That's because you judge them by your own personal standards... which you developed, in part, living your life, as whatever you are in this society.
Men are (generally speaking, not universally of course) GOOD at speaking their mind, stepping up, defending their viewpoints. In part due to simply being guys (natural selection maybe), and due in part to the fact that we can, without repercussions, typically. We expect ourselves and others to stand up and participate, to be outgoing, to have the confidence in their own viewpoints that we do.
Problem is... they aren't us. The proof of discrimination here is in your post... you expect them to behave like you, and you judge them by your own personal standards when they don't... but your own personal standards are biased to favor the way you are.
Imagine you're an introvert. You get overwhelmed quickly in groups of people and can't keep up with the conversation. Does that mean any problems you have are "all in your mind"? Introversion has physical causes, different neural pathways are used. A true introvert can't particpate the way you might, or I do.
So if you are in a situation where an introvert's input is to be solicited and valued, YOU have to adapt. You cannot simply excercise your advantages and expect them to bootstrap themselves up in this situation. Or, you can shut them down by simply being yourself, if you wish, but it's not their fault that you have an advantage in this particular situation.
Very similar, but nuanced issues come up in interactions between men and women. Women don't interrupt as much as guys do, for instance. Guys expect you'll jump in when you have something to say. Women expect you'll stop and ask.
Who wins, if neither are aware of this? The guy gets his say, another guy gets his say, and very quickly the conversation becomes PRIMARILY... not entirely... a back and forth between the guys.
Seriously. Try it; you'll see it happen too. If you don't conciously stop and solicit input, MOST of the time the women will get very little say. Even if they are very much into women's issues. For the record, I tried this myself with a radical lesbian feminist, a rabid touchy feely liberal educated in feminist philosophy, and a couple of other women I know for a fact take "women's issues" much more seriously than your average lady. And because they were not focused on the interactions of male vs female in this case, the 3 guys present... none of us with as real of an interest as the ladies... very easily had our say known, for quite some time, and no one noticed until I brought it up.
So before you respond, reread what you wrote. The bias and discrimination is built right in; when you expect everyone to have YOUR abilities, YOUR advantages, and assume their viewpoint and input is less valid than yours because they don't, THAT is discrimination. How far you go to accomodate others is up to you; but if you care about the people around you, you'll probably find that you do, in fact, have to hold yourself back sometimes to let another have their perfectly valid say.
It sounds like your basic arguement is just 'hey, we're doing better than we've ever done before'.
Well bravo, we're doing better than the days of slavery and when it was ok to kill your wife for talking back to you, and women, like slaves, were property to be traded and sold.
So what? Isn't that a bit like saying "well hey, I don't beat my slaves, so good for me, this is so much better than it used to be"? What are you looking for, thankfulness?
So that means we just sit back and congratulate ourselves? Gosh, aren't we great. Nope, couldn't do any better than this. Forget the whole thing!
I never said this was "unchanging" or "universal". It is, however, current. To change it, it needs to be addressed. It cannot be addressed with people like you dismissing everything another section of humanity experiences as invalid, or the same or analagous as what you have experienced... especially if you cannot even recognize the priviledge your own position grants you, RELATIVE to other large sections of our population.
The lesson to be learned is that to achieve this intrinsic fairness that I think it's safe to say we both want, you first have to understand. To understand, you have to listen... and listen hard, and listen long, before you judge. And TO listen, you have to stop talking, and stop shutting people down. Because I guarantee you have not intuitively grasped the perspective of another group of people simply by thinking about it on your own, and when you attack people with less power, they stop communicating. Try the mix gender discussion test sometime. It's quite eye opening to realize how blind to your own self absorbed short sightedness you really are, WHEN YOU WANT TO VALUE THE INPUT of people who are being pushed out of the discussion.
To make things perfectly clear on a personal level, I think all this hoopla over Imus is stupid. His job is to be an offensive jerk, and it's dumb to pay him millions to do it and then suddenly get all offended and fire him... very dumb. You don't listen to Imus for intellectual discourse or balanced viewpoints.
But most of the backlash to this is based in the same old tired shit about how (basically) these people who are trying to express some of the problems facing them because of their color, background, sex, etc... which are better, are improving, and still exist... are whiny victims. Well, to some degree that may be true. But to what degree, very few people on the white male side of the fence are really qualified to judge because very few of us have spent serious energy relating to people in other shoes to try and even understand what they are talking about. Most of us white males are simply knee jerk reacting to a perceived affront against us... just like the "black voice" people here... except we come from a very different point of power.
It's changing. But it's not done, so stop trying to shut it down. Participate in the discourse. Start, by really listening and really trying to understand.
Ok. You are seriously going to compare the "oppression" of being a white male in this country to say, that of blacks or gays?
You might have individuals target you. You aren't being told that the way you love should be illegal, you aren't being routinely targetted by... and this is the important part... people with power because of anything you have no control over typically.
Seriously.. you have no idea what it's like. Thus, what YOU think about it is completely irrelevant, and it would be good for you to remember that. Maybe you should spend some time finding out how little you know about what it's like. I have. I don't feel like I have to apologize for being a white male, but I don't think I have to make a black woman, or a gay, or anyone else apologize for their feelings of oppression, and it's certainly not on the order of anything I've had to experience... and I spent most of my pre-adult years getting beat up for being a nerd, or a skater, or just a guy with a big mouth. In fact, it's safe to say I have personally experienced more violence than any of my homosexual or minority friends. Except Women... a lot of them have been raped or molested. I didn't have to deal with that.
But when I call a client, my name doesn't make them skeptical of me. My voice doesn't make them dismiss me. My lack of breasts and my white skin don't make anyone who can affect my life take me less seriously. I don't have to worry about physical violence, by and large, and if it occurs I am reasonably sure I can hold my own. But if you pay attention... really pay attention... you can SEE the things that happen to blacks, women, gays. Maybe even within yourself.
Next time you're in a mixed group of guys and women, for instance, pay attention to how much the guys talk compared to the women. And what's really funny, talk about women's issues. The guys will 9 times out of 10 dominate the discussion.
Isn't that ludicrous? Isn't that arrogant? Could it be, could it just possibly be that YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, SINCE YOU ARE NOT IN IT?
actually, I want to expound about this. I am more than happy to throw up my outrage at either democrats or republicans when they are actually being held accountable for the bulshit they both perpetrate.
Problem is, the republicans only push the dumbest stuff out there... like lying about a blowjob... and for the last several years have done things so far beyond just "criminal"... such as lying about intelligence and then starting wars, just to name one incident of dozens of nearly equal gravity... that I have a hard time not focusing on them.
They dug this hole. I understand some people may feel bad about that, but the fact is, the pubs are long overdue for a serious smackdown, beyond the ballot box. Many of us would say that is exactly why they got the smackdown at the ballot box... american people were tired of giving them a "pass".
Seriously.. NOTHING the democrats have done stacks up to this administration. Worst. Administration. Evar.
If all of this is so bulletproof and correct, why did gonzales feel the need to lie about it all, which we're very sure he did at this point? If they are all criminals, he could not simply list the problems? Why is the big behind the scenes strategy, all hush hush, still being lied about?
Hey, if we can impeach Clinton for lying about a blowjob.. where getting the blowjob wasn't illegal, but lying about it was... then why can't we get mad about the administration lying about why the prosecutors were fired?
And all Presidents dump the prosecutors en masse when they get elected. Very few dump a bunch in the middle of their own presidency. It's not illegal to do it, but it's strange, it's indicative of something shady going on, and when they LIE about why they did it, well, that makes it look a bit shadier, doesn't it.
ever check out the per-capita murder rates in the 1800s?
It wasn't exactly a golden period of peace and respectability.
We live in a world where, not too long ago, it was acceptable to challenge someone to a duel to the death over a minor grievance and to own frickin slaves.
I don't think any "aggression" or other "problems" we are having from lax discipline today really compares.
I personally think it's ridiculous, tyrannical, and draconian that anyone can be forced to say anything.
If I witness a murder, and I don't want to talk about it, well... that's too bad. it's not my job to be an investigator, and perhaps I have very good reasons for not talking. Such as, self preservation.
But you think it's ok for the government to force me to risk my life for their judicial system? To force me to enter a witness protection program?
If not, then why should the government be able to force anyone to say anything, ever? I could see persecution for LYING on the stand, fine. But for refusing to speak? No way, never, ever.
The point is they cannot determine who is and is not committing illegal acts until AFTER they have invaded the privacy of people. Which means, by definition, they must invade the privacy of innocent people in order to determine who is committing the illegal acts.
Now, they might stop some of the illegal acts... great.
However, they might also decide to do stuff to the innocent people they have compromised. Say they find out you wear women's underwear. The officer involved decides to blackmail you with this info.. it's not illegal, just embarrassing.
Or, after they have infiltrated peaceful groups they can disrupt them, whether or not they are doing anything illegal. For instance, what if they start infiltrating anarchist groups, and they infiltrate one that has a very strict non-violence policy, that does nothing illegal and just protests and fights to change our system into an anarchist one via peaceful means?
What if you're not breaking any violent laws, just immoral ones?
This is exactly what the "Gestapo" FBI agents in the 60's and 70's did.. infiltrate and disrupt community organizations pushing for change. They abused their power and persecuted, framed, entrapped and disrupted these organizations.. not because of illegal activities, but because these organizations caused problems for the power structure.
But, I suppose you're ok with that. Or you believe that certainly that would never happen again, right?
I'll also point out that Myspace has become a huge promotion tool for small bands to build up a fanbase. My close friend and ex-bandmate, for instance, is in a local band. Whenever they get a gig, people who like them friend them on Myspace, and suddenly all their friends have a connection to a band. And whenever they get another gig, near those friends, some of those friends may turn out.. and may bring their friends. At the show, they might buy some T-shirts or (currently) CDs though I don't expect regular CDs to be worth much for much longer... perhaps those on-demand live recordings of the show, at $5/pop, to the people who are right there, right now would be good enough. At any rate, it does in fact draw people to the shows that would otherwise have no idea who they were, would not know their music, and when more people show up at the shows, the band gets more shows.
Just because they are not top 40 and you've never heard of them does not mean that internet publicity does not help music. On the contrary, it may nearly eliminate mass culture over the next generation. In our current world, you pretty much get to pick and choose from the big names being pushed at you by big money companies unless you happen to stumble upon something else. But it's become more and more likely that the "hits" and "stars" of the future are simply going to grow organically through "word of mouth", using the internet. It has already begun. And they don't need to sell you bits, or chunks of plastic, to make a living playing music, which is what they do; they PLAY music. Recording music, on the other hand, is of less value these days, and will be of nearly no value at all within this generation.
Imagine what will happen when everything you look at and hear is or can be recorded and shared instantaneously, anywhere, any time, via your onboard wireless computer, mic, camera. Are the musicians supposed to sue you at that point? It would be ridiculous.
You may tire of the "adapt or die" cry, but the fact is, times they are a'changing, and neither you, the RIAA, or musicians are going to stop it.
It's entirely possible that artists will only make money on live performances. And you know what? They will still be able to make a living doing it.
They may, or may not, get to make all kinds of money for spending a few months jamming and recording. But that's irrelevant. A very simple business model exists that allow for artists to survive with no further adjustments to our economy, and that is live performance.
Recorded performance would basically be a part of live performance promotion. And thus, like advertising, be given away for free. Donations are viable too.. there are already webcomic artists and the like making a living off of donations for a free service. public broadcasting does pretty well too... MPBN up here in maine just raised $210k in about a week simply by asking people to send them money if they value the service. People will, if they can, support what they value.
As another poster says, it's pretty much irrelevant what the morality is here. Data is too easily copied and transferred to stamp out piracy and to make the sale and transfer of data a long term, viable business model. It continues to work for now, and probably will for awhile, but at some point it's just too stupid for an end user to pay for data that can very easily, no matter how you try to stop it, be obtained for free. A free market should not protect stupidity, and it's genuinely stupid for an end user to pay for every piece of data, music or not, that they expose themselves too. They don't even know if it does have value until they consume it!
This is not an overnight transition, but it will happen. It has to.
well, if there is no artificial scarcity, does that not, in effect, make us all 'richer'?
for instance, if you could create food out of thin air, sure, you'd put farmers and grocery stores out of business. But, we could all eat, including those people who lost their farming jobs. so are we as a society richer or poorer then?
Perhaps the only people making the designs would be people who care enough to do it whether they are paid or not. but if they can still eat and be sheltered and enjoy what they do... so what?
Maybe, but on the other hand, unless every building puts in an expensive, dirty, maintenance PITA battery bank... everyone still needs power at night.
Power sharing/transmission system by day, power supplier by night.
What if they simply did central power storage via one of several methods, and regenerated electricity (at a loss, but still, better than a 100% loss of unneeded daytime power) at night from the wholesale electricity they bought during the day, and sold back to you at retail that night?
Lots of ways to play, unless buildings are truly self sufficient. as long as they use/need a grid for anything, the companies are sitting just fine.
as a devil's advocate, the alternate explanation could be that your idea of what it means to care about something could be wrong, what is "undeserved" sufferring could be wrong, and that sufferring for some is not in fact the best the thing for the creation as a whole.
Since you don't know the "End state" of the creation, or its purpose, you have no way to judge that. You are using your own arbitrary guidelines for all of these things, and since you are neither omniscient nor omnipotent you have no logical grounds with which to judge such a being... to even presume you have the barest idea of what such a creature would do and why, and whether that means it "cares" about its creation or you or not is totally irrational.
don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there IS such a massively perfect, caring being out there. But as a flawed, limited being such as you or I cannot possibly construct any logical arguement that addresses the motivations of such a superior being... you have absolutely no qualification to judge. All you know is what "feels bad" to you; and you are not perfect, so you don't really know what IS bad, just what seems bad to you.
No problem; just don't call it "safe". There is no need to whitewash it. It may or may not be preferable, and it may or may not be safe. You pretty glibly dismissed any possible health concerns related to its usage there, which is what I objected to.
sugar substitutes trick the body into thinking it is getting something sweet and therefor only continue the typical sweet-tooth addiction. Also, apparently there is quite a controversy over the health risks of aspartame, with things like lymphoma and brain tumours being brought up. That's fun!
So you can either maintain your craving for sweets and guzzle large amounts of possible carcinogens to get your fix, slip back into excessive sugar usage, or perhaps GET OFF THE SWEETS.
I agree that excessive sugar consumption is bad, and I don't have the necessary medical knowledge to evaluate the controversy over the substitutes myself. But I do know that if you stop eating really sweet stuff all the time, you lose your taste for it entirely, which is ultimately far better. So if people had to choose between dropping the sweets or getting fat, maybe that's not entirely a bad thing. Honestly I'm not sure. But I would object to aspartame being categorized as unequivocably "safe".
strange that none of those particular plants were hailed as the first billion dollar cash crop by popular science, back before hemp was made illegal.
I'm not saying they aren't useful, I'm simply saying that perhaps the free market knew something about hemp you don't. Just maybe something like how versatile and useful it is, and how easily processed with the machinery they had developed.
You just named four plants that all do small parts of what hemp can do. Is that supposed to be exciting?
I don't know a single one of my several friends who have studied for masters or PhD's who received stipends. They all worked for a living while studying. Where do these magical american stipends come from, I wonder?
If it's for teaching, a stipend for teaching is a paycheck for work, isn't it? Rather than, say, getting paid to study?
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That's because you judge them by your own personal standards... which you developed, in part, living your life, as whatever you are in this society.
Men are (generally speaking, not universally of course) GOOD at speaking their mind, stepping up, defending their viewpoints. In part due to simply being guys (natural selection maybe), and due in part to the fact that we can, without repercussions, typically. We expect ourselves and others to stand up and participate, to be outgoing, to have the confidence in their own viewpoints that we do.
Problem is... they aren't us. The proof of discrimination here is in your post... you expect them to behave like you, and you judge them by your own personal standards when they don't... but your own personal standards are biased to favor the way you are.
Imagine you're an introvert. You get overwhelmed quickly in groups of people and can't keep up with the conversation. Does that mean any problems you have are "all in your mind"? Introversion has physical causes, different neural pathways are used. A true introvert can't particpate the way you might, or I do.
So if you are in a situation where an introvert's input is to be solicited and valued, YOU have to adapt. You cannot simply excercise your advantages and expect them to bootstrap themselves up in this situation. Or, you can shut them down by simply being yourself, if you wish, but it's not their fault that you have an advantage in this particular situation.
Very similar, but nuanced issues come up in interactions between men and women. Women don't interrupt as much as guys do, for instance. Guys expect you'll jump in when you have something to say. Women expect you'll stop and ask.
Who wins, if neither are aware of this? The guy gets his say, another guy gets his say, and very quickly the conversation becomes PRIMARILY... not entirely... a back and forth between the guys.
Seriously. Try it; you'll see it happen too. If you don't conciously stop and solicit input, MOST of the time the women will get very little say. Even if they are very much into women's issues. For the record, I tried this myself with a radical lesbian feminist, a rabid touchy feely liberal educated in feminist philosophy, and a couple of other women I know for a fact take "women's issues" much more seriously than your average lady. And because they were not focused on the interactions of male vs female in this case, the 3 guys present... none of us with as real of an interest as the ladies... very easily had our say known, for quite some time, and no one noticed until I brought it up.
So before you respond, reread what you wrote. The bias and discrimination is built right in; when you expect everyone to have YOUR abilities, YOUR advantages, and assume their viewpoint and input is less valid than yours because they don't, THAT is discrimination. How far you go to accomodate others is up to you; but if you care about the people around you, you'll probably find that you do, in fact, have to hold yourself back sometimes to let another have their perfectly valid say.
It sounds like your basic arguement is just 'hey, we're doing better than we've ever done before'.
Well bravo, we're doing better than the days of slavery and when it was ok to kill your wife for talking back to you, and women, like slaves, were property to be traded and sold.
So what? Isn't that a bit like saying "well hey, I don't beat my slaves, so good for me, this is so much better than it used to be"? What are you looking for, thankfulness?
So that means we just sit back and congratulate ourselves? Gosh, aren't we great. Nope, couldn't do any better than this. Forget the whole thing!
I never said this was "unchanging" or "universal". It is, however, current. To change it, it needs to be addressed. It cannot be addressed with people like you dismissing everything another section of humanity experiences as invalid, or the same or analagous as what you have experienced... especially if you cannot even recognize the priviledge your own position grants you, RELATIVE to other large sections of our population.
The lesson to be learned is that to achieve this intrinsic fairness that I think it's safe to say we both want, you first have to understand. To understand, you have to listen... and listen hard, and listen long, before you judge. And TO listen, you have to stop talking, and stop shutting people down. Because I guarantee you have not intuitively grasped the perspective of another group of people simply by thinking about it on your own, and when you attack people with less power, they stop communicating. Try the mix gender discussion test sometime. It's quite eye opening to realize how blind to your own self absorbed short sightedness you really are, WHEN YOU WANT TO VALUE THE INPUT of people who are being pushed out of the discussion.
To make things perfectly clear on a personal level, I think all this hoopla over Imus is stupid. His job is to be an offensive jerk, and it's dumb to pay him millions to do it and then suddenly get all offended and fire him... very dumb. You don't listen to Imus for intellectual discourse or balanced viewpoints.
But most of the backlash to this is based in the same old tired shit about how (basically) these people who are trying to express some of the problems facing them because of their color, background, sex, etc... which are better, are improving, and still exist... are whiny victims. Well, to some degree that may be true. But to what degree, very few people on the white male side of the fence are really qualified to judge because very few of us have spent serious energy relating to people in other shoes to try and even understand what they are talking about. Most of us white males are simply knee jerk reacting to a perceived affront against us... just like the "black voice" people here... except we come from a very different point of power.
It's changing. But it's not done, so stop trying to shut it down. Participate in the discourse. Start, by really listening and really trying to understand.
Ok. You are seriously going to compare the "oppression" of being a white male in this country to say, that of blacks or gays?
You might have individuals target you. You aren't being told that the way you love should be illegal, you aren't being routinely targetted by... and this is the important part... people with power because of anything you have no control over typically.
Seriously.. you have no idea what it's like. Thus, what YOU think about it is completely irrelevant, and it would be good for you to remember that. Maybe you should spend some time finding out how little you know about what it's like. I have. I don't feel like I have to apologize for being a white male, but I don't think I have to make a black woman, or a gay, or anyone else apologize for their feelings of oppression, and it's certainly not on the order of anything I've had to experience... and I spent most of my pre-adult years getting beat up for being a nerd, or a skater, or just a guy with a big mouth. In fact, it's safe to say I have personally experienced more violence than any of my homosexual or minority friends. Except Women... a lot of them have been raped or molested. I didn't have to deal with that.
But when I call a client, my name doesn't make them skeptical of me. My voice doesn't make them dismiss me. My lack of breasts and my white skin don't make anyone who can affect my life take me less seriously. I don't have to worry about physical violence, by and large, and if it occurs I am reasonably sure I can hold my own. But if you pay attention... really pay attention... you can SEE the things that happen to blacks, women, gays. Maybe even within yourself.
Next time you're in a mixed group of guys and women, for instance, pay attention to how much the guys talk compared to the women. And what's really funny, talk about women's issues. The guys will 9 times out of 10 dominate the discussion.
Isn't that ludicrous? Isn't that arrogant? Could it be, could it just possibly be that YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, SINCE YOU ARE NOT IN IT?
actually, I want to expound about this. I am more than happy to throw up my outrage at either democrats or republicans when they are actually being held accountable for the bulshit they both perpetrate.
Problem is, the republicans only push the dumbest stuff out there... like lying about a blowjob... and for the last several years have done things so far beyond just "criminal"... such as lying about intelligence and then starting wars, just to name one incident of dozens of nearly equal gravity... that I have a hard time not focusing on them.
They dug this hole. I understand some people may feel bad about that, but the fact is, the pubs are long overdue for a serious smackdown, beyond the ballot box. Many of us would say that is exactly why they got the smackdown at the ballot box... american people were tired of giving them a "pass".
Seriously.. NOTHING the democrats have done stacks up to this administration. Worst. Administration. Evar.
I don't vote democratic. But thanks for asking!
If all of this is so bulletproof and correct, why did gonzales feel the need to lie about it all, which we're very sure he did at this point? If they are all criminals, he could not simply list the problems? Why is the big behind the scenes strategy, all hush hush, still being lied about?
Hey, if we can impeach Clinton for lying about a blowjob.. where getting the blowjob wasn't illegal, but lying about it was... then why can't we get mad about the administration lying about why the prosecutors were fired?
And all Presidents dump the prosecutors en masse when they get elected. Very few dump a bunch in the middle of their own presidency. It's not illegal to do it, but it's strange, it's indicative of something shady going on, and when they LIE about why they did it, well, that makes it look a bit shadier, doesn't it.
ever check out the per-capita murder rates in the 1800s?
It wasn't exactly a golden period of peace and respectability.
We live in a world where, not too long ago, it was acceptable to challenge someone to a duel to the death over a minor grievance and to own frickin slaves.
I don't think any "aggression" or other "problems" we are having from lax discipline today really compares.
I guess Maybe I'm just some radical.
I personally think it's ridiculous, tyrannical, and draconian that anyone can be forced to say anything.
If I witness a murder, and I don't want to talk about it, well... that's too bad. it's not my job to be an investigator, and perhaps I have very good reasons for not talking. Such as, self preservation.
But you think it's ok for the government to force me to risk my life for their judicial system? To force me to enter a witness protection program?
If not, then why should the government be able to force anyone to say anything, ever? I could see persecution for LYING on the stand, fine. But for refusing to speak? No way, never, ever.
The point is they cannot determine who is and is not committing illegal acts until AFTER they have invaded the privacy of people. Which means, by definition, they must invade the privacy of innocent people in order to determine who is committing the illegal acts.
Now, they might stop some of the illegal acts... great.
However, they might also decide to do stuff to the innocent people they have compromised. Say they find out you wear women's underwear. The officer involved decides to blackmail you with this info.. it's not illegal, just embarrassing.
Or, after they have infiltrated peaceful groups they can disrupt them, whether or not they are doing anything illegal. For instance, what if they start infiltrating anarchist groups, and they infiltrate one that has a very strict non-violence policy, that does nothing illegal and just protests and fights to change our system into an anarchist one via peaceful means?
What if you're not breaking any violent laws, just immoral ones?
This is exactly what the "Gestapo" FBI agents in the 60's and 70's did.. infiltrate and disrupt community organizations pushing for change. They abused their power and persecuted, framed, entrapped and disrupted these organizations.. not because of illegal activities, but because these organizations caused problems for the power structure.
But, I suppose you're ok with that. Or you believe that certainly that would never happen again, right?
I'll also point out that Myspace has become a huge promotion tool for small bands to build up a fanbase. My close friend and ex-bandmate, for instance, is in a local band. Whenever they get a gig, people who like them friend them on Myspace, and suddenly all their friends have a connection to a band. And whenever they get another gig, near those friends, some of those friends may turn out.. and may bring their friends. At the show, they might buy some T-shirts or (currently) CDs though I don't expect regular CDs to be worth much for much longer... perhaps those on-demand live recordings of the show, at $5/pop, to the people who are right there, right now would be good enough. At any rate, it does in fact draw people to the shows that would otherwise have no idea who they were, would not know their music, and when more people show up at the shows, the band gets more shows.
Just because they are not top 40 and you've never heard of them does not mean that internet publicity does not help music. On the contrary, it may nearly eliminate mass culture over the next generation. In our current world, you pretty much get to pick and choose from the big names being pushed at you by big money companies unless you happen to stumble upon something else. But it's become more and more likely that the "hits" and "stars" of the future are simply going to grow organically through "word of mouth", using the internet. It has already begun. And they don't need to sell you bits, or chunks of plastic, to make a living playing music, which is what they do; they PLAY music. Recording music, on the other hand, is of less value these days, and will be of nearly no value at all within this generation.
Imagine what will happen when everything you look at and hear is or can be recorded and shared instantaneously, anywhere, any time, via your onboard wireless computer, mic, camera. Are the musicians supposed to sue you at that point? It would be ridiculous.
You may tire of the "adapt or die" cry, but the fact is, times they are a'changing, and neither you, the RIAA, or musicians are going to stop it.
Mom, I told you to stop trolling slashdot for dates!
It's entirely possible that artists will only make money on live performances. And you know what? They will still be able to make a living doing it.
They may, or may not, get to make all kinds of money for spending a few months jamming and recording. But that's irrelevant. A very simple business model exists that allow for artists to survive with no further adjustments to our economy, and that is live performance.
Recorded performance would basically be a part of live performance promotion. And thus, like advertising, be given away for free. Donations are viable too.. there are already webcomic artists and the like making a living off of donations for a free service. public broadcasting does pretty well too... MPBN up here in maine just raised $210k in about a week simply by asking people to send them money if they value the service. People will, if they can, support what they value.
As another poster says, it's pretty much irrelevant what the morality is here. Data is too easily copied and transferred to stamp out piracy and to make the sale and transfer of data a long term, viable business model. It continues to work for now, and probably will for awhile, but at some point it's just too stupid for an end user to pay for data that can very easily, no matter how you try to stop it, be obtained for free. A free market should not protect stupidity, and it's genuinely stupid for an end user to pay for every piece of data, music or not, that they expose themselves too. They don't even know if it does have value until they consume it!
This is not an overnight transition, but it will happen. It has to.
well, if there is no artificial scarcity, does that not, in effect, make us all 'richer'?
for instance, if you could create food out of thin air, sure, you'd put farmers and grocery stores out of business. But, we could all eat, including those people who lost their farming jobs. so are we as a society richer or poorer then?
Perhaps the only people making the designs would be people who care enough to do it whether they are paid or not. but if they can still eat and be sheltered and enjoy what they do... so what?
Maybe, but on the other hand, unless every building puts in an expensive, dirty, maintenance PITA battery bank... everyone still needs power at night.
Power sharing/transmission system by day, power supplier by night.
What if they simply did central power storage via one of several methods, and regenerated electricity (at a loss, but still, better than a 100% loss of unneeded daytime power) at night from the wholesale electricity they bought during the day, and sold back to you at retail that night?
Lots of ways to play, unless buildings are truly self sufficient. as long as they use/need a grid for anything, the companies are sitting just fine.
I see, you're a research chemist now?
as a devil's advocate, the alternate explanation could be that your idea of what it means to care about something could be wrong, what is "undeserved" sufferring could be wrong, and that sufferring for some is not in fact the best the thing for the creation as a whole.
Since you don't know the "End state" of the creation, or its purpose, you have no way to judge that. You are using your own arbitrary guidelines for all of these things, and since you are neither omniscient nor omnipotent you have no logical grounds with which to judge such a being... to even presume you have the barest idea of what such a creature would do and why, and whether that means it "cares" about its creation or you or not is totally irrational.
don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there IS such a massively perfect, caring being out there. But as a flawed, limited being such as you or I cannot possibly construct any logical arguement that addresses the motivations of such a superior being... you have absolutely no qualification to judge. All you know is what "feels bad" to you; and you are not perfect, so you don't really know what IS bad, just what seems bad to you.
if we were dumbing down as a culture, wouldn't tests get easier too?
No problem; just don't call it "safe". There is no need to whitewash it. It may or may not be preferable, and it may or may not be safe. You pretty glibly dismissed any possible health concerns related to its usage there, which is what I objected to.
sugar substitutes trick the body into thinking it is getting something sweet and therefor only continue the typical sweet-tooth addiction. Also, apparently there is quite a controversy over the health risks of aspartame, with things like lymphoma and brain tumours being brought up. That's fun!
So you can either maintain your craving for sweets and guzzle large amounts of possible carcinogens to get your fix, slip back into excessive sugar usage, or perhaps GET OFF THE SWEETS.
I agree that excessive sugar consumption is bad, and I don't have the necessary medical knowledge to evaluate the controversy over the substitutes myself. But I do know that if you stop eating really sweet stuff all the time, you lose your taste for it entirely, which is ultimately far better. So if people had to choose between dropping the sweets or getting fat, maybe that's not entirely a bad thing. Honestly I'm not sure. But I would object to aspartame being categorized as unequivocably "safe".
Some water is naturally filled with rotting vegetable matter and fecal contaminants too, does that mean you want to drink it?
strange that none of those particular plants were hailed as the first billion dollar cash crop by popular science, back before hemp was made illegal.
I'm not saying they aren't useful, I'm simply saying that perhaps the free market knew something about hemp you don't. Just maybe something like how versatile and useful it is, and how easily processed with the machinery they had developed.
You just named four plants that all do small parts of what hemp can do. Is that supposed to be exciting?
got a copy of that, thanks. I'll check it out.
That explains it. one more reason to make fun of my "soft science" friends :D thanks for the info!
really??
I don't know a single one of my several friends who have studied for masters or PhD's who received stipends. They all worked for a living while studying. Where do these magical american stipends come from, I wonder?
If it's for teaching, a stipend for teaching is a paycheck for work, isn't it? Rather than, say, getting paid to study?