiss a tax increase as minor. Those taxes don't simply disappear from the profit margins of the oil barons; they get reflected in an increased price for the commodity, which then gets passed on to every product in our economy that gets transported at some point in its lifecycle (so, basically everything). It may seem like a small thing to raise the gas tax another penny or two, but it could very well result in a 5-10 cent increase in everything you buy at your local supermarket. Drastic indeed, for those who are already scraping to get by.
If the money being poured into the environmental lobby were to be spent instead on actual research towards newer, cleaner technologies, we might be in a lot better shape than we actually are. But that's more an indictment on the influence of lobbies and corporations on our political system than it is a criticism of environmentalists themselves.
What about the people who believe the world is warming up, are willing to accept that mankind is a contributing cause, and think the problem won't go away on its own, but don't want to make any changes because they enjoy warm weather, and the clothes-reducing effect it has on attractive young women?
I don't think you're using the right metric. It's not about how much food we produce, it's about how much food we're capable of producing. GP is right, the "world hunger" issue is about distribution, not production capacity. With current technologies we will easily be able to keep up with global demand for a long, long time... and the technologies are improving rapidly as well. If we have to dedicate more land to food production, we can and will do that.
Wow, a socialist offering a definition of libertarianism that's both reasonably accurate and not laden with snide insults. You, sir (or madam), are a rarity among your kind. I salute you.
Nothing screams (or bleats) "I'm a sheep" like getting a tatto in 2010. Want to do something more rewarding personally and socially... sponsor a child's education in a third world country. Bring math to another mind.
And then, you can get a tattoo of that child, so you have something to brag about to everyone at parties!
What you're hearing is the voice of market demand. We've evolved into a culture that enjoys instant gratification, regardless of whether you see that as a negative or a positive. And as the people of the world become more and more technologically savvy, they've realized that what they want IS possible. So now the challenge is on the supply side of the equation, to meet demand while still making a profit.
In 1940, the price of every interested consumer in America owning The Wizard of Oz was astronomical. Some of that came from the production costs (actors, film, staff, etc.). The vast majority of it came from distribution. Copying the movie to film for each individual consumer would have been prohibitive to start with, as would transporting each film to its destination. Of course, no one had home theaters and film-playing equipment anyway, so the point was moot.
In 1990, the price would still have been very, very high, but it wouldn't have been as high. People would need only a VCR at home and to purchase a VHS cassette. Copying the film onto so many VHS tapes and distributing them still cost a lot of money, money that had to come from the consumer somehow, but the cost on the distribution end had gone way down.
Now in 2010, almost the entirety of the price for any movie is in the production costs, NOT in the distribution costs. Ownership can be as simple as making some space for a file on your computer; even a DVD isn't necessary any longer. A little bit of bandwidth for transport, a little bit of storage, and it's done. Customers aren't stupid: they KNOW that the costs are all in production (and advertising, but that's a separate issue). And all those costs are sunk costs paid up front. The customer doesn't care how much it cost to produce the FIRST copy of the movie; they only care that to make one more costs next to nothing.
We're starting to see the advent of the pricing model of the future. Customers who are interested in seeing a particular movie will be expected to pay up front, to the limit of their willingness to pay. If Iron Man 3 is worth $20 to you, then that's what you contribute. If the movie doesn't get enough funding to be made, you get a refund. If it does get made, you get a copy, yours to do with as you please. That new WW2 movie might only raise $20 million, so it gets some unknown actors rather than big-name stars. On the other hand, that new Twilight movie might raise $500 million in advance from teenage girls with no impulse control, and make ridiculous profits for a studio even before shooting begins. And since movies only get made when their up-front costs are met, any money the movies make through traditional forms of release (theaters, DVD sales, etc.) is just profit. And the studios won't have the same incentive to go after freeloaders who get a copy without paying; their costs are met already, so why fork over piles of money to lawyers? Essentially, once the movie is sponsored, it belongs to the world. The people who were willing to front the cost get the movie they want; the people who have no interest in it can ignore it completely; and maybe some of those people who didn't pay up front but enjoyed the movie are willing to chip in money for bonus content or just the continued support of a particular studio, so they can make more movies that the people want.
We'll see fewer outright bombs (because they won't be able to get funding). We'll see fewer projects get cancelled in the middle (because the studios will be on the hook to refund money to the sponsors if the movie never finishes). We'll see less ridiculous salaries for big stars unless they really can justify them (by allowing conditional sponsorships based on a particular actor/director/writer being part of the project). And we'll see less absurdity from people trying to squeeze obscene amounts of money out of a distribution model that is by its nature nearly free.
So then how is your proposal applicable to the current situation? Zuckerberg didn't officially condone or sponsor the activity. Were it not for the publicity this received, he would never have become aware of it in the first place. Furthermore, the people who created and participated in the Draw Mohammed day weren't breaking any laws in their own country, and if Facebook were to restrict the freedom of speech that these people enjoy, which their own laws protect (in the case of Americans and surely several of any other countries involved), you can argue that Facebook would be breaking the law in its own right. How would you expect an officer of the corporation to resolve a situation in which any action he takes would run afoul of the laws of one or more countries, and that he would be liable in any event?
If you allow ignorance of their customers' activities as a defense, your proposal would be impotent. In fact, you'd have pretty much exactly what you have now. "Your Honor, I didn't realize that the purchaser of that assault rifle intended to go on a shooting spree with it... I thought he only intended to display it on his wall..."
There's a reason that corporations aren't part of the legal system. Corporations can't be expected to make judgments about what is and isn't illegal; that's the function of the lawmakers, the police, the courts. You want to get angry at the system? Direct your bile at our corrupted justice system, where multimillion dollar law firms can tie up a case with frivolous motions and legal minutiae for years and years, ensuring that those responsible for the shady behavior seen at the top of many corporations aren't held responsible even when they're caught participating in REAL crimes... not this Islamics-against-Facebook bullshit.
Can you imagine what would happen if CEOs for companies were actually personally criminally responsible for any illegal action anyone at their company committed, or that their company enabled any customer to commit?
If that were true we might have companies actually following the law....
How can anyone have modded this insightful??
If the world you hypothesize were to be made into reality, then nearly every company in the entire world would have to cease operation overnight. No one could make phones or offer phone service because they could be used for drug deals or contract hits or run-of-the-mill blasphemy. Forget anything like the internet, or any other means of interpersonal communication; so long as any country out there has any law regarding the act of communication, your world would enable any maker of any communication device to be liable. We couldn't make automobiles, because people could drive them under the influence. Oh, and we couldn't make BEER, because people could drive while under its influence. Or just be drunk in public.
I'll be damned if you're gonna make me live in a world without beer.
You speak as if you expect rationality from anyone who would take this action. When a society glorifies martyrdom, the threat of prosecution doesn't hold a lot of weight.
Therefore, the power of the government to control the market must be strictly contained, so that the ability of corporations to achieve gains through government corruption is limited or non-existent.... Take away the government's power to take from one subset of society and give to another, and the ability of greedy corporations to protect their profits through government lobbying nearly disappears.
But that's exactly my point. Even in the magical world in which you took away the power of the federal government to favor one group or another, the state and local governments could still do it, and they tend to be at least as corrupt as the fed is. The capitalist society in which corporations don't have massive influence on government is a myth - you can work to minimize it, but it will still exist.
Nowhere in my post did I indicate that I was in favor of only restricting the power of the federal government. No level of the government should be able to wield taxation as a means of supporting one industry over another. The corruption you speak of comes from the power the offices hold; limit the power and you limit the corruption.
I'm not saying it's an easy fix, or one that's likely to happen in our lifetimes, maybe ever. Fixing the broken system we have now would require a strong collection of leaders with a unified vision to achieve office, then systematically enact laws to strip those same offices of the powers they hold. That's not likely to happen. But that doesn't make it any less ideal.
The simple fact is that if left unchecked by the power of law and the will of the people, the government will continue to grow and continue to appropriate more powers unto itself, and with that increase in power it will become more profitable for corporations (and anyone else with money, really) to use their influence directly on the government in an attempt to get preferential treatment. There is NO solution to that problem other than strong, clearly defined laws and a populace willing to fight to maintain them; if the people aren't behind those laws en masse, then any subset of the people charged with maintaining them (legislative, police, the courts, everyone involved) will eventually be infiltrated and taken over by those seeking to abuse the system for personal gain.
In a society where government stands back and allows profit-driven corporations to police themselves, then eventually you will have corruption as those corporations recognize the profit value in bribing and maintaining control of government, just as communist governments tend to become corrupt as officials recognize their special privileges.
I'm always disappointed when I see people confusing "libertarianism" with "a desire for universal deregulation of businesses". Very few libertarians actually support the notion of a completely wild, unregulated economy; most libertarians simply recognize that our current economy still has way, way too many regulations. In most cases, libertarians still support a baseline of regulations for things like product safety and truth in advertising; and as with all parties/ideologies, there are disagreements about where the lines should be drawn. And of course, libertarians support rigorous enforcement of these basic laws, which is one of the main distinctions between libertarians and true anarchists (who want zero government and zero law/regulation enforcement).
The statement I quoted is central to the problem, but a libertarian sees the situation you pose and comes to a different conclusion. A libertarian says "In a society where government stands back and allows profit-driven corporations to police themselves, then eventually you will have corruption as those corporations recognize the profit value in bribing and maintaining control of government; therefore, the power of the government to control the market must be strictly contained, so that the ability of corporations to achieve gains through government corruption is limited or non-existent."
A big part of the problem is that many of the suggestions in the article are powers that the government should not have in the first place. As many have pointed out, the ability to copyright facts themselves is antithetical to the notion of a free society with freedom of speech. Most of the rest of the suggestions involve the government's appropriation of the power of the purse: imposing a selective tax on one industry to benefit another; drawing from money generated by taxes to save an industry from their own failings; making tax exemptions to favor one industry over another. All of these concepts are anathema to libertarians. To the extent that libertarians support taxation at all, they support fair and uniform taxation, which cannot be manipulated by special interests in the manner described in the article.
Take away the government's power to take from one subset of society and give to another, and the ability of greedy corporations to protect their profits through government lobbying nearly disappears.
Slashdot Mirror
Do they often let you open the windows of the planes you're flying in?
That's what they want you to think.
All wrong. Jurors should be a professional class.
1. The average person off the street has only a cursory understanding of the law at best. Professional jurors would be subject to regular testing to prove their qualifications. People who are ignorant of the way laws work wouldn't qualify.
2. Right now we yank people away from their regular professions and tell them that they have to do this whole other job for a week or two before getting to go back. Not only does this have a huge negative impact on the economy, it's thoroughly idiotic. In no other situation does this make sense. Would you grab 12 random people and stick them in a room to fix your car? To teach a second-grade class? To audit accounting records? To cook a meal? No, of course not. You'd find a mechanic, a teacher, a CPA, a chef. Can an average person fix a car, or teach a class, or do taxes, or cook food? Usually, probably, maybe. But are you going to get the same level of consistent performance and accuracy that you would from a trained professional? Nope. So why do this for jurors?
3. Boom, instant jobs. Sure, we'd probably have to pay a meaningful wage for these people instead of the peanuts that jurors currently get as compensation, but the net benefit on the economy as a whole would be huge. I'm 100% libertarian and I'd still support the taxes necessary to make jurors into a professional class; the courts are one of the few legitimate functions of the government and it's worth paying the money to make sure they work properly.
Downsides? Well, it would be harder for people who break the law to get off without punishment by playing on the emotions of the jury. I don't believe that's a negative. It would be important to ensure unbiased hiring and selection; if the juror class was 90% white men there would be a lot of legitimate appeals. But with comparatively little training required to enter the profession, I doubt that would prove to be an issue.
Jury of my peers? I'd much rather have a jury of people who know what the hell they're doing.
The issue is that there is no agreed upon definition of how much is too little or too much. It seems that in this case simply not allowing any would be most prudent.
This is NOT a true statement. If it were true, we would be held at the mercy of whichever viewer were the most easily offended on all matters. I'm certain I could find people who are still offended by the sight of a man and a woman sleeping fully clothed in the same bed. Or those who are offended by the sight of black people, or gays, or Muslims, etc. etc.
There will never be an agreed-upon definition of how much is "too little" or "too much". There are too many people to ever come to such agreement in a way that satisfies everybody. The "most prudent" decision would be for people who are offended by something to simply TURN IT OFF, whether on behalf of yourself or your children.
I am disturbed by the fact that you don't want your kids growing up thinking that nudity is normal behavior. Nudity is the natural human state. By your own words you are equating it with profanity and violence; you are teaching your children that nudity is wrong and shameful on the same level as harming or insulting another person. This is NOT healthy.
Your analogy is flawed, and you completely ignored the rest of my questions. If you have one child, does having a second one diminish the specialness of the first? No, they are each unique and special in their own way. In the same way, each relationship you have with another person, sexual or not, is something unique and special. Having sexual relationships in your past does not diminish the sexual relationships of your present.
You would have a painter paint a painting of a bowl of fruit, and then never again paint anything other than bowls of fruit, as if painting a seascape or a portrait would somehow diminish the fruit painting! Simply absurd.
I'm deeply sorry that you've come to those conclusions. I've always felt that each time I come to love someone, my capacity to love others grows, not diminishes. Does your love for one parent take away from the amount you can love the other? For their sake, I really, really hope you don't hold this same philosophy with your children.
As for "perfect" sex, it doesn't exist. But let's suppose for a moment that you're a golfer and you win a huge tournament by shooting the best final round of your life. It's probably going to be the single greatest moment of your career as a golfer. Should you retire the next day, knowing that you've reached the peak of your golfing experiences? Should you never try tennis or bowling because you could never be as good at them as you are at golf? Of course not. It's the same way with sex. Maybe you luck out and your first sexual partner is amazing, such that future sexual partners don't measure up. But as we both agree, sex isn't everything. I'm sure that you can accept that your wife may not be the most attractive woman you've dated, or the funniest, or the tallest, or whatever property you choose to measure on; she may be the best in some respects but never in all of them. So why can't you accept that she doesn't have to be the best at sex?
No experience, sexual or not, is so amazing that you should live your life in such a way as to ensure that it only ever happens with one person.
With no one to compare to, your significant other is the best for you for now and for always!
Most of your post shows a good deal of sense, which is why this particular statement sticks out so much. Can you imagine if we followed this line of reasoning when making all our most important decisions?
The first car you try is the best if you never test-drive another one... may as well buy it.
The first house you look at it is the best if you stop there and don't look at any others.
The first college you visit is the one for you, so long as you never experience what another one might offer.
Sex is an important component of a successful marriage. Refraining from sex until marriage, so that you only ever have sex with one person and therefore have no standard of comparison, is a terrible idea. No other part of the relationship works this way, unless you're participating in arranged marriages. You evaluate prospective mates based on any number of important factors: their looks, their sense of humor, their passions, their interests, their attitude, etc. etc. Why shouldn't you treat sex the same way? Premarital sex, especially premarital sex with multiple partners before making your decision, is just one more way to know that the person you've chosen is the right one for you.
Sure, unsafe sex is bad. And yes, plenty of people prioritize sex as the most important thing when picking a mate, which is usually a mistake. But taking the opposite approach can be just as bad; if you conserve yourself until marriage and then the sex is bad (and you WILL know, even without anything to compare it to), then you're far more likely to get a divorce or have an extramarital affair.
It's really quite funny that you keep referencing Malthus when people have been predicting a Malthusian catastrophe for about 200 years and we haven't had one yet in spite of massive population growth. The numbers, the numbers! The numbers show that we can't possibly sustain the pace that we're on! Except that the numbers always change, and we always figure out newer and better ways of doing things. Yet you honestly believe that a world capable of creating spaceships and advanced medicines and the internet is going to be suddenly unable to feed itself.
No, what will happen is that new sources of energy will be discovered, either through new technologies or just new discoveries of caches of fossil fuels. And new methods of farming will be created that use less resources and produce more output. And the world population will keep on growing.
If laying a heavier tax on the usage of fossil fuels were to result in less consumption which in turn resulted in a weakening of our already fragile economy, it could certainly be considered drastic. We could argue the extent of the effect and whether or not it's necessary, but please don't dismiss a tax increase as minor. Those taxes don't simply disappear from the profit margins of the oil barons; they get reflected in an increased price for the commodity, which then gets passed on to every product in our economy that gets transported at some point in its lifecycle (so, basically everything). It may seem like a small thing to raise the gas tax another penny or two, but it could very well result in a 5-10 cent increase in everything you buy at your local supermarket. Drastic indeed, for those who are already scraping to get by.
If the money being poured into the environmental lobby were to be spent instead on actual research towards newer, cleaner technologies, we might be in a lot better shape than we actually are. But that's more an indictment on the influence of lobbies and corporations on our political system than it is a criticism of environmentalists themselves.
What about the people who believe the world is warming up, are willing to accept that mankind is a contributing cause, and think the problem won't go away on its own, but don't want to make any changes because they enjoy warm weather, and the clothes-reducing effect it has on attractive young women?
I don't think you're using the right metric. It's not about how much food we produce, it's about how much food we're capable of producing. GP is right, the "world hunger" issue is about distribution, not production capacity. With current technologies we will easily be able to keep up with global demand for a long, long time... and the technologies are improving rapidly as well. If we have to dedicate more land to food production, we can and will do that.
Man, you need to lower your caffeine intake!
This, from a user named jitterman.
Right. Like signing with the Miami Heat.
Wow, a socialist offering a definition of libertarianism that's both reasonably accurate and not laden with snide insults. You, sir (or madam), are a rarity among your kind. I salute you.
What the hell else would you compile them from??
Nothing screams (or bleats) "I'm a sheep" like getting a tatto in 2010. Want to do something more rewarding personally and socially... sponsor a child's education in a third world country. Bring math to another mind.
And then, you can get a tattoo of that child, so you have something to brag about to everyone at parties!
What you're hearing is the voice of market demand. We've evolved into a culture that enjoys instant gratification, regardless of whether you see that as a negative or a positive. And as the people of the world become more and more technologically savvy, they've realized that what they want IS possible. So now the challenge is on the supply side of the equation, to meet demand while still making a profit.
In 1940, the price of every interested consumer in America owning The Wizard of Oz was astronomical. Some of that came from the production costs (actors, film, staff, etc.). The vast majority of it came from distribution. Copying the movie to film for each individual consumer would have been prohibitive to start with, as would transporting each film to its destination. Of course, no one had home theaters and film-playing equipment anyway, so the point was moot.
In 1990, the price would still have been very, very high, but it wouldn't have been as high. People would need only a VCR at home and to purchase a VHS cassette. Copying the film onto so many VHS tapes and distributing them still cost a lot of money, money that had to come from the consumer somehow, but the cost on the distribution end had gone way down.
Now in 2010, almost the entirety of the price for any movie is in the production costs, NOT in the distribution costs. Ownership can be as simple as making some space for a file on your computer; even a DVD isn't necessary any longer. A little bit of bandwidth for transport, a little bit of storage, and it's done. Customers aren't stupid: they KNOW that the costs are all in production (and advertising, but that's a separate issue). And all those costs are sunk costs paid up front. The customer doesn't care how much it cost to produce the FIRST copy of the movie; they only care that to make one more costs next to nothing.
We're starting to see the advent of the pricing model of the future. Customers who are interested in seeing a particular movie will be expected to pay up front, to the limit of their willingness to pay. If Iron Man 3 is worth $20 to you, then that's what you contribute. If the movie doesn't get enough funding to be made, you get a refund. If it does get made, you get a copy, yours to do with as you please. That new WW2 movie might only raise $20 million, so it gets some unknown actors rather than big-name stars. On the other hand, that new Twilight movie might raise $500 million in advance from teenage girls with no impulse control, and make ridiculous profits for a studio even before shooting begins. And since movies only get made when their up-front costs are met, any money the movies make through traditional forms of release (theaters, DVD sales, etc.) is just profit. And the studios won't have the same incentive to go after freeloaders who get a copy without paying; their costs are met already, so why fork over piles of money to lawyers? Essentially, once the movie is sponsored, it belongs to the world. The people who were willing to front the cost get the movie they want; the people who have no interest in it can ignore it completely; and maybe some of those people who didn't pay up front but enjoyed the movie are willing to chip in money for bonus content or just the continued support of a particular studio, so they can make more movies that the people want.
We'll see fewer outright bombs (because they won't be able to get funding). We'll see fewer projects get cancelled in the middle (because the studios will be on the hook to refund money to the sponsors if the movie never finishes). We'll see less ridiculous salaries for big stars unless they really can justify them (by allowing conditional sponsorships based on a particular actor/director/writer being part of the project). And we'll see less absurdity from people trying to squeeze obscene amounts of money out of a distribution model that is by its nature nearly free.
So then how is your proposal applicable to the current situation? Zuckerberg didn't officially condone or sponsor the activity. Were it not for the publicity this received, he would never have become aware of it in the first place. Furthermore, the people who created and participated in the Draw Mohammed day weren't breaking any laws in their own country, and if Facebook were to restrict the freedom of speech that these people enjoy, which their own laws protect (in the case of Americans and surely several of any other countries involved), you can argue that Facebook would be breaking the law in its own right. How would you expect an officer of the corporation to resolve a situation in which any action he takes would run afoul of the laws of one or more countries, and that he would be liable in any event?
If you allow ignorance of their customers' activities as a defense, your proposal would be impotent. In fact, you'd have pretty much exactly what you have now. "Your Honor, I didn't realize that the purchaser of that assault rifle intended to go on a shooting spree with it... I thought he only intended to display it on his wall..."
There's a reason that corporations aren't part of the legal system. Corporations can't be expected to make judgments about what is and isn't illegal; that's the function of the lawmakers, the police, the courts. You want to get angry at the system? Direct your bile at our corrupted justice system, where multimillion dollar law firms can tie up a case with frivolous motions and legal minutiae for years and years, ensuring that those responsible for the shady behavior seen at the top of many corporations aren't held responsible even when they're caught participating in REAL crimes... not this Islamics-against-Facebook bullshit.
Can you imagine what would happen if CEOs for companies were actually personally criminally responsible for any illegal action anyone at their company committed, or that their company enabled any customer to commit?
If that were true we might have companies actually following the law....
How can anyone have modded this insightful??
If the world you hypothesize were to be made into reality, then nearly every company in the entire world would have to cease operation overnight. No one could make phones or offer phone service because they could be used for drug deals or contract hits or run-of-the-mill blasphemy. Forget anything like the internet, or any other means of interpersonal communication; so long as any country out there has any law regarding the act of communication, your world would enable any maker of any communication device to be liable. We couldn't make automobiles, because people could drive them under the influence. Oh, and we couldn't make BEER, because people could drive while under its influence. Or just be drunk in public.
I'll be damned if you're gonna make me live in a world without beer.
That's awfully bigoted of you, thinking that only the living can be murderers. Your comments will be well-remembered when the zombie apocalypse comes.
You speak as if you expect rationality from anyone who would take this action. When a society glorifies martyrdom, the threat of prosecution doesn't hold a lot of weight.
Therefore, the power of the government to control the market must be strictly contained, so that the ability of corporations to achieve gains through government corruption is limited or non-existent.... Take away the government's power to take from one subset of society and give to another, and the ability of greedy corporations to protect their profits through government lobbying nearly disappears.
But that's exactly my point. Even in the magical world in which you took away the power of the federal government to favor one group or another, the state and local governments could still do it, and they tend to be at least as corrupt as the fed is. The capitalist society in which corporations don't have massive influence on government is a myth - you can work to minimize it, but it will still exist.
Nowhere in my post did I indicate that I was in favor of only restricting the power of the federal government. No level of the government should be able to wield taxation as a means of supporting one industry over another. The corruption you speak of comes from the power the offices hold; limit the power and you limit the corruption.
I'm not saying it's an easy fix, or one that's likely to happen in our lifetimes, maybe ever. Fixing the broken system we have now would require a strong collection of leaders with a unified vision to achieve office, then systematically enact laws to strip those same offices of the powers they hold. That's not likely to happen. But that doesn't make it any less ideal.
The simple fact is that if left unchecked by the power of law and the will of the people, the government will continue to grow and continue to appropriate more powers unto itself, and with that increase in power it will become more profitable for corporations (and anyone else with money, really) to use their influence directly on the government in an attempt to get preferential treatment. There is NO solution to that problem other than strong, clearly defined laws and a populace willing to fight to maintain them; if the people aren't behind those laws en masse, then any subset of the people charged with maintaining them (legislative, police, the courts, everyone involved) will eventually be infiltrated and taken over by those seeking to abuse the system for personal gain.
In a society where government stands back and allows profit-driven corporations to police themselves, then eventually you will have corruption as those corporations recognize the profit value in bribing and maintaining control of government, just as communist governments tend to become corrupt as officials recognize their special privileges.
I'm always disappointed when I see people confusing "libertarianism" with "a desire for universal deregulation of businesses". Very few libertarians actually support the notion of a completely wild, unregulated economy; most libertarians simply recognize that our current economy still has way, way too many regulations. In most cases, libertarians still support a baseline of regulations for things like product safety and truth in advertising; and as with all parties/ideologies, there are disagreements about where the lines should be drawn. And of course, libertarians support rigorous enforcement of these basic laws, which is one of the main distinctions between libertarians and true anarchists (who want zero government and zero law/regulation enforcement).
The statement I quoted is central to the problem, but a libertarian sees the situation you pose and comes to a different conclusion. A libertarian says "In a society where government stands back and allows profit-driven corporations to police themselves, then eventually you will have corruption as those corporations recognize the profit value in bribing and maintaining control of government; therefore, the power of the government to control the market must be strictly contained, so that the ability of corporations to achieve gains through government corruption is limited or non-existent."
A big part of the problem is that many of the suggestions in the article are powers that the government should not have in the first place. As many have pointed out, the ability to copyright facts themselves is antithetical to the notion of a free society with freedom of speech. Most of the rest of the suggestions involve the government's appropriation of the power of the purse: imposing a selective tax on one industry to benefit another; drawing from money generated by taxes to save an industry from their own failings; making tax exemptions to favor one industry over another. All of these concepts are anathema to libertarians. To the extent that libertarians support taxation at all, they support fair and uniform taxation, which cannot be manipulated by special interests in the manner described in the article.
Take away the government's power to take from one subset of society and give to another, and the ability of greedy corporations to protect their profits through government lobbying nearly disappears.
Monorail.