I never suggested that this is something that can be entirely realized tomorrow, five years from now, or even ten years from now. Yet, it is most certainly going to occur before "faster-than-light spaceships" (impossible, it requires infinite energy to travel at the speed of light), immortality (also impossible by a strict definition). Time travel is entirely possible in a one-way direction -- into the future, if one travels fast enough.
Furthermore, what I require does not necessarily demand "machine-comperhension". All that needs to be done is that something needs to be re-written enough to escape copyright protection. Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. What constitutes enough of a revision to be a different expression of the same idea is an ambiguity. If a "different expression of the same idea" can simply mean altering word-choice in the same expression, then programs could be written to do that today with a little consideration:
i.e., "Yes. Machine comprehension-- for that is what you're talking about, after all-- is something that might happen someday." could be re-written as "Yes. Machine understanding -- for that is what you are articulating about, after all -- is something that may occur someday eventually." Same idea, different expression. The only question is would it stand up in court as a different expression of the same idea, thus not fall under copyright infringement.
The program only needs to be "smart" enough to sidestep copyright -- create a new expression of the same idea. Depending on what court's rule, that may be relatively dumb; i.e., like the AliceBot.
I'd suggest you stop focusing on irrelevant personal insults -- which only serve to hide the weaknesses of your arguments -- and start focusing on useful suggestions or contributions.
As usual, no useful commentary from Twirlip. Then again, that's what I'd suspect from the flame-baiter who's probably flooding my journal with AC flamebat comments.
The only idiot is you for thinking that you can't express the same idea in different words, or believing that it won't eventually be possible for computers to do this. Not to say they'll be as good at it as us, but they will suffice for the purposes I suggested.
As for being unable to express the same meaning in different words, that's obviously bunk. Whenever one reads over something one has written and recasts the words -- i.e., for greater clarity or brevity -- one is expressing the same meaning in different words. That's the wonderful thing about the English language -- it's flexible. That doesn't mean that any two sentences are equal: just that there are different ways to say the same thing. I.e., "The bird dove down to the ground. It was flying fast." ; "The bird, flying fast, dove to the groud." ; and "Flying fast, the bird dove to the ground." These all mean the same thing. I'd argue that the 3rd is the best, as it avoids unncessary words and maintains a readable flow; however, in certain situations, the 2nd or even 1st may be desireable. Thus, though different versions may be more desireable in different situations, they all mean the same thing.
As for computers being unable to recast sentences and paragraphs, expressing the same ideas but with different expressions, that is not possible now. However, nothing prevents it from being possible in the future. With the advancement of AI, bayesian algorithms, and genetic algorithms, it may well be something which can be achieved with work. Computer programs can already find most grammatical errors and fix them; that was a problem thought unsolvable not so long ago. Stranger things have been done (i.e., rhesus monkeys have be taught primitive sign-language, with a vocabulary maxing out at ~500 words).
But, I wouldn't expect anything other than is-ought fallacies from the likes of Twirlip: "Software programs can't do that today, so they'll never be able to do that."
Actually, I believe Libertarians -- including myself as an independant Libertarian (one who disagrees with sevearl of the Libertarian Party planks) -- would abolish the FCC altogether.
The FCC is an unconstitutional organization, which is not answerable to the people and not accountable. It makes laws, which is wrong; the Congress and Senate should be making the laws.
In general, I think that we should get rid of communications regulations in as much as possible. No one has the right to own the air, and the government attempting to regulate such just hinders the right to freedom of speech: because of commmunication regulations, though everyone has freedom of speech, only the rich can get their message to the public.
Such laws are unconstitutional violations of our rights anyways. It violates consumers rights to force them to buy inferior products. I should be able to buy the best product on the market -- which isn't one which is crippled. If anything, what should be illegal is not the copying of copyright material, but the mass distribution of it.
I disagree with even that to some extent. The purpose of intellectual property law -- patent and copyright, in this case -- is to promote progress: to act as an engine of free speech, fueling it, or fueling invention. That is, it is there to promote people to excercisee their rights to free speech, and to excercise their right to be inventive. This is a legitimate aim, even from a Libertarian perspective: giving people incentive to excercise their rights is a good thing; conversely, giving people incentive not to excercise their rights is a bad thing. But when it is of overly broad scope and unnecessarily long duration, it in fact does the opposite.
IP laws regarding copyrights and patents should provide protection for just enough duration to give authors and inventors the incentive to write/invent, and its scope should be as narrow as possible. Exceptions should also be made for life-saving cases. Your patent shoudn't mean the death of somebody because they can't afford the cost of your drug. For those who can prove inability to afford drugs, the government should allow 3rd parties to produce generic versions of it and sell it to these people at the cost of production. The original inventor loses nothing: those who couldn't afford to buy the drug wouldn't have bought it anyways, and would be dead. For copyrights, their scope should also likewise be limited. Some things, for example, should not be copyrightable. Religious texts, for example, like that of scientology. Religion is a public thing, and the public has the right to know the dictates of religions, so those in the public can weigh the cons/benefits of converting to that religion. The Scientologist's copyrights on their religious texts violate the public's right to freedom of religion, by denying the individuals adequate information to make an informed decision about religion. The scope of copyright should also be limited in other ways; namely, fair use needs to be greatly expanded.
This brings me to an idea I have. As computers programs are becoming smarter and smarter, it may be possible for them to read in paragraphs and reword them to be written differently, but still mean the same thing. This seems like something that we should all be working on, so that we can distribute the ideas of any book without worrying about the copyright. For example, if I took Lawrence Lessig's book, Code, and re-wrote each paragraph, switching words and sentences around, then distributed it, that would be perfectly legal. Copyright does not protect ideas, but only the expression of those ideas. Thus, we should be working on programs which can figure out ways to restate things in a preferably better manner, but still have them mean the same thing. That way, you could scan in Lessig's code, have it auto-reworded, and distribute it.
I can picture a tree-climbing/AI algorithm, where it passes over the same sentences and paragraphs, several times, re-writing them in various combinations to find the one which "maximizes the score". Of course, this would be very complicated and difficult to program, requiring both exceptional knowledge of linguistics and programming; but its a project that seems worthwhile to me.
I'll sooner trust IBM over MS, and this study was clearly the puppet of MS. All of the studies which have "shown" that Winodws has a lower TCO than Linux are bunk, supported by MS-money. The MITRE report -- from a neutral source, advising on the benefits of Linux v. Windows -- suggests that Linux has a lower TCO. Why? (1) IBM supports FS/OSS software, and has done much for the Linux community. (2) IBM's not MS. MS has a history of distorting the facts, lying, cheating, etc.
Actually, according to the IBM study I linked to, a Linux admin can manage more Linux systems than can a Windows admin.
Basing the study off of projections for Win2k and the facts of the previous 5-years for Linux invalidates the comparison. In order to compare, you need to do both things likewise. They did not, meaning any conclusions they draw about the TCO of Windows v. Linux are meaningless. To hyperbolize what they've done, it would be like comparing the TCO of Win2k to that of Linux in 1991, when I believe it first came out.
Never-the-less, it is erroneous, comparing products which no-one will buy anymore. A proper study is between WinXP and the latest editions of RedHat or Debian, which people will buy.
Quite frankly, this is non-sense. Let me point out a few flaws in this study:
Its can't possibly be a true study. Windows 2000 is all of 2 years old, not 5 years. So any estimations of 5-year costs on Win2k are based off of 2-year studies and 3-year projections. However, the studies down on Linux used Linux as it was 5 years ago: this is an unfair comparison, comparing a study on Linux's from 1997 up to 2002 with studies & projections of Win2k for 2000-2005.
Invalid/irrelevant comparison. No-one is buying Win2k or Linux from 5 years ago anymore. The best comparison would be between WinXP and the latest release of Debian or Redhat. One should note that the cost of upgrading Linux software is $0 for Debian, and negligible for RedHat (as you only have to buy one license). When upgrading Debian, one doesn't even need to worry about down-time.
Incomplete consideration. This "study" seems to completely ignore the fact that one Linux admin can attend to many Linux workstations, due to some of Linux' powerful tools. Also ignores the fact that with Linux, you can run everything in your company off of one computer, with terminals to that computer located at different physical locations throughout the company. This reduces the point(s) of failure from hundreds to 1. Redundancy can also be implemented if your worried about putting all your eggs in one basket. Other things this study seems to ignore -- like every other study -- is the cost of a BSA lawsuite and the cost of remaining compliant wit the BSA, which can be quite expensive. Let's not forget that Linux can run better on cheaper hardware, allowing you to either save money on hardware, or spend the same amount and get better performance. Yes, Linux admins may be more expensive than Win2k admins -- but because they can administer many systems at once through automated methods, you don't need as many of them. Ref. to IBM's study.
Technical Support. This is one of the greatest atrocities of many proprietary companies like MS: claiming that tech support is cheaper for proprietary products than for FS/OSS products. Bull. The cost of tech-support is built into proprietary products -- its built into the price you pay for the product. It may be hidden, but its still there. That said, with Linux you can purchase useful tech support from a free market, with heavy competition -- that is, you get guys who know what they're doing. As someone who's used MS' tech support, I'll tell u its crap: they've never known anything I didn't know, and have never provided a useful solution to a problem I couldn't solve. Tech support solutions for MS go somewhat like this: (1) Take you through cook-book procedures you've already done; (2) Ask you to uninstall whatever you installed last; (3) If that doesn't work, reinstall OS.
It might be worthwhile noting that real studies, which we can look at, unlike this one, and which aren't backed by MS, show that Linux has a lower TCO:
http://www.cyber.com.au/cyber/about/linux_vs_win do ws_tco_comparison.pdf
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-J ul 2002.pdf
Please, just because American's bought the software doesn't mean they were doing business in America. Anyone around the world could have bought that software. Does that mean Elcomsoft should be dragged to the most draconian country in the world and made to answer to their laws?
Yes, the US could arrest them on next contact -- then again, why would they come to the US? No, the US has no grounds to extradite them from Russia, as they weren't violating any of Russia's laws. Russia isn't going to extradite them for doing what Russian law mandates -- allowing the consumer fair use. Under Russian law, you HAVE to allow the consumer fair use.
The US judge who decided this stepped over the line, but that was predictable. Judges never like to say they don't have jurisdiction. That would undermine their own power, and no one wants to do that.
Please, Skylarov's bail was, relatively speaking, petty change: the company can easily compensate. Its doubtful -- no, impossible -- that Russia will take actions against its own corporations, violating its own laws which mandate that fair use be made available to the public. Russian law says that fair use has to be allowed the consumer, thus they have no grounds on which to take any actions against Elcomsoft.
If Elcomsoft has assets in the states, then a US court can force whatever bank tends to them to turn them over as a fine. However, I doubt Elcomsoft has assets in the US, and if they do have any money here, it can easily be moved to Russia: they haven't been convicted of anything yet, so are free to move their funds around.
They would hardly be fugitives. The US courts, nor US laws, have no jurisdiction over them. They run their company in Russia, code their products in Russia, and the servers for their websites are in Russia. Simply because you offer a product for sale online doesn't mean you're doing business in every nation of the world, and are subject to the laws of every nation. That's bullshit.
The only international problem posed by this would be the US trying to reach beyond its jurisdiction, and violate the sovereignty of Russia. The US is trying to say that they have the authority to drag anyone over to the US if they have a website anywhere in the world that sells a product, because that would mean "it would be available to US citizens" thus would be "doing business in the US".
This is obviously an issue of the US stepping over the line of sovereignty.
If you choose to do business in a country, your business actions in that country are subject to the laws of that country. So the instant Elcomsoft knowingly sold its first copy of the program to a US citizen, the DMCA had jurisdiction over that act. You are right the DMCA has no jurisdiction over Dmitry - he wasn't involved in sales, so he wasn't the one violating the DMCA by choosing to provide the product to US citizens. But the company itself is under the jursdiction.
The possible punishments are limited, though. At most the US can tell Elcomsoft it is not allowed to do business inside the US.
Wrong. Business over the internet is not business in any cuontry, so those issues of jurisdiction don't apply. More to the point, Elcomsoft hosts their web-site in Russia, not the US.
More to the point, a US court can't do anything. Sure, they can "tell" Elcomsoft not to do business in the US -- but its worthless, because they can't enforce that. Elcomsoft can leave their products available for order online from Russia, and there's nothing any US court, or the US, can do about it.
Don't you get it? It doesn't matter what the law says. The point is that the US can now excercise force against any Elcomsoft employee present in the US. If they had stayed in Russia, the US would have no authority, jurisdiction, or sovereignty what-so-ever.
We want this to be a test-case, so that the DMCA can be over-turned.
But the problematic point is that the US has no jurisdiction. The Elcomsoft and Skylarov are in Russia, so the US has no jurisdiction over them what-so-ever. I'm startled that Skylarov and Elcomsoft are actually appearing before a US court. Had they stayed in Russia, the US court would have no jurisdiction/sovereignty what-so-ever. The court could have ruled against Elcomsoft, but would have no way of enforcing a punishment, as Elcomsoft is in Russia.
Now that Elcomsoft's president is in the US, they can use that as leverage to enforce their ruling, by imprisoning Elcomsoft's president until Elcomsoft acquiesces.
I don't see why Skylarov and Elcomsoft are being so stupid. They have no obligation what-so-ever to come to the US. Skylarov could stay in Russia, say fuck the agreement to testify, and suffer no consequence. Likewise with Elcomsoft.
Windows is a generic term. It always has been a generic term and always will be a generic term. In every GUI, different frames of programs are called "windows". "Windows" should have never received a trademark in the first place, as it was generic when the trademark was granted.
Thus, no one should heed MS's demands to change their name. The Lindows case already proved the "windows" trademark was void.
Data on members of the U.S. Congress and their districts. Contains in-depth profiles of every member as well as data on their constituencies, apportionment, and redistricting. Data starts with 106th Congress.
You might need to be at a university terminal to get access to it, or may need access to a university through a VPN account.
Well, gee, they're agreeing to allow company X to integrate company X's code with their own. Thus, they should have had knowledge of company X's code, and should have made inquiries to determine if company X had any code in it that was under the GPL, or any other code which has specific distribution requirements.
In this specific case, the company set up an agreement with another compnay to let them merge source codes. It was a specific agreement they negotiated, and they were either aware or should have been aware that the other company incorporated GPL'ed code.
Re:Religious paranoid idiots will ban anything
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Don't Stymie Nanotech
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· Score: 2
Again, you've come up with a bunch of meaningless tripe. You can well argue there's no such thing as rights -- we made it all up. But then there's also no such thing as laws, good, evil, bad, moral, immoral, etc, or the "collective priviledge" of the community you refer to -- its all made up.
It doesn't much matter to me whether rights exist a priori or whether they're something we made up and enforced. By the same token you can say that we just "made up right" I can say we made up the "fact" that 1 + 1 = 2. We defined 1 + 1 to equal 2. Similarly, we defined human rights, just like we defined the language we now speak.
Btw, have you looked at the Republican or Democratic platform? Each of those platforms includes their own equally absurd non-sense. I'm not saying the Libertarian party is free of non-sense, but they have a very reasonable basis for their entire platform: that you can do whatever you want so long as you don't violate the rights of others. You can babble on and on about how rights don't exist. Maybe they don't, not in the same sense that gravity exists. We made them up. It doesn't matter anyways because they're here. Most people want social and economic rights for themselves. If you don't want people to have the right to your body, then fine, go to some despotic nation like China where you're forced to have abortions and tortured. Its interesting, though, I somehow doubt you'd be content if you were arrested for a consentual sexual activity that took place in your bedroom between you and your wife/girlfriend.
Quite frankly, most people are much closer to a moderate libertarian pov than a Democratic or Republican pov. Most people want what they do in their own bedrooms to be their own business, and no-one elses, unlike Republican who want to (for example) outlaw anal sex (in some states, you can actually be prosecuted for sodomy). Most people want to keep most of their income, and don't want to pay reparations, nor do they want to use their tax dollars to support some of the liberal agenda that Democrats use tax dollars to support. Back to the Republican party, they want to condemn people dying of painful terminal illnesses to live them out, rather than allowing them to end their lifes in peace and dignity. Democrats have decided that rats and mice should be alotted the same "rights" as human beings. The list of bullshit goes on and on. Each party has plenty of these idiocies.
I agree with much of your point: morals, good, evil, bad, rights, justice, etc don't exist as some natural phenomena -- we created them. But what does that matter? We also created roads and buildings, so they exist. In the same sense, we created human rights, and they exist just as surely as do the roads. They aren't natural phenomena: if every person perished tomorrow, there would be no such thing as law, human rights, right, wrong, good, bad...everything we "created" would either instantaneously disappear (i.e., societal codes) or slowly degrade and crumble (i.e., buildings, roads, computers, cars, and physical man-made structures/tools).
Quite frankly, we don't need everyone to agree on everything. We simply need most people to agree on a basic set of rights to be alotted people that shouldn't be violated without good cause. Most people would agree that we should have the following set of rights: the right to life (including euthanasia), the right to body (including harmless activities such as prostitution [sexual freedom] and drug use), the right to privacy, the right to freedom of speech, the right to own property which can't be taken away, the right to keep the vast majority of one's income, the right to freedom of religion (including freeom from religion), the right to travel as one pleases, etc. This isn't comprehensive, but it covers most of the rights that people want and need. You can babble on and on about how "rights" don't exist, but if society agrees upon a certain set of rights to be alotted and enforces them, they do exist, just as do other laws.
As for your criticisms of me and the Libertarian party...firstly, I don't agree with everything in the Libertarian Party Platform. Anyone who agrees with a political party entirely is a brainless idiot. But, anyways, I'll respond to a few of your criticisms.
The abolition of prescription requirements for the purchase of medicines: absurd. My girlfriend is a physician, so I've witnessed second-hand the dangers that can come from patients who self-medicate. Medicines must be regulated to protect unwise or ignorant people from hurting, or even killing, themselves.
Well, I'll respond to that by saying that the government does not exist to protect us from our own stupidity, or the consequences of our own actions. If I get into a car and don't wear a seatbelt, that's none of the government's business. If I subsequently crash into a tree, fly through the window, and am killed, that's my own fault -- the government doesn't exist to protect me from myself. That's patronistic crap. Prescription requirements for medicines are also just a sneaky way that the government can regulate through back door what it can't through the front door: i.e., the prescription requirement on the morning afterpill.
Libertarian Party stands for the abolition of regulation on the sale of alcohol and tobacco. This is unacceptable. Persons under the legal age are not capable of making good decisions about their use of these substances, and therefore they must not have access to them.
Hard and fast rules never apply. Some people are more capable of making responsible decisions about drinking when they're 16 than others are when they're 50. Again, individual responsibility -- its not the government's job to protect individuals from themselves. Part of my position here depends upon when teenagers become "full adults" in terms of legal responsibility. If you are old enough to be drafted and sent off to die, or trialed for murder and given the death sentence, then society has obviously forced upon you the full responsibilities of an adult -- so you should get the full priviledges too, which includes drinking. So, I think that as soon as we can trialing kids as adults and giving them the death sentence, they should be able to drink. I'd guess that age is around 13 or so.
The Libertarian Party opposes the involuntary commitment of individuals on the grounds of mental illness. This baffles me; are they expecting mentally ill individuals to somehow overcome their disease long enough to sign themselves into a hospital?
Again, it isn't the government's responsibility to protect people from themselves, and a person's family shouldn't have the right to force him/her into anything (be it a mental hospital, or a nursing home). However, one could argue that such mentally ill or old-age senile people are a danger to the rest of us (a danger to our assigned rights) and thus need to be put in a mental hospital for that reason. One could also say that their mental illness essentially deprives them of any freedom, so confining them to a mental hospital hardly abridges their rights.
The Libertarian Party opposes the use of passports, and other forms of border control. The number of instances of criminals being caught at border crossings alone is enough to put the lie to this proposal.
This seems to be an anomoly in the Libertarian Party's position. They strongly support property rights, yet don't support the right of a nation's people to collectively prevent foreigners from coming onto their property. However, I do believe that people should be alotted the right to travel as they please. So, the government can decide that foreigners can't come into the US, and can enforce that if they're on public property (i.e., streets, etc)...but not if they're on an individual's property. If I live on the border, I should have the right to allow a imigrant to live on my land, though that doesn't give him the right to move anywhere else, or on public proprty.
The Libertarian Party opposes the protection of national secrets by the Department of Defense and other agencies of government.
Security through obscurity is a poor model for national security. If national security is that weak, its worthless. However, I do believe that certain critical things (such as stealth technology) should be kept secret. But the general concern here is with transparency. In order for the government to be accountable to the people, it must be transparent. Current laws allow the govenrment to develop deadly bioweapons without facing any consequences, due to secrecy. The secrecy you protect is what has allowed the government to conduct tests using human beings as unknowing test-subjects.
The Libertarian Party opposes bans on the sale of automatic weapons to civilians. In fact, they oppose the ban of anyweapon or class of weapon. In a Libertarian world, you'd be able to buy machine guns at Wal-Mart.
May not be good, but its what the 2nd Amendment means. The right to bear arms. It doesn't put any restriction on what kind of arms or why. I, however, think this is out of context in the modern world: it would mean the right to have a nuclear bomb as a personal weapon if one could afford it. I believe it should be modified to the right to self-defense. Which would mean people could carry a pistol (i.e., a Glock) with several bullets loaded. If you're in a situation where you really do need an Uzi for self defense (i.e., surrounded by 10 people aiming guns at you), your fucked anyways. So I say people should have the right to carry semi-automatic handguns with several bullets loaded (and put a high tax on bullets, making them fairly expensive). Severl (i.e., 5-10) bullets should be enough for any self-defense situation where you have a hope of getting out alive.
However, the 2nd Amendment says what it says. If you don't like what that means, then you should pass an Amendment to modify it (which is what I propose doing), not twist its words to meet your goals. The law should mean what it says, in plain English, so anyone who passed 9th grade English could understand it. I.e., anyone who is to be held to the law ought to be able to read it and understand it by virtue of high-school English. We live in a nation where ignorance of the law does not excuse violation of it, yet the entire penal code is hundreds of thousands of pages long, and ordinary citizens are incapable of reading and understanding the law properly. This is bullshit.
The Libertarian Party calls for the repeal of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is astounding to any individual who has served in the armed forces.
Its very simple: most people believe the draft is un-American and unconstitutional. That is, it violates our alotted rights. Thus, we believe that signing up for the military should be should be voluntary. And if you voluntarily sign up for the military, you should be able to quit your job voluntarily just like anyone else can. That doesn't mean you can quit in the middle of combat when other people's lives depend on your action. That would be like somoene operating a recking ball quiting in the middle of his job when the ball was over someone's head, and letting it fall onto their head and kill them. However, outside of combat, any place where military law is stricter than normal law, the only consequence of violating it should be dishonerable discharge from the military.
The Libertarian Party opposes taxation, but also opposes deficit spending, which leads to the natural conclusion that they hope to establish a government funded entirely by charity.
An ideal which no-one in the Libertarian party believes is completely possible. Most people you talk to will tell you that in order to protect the values the Librertarian party supports, some taxes are needed. I'd argue for one permanent income tax of say 5% of the nation's GNP -- that is, a 5% flat tax. This limits the government's growth to the growth of our economy and (indirectly) population, and if the economy shrinks, so does the government. I'm not saying 5% is the right number -- maybe its 10%, or even 15%. Whatever is necessary for the government to protect the rights alotted us and do its other bare minimum goals. This also prevents the government from wasting our tax dollars prosecuting harmless activities like prostitution, drug use, or deviant consentual sex. Interestingly, most Libertarians staunchly oppose an income tax, which I see as wrong-headed: a tax is a tax, whether its on income, transaction, property, etc. I think its easiest to have an income tax, and best to have only that. Taxes on transactions discourage buying and selling, which is bad for the economy. Taxes on property discourage people from owning more property, which is bad for happiness. Another benefit of only having a flat 5% income tax is that the IRS could be nearly eliminated, and we'd save lots of money on the paper we wouldn't have to waste for the forums, nor would people have to waste their time deciphering tax forums.
Well, I was under the impression that they entered into a specific agreement with the other company, allowing them to use their source code. That means they should have been aware of whether or not the other company had GPL'ed source.
Re:Religious paranoid idiots will ban anything
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Don't Stymie Nanotech
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· Score: 2
My point is that your ideas about how your ideal society would work are foolishly optimistic at best. Any group that worked the way you're proposing would devolve into tyranny in extremely short order.
Wrong and wrong again. I propose neither a utopia nor an optimistic dream which can never come true; I only propose taking the best elements of each party, combining them, and reducing the government to a role of only protecting our rights, and beyond that doing the bare minimum necessary. There is nothing foolish about demanding that our rights be respected, all of them -- not just the social (which the Democrats respect) or economic (which the Republicans respect) ones. Its really very simple: necessary force is used by the government to protect our economic and social rights. The government should protect our rights from violation by any source, be it other citizens, other nations, corporations, or the government itself.
Devolve into tyranny? What an absurd concept. A society where everyone's social and economic rights are protected (by force, if necessary) from intrusion would not devolve into tyranny. In fact, such a society would pose the greatest resistance to devolving into tyranny.
I was hoping you'd come to this conclusion yourself, after thinking about what I've said. It sounds like that's not going to happen.
You conclusion is invalid, and based off of your own misunderstandings. All you've done is blab a bunch of meaningless tripe.
You seem to be confusing me (a Libertarian) with an Anarchist. I never proposed that our social and economic rights not be backed up by the use of force (government force, or self-protective force) if necessary. That means preventing rights-violations (i.e., crime-prevention), preventing invasions, preventing governmental violations, and prosecuting/convicting/jailing those who violate other's rights. I've said this rather clearly, yet you seem to completely ignore it. Of course, the goverment may have to take on a few additional roles, such as maintaining streets and what-not, but those should be limited to the bare minimum.
You seem to be stuck on an obsolete and Hobbesian view of what society needs to be like. Yes, you do need coercive force to back up rights, laws, constitutions, mandates, amendments, contracts, and so on and so forth. But there's no reason why such force can't protect the social and economic rights (incomplete) which I and others have defined.
The reason that I can't come to your conclusion is that your argument is filled with invalid assumptions and incomplete. There is no reason to believe that a government with minimal function beyond protecting our rights would be unstable. If you want to argue against social and economic rights, fine, have the courage to do so. But don't say that they're infeasible, because that's the same tripe that hundreds of despots have wrongly assumed.
If they want to sell general pseudoanonymous stats (i.e., reveal trends, but not specifically who follows them...i.e., they know that #135256 calls X Y times, but not who #135256 is), that might be alright.
But it looks like these fucks want to sell our numbers to telemarketer spammers who want to blast us with their worthless useless ads. Some of these FUCKS even have the nerve to call MY NUMBER and play a recording? Next time some telemarketer calls me (who's a real person) I'm going to tell that mother fucker off and tell him where to shove it.
Corporations do not have rights. People -- individuals -- have rights. The only important thing here is OUR rights to privacy.
Yes, but company T ALLOWED company D to integrate company T's code with company D's GPL-modified code. Thus, company T agreed to allow their code to be GPL'ed. They should have researched it and made sure none of D's code was based around GPL'ed software. In this case, it seems like they turned a blind eye: in other words, they either knew or should have known that D's code was based off of GPL'ed code. Thus, they're liable, and should have to GPL the relevant portions of the code.
The point isn't that people shouldn't be notified about potentially harmful interactions. The point is that "natural" and "free of genetically modified organisms" is being used as a selling point. This is bullshit, and only works because of the general ignorance of the mass public. Again, shit is natural, but artificial sweatner isn't. Which would you rather have sprinkled on your cake? Just because something is natural doesn't make it good, and just because something is genetically modified doesn't mean its bad. Only a complete idiot would believe that.
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Yes, it would be a derivative work. But copyright is not supposed to protect the idea, but rather the expression of the idea, remember?
Try reading next time Twirlip.
I never suggested that this is something that can be entirely realized tomorrow, five years from now, or even ten years from now. Yet, it is most certainly going to occur before "faster-than-light spaceships" (impossible, it requires infinite energy to travel at the speed of light), immortality (also impossible by a strict definition). Time travel is entirely possible in a one-way direction -- into the future, if one travels fast enough.
Furthermore, what I require does not necessarily demand "machine-comperhension". All that needs to be done is that something needs to be re-written enough to escape copyright protection. Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. What constitutes enough of a revision to be a different expression of the same idea is an ambiguity. If a "different expression of the same idea" can simply mean altering word-choice in the same expression, then programs could be written to do that today with a little consideration:
i.e., "Yes. Machine comprehension-- for that is what you're talking about, after all-- is something that might happen someday." could be re-written as "Yes. Machine understanding -- for that is what you are articulating about, after all -- is something that may occur someday eventually." Same idea, different expression. The only question is would it stand up in court as a different expression of the same idea, thus not fall under copyright infringement.
The program only needs to be "smart" enough to sidestep copyright -- create a new expression of the same idea. Depending on what court's rule, that may be relatively dumb; i.e., like the AliceBot.
I'd suggest you stop focusing on irrelevant personal insults -- which only serve to hide the weaknesses of your arguments -- and start focusing on useful suggestions or contributions.
As usual, no useful commentary from Twirlip. Then again, that's what I'd suspect from the flame-baiter who's probably flooding my journal with AC flamebat comments.
The only idiot is you for thinking that you can't express the same idea in different words, or believing that it won't eventually be possible for computers to do this. Not to say they'll be as good at it as us, but they will suffice for the purposes I suggested.
As for being unable to express the same meaning in different words, that's obviously bunk. Whenever one reads over something one has written and recasts the words -- i.e., for greater clarity or brevity -- one is expressing the same meaning in different words. That's the wonderful thing about the English language -- it's flexible. That doesn't mean that any two sentences are equal: just that there are different ways to say the same thing. I.e., "The bird dove down to the ground. It was flying fast." ; "The bird, flying fast, dove to the groud." ; and "Flying fast, the bird dove to the ground." These all mean the same thing. I'd argue that the 3rd is the best, as it avoids unncessary words and maintains a readable flow; however, in certain situations, the 2nd or even 1st may be desireable. Thus, though different versions may be more desireable in different situations, they all mean the same thing.
As for computers being unable to recast sentences and paragraphs, expressing the same ideas but with different expressions, that is not possible now. However, nothing prevents it from being possible in the future. With the advancement of AI, bayesian algorithms, and genetic algorithms, it may well be something which can be achieved with work. Computer programs can already find most grammatical errors and fix them; that was a problem thought unsolvable not so long ago. Stranger things have been done (i.e., rhesus monkeys have be taught primitive sign-language, with a vocabulary maxing out at ~500 words).
But, I wouldn't expect anything other than is-ought fallacies from the likes of Twirlip: "Software programs can't do that today, so they'll never be able to do that."
Actually, I believe Libertarians -- including myself as an independant Libertarian (one who disagrees with sevearl of the Libertarian Party planks) -- would abolish the FCC altogether.
The FCC is an unconstitutional organization, which is not answerable to the people and not accountable. It makes laws, which is wrong; the Congress and Senate should be making the laws.
In general, I think that we should get rid of communications regulations in as much as possible. No one has the right to own the air, and the government attempting to regulate such just hinders the right to freedom of speech: because of commmunication regulations, though everyone has freedom of speech, only the rich can get their message to the public.
Such laws are unconstitutional violations of our rights anyways. It violates consumers rights to force them to buy inferior products. I should be able to buy the best product on the market -- which isn't one which is crippled. If anything, what should be illegal is not the copying of copyright material, but the mass distribution of it.
I disagree with even that to some extent. The purpose of intellectual property law -- patent and copyright, in this case -- is to promote progress: to act as an engine of free speech, fueling it, or fueling invention. That is, it is there to promote people to excercisee their rights to free speech, and to excercise their right to be inventive. This is a legitimate aim, even from a Libertarian perspective: giving people incentive to excercise their rights is a good thing; conversely, giving people incentive not to excercise their rights is a bad thing. But when it is of overly broad scope and unnecessarily long duration, it in fact does the opposite.
IP laws regarding copyrights and patents should provide protection for just enough duration to give authors and inventors the incentive to write/invent, and its scope should be as narrow as possible. Exceptions should also be made for life-saving cases. Your patent shoudn't mean the death of somebody because they can't afford the cost of your drug. For those who can prove inability to afford drugs, the government should allow 3rd parties to produce generic versions of it and sell it to these people at the cost of production. The original inventor loses nothing: those who couldn't afford to buy the drug wouldn't have bought it anyways, and would be dead. For copyrights, their scope should also likewise be limited. Some things, for example, should not be copyrightable. Religious texts, for example, like that of scientology. Religion is a public thing, and the public has the right to know the dictates of religions, so those in the public can weigh the cons/benefits of converting to that religion. The Scientologist's copyrights on their religious texts violate the public's right to freedom of religion, by denying the individuals adequate information to make an informed decision about religion. The scope of copyright should also be limited in other ways; namely, fair use needs to be greatly expanded.
This brings me to an idea I have. As computers programs are becoming smarter and smarter, it may be possible for them to read in paragraphs and reword them to be written differently, but still mean the same thing. This seems like something that we should all be working on, so that we can distribute the ideas of any book without worrying about the copyright. For example, if I took Lawrence Lessig's book, Code, and re-wrote each paragraph, switching words and sentences around, then distributed it, that would be perfectly legal. Copyright does not protect ideas, but only the expression of those ideas. Thus, we should be working on programs which can figure out ways to restate things in a preferably better manner, but still have them mean the same thing. That way, you could scan in Lessig's code, have it auto-reworded, and distribute it.
I can picture a tree-climbing/AI algorithm, where it passes over the same sentences and paragraphs, several times, re-writing them in various combinations to find the one which "maximizes the score". Of course, this would be very complicated and difficult to program, requiring both exceptional knowledge of linguistics and programming; but its a project that seems worthwhile to me.
I'll sooner trust IBM over MS, and this study was clearly the puppet of MS. All of the studies which have "shown" that Winodws has a lower TCO than Linux are bunk, supported by MS-money. The MITRE report -- from a neutral source, advising on the benefits of Linux v. Windows -- suggests that Linux has a lower TCO. Why? (1) IBM supports FS/OSS software, and has done much for the Linux community. (2) IBM's not MS. MS has a history of distorting the facts, lying, cheating, etc.
Actually, according to the IBM study I linked to, a Linux admin can manage more Linux systems than can a Windows admin.
Basing the study off of projections for Win2k and the facts of the previous 5-years for Linux invalidates the comparison. In order to compare, you need to do both things likewise. They did not, meaning any conclusions they draw about the TCO of Windows v. Linux are meaningless. To hyperbolize what they've done, it would be like comparing the TCO of Win2k to that of Linux in 1991, when I believe it first came out.
Never-the-less, it is erroneous, comparing products which no-one will buy anymore. A proper study is between WinXP and the latest editions of RedHat or Debian, which people will buy.
It might be worthwhile noting that real studies, which we can look at, unlike this one, and which aren't backed by MS, show that Linux has a lower TCO:
http://www.cyber.com.au/cyber/about/linux_vs_wi
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-
Please, just because American's bought the software doesn't mean they were doing business in America. Anyone around the world could have bought that software. Does that mean Elcomsoft should be dragged to the most draconian country in the world and made to answer to their laws?
Yes, the US could arrest them on next contact -- then again, why would they come to the US? No, the US has no grounds to extradite them from Russia, as they weren't violating any of Russia's laws. Russia isn't going to extradite them for doing what Russian law mandates -- allowing the consumer fair use. Under Russian law, you HAVE to allow the consumer fair use.
The US judge who decided this stepped over the line, but that was predictable. Judges never like to say they don't have jurisdiction. That would undermine their own power, and no one wants to do that.
Please, Skylarov's bail was, relatively speaking, petty change: the company can easily compensate. Its doubtful -- no, impossible -- that Russia will take actions against its own corporations, violating its own laws which mandate that fair use be made available to the public. Russian law says that fair use has to be allowed the consumer, thus they have no grounds on which to take any actions against Elcomsoft.
If Elcomsoft has assets in the states, then a US court can force whatever bank tends to them to turn them over as a fine. However, I doubt Elcomsoft has assets in the US, and if they do have any money here, it can easily be moved to Russia: they haven't been convicted of anything yet, so are free to move their funds around.
They would hardly be fugitives. The US courts, nor US laws, have no jurisdiction over them. They run their company in Russia, code their products in Russia, and the servers for their websites are in Russia. Simply because you offer a product for sale online doesn't mean you're doing business in every nation of the world, and are subject to the laws of every nation. That's bullshit.
The only international problem posed by this would be the US trying to reach beyond its jurisdiction, and violate the sovereignty of Russia. The US is trying to say that they have the authority to drag anyone over to the US if they have a website anywhere in the world that sells a product, because that would mean "it would be available to US citizens" thus would be "doing business in the US".
This is obviously an issue of the US stepping over the line of sovereignty.
If you choose to do business in a country, your business actions in that country are subject to the laws of that country. So the instant Elcomsoft knowingly sold its first copy of the program to a US citizen, the DMCA had jurisdiction over that act. You are right the DMCA has no jurisdiction over Dmitry - he wasn't involved in sales, so he wasn't the one violating the DMCA by choosing to provide the product to US citizens. But the company itself is under the jursdiction.
The possible punishments are limited, though. At most the US can tell Elcomsoft it is not allowed to do business inside the US.
Wrong. Business over the internet is not business in any cuontry, so those issues of jurisdiction don't apply. More to the point, Elcomsoft hosts their web-site in Russia, not the US.
More to the point, a US court can't do anything. Sure, they can "tell" Elcomsoft not to do business in the US -- but its worthless, because they can't enforce that. Elcomsoft can leave their products available for order online from Russia, and there's nothing any US court, or the US, can do about it.
Don't you get it? It doesn't matter what the law says. The point is that the US can now excercise force against any Elcomsoft employee present in the US. If they had stayed in Russia, the US would have no authority, jurisdiction, or sovereignty what-so-ever.
So, in short, they're dumb for coming to the US.
We want this to be a test-case, so that the DMCA can be over-turned.
But the problematic point is that the US has no jurisdiction. The Elcomsoft and Skylarov are in Russia, so the US has no jurisdiction over them what-so-ever. I'm startled that Skylarov and Elcomsoft are actually appearing before a US court. Had they stayed in Russia, the US court would have no jurisdiction/sovereignty what-so-ever. The court could have ruled against Elcomsoft, but would have no way of enforcing a punishment, as Elcomsoft is in Russia.
Now that Elcomsoft's president is in the US, they can use that as leverage to enforce their ruling, by imprisoning Elcomsoft's president until Elcomsoft acquiesces.
I don't see why Skylarov and Elcomsoft are being so stupid. They have no obligation what-so-ever to come to the US. Skylarov could stay in Russia, say fuck the agreement to testify, and suffer no consequence. Likewise with Elcomsoft.
Bullshit which will easily be overturned.
Windows is a generic term. It always has been a generic term and always will be a generic term. In every GUI, different frames of programs are called "windows". "Windows" should have never received a trademark in the first place, as it was generic when the trademark was granted.
Thus, no one should heed MS's demands to change their name. The Lindows case already proved the "windows" trademark was void.
You might need to be at a university terminal to get access to it, or may need access to a university through a VPN account.
Does DOS really mean "disk operating system"? No, I think not:
DOS -- Denial of Service
DOS -- Dumb Operating System
DOS -- Dumb Obese System
Any other ideas?
Well, gee, they're agreeing to allow company X to integrate company X's code with their own. Thus, they should have had knowledge of company X's code, and should have made inquiries to determine if company X had any code in it that was under the GPL, or any other code which has specific distribution requirements.
In this specific case, the company set up an agreement with another compnay to let them merge source codes. It was a specific agreement they negotiated, and they were either aware or should have been aware that the other company incorporated GPL'ed code.
Again, you've come up with a bunch of meaningless tripe. You can well argue there's no such thing as rights -- we made it all up. But then there's also no such thing as laws, good, evil, bad, moral, immoral, etc, or the "collective priviledge" of the community you refer to -- its all made up.
It doesn't much matter to me whether rights exist a priori or whether they're something we made up and enforced. By the same token you can say that we just "made up right" I can say we made up the "fact" that 1 + 1 = 2. We defined 1 + 1 to equal 2. Similarly, we defined human rights, just like we defined the language we now speak.
Btw, have you looked at the Republican or Democratic platform? Each of those platforms includes their own equally absurd non-sense. I'm not saying the Libertarian party is free of non-sense, but they have a very reasonable basis for their entire platform: that you can do whatever you want so long as you don't violate the rights of others. You can babble on and on about how rights don't exist. Maybe they don't, not in the same sense that gravity exists. We made them up. It doesn't matter anyways because they're here. Most people want social and economic rights for themselves. If you don't want people to have the right to your body, then fine, go to some despotic nation like China where you're forced to have abortions and tortured. Its interesting, though, I somehow doubt you'd be content if you were arrested for a consentual sexual activity that took place in your bedroom between you and your wife/girlfriend.
Quite frankly, most people are much closer to a moderate libertarian pov than a Democratic or Republican pov. Most people want what they do in their own bedrooms to be their own business, and no-one elses, unlike Republican who want to (for example) outlaw anal sex (in some states, you can actually be prosecuted for sodomy). Most people want to keep most of their income, and don't want to pay reparations, nor do they want to use their tax dollars to support some of the liberal agenda that Democrats use tax dollars to support. Back to the Republican party, they want to condemn people dying of painful terminal illnesses to live them out, rather than allowing them to end their lifes in peace and dignity. Democrats have decided that rats and mice should be alotted the same "rights" as human beings. The list of bullshit goes on and on. Each party has plenty of these idiocies.
I agree with much of your point: morals, good, evil, bad, rights, justice, etc don't exist as some natural phenomena -- we created them. But what does that matter? We also created roads and buildings, so they exist. In the same sense, we created human rights, and they exist just as surely as do the roads. They aren't natural phenomena: if every person perished tomorrow, there would be no such thing as law, human rights, right, wrong, good, bad...everything we "created" would either instantaneously disappear (i.e., societal codes) or slowly degrade and crumble (i.e., buildings, roads, computers, cars, and physical man-made structures/tools).
Quite frankly, we don't need everyone to agree on everything. We simply need most people to agree on a basic set of rights to be alotted people that shouldn't be violated without good cause. Most people would agree that we should have the following set of rights: the right to life (including euthanasia), the right to body (including harmless activities such as prostitution [sexual freedom] and drug use), the right to privacy, the right to freedom of speech, the right to own property which can't be taken away, the right to keep the vast majority of one's income, the right to freedom of religion (including freeom from religion), the right to travel as one pleases, etc. This isn't comprehensive, but it covers most of the rights that people want and need. You can babble on and on about how "rights" don't exist, but if society agrees upon a certain set of rights to be alotted and enforces them, they do exist, just as do other laws.
As for your criticisms of me and the Libertarian party...firstly, I don't agree with everything in the Libertarian Party Platform. Anyone who agrees with a political party entirely is a brainless idiot. But, anyways, I'll respond to a few of your criticisms.
The abolition of prescription requirements for the purchase of medicines: absurd. My girlfriend is a physician, so I've witnessed second-hand the dangers that can come from patients who self-medicate. Medicines must be regulated to protect unwise or ignorant people from hurting, or even killing, themselves.
Well, I'll respond to that by saying that the government does not exist to protect us from our own stupidity, or the consequences of our own actions. If I get into a car and don't wear a seatbelt, that's none of the government's business. If I subsequently crash into a tree, fly through the window, and am killed, that's my own fault -- the government doesn't exist to protect me from myself. That's patronistic crap. Prescription requirements for medicines are also just a sneaky way that the government can regulate through back door what it can't through the front door: i.e., the prescription requirement on the morning afterpill.
Libertarian Party stands for the abolition of regulation on the sale of alcohol and tobacco. This is unacceptable. Persons under the legal age are not capable of making good decisions about their use of these substances, and therefore they must not have access to them.
Hard and fast rules never apply. Some people are more capable of making responsible decisions about drinking when they're 16 than others are when they're 50. Again, individual responsibility -- its not the government's job to protect individuals from themselves. Part of my position here depends upon when teenagers become "full adults" in terms of legal responsibility. If you are old enough to be drafted and sent off to die, or trialed for murder and given the death sentence, then society has obviously forced upon you the full responsibilities of an adult -- so you should get the full priviledges too, which includes drinking. So, I think that as soon as we can trialing kids as adults and giving them the death sentence, they should be able to drink. I'd guess that age is around 13 or so.
The Libertarian Party opposes the involuntary commitment of individuals on the grounds of mental illness. This baffles me; are they expecting mentally ill individuals to somehow overcome their disease long enough to sign themselves into a hospital?
Again, it isn't the government's responsibility to protect people from themselves, and a person's family shouldn't have the right to force him/her into anything (be it a mental hospital, or a nursing home). However, one could argue that such mentally ill or old-age senile people are a danger to the rest of us (a danger to our assigned rights) and thus need to be put in a mental hospital for that reason. One could also say that their mental illness essentially deprives them of any freedom, so confining them to a mental hospital hardly abridges their rights.
The Libertarian Party opposes the use of passports, and other forms of border control. The number of instances of criminals being caught at border crossings alone is enough to put the lie to this proposal.
This seems to be an anomoly in the Libertarian Party's position. They strongly support property rights, yet don't support the right of a nation's people to collectively prevent foreigners from coming onto their property. However, I do believe that people should be alotted the right to travel as they please. So, the government can decide that foreigners can't come into the US, and can enforce that if they're on public property (i.e., streets, etc)...but not if they're on an individual's property. If I live on the border, I should have the right to allow a imigrant to live on my land, though that doesn't give him the right to move anywhere else, or on public proprty.
The Libertarian Party opposes the protection of national secrets by the Department of Defense and other agencies of government.
Security through obscurity is a poor model for national security. If national security is that weak, its worthless. However, I do believe that certain critical things (such as stealth technology) should be kept secret. But the general concern here is with transparency. In order for the government to be accountable to the people, it must be transparent. Current laws allow the govenrment to develop deadly bioweapons without facing any consequences, due to secrecy. The secrecy you protect is what has allowed the government to conduct tests using human beings as unknowing test-subjects.
The Libertarian Party opposes bans on the sale of automatic weapons to civilians. In fact, they oppose the ban of anyweapon or class of weapon. In a Libertarian world, you'd be able to buy machine guns at Wal-Mart.
May not be good, but its what the 2nd Amendment means. The right to bear arms. It doesn't put any restriction on what kind of arms or why. I, however, think this is out of context in the modern world: it would mean the right to have a nuclear bomb as a personal weapon if one could afford it. I believe it should be modified to the right to self-defense. Which would mean people could carry a pistol (i.e., a Glock) with several bullets loaded. If you're in a situation where you really do need an Uzi for self defense (i.e., surrounded by 10 people aiming guns at you), your fucked anyways. So I say people should have the right to carry semi-automatic handguns with several bullets loaded (and put a high tax on bullets, making them fairly expensive). Severl (i.e., 5-10) bullets should be enough for any self-defense situation where you have a hope of getting out alive.
However, the 2nd Amendment says what it says. If you don't like what that means, then you should pass an Amendment to modify it (which is what I propose doing), not twist its words to meet your goals. The law should mean what it says, in plain English, so anyone who passed 9th grade English could understand it. I.e., anyone who is to be held to the law ought to be able to read it and understand it by virtue of high-school English. We live in a nation where ignorance of the law does not excuse violation of it, yet the entire penal code is hundreds of thousands of pages long, and ordinary citizens are incapable of reading and understanding the law properly. This is bullshit.
The Libertarian Party calls for the repeal of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is astounding to any individual who has served in the armed forces.
Its very simple: most people believe the draft is un-American and unconstitutional. That is, it violates our alotted rights. Thus, we believe that signing up for the military should be should be voluntary. And if you voluntarily sign up for the military, you should be able to quit your job voluntarily just like anyone else can. That doesn't mean you can quit in the middle of combat when other people's lives depend on your action. That would be like somoene operating a recking ball quiting in the middle of his job when the ball was over someone's head, and letting it fall onto their head and kill them. However, outside of combat, any place where military law is stricter than normal law, the only consequence of violating it should be dishonerable discharge from the military.
The Libertarian Party opposes taxation, but also opposes deficit spending, which leads to the natural conclusion that they hope to establish a government funded entirely by charity.
An ideal which no-one in the Libertarian party believes is completely possible. Most people you talk to will tell you that in order to protect the values the Librertarian party supports, some taxes are needed. I'd argue for one permanent income tax of say 5% of the nation's GNP -- that is, a 5% flat tax. This limits the government's growth to the growth of our economy and (indirectly) population, and if the economy shrinks, so does the government. I'm not saying 5% is the right number -- maybe its 10%, or even 15%. Whatever is necessary for the government to protect the rights alotted us and do its other bare minimum goals. This also prevents the government from wasting our tax dollars prosecuting harmless activities like prostitution, drug use, or deviant consentual sex. Interestingly, most Libertarians staunchly oppose an income tax, which I see as wrong-headed: a tax is a tax, whether its on income, transaction, property, etc. I think its easiest to have an income tax, and best to have only that. Taxes on transactions discourage buying and selling, which is bad for the economy. Taxes on property discourage people from owning more property, which is bad for happiness. Another benefit of only having a flat 5% income tax is that the IRS could be nearly eliminated, and we'd save lots of money on the paper we wouldn't have to waste for the forums, nor would people have to waste their time deciphering tax forums.
Well, I was under the impression that they entered into a specific agreement with the other company, allowing them to use their source code. That means they should have been aware of whether or not the other company had GPL'ed source.
My point is that your ideas about how your ideal society would work are foolishly optimistic at best. Any group that worked the way you're proposing would devolve into tyranny in extremely short order.
Wrong and wrong again. I propose neither a utopia nor an optimistic dream which can never come true; I only propose taking the best elements of each party, combining them, and reducing the government to a role of only protecting our rights, and beyond that doing the bare minimum necessary. There is nothing foolish about demanding that our rights be respected, all of them -- not just the social (which the Democrats respect) or economic (which the Republicans respect) ones. Its really very simple: necessary force is used by the government to protect our economic and social rights. The government should protect our rights from violation by any source, be it other citizens, other nations, corporations, or the government itself.
Devolve into tyranny? What an absurd concept. A society where everyone's social and economic rights are protected (by force, if necessary) from intrusion would not devolve into tyranny. In fact, such a society would pose the greatest resistance to devolving into tyranny.
I was hoping you'd come to this conclusion yourself, after thinking about what I've said. It sounds like that's not going to happen.
You conclusion is invalid, and based off of your own misunderstandings. All you've done is blab a bunch of meaningless tripe.
You seem to be confusing me (a Libertarian) with an Anarchist. I never proposed that our social and economic rights not be backed up by the use of force (government force, or self-protective force) if necessary. That means preventing rights-violations (i.e., crime-prevention), preventing invasions, preventing governmental violations, and prosecuting/convicting/jailing those who violate other's rights. I've said this rather clearly, yet you seem to completely ignore it. Of course, the goverment may have to take on a few additional roles, such as maintaining streets and what-not, but those should be limited to the bare minimum.
You seem to be stuck on an obsolete and Hobbesian view of what society needs to be like. Yes, you do need coercive force to back up rights, laws, constitutions, mandates, amendments, contracts, and so on and so forth. But there's no reason why such force can't protect the social and economic rights (incomplete) which I and others have defined.
The reason that I can't come to your conclusion is that your argument is filled with invalid assumptions and incomplete. There is no reason to believe that a government with minimal function beyond protecting our rights would be unstable. If you want to argue against social and economic rights, fine, have the courage to do so. But don't say that they're infeasible, because that's the same tripe that hundreds of despots have wrongly assumed.
If they want to sell general pseudoanonymous stats (i.e., reveal trends, but not specifically who follows them...i.e., they know that #135256 calls X Y times, but not who #135256 is), that might be alright.
But it looks like these fucks want to sell our numbers to telemarketer spammers who want to blast us with their worthless useless ads. Some of these FUCKS even have the nerve to call MY NUMBER and play a recording? Next time some telemarketer calls me (who's a real person) I'm going to tell that mother fucker off and tell him where to shove it.
Corporations do not have rights. People -- individuals -- have rights. The only important thing here is OUR rights to privacy.
Yes, but company T ALLOWED company D to integrate company T's code with company D's GPL-modified code. Thus, company T agreed to allow their code to be GPL'ed. They should have researched it and made sure none of D's code was based around GPL'ed software. In this case, it seems like they turned a blind eye: in other words, they either knew or should have known that D's code was based off of GPL'ed code. Thus, they're liable, and should have to GPL the relevant portions of the code.
The point isn't that people shouldn't be notified about potentially harmful interactions. The point is that "natural" and "free of genetically modified organisms" is being used as a selling point. This is bullshit, and only works because of the general ignorance of the mass public. Again, shit is natural, but artificial sweatner isn't. Which would you rather have sprinkled on your cake? Just because something is natural doesn't make it good, and just because something is genetically modified doesn't mean its bad. Only a complete idiot would believe that.