You know, there are folks out there who would call what these hackers are doing an act of terrorism.
And as we all know, the instant we call something terrorism, it becomes terrorism, regardless of the actual act or any basis in fact for the accusation.
Please don't compare these black hats to people who flew planes into buildings. The Bush administration already doesn't need an excuse to throw people in jail without trial indefinitely. Putting these people in jail on the "terrorism" pretext only gives W that much more perceived credibility.
Do you expect the 3rd party ATM providers to operate without generating revenue?
Theoretically they could generate revenue by charging the banks for providing a service to the bank's customers. What I really find offensive is when you get charged $2 to withdraw $20 at the point of "sale", and then another $2 from your bank for using someone else's ATMs. So not only does your bank get to provide fewer ATMs, they get to charge you for it! I believe the term here is "coming and going."
Free ATMs whereever your American Entitled Ass(tm) takes you?
The banks have my money. They make large sums of money, off my money and everyone else's. They make large sums of money off the mortgage that I took out so I could have a place to live, the loan I took out so I could drive to work so I could make MORE money to deposit in their coffers, and so forth. They punish me for not making ENOUGH money to put in their coffers with monthly fees that go away if I meet "minimum balances". I understand that they have operating expenses, and are entitled to make a profit. I would switch to a bank with better terms, but that means I have access to fewer ATMs, which means that I get charged by the other ATM owners whenever I have to use them. (It's simply not practical for me to drive 20 minutes out of my way to get to an ATM I can use for free.) The banks with the ATMs are the banks that exploit that fact to charge you the most fees. I'd go to their competition that doesn't gouge me like this... except there aren't any, what with the mergers that have taken place in the banking industry. My choices are UberMonolithFleetCitizensNorth, who charge me for thinking about writing a check because they can, or RinkyDinkLittleLocalBank who has to charge me more because they don't have the resources to compete, and has about 3 ATMs.
Take your lazy butt to your own banks ATM,
See above. It's impractical for most people to go ATM hunting when they need $20. And I don't feel comfortable walking around with more than that in my pocket.
or hey... walk inside, if you don't like the fees.
That works if #1 your bank has a branch you can get to reasonably, and #2 that bank hasn't started charging you a fee for using a traditional teller window, as many have.
The banks are just another example of the extremely rich making sure the working poor stay that way.
If you ever needed proof that the average American is an idiot, you've got it now. Carpooling (and generally conserving energy in general) is considered to be too "environmentalist" for most people, despite the clear savings in money. Environmentalists have been largely slandered and FUDed into marginalization by big business interests who don't want their profits threatened by anti-pollution legislation and the associated fines for breaking said legislation.
Even the simplest step is too much for most people. As an example, let's look at compact flourescent lightbulbs. They're a drop-in replacement for conventional incandescent bulbs, and are priced competitively now (comparably to a "long life" incandescent bulb), last longer and use less energy, yet because of the FUD people won't use them.
(If you're curious, IKEA sells compact flouros for $5 a pair.)
BS. Where exactly is this happening? The web, TV, and radio are dripping with dissent and nonsense. There are regular demonstrations.
First, you say "dripping with dissent and nonsense", which trivializes the conversation. Second, the "regular demonstrations" you speak of are "regularly" removed (occasionally forcibly) so as to negate their impact. The right to free speech and redress of grievances apparently isn't as important as protecting your agenda.
government fuck-ups get buried beneath terror headlines...
Instead of other headlines? Whoop.
I'd agree with you there, all things being equal. However, things are not equal. How many times has the "terror alert" been raised without any specifics whatsoever regarding the "threat"?
Obedient? HOW! Did all crime stop? Did everybody start paying their taxes? Is the government handing out careers? More vague generalities and nonsense.
You're missing the point of the GP. This administration has a lot invested in keeping people afraid. Scared people are easier to manipulate. The best example of this "obedience" is the fact that when the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program was revealed, there weren't riots in the streets. Another example might be the pervasiveness of the "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you don't have anything to worry about" attitude of the average citizen. Also, nobody's marched on Washington demanding immediate presidential impeachment hearings for what could be interpreted as treasonous acts by this administration. (I'm thinking specifically of the Plame scandal.)
9/11 did $100,000,000,000 in damage to the US economy and killed 3,000 people. Chump change? If it happened every year? Every month? Al Qaeda has a goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans. Do you think it is better to prevent that, or to clean up the mess?
I think it's better to remember what makes us Americans. If we give up the basic rights that are set forth in the Constitution, we're no longer Americans. Al Qaeda would have succeeded in destroying 300,000,000 Americans in that case. You can't put a price tag on a national identity. If I personally were faced with the choice between giving up my rights as an American and death.. I'd die. Can you say the same? Al Qaeda's operatives are willing to die for their cause, why aren't we? (Oh, that's right, we have poor people to do it for us. Silly me.)
The impact in the US is only small because we are protecting ourselves, or have been lucky.
Please. Have you seen any of the so-called "protective measures" that have been implemented since 9/11? All they've done is restrict the rights of innocents by the millions in order to catch a handfull of "detainees" who may or may not be guilty of acts of terrorism. Security at our borders is still a joke, and we also came very close to allowing control of our busiest container ship ports to an Arab state-based country! I would say the more likely options there are "we've been lucky" or "they haven't done anything."
Al Qaeda and its affiliates are killing people by the hundreds in other places.
The RIAA isn't suing people at random, and then smothering them in lawsuits until they pay up. It's looking for people who are using P2P networking software to make available copies of music that they have no authorization to do so (and whose rights belong to the RIAA's members), and then using the law to determine who is doing this, and suing them.
Let's say for sake of argument that all the actions the RIAA takes to determine who's infringing on their copyright are legal and proper. (That's a whole other argument.) In an ordinary case, this evidence would be presented at trial. But these cases are designed NOT to go to trial, they're designed to extort money from someone they have perceived as violating their copyrights.
But you can bet that in the VAST majority of cases, the defendent is guilty as hell.
How do you know that? A case hasn't been proven in court, and a settlement isn't always an indication of guilt; very often it's damage control.
Those that aren't are victims of a combination of the RIAA's imperfections, and the person who was actually committing the act of copyright infringement in the first place, and those who encouraged him or her to do so.
You're missing the larger point here. The defendants in these cases are, ostensibly, entitled to their day in court. However, they are being denied this right because they cannot afford a defense. The RIAA knows this, and is taking advantage of the situation to extort settlement payments from the defendants. They never have to meet their burden of proof, never have to make their case in front of a jury, never have to do anything other than some paperwork and a few well placed phone calls. It's a bastardization of the judicial system, in which you are entitled to all the justice you can afford.
We'll never know if these people were actually guilty or not; these suits never see the inside of a courtroom. Even worse, the odds are that there has been at least ONE person who's been falsely accused of these acts who has paid a settlement because they didn't want to lose their house putting on a defense. One of the founding principles of our justice system is that it's better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to go to jail (or pay a psychotically inflated penalty for what is a truly minor, nonviolent, victimless infraction.)
Giving a copy of a song to someone shouldn't mean you become homeless.
But doesn't it also suppress legitimate suits by small players? A family believes that Johnny's cancer was caused by the chemicals dumped by a big company into the local pond. Can the family really afford to take on a huge company? Sure, you'd like to think the little guy would win, especially if he has facts on his side. But realistically, a team of high-powered lawyers can often overwhelm the talent a single family can hire... and then the family is liable to pay the fees of those same high-priced attorneys? I would think a lot of people would opt not to file the suit.
In essence, the company's deep pockets become a fleet of strategic bombers waiting in reserve, swooping down and annihilating any consumer that dares squeak.
That's a valid point. I think the answer to that particular issue is better consumer/environmental protection legislation. I know in some jurisdicitions in the USA there are laws on the books that make it easier for citizens to sue polluters, including things like state assistance, triple damages, etc. My cousin's husband works for a firm in Vermont whose line of business is these kinds of suits.
So all you need is an accusation? Then why couldn't companies just keep accusing people over and over just by making things up and bankrupt them, what's to protect people from that?
Nothing. Nothing at all. This is exactly how the RIAA/MPAA are operating. It doesn't matter that the law regarding P2P file sharing isn't black and white (as of yet, they've got lots of lobbyists trying to change that.) Whether you've actually committed the acts you're accused of is irrelevant - they say you have, they're suing you, and they're counting on you not being able to defend yourself, and thus paying out a settlement.
This particular phenomenon is the biggest argument for tort reform in recent memory. The American legal system is set up in such a way that, if you are sued, you are financially penalized win or lose. In other jurisdictions (I'm thinking of the UK in particular) the plaintiff is obligated to pay for the defendant's legal fees if the plaintiff loses the suit. This has the effect of curtailing suits that are filed simply to harass defendants, or to promote failing business models as the only choice available to the consumer, lest they be bankrupted in court.
As a lifelong liberal Democrat, I was also hopeful that if the Dems didn't take back the White House, McCain would be the guy; at least you can reason with him, and he's pretty moderate on social issues.
Unfortunately, he's gone dark side. He's flip-flopped on tax cuts for the rich, and supports the war in Iraq.
I'm not so crazy about Hillary either. I think she's bad for the party as a nominee, because as far as we might have come as a country, we will not elect a woman to the Presidency in 2008. A Clinton Democratic nomination for President hands the GOP another four years. (My liberal nature is tempered by a wide streak of pragmatism.)
The first female POTUS will either be a reactionary conservative or reach the office through the death of the sitting President that she was VP for (think Commander in Chief.)
However, I am saying that pretending that they are powerless, pretending that they are mere bullets, mere drones, is helping to prop up a bad system.
Who's pretending?
You are propping up that kind of system.
And I'm doing that how? I'm not one of those CSRs that you're asking to fall on their swords.
And until they wake up and realize that they can choose to find another job, they are propping up that kind of system.
What makes you think they're not looking? It may shock you to realize that sometimes it takes time to get a new job. It may also shock you that most people would prefer a shitty job where they have to compromise their principles to no job at all. Sometimes principles come with price tags.
I'm not saying that's easy, of course. But who told you that doing the right thing should always be easy?
The "right thing"? By whose measure? Yours? What gives you the right to decide for other people what's wrong and what's right? Why do you know better than they do? I agree the system sucks, but you should realize this: PEOPLE NEED TO EAT.
If you want to do something constructive, do something yourself. Organize a petition, a boycott, spread the word, start a blog, do something. Telling people that the answer to your problem is that they should choose another job isn't very likely to get you very far. All that does is eliminate any possibility that they might WANT to help you by trying to get policy changed.
Back before spam became a fact of life, I spent a lot of time tracking down individual spammers and getting them banned. I ended up talking to a number of them, and you know what? It was never their fault, not really. It was just that they really needed the money, or that they had a quota to meet, or the baby was on the way, or they just had to have that new car, or they were just doing what their boss told them. They were just a tragic victim of circumstances, boo hoo.
That's a ridiculous metaphor. Treating a CSR like a spammer is like treating the bullet the same as the person who pulled the trigger.
The only choice in the matter the CSR has is "Do what we tell you" or "Get fired". Which choice would you make in their shoes? And are you really going to tell them that they should quit?
People gotta make a living. And don't get me wrong, I'm not letting the spammers off the hook; they're far more responsible for the action of the enterprise than some drone CSR on the front lines is. What I'm saying is it's a lot easier to do the right thing when doing it doesn't mean you can't pay the rent. It's easy to say "they should get other jobs" when it's not you. The people responsible for putting those CSR's in that situation are the pinheads at Corporate, not the CSRs.
As long as people are willing to put up with crappy products (past bitching at some CSR) to the point where there's no incentive for big biz to change its mind, nothing will change. The CSRs can do nothing other than quit, and that only hurts themselves.
By the way, whose behavior am I "justifying"? The CSR's behavior of doing their job? What else would you have them do? If they want to continue drawing a check, they do what they're told! And as pissed as I might be at a company for fucking me over, getting them fired does no good.
Why would it require a great deal of money? You can start small, and expand when you get revenue. The internet wasn't built in a day.
Honestly, what chance do you think a small company has against AT&T? Be serious. AT&T (and its ilk) will use their influence with vendors and customers to crush them long before they turn a profit.
Only marketing would work in a libertarian society. Lying, cheating, fraud and stealing would still be illegal. The purpose of lobbying would be to get the government to regulate, which would cause the society to cease to be libertarian, so lobbying would not be possible in a libertarian society.
That still leaves lying, cheating, fraud, stealing and marketing in the quiver. So the 6-armed 800 foot monster now only has 5. Not really much of an improvement IMHO. (And I don't think "legal" or "illegal" enters into this discussion, they'll do whatever it takes to win.)
Sorry, should have left the part about rage out, and I would have edited it if that was possible. It was meant more at regulatorians at large, and not directed at you specifically.
No worries then.
You do make some good points about universal service being a barrier. I would agree that that's a regulatory hurdle. However taken in light of what universal service could provide to less densley populated areas IMHO for now more good than harm is done with it.
I do, however, think you're trivializing the scope of the undertaking involved in attempting to start a company to compete with the AT&Ts of the world. Even if all these regulations that you think are hurting the market were wiped away tomorrow, the barriers to entry for a new player are still sky-high. Removal of regulation will not change any of the hurdles previously discussed save for lobbying. Lying, cheating, stealing, and marketing (IMHO all pretty much the same thing) are still available to crush the new enterprise before it begins. And in the absence of these regulations, lying, cheating, and stealing are much more difficult to prove and prosecute, let alone punish. And let's not forget the billions it would take to build a new network, because you can be DAMN SURE the established telco's won't let you within a mile of their fiber.
I'd also like to think that a free market could correct the situation. But even if the market were "freed" from ANY regulation, money always beats no money. The telcos have money; a start-up doesn't. Ergo, the start-up loses. Yes, excessive regulation in the past created these monoplolies, but even if the regulation is removed, they're still leviathan enterprises with deep deep pockets, unlikely to tolerate any change in the status quo anytime soon, not while they have anything to say about it.
Word-of-mouth is great if you're a local catering business, but forming a viable telecom enterprise off of it is another matter entirely.
The way I see it, regulation caused this problem, and as a result regulation is the only way to correct it. And regulation is the only way to protect the small business from the large. In an absence of regulation the large crush the small until there's only one large left, and that large then starts to crush the consumer.
why couldn't someone start a new company that competed with this monster ISP?
For several practical reasons:
Starting a company to compete with such a beast would take a great deal of money. Money that would be extremely difficult to come by if you can't even send an email to the VC company that may or may not be interested.
Attracting customers requires publicity and marketing, two other undertakings that are difficult when you find it difficult to place a phone call.
The One True Telecom would spend billions lobbying, marketing, lying cheating and stealing to freeze you out of every opportunity.
The government regulations would never enter into it. Indeed, the opposite would happen: in the absence of any regulation, the One True Telecom would be free to engage in all those behaviors without fear of reprisal.
A libertarian society would not produce more responsible companies, it would produce more companies.
I don't see how. If I'm missing something, please let me know.
If the market consisted of a lot of small companies instead of one mammoth-monopoly (which is only enabled by regulations)
How would a lack of regulations keep a monopoly from forming?
then the individual companies would have far less power. If a company had crappy policies, then it would get alienated from its customers and go bankrupt, which is an important part of a free market.
Customers only get alienated if they are told they should be alienated. The consumer is not the driving force in this arena. Consumers do as they are told; poor service or bad behavior on the vendor's part does not drive the market. If this were different, no, these monopolies would not exist. But if things were different they wouldn't be the same.
If, OTOH, this only awakens emotions of rage because I'm a stupid libertarian who wants the whole world to be owned by one big corporation that spills toxic waste in your backyard and charges you for it, then I guess that's your problem.
I have no problem with libertarianism as an idea or you in particular; I don't know where you got that idea. I'm challenging your argument because there's things about it that I don't think jibe with reality. I would be a libertarian if I thought our society had progressed to the point where its naivete could be overcome. Libertarianism works if everyone (including corporate entities) acts responsibly. Big business (and individuals for that matter) have proven that people cannot be trusted to act responsibility without the threat of sanction. I don't like it either, but I don't think you could argue that that is the case.
The idea that the corporation is an entity unto itself controlled only by people in central offices where the front-line workers have no responsibility is BS. Every worker at a company has some responsibility for the company's actions and policies, especially the policies they enforce themselves.
The idea that the corporation is an entity unto itself controlled only by people in central offices where the front-line workers have no POWER is what's accurate. The front line workers might have some responsibility, but which is the larger? Their responsibility to try to change corporate policy or their responsibility to their families, who will go hungry if they get fired? Because I can promise you that in 99% of the cases, if a customer service rep tries to change corporate policy, they will be informed that they are not authorized to do so at BEST, and fired for ruffling the wrong feathers at worst.
Customer service reps are there to make the company look like it gives a flying shit about its customers. They're not there to improve the quality of the product or help the customer beyond a very rigidly proscribed set of circumstances. Management doesn't want to hear what customers want or need, they want to know about how much money they're making. The only time customer service enters into their consciousness is when someone's bitching about how much they're paying their reps or when they make such a massive cock-up that it starts actually biting into the profits. (Which then is typically handled by firing all the reps and hiring new ones... which is usually still cheaper than actually fixing the cock-up.)
Ironic then that the only thing that can protect the consumer from a monopoly is regulation. Without anti-trust law, what would stop the AT&Ts and the Verizons of the world merging into the One True Telecom company that would control every bit and byte that passed over any network worth talking about? And what would stop them from filtering every negative word said about them? Or filtering any news or information that would tend to criticize the government which they own a controlling interest in?
And why would a libertarian society automatically generate companies that would act more responsibly? If anything, companies would feel free to act even more irresponsibly than before, since less "regulation" means less protection.
You're absolutely right! I'll go out and start a multitrilliondollar mortgage underwriting company first thing Tuesday!
Oh, wait. No I won't.
If it were a level playing field, you'd have a valid point. Unfortunately, money and corruption and greed have made this particular field about as even as the Rockies.
If you think any company would rip your heart out and auction your soul on ebay, why do you think anybody would sign up??
Because you'd like a dialtone? Or a mortgage? Or to finance a car? Or electricity?
Make no mistake, if any of those vendors/utilities could make a profit selling its customers' organs (figuring in the cost of litigation/public relations damage/etc) they would do so. Any large company will do whatever it can to make the most money that it can. The only reason they don't do it now is because of the laws that are in place make it financially impossible to do so, not because it's morally wrong.
They've got the things that make modern life possible, and they know it. They own us, whether we like to admit it or not. Their services control what house we can buy, what car we can drive, who we can talk to on the phone, what we can see on TV, and now, what we can access on the Intarweb. They control our entire lives. If any of these companies decided to ruin one of us, there is little that we could do to stop them. For example, if the company that holds your car note decides that it doesn't like you, they'll have your car reposessed and seized. Maybe they're within their rights, maybe not. But by the time you reach a court with your complaint against them, you've already lost your job, your ability to look for a new one, your ability to go shopping for food, etc. Same thing with your mortgage holder, only worse: they can make you homeless at a whim.
THAT is what we have to work on before libertarianism ever has a prayer of being a viable theory of government. Net neutrality legislation failing takes us further away from viable libertarianism; libertarianism isn't a fix for this kind of corporate control.
Next, we should make people pay back the auto insurance companies when the get in an accident and total their cars! Serves them right for making a mistake!
Then all those people in New Orleans? Screw em! They should have to pay the banks back TRIPLE instead of filing homeowners claims! After all, they insisted on buying homes there, right?
In case you haven't taken my point, you've missed the entire concept of what insurance is for. People make mistakes. It happens. Even the best surgeon or lawyer can make an error that injures their patient/client/customer/whatever.
Yes, this notary was negligent. That's why he/she carries malpractice insurance: so a mistake won't make their families homeless.
Tell me, would YOU want to have a job where a mistake could cost you everything you own and 90% of what you earn for the next 20 years? We're not talking about high stakes gambling or high-risk investment here; we're talking about being a NOTARY.
Maybe when you climb down from your high horse you can tell the rest of us what it's like to be perfect. Maybe you can also tell us about how the notary making a mistake makes them more responsible than the perpetrators of the identity theft.
The "viral" that TFA refers to is the misconception of the scope of the license. It's a simplification, to be sure, but the point that part of the article makes is still valid.
If I use any GPL code in my application, even one line, I have to release my application under the GPL license.
You're correct. What's your point?
It's been said already in this discussion, but it bears repetition: If you don't want to release your code under the GPL, then don't. A condition of using GPL'd code is that you release the subsequent work under the GPL. Don't like the terms of the license? Don't use the GPL'd code. Very simple, very clear. To extend the metaphor, consider that your "vaccine" against the "viral" nature of the GPL.
I'm not saying its a bad agenda, it just happens to be incompatible with mine.
What exactly is your agenda? From what I can infer from your post, it seems like your agenda includes gaining the right to use GPL'd code in violation of the license, for reasons that IMHO you haven't made clear.
Copyright protection per se isn't evil. Copyright protection that lasts indefinitely and doesn't have any provisions for reasonable fair use is evil.
I'm all for the artist retaining control over his/her work. I'm not saying that this "re-imagining" of TOS is "wrong". I'm saying that it's lazy and lame and shouldn't be encouraged.
Maybe the current generation of TV viewers deserves something original rather than a rehash of a forty-year old series. Maybe fans of the original series don't like being told the series that they knew and loved is now considered broken because it's too old. Maybe the cheesy effects were part of what made it great. (See old Dr. Who episodes for a better illustration.)
Next thing you know, they'll want to go back and "fix" The Wizard of Oz because the effects are too "primitive" and the studio "wants to update it to reflect the director's vision." (Nevermind that five directors worked on it at various times because the studio kept firing them for doing their jobs.)
Or they'll go back and "fix" 2001 because the Clarke/Kubrick book included Saturn and the end sequence was cheesy (no matter how ground-breaking.)
Come to think of it, they'll have an easier time with those because the directors are dead and can't object to their masterpieces being whored out to line the studios' pockets.
Because new things aren't guaranteed box office. Rehashing previously marketable ideas is far safer.
After all, it's about money, not entertainment.
But don't blame the Hollywood establishment, blame the viewing public for paying over and over to see the same hackneyed ideas and insultingly shallow plots.
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Please don't compare these black hats to people who flew planes into buildings. The Bush administration already doesn't need an excuse to throw people in jail without trial indefinitely. Putting these people in jail on the "terrorism" pretext only gives W that much more perceived credibility.
The banks have my money. They make large sums of money, off my money and everyone else's. They make large sums of money off the mortgage that I took out so I could have a place to live, the loan I took out so I could drive to work so I could make MORE money to deposit in their coffers, and so forth. They punish me for not making ENOUGH money to put in their coffers with monthly fees that go away if I meet "minimum balances". I understand that they have operating expenses, and are entitled to make a profit. I would switch to a bank with better terms, but that means I have access to fewer ATMs, which means that I get charged by the other ATM owners whenever I have to use them. (It's simply not practical for me to drive 20 minutes out of my way to get to an ATM I can use for free.) The banks with the ATMs are the banks that exploit that fact to charge you the most fees. I'd go to their competition that doesn't gouge me like this... except there aren't any, what with the mergers that have taken place in the banking industry. My choices are UberMonolithFleetCitizensNorth, who charge me for thinking about writing a check because they can, or RinkyDinkLittleLocalBank who has to charge me more because they don't have the resources to compete, and has about 3 ATMs.
See above. It's impractical for most people to go ATM hunting when they need $20. And I don't feel comfortable walking around with more than that in my pocket.
That works if #1 your bank has a branch you can get to reasonably, and #2 that bank hasn't started charging you a fee for using a traditional teller window, as many have.
The banks are just another example of the extremely rich making sure the working poor stay that way.
Also, very likely to be true.
If you ever needed proof that the average American is an idiot, you've got it now. Carpooling (and generally conserving energy in general) is considered to be too "environmentalist" for most people, despite the clear savings in money. Environmentalists have been largely slandered and FUDed into marginalization by big business interests who don't want their profits threatened by anti-pollution legislation and the associated fines for breaking said legislation.
Even the simplest step is too much for most people. As an example, let's look at compact flourescent lightbulbs. They're a drop-in replacement for conventional incandescent bulbs, and are priced competitively now (comparably to a "long life" incandescent bulb), last longer and use less energy, yet because of the FUD people won't use them.
(If you're curious, IKEA sells compact flouros for $5 a pair.)
I'd agree with you there, all things being equal. However, things are not equal. How many times has the "terror alert" been raised without any specifics whatsoever regarding the "threat"?
You're missing the point of the GP. This administration has a lot invested in keeping people afraid. Scared people are easier to manipulate. The best example of this "obedience" is the fact that when the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program was revealed, there weren't riots in the streets. Another example might be the pervasiveness of the "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you don't have anything to worry about" attitude of the average citizen. Also, nobody's marched on Washington demanding immediate presidential impeachment hearings for what could be interpreted as treasonous acts by this administration. (I'm thinking specifically of the Plame scandal.)
I think it's better to remember what makes us Americans. If we give up the basic rights that are set forth in the Constitution, we're no longer Americans. Al Qaeda would have succeeded in destroying 300,000,000 Americans in that case. You can't put a price tag on a national identity. If I personally were faced with the choice between giving up my rights as an American and death.. I'd die. Can you say the same? Al Qaeda's operatives are willing to die for their cause, why aren't we? (Oh, that's right, we have poor people to do it for us. Silly me.)
Please. Have you seen any of the so-called "protective measures" that have been implemented since 9/11? All they've done is restrict the rights of innocents by the millions in order to catch a handfull of "detainees" who may or may not be guilty of acts of terrorism. Security at our borders is still a joke, and we also came very close to allowing control of our busiest container ship ports to an Arab state-based country! I would say the more likely options there are "we've been lucky" or "they haven't done anything."
As are we.
How do you know that? A case hasn't been proven in court, and a settlement isn't always an indication of guilt; very often it's damage control.
You're missing the larger point here. The defendants in these cases are, ostensibly, entitled to their day in court. However, they are being denied this right because they cannot afford a defense. The RIAA knows this, and is taking advantage of the situation to extort settlement payments from the defendants. They never have to meet their burden of proof, never have to make their case in front of a jury, never have to do anything other than some paperwork and a few well placed phone calls. It's a bastardization of the judicial system, in which you are entitled to all the justice you can afford.
We'll never know if these people were actually guilty or not; these suits never see the inside of a courtroom. Even worse, the odds are that there has been at least ONE person who's been falsely accused of these acts who has paid a settlement because they didn't want to lose their house putting on a defense. One of the founding principles of our justice system is that it's better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to go to jail (or pay a psychotically inflated penalty for what is a truly minor, nonviolent, victimless infraction.)
Giving a copy of a song to someone shouldn't mean you become homeless.
This particular phenomenon is the biggest argument for tort reform in recent memory. The American legal system is set up in such a way that, if you are sued, you are financially penalized win or lose. In other jurisdictions (I'm thinking of the UK in particular) the plaintiff is obligated to pay for the defendant's legal fees if the plaintiff loses the suit. This has the effect of curtailing suits that are filed simply to harass defendants, or to promote failing business models as the only choice available to the consumer, lest they be bankrupted in court.
You sell crack for a living or what?
As a lifelong liberal Democrat, I was also hopeful that if the Dems didn't take back the White House, McCain would be the guy; at least you can reason with him, and he's pretty moderate on social issues.
Unfortunately, he's gone dark side. He's flip-flopped on tax cuts for the rich, and supports the war in Iraq.
I'm not so crazy about Hillary either. I think she's bad for the party as a nominee, because as far as we might have come as a country, we will not elect a woman to the Presidency in 2008. A Clinton Democratic nomination for President hands the GOP another four years. (My liberal nature is tempered by a wide streak of pragmatism.)
The first female POTUS will either be a reactionary conservative or reach the office through the death of the sitting President that she was VP for (think Commander in Chief.)
And I'm doing that how? I'm not one of those CSRs that you're asking to fall on their swords.
What makes you think they're not looking? It may shock you to realize that sometimes it takes time to get a new job. It may also shock you that most people would prefer a shitty job where they have to compromise their principles to no job at all. Sometimes principles come with price tags.
The "right thing"? By whose measure? Yours? What gives you the right to decide for other people what's wrong and what's right? Why do you know better than they do? I agree the system sucks, but you should realize this: PEOPLE NEED TO EAT.
If you want to do something constructive, do something yourself. Organize a petition, a boycott, spread the word, start a blog, do something. Telling people that the answer to your problem is that they should choose another job isn't very likely to get you very far. All that does is eliminate any possibility that they might WANT to help you by trying to get policy changed.
Principles are great. Eating is better.
The only choice in the matter the CSR has is "Do what we tell you" or "Get fired". Which choice would you make in their shoes? And are you really going to tell them that they should quit?
People gotta make a living. And don't get me wrong, I'm not letting the spammers off the hook; they're far more responsible for the action of the enterprise than some drone CSR on the front lines is. What I'm saying is it's a lot easier to do the right thing when doing it doesn't mean you can't pay the rent. It's easy to say "they should get other jobs" when it's not you. The people responsible for putting those CSR's in that situation are the pinheads at Corporate, not the CSRs.
As long as people are willing to put up with crappy products (past bitching at some CSR) to the point where there's no incentive for big biz to change its mind, nothing will change. The CSRs can do nothing other than quit, and that only hurts themselves.
By the way, whose behavior am I "justifying"? The CSR's behavior of doing their job? What else would you have them do? If they want to continue drawing a check, they do what they're told! And as pissed as I might be at a company for fucking me over, getting them fired does no good.
That still leaves lying, cheating, fraud, stealing and marketing in the quiver. So the 6-armed 800 foot monster now only has 5. Not really much of an improvement IMHO. (And I don't think "legal" or "illegal" enters into this discussion, they'll do whatever it takes to win.)
No worries then.
You do make some good points about universal service being a barrier. I would agree that that's a regulatory hurdle. However taken in light of what universal service could provide to less densley populated areas IMHO for now more good than harm is done with it.
I do, however, think you're trivializing the scope of the undertaking involved in attempting to start a company to compete with the AT&Ts of the world. Even if all these regulations that you think are hurting the market were wiped away tomorrow, the barriers to entry for a new player are still sky-high. Removal of regulation will not change any of the hurdles previously discussed save for lobbying. Lying, cheating, stealing, and marketing (IMHO all pretty much the same thing) are still available to crush the new enterprise before it begins. And in the absence of these regulations, lying, cheating, and stealing are much more difficult to prove and prosecute, let alone punish. And let's not forget the billions it would take to build a new network, because you can be DAMN SURE the established telco's won't let you within a mile of their fiber.
I'd also like to think that a free market could correct the situation. But even if the market were "freed" from ANY regulation, money always beats no money. The telcos have money; a start-up doesn't. Ergo, the start-up loses. Yes, excessive regulation in the past created these monoplolies, but even if the regulation is removed, they're still leviathan enterprises with deep deep pockets, unlikely to tolerate any change in the status quo anytime soon, not while they have anything to say about it.
Word-of-mouth is great if you're a local catering business, but forming a viable telecom enterprise off of it is another matter entirely.
The way I see it, regulation caused this problem, and as a result regulation is the only way to correct it. And regulation is the only way to protect the small business from the large. In an absence of regulation the large crush the small until there's only one large left, and that large then starts to crush the consumer.
- Starting a company to compete with such a beast would take a great deal of money. Money that would be extremely difficult to come by if you can't even send an email to the VC company that may or may not be interested.
- Attracting customers requires publicity and marketing, two other undertakings that are difficult when you find it difficult to place a phone call.
- The One True Telecom would spend billions lobbying, marketing, lying cheating and stealing to freeze you out of every opportunity.
The government regulations would never enter into it. Indeed, the opposite would happen: in the absence of any regulation, the One True Telecom would be free to engage in all those behaviors without fear of reprisal.I don't see how. If I'm missing something, please let me know.
How would a lack of regulations keep a monopoly from forming?
Customers only get alienated if they are told they should be alienated. The consumer is not the driving force in this arena. Consumers do as they are told; poor service or bad behavior on the vendor's part does not drive the market. If this were different, no, these monopolies would not exist. But if things were different they wouldn't be the same.
I have no problem with libertarianism as an idea or you in particular; I don't know where you got that idea. I'm challenging your argument because there's things about it that I don't think jibe with reality. I would be a libertarian if I thought our society had progressed to the point where its naivete could be overcome. Libertarianism works if everyone (including corporate entities) acts responsibly. Big business (and individuals for that matter) have proven that people cannot be trusted to act responsibility without the threat of sanction. I don't like it either, but I don't think you could argue that that is the case.
The idea that the corporation is an entity unto itself controlled only by people in central offices where the front-line workers have no POWER is what's accurate. The front line workers might have some responsibility, but which is the larger? Their responsibility to try to change corporate policy or their responsibility to their families, who will go hungry if they get fired? Because I can promise you that in 99% of the cases, if a customer service rep tries to change corporate policy, they will be informed that they are not authorized to do so at BEST, and fired for ruffling the wrong feathers at worst.
Customer service reps are there to make the company look like it gives a flying shit about its customers. They're not there to improve the quality of the product or help the customer beyond a very rigidly proscribed set of circumstances. Management doesn't want to hear what customers want or need, they want to know about how much money they're making. The only time customer service enters into their consciousness is when someone's bitching about how much they're paying their reps or when they make such a massive cock-up that it starts actually biting into the profits. (Which then is typically handled by firing all the reps and hiring new ones... which is usually still cheaper than actually fixing the cock-up.)
Ironic then that the only thing that can protect the consumer from a monopoly is regulation. Without anti-trust law, what would stop the AT&Ts and the Verizons of the world merging into the One True Telecom company that would control every bit and byte that passed over any network worth talking about? And what would stop them from filtering every negative word said about them? Or filtering any news or information that would tend to criticize the government which they own a controlling interest in?
And why would a libertarian society automatically generate companies that would act more responsibly? If anything, companies would feel free to act even more irresponsibly than before, since less "regulation" means less protection.
You're absolutely right! I'll go out and start a multitrilliondollar mortgage underwriting company first thing Tuesday!
Oh, wait. No I won't.
If it were a level playing field, you'd have a valid point. Unfortunately, money and corruption and greed have made this particular field about as even as the Rockies.
Make no mistake, if any of those vendors/utilities could make a profit selling its customers' organs (figuring in the cost of litigation/public relations damage/etc) they would do so. Any large company will do whatever it can to make the most money that it can. The only reason they don't do it now is because of the laws that are in place make it financially impossible to do so, not because it's morally wrong.
They've got the things that make modern life possible, and they know it. They own us, whether we like to admit it or not. Their services control what house we can buy, what car we can drive, who we can talk to on the phone, what we can see on TV, and now, what we can access on the Intarweb. They control our entire lives. If any of these companies decided to ruin one of us, there is little that we could do to stop them. For example, if the company that holds your car note decides that it doesn't like you, they'll have your car reposessed and seized. Maybe they're within their rights, maybe not. But by the time you reach a court with your complaint against them, you've already lost your job, your ability to look for a new one, your ability to go shopping for food, etc. Same thing with your mortgage holder, only worse: they can make you homeless at a whim.
THAT is what we have to work on before libertarianism ever has a prayer of being a viable theory of government. Net neutrality legislation failing takes us further away from viable libertarianism; libertarianism isn't a fix for this kind of corporate control.
That's a great idea!
Next, we should make people pay back the auto insurance companies when the get in an accident and total their cars! Serves them right for making a mistake!
Then all those people in New Orleans? Screw em! They should have to pay the banks back TRIPLE instead of filing homeowners claims! After all, they insisted on buying homes there, right?
In case you haven't taken my point, you've missed the entire concept of what insurance is for. People make mistakes. It happens. Even the best surgeon or lawyer can make an error that injures their patient/client/customer/whatever.
Yes, this notary was negligent. That's why he/she carries malpractice insurance: so a mistake won't make their families homeless.
Tell me, would YOU want to have a job where a mistake could cost you everything you own and 90% of what you earn for the next 20 years? We're not talking about high stakes gambling or high-risk investment here; we're talking about being a NOTARY.
Maybe when you climb down from your high horse you can tell the rest of us what it's like to be perfect. Maybe you can also tell us about how the notary making a mistake makes them more responsible than the perpetrators of the identity theft.
You're correct. What's your point?
It's been said already in this discussion, but it bears repetition: If you don't want to release your code under the GPL, then don't. A condition of using GPL'd code is that you release the subsequent work under the GPL. Don't like the terms of the license? Don't use the GPL'd code. Very simple, very clear. To extend the metaphor, consider that your "vaccine" against the "viral" nature of the GPL.
What exactly is your agenda? From what I can infer from your post, it seems like your agenda includes gaining the right to use GPL'd code in violation of the license, for reasons that IMHO you haven't made clear.
Again, nobody's forcing you to use GPL'd code!
Copyright protection per se isn't evil. Copyright protection that lasts indefinitely and doesn't have any provisions for reasonable fair use is evil.
I'm all for the artist retaining control over his/her work. I'm not saying that this "re-imagining" of TOS is "wrong". I'm saying that it's lazy and lame and shouldn't be encouraged.
Yes, but now the effects are intentionally cheesy :)
Maybe the current generation of TV viewers deserves something original rather than a rehash of a forty-year old series. Maybe fans of the original series don't like being told the series that they knew and loved is now considered broken because it's too old.
Maybe the cheesy effects were part of what made it great. (See old Dr. Who episodes for a better illustration.)
Next thing you know, they'll want to go back and "fix" The Wizard of Oz because the effects are too "primitive" and the studio "wants to update it to reflect the director's vision." (Nevermind that five directors worked on it at various times because the studio kept firing them for doing their jobs.)
Or they'll go back and "fix" 2001 because the Clarke/Kubrick book included Saturn and the end sequence was cheesy (no matter how ground-breaking.)
Come to think of it, they'll have an easier time with those because the directors are dead and can't object to their masterpieces being whored out to line the studios' pockets.
Because new things aren't guaranteed box office. Rehashing previously marketable ideas is far safer.
After all, it's about money, not entertainment.
But don't blame the Hollywood establishment, blame the viewing public for paying over and over to see the same hackneyed ideas and insultingly shallow plots.
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