Let's use some hypotheticals.
Imagine a two-d universe. Flat as a paper.
Now construct an animal that eats, digests, and excretes. Draw it on paper.
Too bad it literally falls apart.
A 2-D animal could eat and digest if it shut its mouth before it opened its anus.
Or failing that, it could have only one "opening" that works both as an oral and anal oriface.
Computer cars don't fear making a miscalculation that will kill them. If the human driver had no way of dying, then it'd be a bit more of a fair fight.
Just put the human in a VR booth wired to an RC version of the real thing, and there's your solution to the "chicken conundrum".
If people want to do something, they are going to do it. Illegalizing it only makes them criminals, and us hyporocrits. If we are so free, why are there so many things we arent allowed to do?
This argument by itself is too general in scope for anyone but a hardcore anarchist to accept. Apply it to *any* illegal activity, does it still make sense to repeal all laws? People are still going to do the illegal deeds regardless, right?
There is some stuff (such as murder) that should be punished. The societal super-organism finds it in it's best interests to prohibit such things in spite of whatever incentives individuals happen to have to commit these acts. Doing recreational psychedelic drugs isn't one of these things, however.
By the way, if drugs were legalized, most of them would be so cheap that people wouldn't need to resort to crime in order to feed their habit. Pot would drop from anywhere from $50/per eighth ounce to grow it in your back yard and smoke as much as you want for free.
Criminalization created the black market and the massive costs of hiding an underground industry and providing the incentive for taking the associated risks. So if you want to stop people from stealing so they can afford more drugs, legalize them so that they'll become cheaply available.
Punish the drug users, particularly the middle and upper class ones, through shame. Make them do community service, cleaning streets, parks, etc.
Yeah, this would set a good example. It would show that it is shameful to serve the community and do things that we normally would consider to be benevolent acts of concerned citizens. Way to inspire civic pride!
The problem with "Community Values" arguments is that they undermine individual freedom to self-determine one's own values.
*Whose* values are those of the "Community"? Not likely to be "mine", other than in some vage abstract sense of me belonging to the community and therefore subject to "its" values. Which, no doubt will be the sort of values that favor the members of some city council made up of wealthy, old people who aren't moral philosophers and don't have much of a clue about cutting edge cultural developments, and not the community itself.
In reality, do communities (or any group of people) *ever* have total agreement on *anything*? NO. So therefore, the *real* "community standard" should be one of agreeing to disagreeing, of minding one's own business, and cherishing one's own personal freedoms. Anything less is an invitation to totalitarian fascism.
If I'm a shopkeeper running a video arcade, the temptation is strong for me to define my store and its clientele as a "community". In effect then, we can define for ourselves whatever kind of behavior we want to do, and to hell with Indianapolis.
Being able to play video games is a privilege, not a right.
The "right to play video games" isn't a right that is explicitly mentioned in any legal document. Still, I don't consider it a "privilege" do be able to do with my free time whatever I see fit. I consider that to be my freedom, and that's something that I do have a right to. A privilege is something I need special permission to do, something that I need to earn in exchange for something else.
I remember stealing money from my parents so I could play games in the arcades. Only a dollar here and there, and not so often that it would be noticed, but stealing's still stealing. I guess I should be caned.
It is the only one that is necessary and the only one that should be used... Preferably, the human mind of the user. Who are you to tell anyone what they can/should/can't/shouldn't be looking at?
If you must, you can monitor usage and have staff members intervene when someone is viewing an "inappropriate" site. At least in this case, if we're to be policed, it's by other human minds, and not dumb technology.
How will the stigmatization of copyright violation be received in the arena of public opinion?
This question begs the question, "How do we gauge public opinion to know what it is?"
Generally speaking, through the mass media.
Contrary to intuition, "public opinion" is largely dictated to the public by the mass media. There are very few "original thinkers" in the "unwashed masses". Which side do you think they'll come down on?
Now think about it: The mass media is by and large corporate-owned. They're going to manufacture "public opinion" pieces for your local news that will showcase those people who are already against copyright violations and omit or misrepresent the other opinions. You'll see "man on the street" quotes from dumb rednecks who think "well, if it's against the law, it must be bad." And you'll see officials from the MPAA, RIAA, the publishing industry, etc. The opposition will seem (or rather, be portrayed) as weird radical types.
These "news items" will pollute the minds of the undecided who by and large watch the news on TV every day and don't necessarily know much about the internet or computers and who don't much care about or know about concepts relating to Intellectual Property.
Then they'll have their majority, and they'll pass their laws to protect their interests, and win their lawsuits, and control everyone else. And once the laws are on the books, they'll be much harder to repeal or change.
It's not the rock stars telling kids they should shoot their classmates that we should worry about, it's the bought man in the anchorman's chair telling you that we should trust him.
Just write "I [your name] am exempt from any clause that I object to in any EULA. Total ownership of my copy of software is hereby transfered and permanently retained by [your name]. [Company] is liable for any damages, to myself or anyone else, that occur as a result of this software. Reading this agreement implies consent to its terms." on a piece of paper, then send it to whoever you own software from. This is about as fair as most of the EULAs I've read.
How many of these bands will really take off thout the promotion of the record companies?
There are other ways for music to become popular other than to have some corporation shove them down your throat out of sheer profit motivation and without regard for the actual quality or meaning of the music. There HAS TO BE. I'm sick of the radio playing shitty music that I hate, and I don't necessarily have the time to go digging in the local underground scene in the hopes that I'll meet someone who's more connected than I am and has heard of some new band that doesn't suck. Why not take advantage of technology that can bring music that doesn't suck (and some that does suck, let's not discriminate) from all over the world? But freeing the music is part of this process, but not the entire solution. Just give me a feasible way to search it, sort it and pre-evaluate it, and I think we'd have something. Only then can culture begin to evolve freely.
He keeps stating they are lossless copies of the masters, but they are technically low bitrate lossily compressed copies of the CD. I don't think he could be more wrong. I have some MP3s that are shittier than FM Radio, Cassette tape,etc etc etc.
True,.mp3 files are not as good quality as a CD, however an MP3 is still a digital format, and successive generations of copies can be made without degradation of the original signal with each successive generration. The initial sound quality of a.mp3 may not be CD-quality, but a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of that.mp3 file does still sound as good as the first copy of the.mp3. With analog media such as your antiquated vinyl or audio tape, the signal degrades and becomes weaker with each successive generation of a copy. In fact, tapes and LPs degrade with each successive playback.
The thing is, if the band relies on crappy analog media limitations in order to generate sales (either by forcing fans to re-purchase replacements for worn-out copies of tapes or vinyl LPs, or by thwarting piracy by virtue of the fact that exponential growth of source media is stunted by the degradation of the signal with each generation) they're never going to be able to compete in the age of digital media.
Which is (duh!) where we are now. Sorry guys, the new technology doesn't work this way. The game has changed. There's still a way to make money, you just have to figure out the new rules.
I have to agree on anonymity. I don't think being anonymous achieves much.
Just picture Slashdot with out the ACs. It would be no great loss would it?
Yes, but picture a Slashdot where your real name appears on the comments, whether you want them to or not. (And, just in case you have a common name like John Smith, that your social security number or other unique identifier appears there as well.)
That *would* be a great loss. Just think: No more insider whistle-blowing. Ever.
I think people should, if they want to express an opinion say so in public - otherwise they can't really believe it.
Anonymous promulgation of opinions is cowardly and dangerous.
You don't need to know who said something in order for it to be true. "A triangle has three sides" is true for any speaker.
Anonymous speech can protect the speaker who can cite sources as a means of verification. This helps a lot if you have a strong moral obligation to say something to say that could lead to harm to yourself if it were known that you were the speaker.
Simply trusting whatever you hear simply because you know the name of the speaker is dangerous. Ex.: I'm Walter Cronkite for CBS News
Imagine if the average person had an IQ of 150 instead of 100. Imagine if there were no stupid people.
Then the IQ tests would be re-normalized so that what "150" means today would mean "100". That's all. Well, in real terms people would still be a lot smarter on average. That at least seems like a good thing.
But if smartness is such a good thing, isn't it better to be smart now, when you have a real advantage over most other people? How many PhD's don't work in their fields because all the available positions are filled already? Now imagine competing not just against the few people with the intelligence required to get a PhD in your field, but with everyone on the planet with a 150 IQ who easily gets PhDs in whatever subject they happen to be interested in.
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxeley touches upon some of the problems that making everyone super-smart would have in society. Perhaps with the invention of AI-driven robots, we won't need "gammas" and "betas" to do the menial tasks in our society of the future, but if so, if we're all genetically engineered to be "alphas" we're going to need a lot fewer of us living on the planet. Global population will necessarily have to diminish, or else there will be massive unemployment, or else you'll have massive ranks of 150-IQ garbage men and burger flippers who hate their lives.
After all, when is the last time you heard of a rich philosopher?
Actually, most philosophers that you've heard of were wealthy by the standards of the time, or, at least, in privileged positions in society. Sure, many of them have renounced material wealth, but that's not the same thing as not being rich. A more enlightening question might be, "When's the last time you heard of a philosopher who was a menial laborer working in a dead-end wage-slave job?"
The question I believe you meant to ask is, "when is the last time you heard of a philosopher getting rich by virtue of his philosophy?" To answer that question, some cult leaders come to mind... there's always L. Ron Hubbard, if you want to call him a philosopher... various televangelists purport to be selling a type of philosophy... Most philosophers in this day and age, I suspect, are not recognized as such. But if you look for them you can probably find a few more.
I'm a philosopher, by the way, but I'm not rich. So I know what you meant.
Re:Fission holdback legit paranoia, not conspiracy
on
The Quest For Fusion
·
· Score: 1
But the desire to hold back fission technology has a lot more to do with the arms race and the inherent dangers in fission, not some mercantalistic conspiracy.
Please re-read the parent. The British suppression of steam technology *was* an arms race issue, not just mercantile. Of course, the main reason Britian wanted to control the seas was so that they could guarantee their economic prosperity, and this was achieved by virtue of their military dominance.
They had the largest naval fleet in the world, larger than the other major powers *combined*. They feared the obsolescence of their fighting vessels. The old wooden sailed ships could remain serviceable for upwards of 80-100 years, but they wouldn't be very useful as fighting ships if there were steam-driven, turreted, iron ships out there roaming the seas.
While the safety concerns of fission-based powerplants are a legitimate concern, I believe that at least part of the US's concern is that it's nuclear muscle gives it special status as a world power. The arms-race issue is actually less of a concern for nuclear weapons, because no one actually wants to use them (crackpots, zealots, and terrorists excepted of course).
Additionally, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy might help allow third-world countries to close economic gaps in terms of rate of production. If the third world gets its standard of living up to something approximating the standard of living in the US, say goodbye to your cheap overseas labor (and probably the evironment as well).
And as soon as there's no longer cheap labor to exploit, you're going to either see one of two scenarios played out: 1) a new age of corporate feudalism, or 2) marxist revolution of the proletariat. It would seem that those who would like to see corporate feudalism come about are working very hard to get their system entrenched during these remaining years of economic disparity between the first and third worlds. So I think my insight into the British naval supremacy has some merit.
Slashdot Mirror
A 2-D animal could eat and digest if it shut its mouth before it opened its anus.
Or failing that, it could have only one "opening" that works both as an oral and anal oriface.
Are there any Tuvalan mp3 files on Napster? Seriously...
Write your congressman today and urge him to support a bill to give legal legitimacy to the abandonware movement.
Just put the human in a VR booth wired to an RC version of the real thing, and there's your solution to the "chicken conundrum".
Kinda puts the 28 years managed by Pioneer 10 into perspective, eh?
This argument by itself is too general in scope for anyone but a hardcore anarchist to accept. Apply it to *any* illegal activity, does it still make sense to repeal all laws? People are still going to do the illegal deeds regardless, right?
There is some stuff (such as murder) that should be punished. The societal super-organism finds it in it's best interests to prohibit such things in spite of whatever incentives individuals happen to have to commit these acts. Doing recreational psychedelic drugs isn't one of these things, however.
By the way, if drugs were legalized, most of them would be so cheap that people wouldn't need to resort to crime in order to feed their habit. Pot would drop from anywhere from $50/per eighth ounce to grow it in your back yard and smoke as much as you want for free.
Criminalization created the black market and the massive costs of hiding an underground industry and providing the incentive for taking the associated risks. So if you want to stop people from stealing so they can afford more drugs, legalize them so that they'll become cheaply available.
The problem with "Community Values" arguments is that they undermine individual freedom to self-determine one's own values.
*Whose* values are those of the "Community"? Not likely to be "mine", other than in some vage abstract sense of me belonging to the community and therefore subject to "its" values. Which, no doubt will be the sort of values that favor the members of some city council made up of wealthy, old people who aren't moral philosophers and don't have much of a clue about cutting edge cultural developments, and not the community itself.
In reality, do communities (or any group of people) *ever* have total agreement on *anything*? NO. So therefore, the *real* "community standard" should be one of agreeing to disagreeing, of minding one's own business, and cherishing one's own personal freedoms. Anything less is an invitation to totalitarian fascism.
If I'm a shopkeeper running a video arcade, the temptation is strong for me to define my store and its clientele as a "community". In effect then, we can define for ourselves whatever kind of behavior we want to do, and to hell with Indianapolis.
I remember stealing money from my parents so I could play games in the arcades. Only a dollar here and there, and not so often that it would be noticed, but stealing's still stealing. I guess I should be caned.
The best content filter is the human mind.
It is the only one that is necessary and the only one that should be used... Preferably, the human mind of the user. Who are you to tell anyone what they can/should/can't/shouldn't be looking at?
If you must, you can monitor usage and have staff members intervene when someone is viewing an "inappropriate" site. At least in this case, if we're to be policed, it's by other human minds, and not dumb technology.
Stand firm.
How will the stigmatization of copyright violation be received in the arena of public opinion?
This question begs the question, "How do we gauge public opinion to know what it is?"
Generally speaking, through the mass media.
Contrary to intuition, "public opinion" is largely dictated to the public by the mass media. There are very few "original thinkers" in the "unwashed masses". Which side do you think they'll come down on?
Now think about it: The mass media is by and large corporate-owned. They're going to manufacture "public opinion" pieces for your local news that will showcase those people who are already against copyright violations and omit or misrepresent the other opinions. You'll see "man on the street" quotes from dumb rednecks who think "well, if it's against the law, it must be bad." And you'll see officials from the MPAA, RIAA, the publishing industry, etc. The opposition will seem (or rather, be portrayed) as weird radical types.
These "news items" will pollute the minds of the undecided who by and large watch the news on TV every day and don't necessarily know much about the internet or computers and who don't much care about or know about concepts relating to Intellectual Property.
Then they'll have their majority, and they'll pass their laws to protect their interests, and win their lawsuits, and control everyone else. And once the laws are on the books, they'll be much harder to repeal or change.
It's not the rock stars telling kids they should shoot their classmates that we should worry about, it's the bought man in the anchorman's chair telling you that we should trust him.
Just write "I [your name] am exempt from any clause that I object to in any EULA. Total ownership of my copy of software is hereby transfered and permanently retained by [your name]. [Company] is liable for any damages, to myself or anyone else, that occur as a result of this software. Reading this agreement implies consent to its terms." on a piece of paper, then send it to whoever you own software from. This is about as fair as most of the EULAs I've read.
True, .mp3 files are not as good quality as a CD, however an MP3 is still a digital format, and successive generations of copies can be made without degradation of the original signal with each successive generration. The initial sound quality of a .mp3 may not be CD-quality, but a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of that .mp3 file does still sound as good as the first copy of the .mp3. With analog media such as your antiquated vinyl or audio tape, the signal degrades and becomes weaker with each successive generation of a copy. In fact, tapes and LPs degrade with each successive playback.
The thing is, if the band relies on crappy analog media limitations in order to generate sales (either by forcing fans to re-purchase replacements for worn-out copies of tapes or vinyl LPs, or by thwarting piracy by virtue of the fact that exponential growth of source media is stunted by the degradation of the signal with each generation) they're never going to be able to compete in the age of digital media.
Which is (duh!) where we are now. Sorry guys, the new technology doesn't work this way. The game has changed. There's still a way to make money, you just have to figure out the new rules.
Yes, but picture a Slashdot where your real name appears on the comments, whether you want them to or not. (And, just in case you have a common name like John Smith, that your social security number or other unique identifier appears there as well.)
That *would* be a great loss. Just think: No more insider whistle-blowing. Ever.
You don't need to know who said something in order for it to be true. "A triangle has three sides" is true for any speaker.
Anonymous speech can protect the speaker who can cite sources as a means of verification. This helps a lot if you have a strong moral obligation to say something to say that could lead to harm to yourself if it were known that you were the speaker.
Simply trusting whatever you hear simply because you know the name of the speaker is dangerous. Ex.: I'm Walter Cronkite for CBS News
I rang, you rang, we all rang for orangutang!
Then the IQ tests would be re-normalized so that what "150" means today would mean "100". That's all. Well, in real terms people would still be a lot smarter on average. That at least seems like a good thing.
But if smartness is such a good thing, isn't it better to be smart now, when you have a real advantage over most other people? How many PhD's don't work in their fields because all the available positions are filled already? Now imagine competing not just against the few people with the intelligence required to get a PhD in your field, but with everyone on the planet with a 150 IQ who easily gets PhDs in whatever subject they happen to be interested in.
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxeley touches upon some of the problems that making everyone super-smart would have in society. Perhaps with the invention of AI-driven robots, we won't need "gammas" and "betas" to do the menial tasks in our society of the future, but if so, if we're all genetically engineered to be "alphas" we're going to need a lot fewer of us living on the planet. Global population will necessarily have to diminish, or else there will be massive unemployment, or else you'll have massive ranks of 150-IQ garbage men and burger flippers who hate their lives.
Actually, most philosophers that you've heard of were wealthy by the standards of the time, or, at least, in privileged positions in society. Sure, many of them have renounced material wealth, but that's not the same thing as not being rich. A more enlightening question might be, "When's the last time you heard of a philosopher who was a menial laborer working in a dead-end wage-slave job?"
The question I believe you meant to ask is, "when is the last time you heard of a philosopher getting rich by virtue of his philosophy?" To answer that question, some cult leaders come to mind... there's always L. Ron Hubbard, if you want to call him a philosopher... various televangelists purport to be selling a type of philosophy... Most philosophers in this day and age, I suspect, are not recognized as such. But if you look for them you can probably find a few more.
I'm a philosopher, by the way, but I'm not rich. So I know what you meant.
Please re-read the parent. The British suppression of steam technology *was* an arms race issue, not just mercantile. Of course, the main reason Britian wanted to control the seas was so that they could guarantee their economic prosperity, and this was achieved by virtue of their military dominance.
They had the largest naval fleet in the world, larger than the other major powers *combined*. They feared the obsolescence of their fighting vessels. The old wooden sailed ships could remain serviceable for upwards of 80-100 years, but they wouldn't be very useful as fighting ships if there were steam-driven, turreted, iron ships out there roaming the seas.
While the safety concerns of fission-based powerplants are a legitimate concern, I believe that at least part of the US's concern is that it's nuclear muscle gives it special status as a world power. The arms-race issue is actually less of a concern for nuclear weapons, because no one actually wants to use them (crackpots, zealots, and terrorists excepted of course).
Additionally, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy might help allow third-world countries to close economic gaps in terms of rate of production. If the third world gets its standard of living up to something approximating the standard of living in the US, say goodbye to your cheap overseas labor (and probably the evironment as well).
And as soon as there's no longer cheap labor to exploit, you're going to either see one of two scenarios played out: 1) a new age of corporate feudalism, or 2) marxist revolution of the proletariat. It would seem that those who would like to see corporate feudalism come about are working very hard to get their system entrenched during these remaining years of economic disparity between the first and third worlds. So I think my insight into the British naval supremacy has some merit.