For Estonia to declare that Internet access is a "right" without providing any philosophical justification is a very scary thought. Rights cannot be granted or revoked by government fiat. Sure, government can decide whether or not it will recognize a right and allow it to be exercised--but that's different from granting or revoking the right itself. The notion that the existence of rights themselves are subject to government whim is the notion that underlies every despotic regime since antiquity.
Even disregarding this, there can be no such thing as a right to Internet access. Internet access must be produced, it must come from somewhere, and to claim there is a "right" to it means that someone somewhere must hook up the wires and keep the service running whether he wants to or not--in other words, a "right" to Internet access implies a "right" to someone else's labor, which makes that man a slave. And slavery is a very bad thing indeed.
Unless a guarantee was made that these CDs would work in his car CD player (which there may have been, I don't know), this guy really has no room to complain. Companies don't have an obligation to make products that suit you perfectly, you know.
No reason being a monopoly should change anything.
Does the presence of a monopoly produce an undesirable result? Probably. But that doesn't matter, because as long as its monopoly was achieved through the use of voluntary agreements and as long as it maintains its monopoly through the use of voluntary agreements then the monopoly has been earned and there is no valid reason to take from someone what he has earned just because it may be inconvenient or undesirable for some people.
There's a difference between freedom of speech and forcing someone to give you a forum for that speech.
Freedom to do something is not a guarantee. Freedom of speech is not a guarantee that you will have anything to say nor that you will have a place to say it nor that anyone will listen to you. It simply means that government will not try to stop you if you choose to make your views known (unless you attempt to violate the rights of others in the process, e.g. by forcing someone else to print your views in his publication).
It's their decision to make. No one has a "right" to mass distribution of their product--if they can convince someone else to do it, more power to them, but it has to be done on terms that the distributor can agree to as well as the artist. If terms agreeable to the distributor can't be reached, the distributor is free to refuse service. Same goes for the artist.
It's not about "having a free, open debate". It's about whether or not I should be forced to subsidize views I disagree with.
If I criticize somebody and he wants to make a rebuttal, more power to him. But not on my website, in my newspaper, or on my TV show. Freedom of speech means just that--you are free to speak your mind if you can do so. It does not guarantee an audience, nor does it guarantee a forum from which to express those views. There is no valid reason to force someone to subsidize the expression of views he disagrees with.
Yes, it does. I'm quite aware of that rationale, and it's a load of bunk. A company exists for the sole purpose of making money for its owners. It does not exist to serve "society"--to imply that it does is socialist. No one has a right to have something that's produced by someone else at an affordable price, because that implies an obligation on the "someone else" to produce them and essentially makes him a slave to the consumer. In other words, his rights are violated for the sake of the convenience of those who would consume what he would produce, and that is wrong.
Yes, of course. Whether or not people will buy it at that price is a different matter entirely, but they have every right to charge whatever they want for what they produce.
That doesn't explain how companies aren't free to choose whether or not to participate.
And so what if it functions as a monopoly? You don't have a right to affordable music; if someone wants to provide it to you, more power to them, but you don't have a right to it and no one has an obligation to provide it to you.
It's still the same thing--after all, each individual company participating has to decide of its own volition whether or not to participate and set prices in accordance with whatever is agreed upon.
What valid reason is there to not allow producers of a product to charge whatever price they wish for the product? They're making it; they have every right to sell it for whatever they want.
They're charging $100,000 just to see technical info about their communication protocols, and you only get $50,000 back if you decide you don't want to license them.
So? They're Microsoft's protocols. Microsoft has every right to decide the terms under which others will gain access to its property, doesn't it?
The US is not now, nor has it ever been, capitalist. Read everything at http://www.capitalism.org and tell me if there has ever been a time anywhere in the world where a system exactly like that has existed.
Any system will require value exchange, because everybody always wants something that he doesn't have at the moment, and when he gets it he'll want something else--currency is simply a convenient means of doing it, at least a lot more so than carrying around a dozen eggs or two bicycles or whatever.
OK, so don't call it money. But there'd still be some things others have that you don't and would be willing to trade something you have for--so you'd need some standard of value, regardless of what you call it.
And the notion that "our children will never have to work again" is absurd. OK, we can have robots do stuff, but someone's going to have to design and build and program those robots. Once there are enough robots, then yes, some of those can be used to build other robots, but there'll still have to be someone to make the first robots. Plus, you'd have to have people forever to maintain the robots--because what do you do when the maintenance robots break down?
Why would anyone NOT want to work? I take pride and satisfaction in knowing that I worked for and EARNED my livelihood--that it wasn't just provided to me by a handout, but it was something that I actually earned.
And not every hard, dangerous job can be automated. I sure as hell wouldn't want a robot, which is not able to make critical decisions, flying an airplane I'm in, or operating on my heart in the event that complications arise, or any other number of situations that arise.
Let's face it--there's a reason people work. It's because there's no such thing as a free lunch. Everything ultimately has to come from somewhere--some expenditure of effort.
Incidentally, why do you assume that society should ensure that EVERYONE has a "decent" life? Aside from the subjective nature of what makes a "decent" life (I know many people who would be quite happy with a run-down shack in the middle of the woods with a small garden and hunting and nothing else), why should one person be responsible for the well-being of another unless he voluntarily accepts that responsibility (like when I fuck a woman, I'm accepting responsibility for whatever may come back out that hole nine months later)?
It is my opinion that capitalism is designed to be extremely inefficient and make people work their whole lives for nothing.
Then you are wrong. Capitalism is designed to make each individual responsible for his own livelihood and not demand a life from others but instead earn it through voluntary transactions and to allow each individual to pursue his own self-interest so long as he does not use force or fraud against others. If some people happen to be better at that than others, so be it--that's the price you pay for a society based on ethical principles and individual rights.
Why is price-fixing illegal in the first place?
on
DRAM Price Fixing
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A company has every right to charge whatever price it desires for its product. Why shouldn't it be allowed to make that decision in combination with other competitors?
Slashdot Mirror
For Estonia to declare that Internet access is a "right" without providing any philosophical justification is a very scary thought. Rights cannot be granted or revoked by government fiat. Sure, government can decide whether or not it will recognize a right and allow it to be exercised--but that's different from granting or revoking the right itself. The notion that the existence of rights themselves are subject to government whim is the notion that underlies every despotic regime since antiquity.
Even disregarding this, there can be no such thing as a right to Internet access. Internet access must be produced, it must come from somewhere, and to claim there is a "right" to it means that someone somewhere must hook up the wires and keep the service running whether he wants to or not--in other words, a "right" to Internet access implies a "right" to someone else's labor, which makes that man a slave. And slavery is a very bad thing indeed.
Unless a guarantee was made that these CDs would work in his car CD player (which there may have been, I don't know), this guy really has no room to complain. Companies don't have an obligation to make products that suit you perfectly, you know.
Yes, a monopoly does change something.
Yes, I'm quite aware that it does. But note what I said--there's no reason that it SHOULD change anything.
No reason being a monopoly should change anything.
Does the presence of a monopoly produce an undesirable result? Probably. But that doesn't matter, because as long as its monopoly was achieved through the use of voluntary agreements and as long as it maintains its monopoly through the use of voluntary agreements then the monopoly has been earned and there is no valid reason to take from someone what he has earned just because it may be inconvenient or undesirable for some people.
There's a difference between freedom of speech and forcing someone to give you a forum for that speech.
Freedom to do something is not a guarantee. Freedom of speech is not a guarantee that you will have anything to say nor that you will have a place to say it nor that anyone will listen to you. It simply means that government will not try to stop you if you choose to make your views known (unless you attempt to violate the rights of others in the process, e.g. by forcing someone else to print your views in his publication).
It's their decision to make. No one has a "right" to mass distribution of their product--if they can convince someone else to do it, more power to them, but it has to be done on terms that the distributor can agree to as well as the artist. If terms agreeable to the distributor can't be reached, the distributor is free to refuse service. Same goes for the artist.
It's not about "having a free, open debate". It's about whether or not I should be forced to subsidize views I disagree with.
If I criticize somebody and he wants to make a rebuttal, more power to him. But not on my website, in my newspaper, or on my TV show. Freedom of speech means just that--you are free to speak your mind if you can do so. It does not guarantee an audience, nor does it guarantee a forum from which to express those views. There is no valid reason to force someone to subsidize the expression of views he disagrees with.
Yes, it does. I'm quite aware of that rationale, and it's a load of bunk. A company exists for the sole purpose of making money for its owners. It does not exist to serve "society"--to imply that it does is socialist. No one has a right to have something that's produced by someone else at an affordable price, because that implies an obligation on the "someone else" to produce them and essentially makes him a slave to the consumer. In other words, his rights are violated for the sake of the convenience of those who would consume what he would produce, and that is wrong.
Yes, of course. Whether or not people will buy it at that price is a different matter entirely, but they have every right to charge whatever they want for what they produce.
That doesn't explain how companies aren't free to choose whether or not to participate.
And so what if it functions as a monopoly? You don't have a right to affordable music; if someone wants to provide it to you, more power to them, but you don't have a right to it and no one has an obligation to provide it to you.
It's still the same thing--after all, each individual company participating has to decide of its own volition whether or not to participate and set prices in accordance with whatever is agreed upon.
What valid reason is there to not allow producers of a product to charge whatever price they wish for the product? They're making it; they have every right to sell it for whatever they want.
They're charging $100,000 just to see technical info about their communication protocols, and you only get $50,000 back if you decide you don't want to license them.
So? They're Microsoft's protocols. Microsoft has every right to decide the terms under which others will gain access to its property, doesn't it?
So then wouldn't the meter also be a derived unit, since it's defined in terms of a second?
Except the kilogram is "shedding", meaning it is LOSING mass.
The US is not now, nor has it ever been, capitalist. Read everything at http://www.capitalism.org and tell me if there has ever been a time anywhere in the world where a system exactly like that has existed.
Any system will require value exchange, because everybody always wants something that he doesn't have at the moment, and when he gets it he'll want something else--currency is simply a convenient means of doing it, at least a lot more so than carrying around a dozen eggs or two bicycles or whatever.
OK, so don't call it money. But there'd still be some things others have that you don't and would be willing to trade something you have for--so you'd need some standard of value, regardless of what you call it.
And the notion that "our children will never have to work again" is absurd. OK, we can have robots do stuff, but someone's going to have to design and build and program those robots. Once there are enough robots, then yes, some of those can be used to build other robots, but there'll still have to be someone to make the first robots. Plus, you'd have to have people forever to maintain the robots--because what do you do when the maintenance robots break down?
Why would anyone NOT want to work? I take pride and satisfaction in knowing that I worked for and EARNED my livelihood--that it wasn't just provided to me by a handout, but it was something that I actually earned.
And not every hard, dangerous job can be automated. I sure as hell wouldn't want a robot, which is not able to make critical decisions, flying an airplane I'm in, or operating on my heart in the event that complications arise, or any other number of situations that arise.
Let's face it--there's a reason people work. It's because there's no such thing as a free lunch. Everything ultimately has to come from somewhere--some expenditure of effort.
Incidentally, why do you assume that society should ensure that EVERYONE has a "decent" life? Aside from the subjective nature of what makes a "decent" life (I know many people who would be quite happy with a run-down shack in the middle of the woods with a small garden and hunting and nothing else), why should one person be responsible for the well-being of another unless he voluntarily accepts that responsibility (like when I fuck a woman, I'm accepting responsibility for whatever may come back out that hole nine months later)?
I'm arguing for a system that has never been tried before, anywhere.
Are you implying that capitalism HAS been tried before? Because it hasn't.
It is my opinion that capitalism is designed to be extremely inefficient and make people work their whole lives for nothing.
Then you are wrong. Capitalism is designed to make each individual responsible for his own livelihood and not demand a life from others but instead earn it through voluntary transactions and to allow each individual to pursue his own self-interest so long as he does not use force or fraud against others. If some people happen to be better at that than others, so be it--that's the price you pay for a society based on ethical principles and individual rights.
A company has every right to charge whatever price it desires for its product. Why shouldn't it be allowed to make that decision in combination with other competitors?
Despite its rough cover, the guy's absolutely right.
Only if they choose to.
It's their company, their service, to run as they see fit.
So they shouldn't be allowed to run their service the way they want? Sounds awfuly immoral to me.
...was Stravinsky's best work ever.
law that would give people the right to sue spammers.
Hmm...last I checked, governments could not grant rights--they could only choose whether or not to recognize rights that already existed.