Your implied comparison of stem cell research to Rascher's medical experiments is ridiculous hyperbole and borders on offensive in the way it trivializes the Holocaust. To suggest that the excruciating and horrifying procedures inflicted upon sentient people, capable of experiencing pain and fear, is synonymous with those performed on a collection of cells strains credulity.
As to the "humanness" of 8-year-olds, I think we're all in agreement. However, I do question your "humanness", when you suggest that some of the said 8-year-olds should be made to suffer from debilitating diseases because the research that could provide a cure has been outlawed, due the moral discomfort of an overzealous minority of people. The only immorality I see is that living, breathing, sentient human beings are made to suffer for the non-existent rights of a collection of cells.
This is not to say I believe a child in the womb does not deserve protection. But we are not talking about a child or even a fetus. We're talking about a collection of cells. Perhaps, if the "people" you are talking about had names, or thoughts, or hell, even heartbeats, I would be more receptive to the question of who and not what we're doing research on. Until then, the only arguments against stem cell research are theological, stemming from the notion that cells supposedly have a soul.
It is my belief that our future generations will look upon our refusal to wield the benefits of stem cell research with the same disdain we hold for our ancestors who believed the way to rid the body of disease was to bleed the evil "spirits" out.
raided a major music piracy operation in New York City, leading to the capture of 35,000 finished CD-Rs, 10,000 DVDs, the equivalent of 421 CD-R burners and the arrest of three individuals.
While I agree with your point, make sure you know the facts before making it... otherwise you'll look like the RIAA.:)
I work at a major consumer electronics retailer mentioned several times in this discussion and I'll tell you why I *always* buy the extended service plan - with an employee discount of cost + 5% I end up saving anywhere from 60 to 90% from the original price. We push extended service plans hard because they are a huge margin item - almost pure profit. Correspondingly, employees buy them because a) we see the quality of the equipment we sell and b) it's an incredibly low cost to pay for something we know will be serviced/replaced within 3-4 years.
I work at one of the stores mentioned in this article. And while I agree with the sentiments you express in spirit, you would be wasting your time and hurting the wrong people.
Assuming your childish pranks *were* effective, driving people away by taping over prices and passing out phoney non-disclosure agreements would do little for your cause. In the end, our revenue would decrease, hours would be cut and the everyday workers, like me, could be laid-off. All of this would occur without anyone in a position of power knowing *why*, since you resorted to the equivalent of TPing someone's house rather than actually voicing your protest.
As for being arrested, go ahead. Instead of your wet dream about being mentioned to the district manager and causing the store's change of heart just in time for Christmas, you'll be laughed at as the lunatic of the day who got booted from the store. You'll be forgotten within 24 hours when the next lunatic comes in and gets booted for spitting at our general manager.
Really want corporate to pay attention? Find an anti-DMCA friend who works in one of the stores and get them to write a letter to corporate. I'm a great worker with the manager reviews, attendance, and the MVP awards to back it up. Guess what? I'm writing them a letter explaining that, while I love working for [omitted], I'm pretty ashamed of the company's behavior in this situation. Whose statement do you think will carry more weight - mine or the shithead who puts on an anti-DMCA play, oh ah a skit! in the parking lot?
As it stands, your suggestion of handing fliers is the only intelligent thing you said in your post. Information and awareness are the two things Joe Consumer needs, not your 12 year-old stunts d00d.
How are "freedom of speech" as mentioned in the first amendment and the neo-liberal concept of "freedom of expression" remotely related? I support the freedom of speech unconditionally - I do not support the "freedom of expression" - first of all, there's no such thing. Second of all, it's ridiculous to consider phyical actions as speech.
So I suppose all the flags people hung on their houses and attached to their cars windows after September 11th were... what? Decorations to match their aluminum siding or the interior leather of their SUV? No, it was an expression of support for the USA, of course. And rather than expressing this idea by driving down the road, screaming "I SUPPORT THE USA!!" out their windows, they flew a flag. And as long as a person has the right to express their dissatisfaction with the USA by screaming "FUCK THE USA!!!", they should have the right to burn the flag. Physical actions and speech are just two forms of the broader principle - expression of ideas.
Let me bring it home for you. Would you be confused about what I was trying to express to you if, after listening to your opinion on "the neo-liberal concept of 'freedom of expression'", I put my fist in front of your face and extended my middle finger? Or would I just have to say "Fuck your ignorant, ill-formed opinion"?
Re:Thankfully, this is no democracy
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 2
Haha, I feel exactly the same way, except I mirror you on the political spectrum. I vote Democrat in a close race, and Green if it is available. I don't agree with all of the Green platform (gun control in particular) but I feel like the Democratic party has sold out to garner GOP votes.
Of course we have to be more vigilant right now - anyone who doesn't think there's a truly serious threat is deluding themselves, and it is pretty hard to come down against the government for making changes that allow them to more easily track down the bad guys.
I am more vigilant now as there is a serious threat - I am watching my government more closely than I ever have because the threat they pose to my liberty has never been greater.
As horrific as watching planes crash into towers is, I would rather ride a crumbling building down 100 stories than live in the United Police State of America.
Sorry if this is a stupid question - Why would 70kb/sec upstream utilization reduce downstream bandwidth by nearly 1Mb/sec? That makes absolutely no sense to me, but then again, I'm not a Network Engineer. Can anyone more knowledgable explain this?
Because that is where theft comes into play. That _is_ money that could go to the RIAA's pit-o-cash.
Sorry pal. I call bullshit. I don't think the 16-year-old with 4,000 MP3s on his two 100GB hard drives would have bought every single one of the those CDs.
Don't fall for the RIAA's propaganda - DL'ed MP3 != Lost Sale
Amen brother! Not to mention that it would capitalize on the seemingly endless teenage craze of creating "mixes" for your friends. I used to have stacks of tapes during high school and college, that were gifts from friends. These days, it's CDs. My brother has a whole case full of discs labeled "[insert girl's name here]'s Mix". In my time, mixes were dependent of what you owned or could borrow. Now, the kids just find it on the P2P de jour.
I'm with you; the music industry missed out on an enormous cash cow by refusing to learn how its customers use the music they buy. However, I'm not as optimistic as you about the success of such kiosks now that the toothpaste is out of the tube.
Its perfectly within our Constitutional rights for the government to do this, and anyone who is made nervous because of this probably has something to hide.
Congratulations Mensa-member! You've fallen into the same fallacious assumption that marks all American intellects that are both lazy and foolish - If you're innocent, then you have nothing to hide. Yes, you are in the company of esteemed patriots such as McCarthy, Hoover and Stalin (hey I didn't say American patriots). So on behalf of John Ashcroft, I would like to thank you, good citizen, for dulling your mind and accepting the dictate of your DictatH^H^H^H^H^President, who says that the only way to save liberty and justice for all, is to destroy them.
Most people who get rips would either do without altogether, or wait until the DVD/VHS that THEY WERE GOING TO PURCHASE ANYWAY became available.
Recent events in my life have lead me to believe that what you say is utterly true. I've been out of work for nearly a year now and my nest egg is slowly dwindling. As a result, the two things in my life that dictated how, where, and why I make media purchases (time and money) have flip-flopped -
Employed - Plenty of money, no time.
I buy on impulse. When I buy, I buy alot! I purchase CDs, DVDs and books I think might be good. I don't bother looking for bargains. I stick with one or two retailers that ship fast (but don't necessarily have the best prices). I almost never buy used. I hardly use P2P unless I cannot find something I want, or it's in transit and I can't wait for two days to watch/listen.
Unemployed - Plenty of time, no money.
I never buy on impulse. I never buy anything unless I've heard it/watched it and know that I like it. I buy from the retailer with the lowest price, even if it takes two weeks to arrive. I buy used whenever I can - more often than not, I wait until new releases are available second-hand before I purchase. I constantly use P2P to preview to see if I want to buy and to enjoy the rest that I can't afford to buy at the moment.
Granted, my evidence is anecdotal and limited only to myself but it has opened my eyes, nonetheless. Despite the ravings of Jack Valenti et al. "pirating" is no substitute for purchasing. P2P is a pain in the ass - constant disconnections, mislabeled files, incomplete track listings, and the quality blows more often than not. Not to mention that a bootleg of a movie ONLY available in theaters is in NO WAY a substitute for the original (so I have to budget in the new releases I want to see, grrr...). Am I trying to get a free lunch? Fuck no! I'd rather spend the money, if I could.
Someone please mod this parent up! You are exactly right - comparing the ripping and encoding of a CD to that of a DVD is apples and oranges. Any 8th grader with a copy of Musicmatch can rip the latest N'Sync album to MP3 but their head would likely explode if you asked to to DIVX a copy of The Matrix. The process has a steep learning curve and encoding takes a long time and a powerful machine! This is to say nothing of the fact that WAV -> MP3 has a lot less apparent loss of quality than does VOB -> MPEG4. The MPAA does not have the same problem as the RIAA.
Why do LucasFilm (and all other movie studios) threaten litigation against sites that post scripts, spoilers and screencaps prior to the movie release yet publish the novelisation weeks before the premiere?
I swear, one day my head is going to explode from the cognitive dissonance of it all...
Excellent points. Your post reminds me of John Perry Barlow's words accompanying his Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, in response to the Communications Decency Act of '96 -
This bill was enacted upon us by people who haven't the slightest idea who we are or where our conversation is being conducted. It is, as my good friend and Wired Editor Louis Rossetto put it, as though "the illiterate could tell you what to read." [source]
Holds true here as well, I'd say. As does Barlow's response -
Is it any wonder why Americans are scoring lower and lower on assessments of scientific knowledge? Perhaps CNN should report on the media's hand in promoting pseudoscience and ignorance of the scientific method. To wit:
The universe began with a huge explosion. (True, according to the "Big Bang" theory widely accepted by scientists, but dismissed by some religious leaders.) 33 percent.
Human beings developed from earlier species of animals. (True, according to the theory of evolution, which is accepted by the majority of scientists, but not by many religious leaders.) 53 percent.
Oh really? And do the majority of accountants accept the theory of evolution? And what about the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies? Because their opinions are just as fucking relevant as those of religious leaders.
CNN and other media sources have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the loud rantings of an incredibly small but rabid minority of religious demagogues, who have decided that a 4000 year-old myth trumps 100 years of indirect and direct testing and a mountain of supporting evidence. So now, well established and supported theories, like evolution, need an apologetic footnote. WTF.
American society has been hustled into believing the opinions of religious leaders matter to science. They don't. Let them tell us what scientific findings mean for our soul or our humanity. But I'm sorry Father/Reverend/Rabbi, if you are using words like "kinds", "flood", or "dust" instead of "mitochondrial DNA", "punctuated equilibrium", or "vestigial" then you need to be left out of the debate.
Labels serve a very important purpose: they let us know which artists are worth listening to. I don't know about you, but I don't have time to wade through piles of indie crap hoping to find something I like. Most of the good musicians out there, I (and most everybody else) am aware of because a major label spent money in putting them in the limelight.
This is utter rubbish. At eMusic and MP3.com ( prior to being absorbed by the Beast) I often sample music by finding a genre I like and seeing which artists were downloaded the most - the best artists typically bubbled to the top. I found many acts that were "worth listening to" without having my hand held by the RIAA.
Unfortunately, some labels have a single agenda - that agenda is Make Money. So they will thrust into the limelight those bands they believe will make money. Witness the countless knock-off boy and girl bands from the last several years - fucking O-Town, a band manufactured during primetime for God's sake - is this an example of the bands they think are "worth listening to"??
The fact is, you are spreading the same myth the RIAA uses to justify their existence at this point. MP3.com was an effective way to market music without signing your soul to the major labels. And guess what? The stupid, mindless, sheep fans were actually able to decide for themselves which music was good and which music was bad, all without Uncle Hilary Rosen having to say "Put down that silly O Brother, Where Art Thou? disc and look at this shiny, new N'Sync album!"
People love music. Left to their own devices, they will find ways to talk about music, spread the word about the bands they love, and find as many new acts as they can afford. And in the process the good with be separated from the bad.
I do agree with your latter point, however. Not all labels are bad and some do sincerely promote the artists they believe will produce good music and not only good royalties. But the labels are on borrowed time. There are alternatives.
Damn right! We'll never buy system with increased quality at the cost of built in encryption targetted at squarely at stopping fair use casual home copying (because it's trivial for commercial pirates to crack but just hard enough to flummox Joe Sixpack).
Yes, it's a good thing that white elephants like CSS encrypted DVD's will never take off, right?
That's not an entirely true analogy. The value-added aspects of DVDs far outweigh the value-removed aspects for most people: random-access scenes, bonus materials, alternate audio tracks, 5.1 sound, increased picture resolution, and more durable format. The main drawback is region-coding and CSS which are not intrinsic to the format but an add-on included by MPAA members. Besides, most VHS tapes already prevented fair-use home copying with a little something called Macrovision before DVDs ever hit the market.
However, the value-removed aspects of HDTV will far outweigh the value-added aspects: degraded signals for recording, recordings time-stamped to expire (which means no archiving!) or restricted altogether and planned obsolescence of TV hardware with changing standards. All of this for increased picture resolution?
No, you will see backlash in this case - particularly if Joe Sixpack is forced to move to HDTV.
Unfortunately, I'm salivating over this just as much as everyone else on this thread. I want the LOTR DVDs. I want the Simpsons Box Set DVDs. But do I really want to give money to the MPAA & News Corp when they are trying to squash our rights? Not particularly.
Assuming you are a patient person, there is a way to have your cake and eat it too -
Buy DVDs second-hand
You get the discs and the MPAA doesn't see one cent of revenue. Plus, you'll have the added bonus of supporting the First Sale Doctrine, which the media and software companies are silently trying to do away with!
Re:I've written my representatives
on
SSSCA Editorials
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Did you read the fucking page?
Yes I read it, but I missed your summary (scanned the header and got right to the meat of it!)
It wasn't a matter of being bothered by someone else's opinion - I agree wholeheartedly with your position and you make good arguments - but rather with some of the atrocious open letters that some/.ers have posted (i.e. incoherent, threatening, containing profanity, and/or TOO LONG). Obviously, I thought yours fell into the latter category.
But you have good reasons for the length, particularly as a tool for sparking discussion as you do distill the best arguments against SSSCA. So mea culpa, I stand corrected.
Slashdot Mirror
As to the "humanness" of 8-year-olds, I think we're all in agreement. However, I do question your "humanness", when you suggest that some of the said 8-year-olds should be made to suffer from debilitating diseases because the research that could provide a cure has been outlawed, due the moral discomfort of an overzealous minority of people. The only immorality I see is that living, breathing, sentient human beings are made to suffer for the non-existent rights of a collection of cells.
This is not to say I believe a child in the womb does not deserve protection. But we are not talking about a child or even a fetus. We're talking about a collection of cells. Perhaps, if the "people" you are talking about had names, or thoughts, or hell, even heartbeats, I would be more receptive to the question of who and not what we're doing research on. Until then, the only arguments against stem cell research are theological, stemming from the notion that cells supposedly have a soul.
It is my belief that our future generations will look upon our refusal to wield the benefits of stem cell research with the same disdain we hold for our ancestors who believed the way to rid the body of disease was to bleed the evil "spirits" out.
Rolling on the floor! Thanks for the great comment!
Something similar also occurred to me when I read the discussion hed initially. I've been waiting for that shoe to drop while reading the comments.
Fucking funniest thing I've read all week! Thanks!
Assuming your childish pranks *were* effective, driving people away by taping over prices and passing out phoney non-disclosure agreements would do little for your cause. In the end, our revenue would decrease, hours would be cut and the everyday workers, like me, could be laid-off. All of this would occur without anyone in a position of power knowing *why*, since you resorted to the equivalent of TPing someone's house rather than actually voicing your protest.
As for being arrested, go ahead. Instead of your wet dream about being mentioned to the district manager and causing the store's change of heart just in time for Christmas, you'll be laughed at as the lunatic of the day who got booted from the store. You'll be forgotten within 24 hours when the next lunatic comes in and gets booted for spitting at our general manager.
Really want corporate to pay attention? Find an anti-DMCA friend who works in one of the stores and get them to write a letter to corporate. I'm a great worker with the manager reviews, attendance, and the MVP awards to back it up. Guess what? I'm writing them a letter explaining that, while I love working for [omitted], I'm pretty ashamed of the company's behavior in this situation. Whose statement do you think will carry more weight - mine or the shithead who puts on an anti-DMCA play, oh ah a skit! in the parking lot?
As it stands, your suggestion of handing fliers is the only intelligent thing you said in your post. Information and awareness are the two things Joe Consumer needs, not your 12 year-old stunts d00d.
So I suppose all the flags people hung on their houses and attached to their cars windows after September 11th were... what? Decorations to match their aluminum siding or the interior leather of their SUV? No, it was an expression of support for the USA, of course. And rather than expressing this idea by driving down the road, screaming "I SUPPORT THE USA!!" out their windows, they flew a flag. And as long as a person has the right to express their dissatisfaction with the USA by screaming "FUCK THE USA!!!", they should have the right to burn the flag. Physical actions and speech are just two forms of the broader principle - expression of ideas.
Let me bring it home for you. Would you be confused about what I was trying to express to you if, after listening to your opinion on "the neo-liberal concept of 'freedom of expression'", I put my fist in front of your face and extended my middle finger? Or would I just have to say "Fuck your ignorant, ill-formed opinion"?
Haha, I feel exactly the same way, except I mirror you on the political spectrum. I vote Democrat in a close race, and Green if it is available. I don't agree with all of the Green platform (gun control in particular) but I feel like the Democratic party has sold out to garner GOP votes.
I am more vigilant now as there is a serious threat - I am watching my government more closely than I ever have because the threat they pose to my liberty has never been greater.
As horrific as watching planes crash into towers is, I would rather ride a crumbling building down 100 stories than live in the United Police State of America.
Sorry pal. I call bullshit. I don't think the 16-year-old with 4,000 MP3s on his two 100GB hard drives would have bought every single one of the those CDs.
Don't fall for the RIAA's propaganda - DL'ed MP3 != Lost Sale
I'm with you; the music industry missed out on an enormous cash cow by refusing to learn how its customers use the music they buy. However, I'm not as optimistic as you about the success of such kiosks now that the toothpaste is out of the tube.
Congratulations Mensa-member! You've fallen into the same fallacious assumption that marks all American intellects that are both lazy and foolish - If you're innocent, then you have nothing to hide. Yes, you are in the company of esteemed patriots such as McCarthy, Hoover and Stalin (hey I didn't say American patriots). So on behalf of John Ashcroft, I would like to thank you, good citizen, for dulling your mind and accepting the dictate of your DictatH^H^H^H^H^President, who says that the only way to save liberty and justice for all, is to destroy them.
Recent events in my life have lead me to believe that what you say is utterly true. I've been out of work for nearly a year now and my nest egg is slowly dwindling. As a result, the two things in my life that dictated how, where, and why I make media purchases (time and money) have flip-flopped -
Employed - Plenty of money, no time.
I buy on impulse. When I buy, I buy alot! I purchase CDs, DVDs and books I think might be good. I don't bother looking for bargains. I stick with one or two retailers that ship fast (but don't necessarily have the best prices). I almost never buy used. I hardly use P2P unless I cannot find something I want, or it's in transit and I can't wait for two days to watch/listen.
Unemployed - Plenty of time, no money.
I never buy on impulse. I never buy anything unless I've heard it/watched it and know that I like it. I buy from the retailer with the lowest price, even if it takes two weeks to arrive. I buy used whenever I can - more often than not, I wait until new releases are available second-hand before I purchase. I constantly use P2P to preview to see if I want to buy and to enjoy the rest that I can't afford to buy at the moment.
Granted, my evidence is anecdotal and limited only to myself but it has opened my eyes, nonetheless. Despite the ravings of Jack Valenti et al. "pirating" is no substitute for purchasing. P2P is a pain in the ass - constant disconnections, mislabeled files, incomplete track listings, and the quality blows more often than not. Not to mention that a bootleg of a movie ONLY available in theaters is in NO WAY a substitute for the original (so I have to budget in the new releases I want to see, grrr...). Am I trying to get a free lunch? Fuck no! I'd rather spend the money, if I could.
Someone please mod this parent up! You are exactly right - comparing the ripping and encoding of a CD to that of a DVD is apples and oranges. Any 8th grader with a copy of Musicmatch can rip the latest N'Sync album to MP3 but their head would likely explode if you asked to to DIVX a copy of The Matrix. The process has a steep learning curve and encoding takes a long time and a powerful machine! This is to say nothing of the fact that WAV -> MP3 has a lot less apparent loss of quality than does VOB -> MPEG4. The MPAA does not have the same problem as the RIAA.
I swear, one day my head is going to explode from the cognitive dissonance of it all...
Holds true here as well, I'd say. As does Barlow's response -
(Emphasis mine!)
Oh really? And do the majority of accountants accept the theory of evolution? And what about the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies? Because their opinions are just as fucking relevant as those of religious leaders.
CNN and other media sources have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the loud rantings of an incredibly small but rabid minority of religious demagogues, who have decided that a 4000 year-old myth trumps 100 years of indirect and direct testing and a mountain of supporting evidence. So now, well established and supported theories, like evolution, need an apologetic footnote. WTF.
American society has been hustled into believing the opinions of religious leaders matter to science. They don't. Let them tell us what scientific findings mean for our soul or our humanity. But I'm sorry Father/Reverend/Rabbi, if you are using words like "kinds", "flood", or "dust" instead of "mitochondrial DNA", "punctuated equilibrium", or "vestigial" then you need to be left out of the debate.
This is utter rubbish. At eMusic and MP3.com ( prior to being absorbed by the Beast) I often sample music by finding a genre I like and seeing which artists were downloaded the most - the best artists typically bubbled to the top. I found many acts that were "worth listening to" without having my hand held by the RIAA.
Unfortunately, some labels have a single agenda - that agenda is Make Money. So they will thrust into the limelight those bands they believe will make money. Witness the countless knock-off boy and girl bands from the last several years - fucking O-Town, a band manufactured during primetime for God's sake - is this an example of the bands they think are "worth listening to"??
The fact is, you are spreading the same myth the RIAA uses to justify their existence at this point. MP3.com was an effective way to market music without signing your soul to the major labels. And guess what? The stupid, mindless, sheep fans were actually able to decide for themselves which music was good and which music was bad, all without Uncle Hilary Rosen having to say "Put down that silly O Brother, Where Art Thou? disc and look at this shiny, new N'Sync album!"
People love music. Left to their own devices, they will find ways to talk about music, spread the word about the bands they love, and find as many new acts as they can afford. And in the process the good with be separated from the bad.
I do agree with your latter point, however. Not all labels are bad and some do sincerely promote the artists they believe will produce good music and not only good royalties. But the labels are on borrowed time. There are alternatives.
Yes, it's a good thing that white elephants like CSS encrypted DVD's will never take off, right?
That's not an entirely true analogy. The value-added aspects of DVDs far outweigh the value-removed aspects for most people: random-access scenes, bonus materials, alternate audio tracks, 5.1 sound, increased picture resolution, and more durable format. The main drawback is region-coding and CSS which are not intrinsic to the format but an add-on included by MPAA members. Besides, most VHS tapes already prevented fair-use home copying with a little something called Macrovision before DVDs ever hit the market.
However, the value-removed aspects of HDTV will far outweigh the value-added aspects: degraded signals for recording, recordings time-stamped to expire (which means no archiving!) or restricted altogether and planned obsolescence of TV hardware with changing standards. All of this for increased picture resolution?
No, you will see backlash in this case - particularly if Joe Sixpack is forced to move to HDTV.
Assuming you are a patient person, there is a way to have your cake and eat it too -
Buy DVDs second-hand
You get the discs and the MPAA doesn't see one cent of revenue. Plus, you'll have the added bonus of supporting the First Sale Doctrine, which the media and software companies are silently trying to do away with!
Yes I read it, but I missed your summary (scanned the header and got right to the meat of it!)
It wasn't a matter of being bothered by someone else's opinion - I agree wholeheartedly with your position and you make good arguments - but rather with some of the atrocious open letters that some
But you have good reasons for the length, particularly as a tool for sparking discussion as you do distill the best arguments against SSSCA. So mea culpa, I stand corrected.