The premise -- no matter how unlikely -- is that MS has made the best OS ever. Everyone agrees on it. Yes, even the FOSS community.
I don't.
Guess it isn't everyone then.
And IMHO this is how the Microsoft problem will solve itself; MS will collapse under the weight of its own incompetence. They'll push out another steaming insecure bloated pile of OS dung, it'll break every computer from here to Taipei, and everyone in the Fortune 500 will sue them. The legal system will finally break their monopoly, not through anti-trust actions but civil torts.
Why big business hasn't sued MS over some of these more egregious security holes is a mystery to me. Do the lawyers and the CIOs/CTOs not have each others' email addresses?
Oh wait, I'm expecting someone with a C at the beginning of his title to be anything other than an empty suit that fires people and collects a 7 figure bonus at the end of the year. Nevermind. We're boned.
Just because something sounds insane doesn't necessarily mean it is. People thought the Wright brothers were insane to try to build a plane that would carry human beings. More than one person ridiculed their ideas as preposterous, citing that if Man were meant to fly, he'd have wings.
I'm not saying the UFO types aren't one step away from the looney bin, but it remains to be seen which side of that fine line this particular phenomenon comes down on. Scientific theory demands an open mind; something is a viable theory until it can be disproven.
I hope someone attempts to duplicate these results. Win or lose, it's interesting.
Your point is valid, but IMHO there's another reason that IT departments will be forced to provide upgrades for the users they support. I like to call it the "CEO wants it" effect.
CEO reads about some new faster chip/doodad/memory/whatever. CEO immediately wants new notebook/desktop/PDA etc. because the one they have suddenly becomes "too slow." (Nevermind that the CEO him/herself, with remarkably few exceptions, never ever ever uses the full capacity of their current machine, no matter how old it is. Having your AA print email for you to read doesn't require a dual core procesor.) Once the CEO has his/her new shiny machine that they didn't need, all the other CxO's want one right away too, because now they feel inadequate. Once you start getting into ordering multiple machines of the same spec, you're forced to standardize on that spec for all new machines that are rolled out (at least at every company I've ever worked at) so that the support is manageable.
A month later the CEO reads about another faster chip/doodad/memory/whatever. Lather rinse repeat.
Seriously, raise your hand if you have a CEO that even knows what his/her own Windows password is. My last 2 didn't.
And I'm not denying that it's not irresponsible for the banks to do this. Your analogy, while extreme, is reasonably applicable. However, I'd suggest that if someone were scattering guns in your yard, you'd have far more legal recourse agains them, and would be irresponsible if you didn't follow up on that:)
Yes, it's true that the banks are the cause of the problem. But by ignoring the danger that you've involuntarily found yourself in, you take on a small measure of responsibility as well.
Yes, you *shouldn't* have to, but denying reality just gets you into avoidable trouble.
Like I said before, if you don't do what you can to minimize the risk (no matter where the risk came from), you bear some responsibility. Take the analogy of crossing the street: Sure, some people speed and run red lights. Yes, it's their fault for breaking the law, but if you just strolled out into the street without looking both ways and got whacked, then it'd be your fault as well as his/hers. So you can insist that you shouldn't have to check for cars coming because you've got the right of way, but being right doesn't help you when you get whacked. The driver created the risk, but you as the pedestrian didn't do what you could to minimize said risk. Standing by and doing nothing does not make you blameless; quite the opposite actually.
I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, or that people don't take precautions and get screwed anyway. I'm saying it's better than doing nothing, because it DOES reduce the risk.
The truth of the matter is, if someone wants to steal your identity, they're going to, just like someone can steal your car if they really want to. But there are things you can do to make a bad situation a little less bad, like doing the cross-cut shredder thing, requesting your name be removed from credit reporting agencies' listings of pre-screened individuals, being careful with your SSN as much as you can, etc.
It's not going to remove the threat entirely. The banks do have an obligation to clean up their act, but they're not COMPLETELY to blame. While you're waiting for that to happen, these are steps you can take to reduce the risk. Even if you never got another credit card solicitation in the mail, and cut up all your cards, etc, there's still a risk of identity theft. We as consumers have an obligation to do our part, and that part includes forcing banks to take more responsibility.
Because you're the one that gets hurt if your identity gets stolen. Hell, I shouldn't *have* to lock my house when I leave, but I do, because 1) It's minimally time consuming and 2) the aggravation incurred when locking one's door is infinitesimal compared to the aggravation of getting robbed.
Not saying it's right, but IMHO if you can do something to prevent a problem and you don't, you're just as responsible as anyone else involved.
My heart bleeds. No, really. That might represent five seconds' worth of profit.
Wonder why your card rates are so high?
No, not at all. They're that high because the credit card issuers have made sure to hype any fraud they can find, to make you think that they're losing all this money on fraud and need to jack up your rates to cover it.
Your rates aren't high because of fraud. Your rates are high because of greed.
No, by that logic nobody owns anything which is subject to recurring taxation. Big difference.
That's a pretty fine hair to split, but OK.
You are asking me like I have a choice, I don't.
Sure you do. Live somewhere else where they don't have property tax; those places do exist. That's a difficult thing to do, to uproot everything and move, but if property taxes bother you that much, and you don't choose to do anything about it, then IMHO you have no right to complain.
Besides, you assume that this money can only come from property tax. How about sales tax? How about licenses? How about Auto Registrations? Be creative. We are taxed a thousand different ways, I oppose one of them. Well more than one but not all of them.
I fail to see how this is different. The money for the things currently supported by taxation has to come from somewhere; does it really make a difference where, if it's all coming out of your pocket anyway? Would you accept a $500 cut in your property taxes if it meant it cost $500 to register your car?
No, it won't. Knowing that someone or everyone has it worse than me will not stop me from striving to make my life or my family's lives better. I am not content to hear that someone else in some particular fashion has it worse off than me so stop complaining or trying to be better. Are you?
I just choose to see it as a positive that I don't pay as much tax as others, rather than a negative that I have to pay a particular tax at all.
These are all freedoms. For some reason, owning land apparently isn't one of them in your opinion.
I see the ability to own land as a freedom. I also see the right to be protected from fire, crime, unsafe roads as a freedom. There's no free lunch, and I have better ways to spend my time than trying to get something for nothing.
I'd choose the right to own my land over abolishing the DMCA, Copyright Extension Act and the other host of BS laws to protect businesses and limit our ownership and Intellectual Freedom (bringing us back on-topic).
You do own your land. The law says that you have to pay property tax on it. The law is in place to fund (broken record time) things like police, fire departments, etc. that serve the entire community. The only way for those things to exist is for everyone to contribute their fair share. And again, even if the property taxes were abolished, for town services to be maintained, other sources of revuenue, which would still be money out of your pocket, would have to be found.
The property you are so reluctant to pay your fair share of property tax on is yours to do with as you wish within the law. Sell it, improve it, fill it with trees, asphalt, windmills, whatever, it's yours. You own it. That ownership comes with conditions, but you still own it. If you own a car, you are obliged to register it in order to drive on public roads. In your view, does that mean there is a missing freedom there? I'm sure you could argue it's a safety concern, but paying property tax makes everyone safer, so that argument doesn't work IMHO.
Actually, come to think of it, I might be willing to give up voicing my opinion on/. if I and my descendants were granted permanent property tax immunity. I don't know but that's not a possibility and I don't like it.
Why isn't it possible? What are you doing to make it possible? There's any number of things that you can do; mobilize like-minded residents in your community, meet with your elected representatives to present your ideas, start a petition, etc. There is a system you can take advantage of. The risk is that your wishes may not be the same as the majority of the community, in which case, you're out of luck. That's how the system has worked as long as the US has e
Society as a whole has decided that things like police departments, public schools, road maintenance, and so forth are worth paying for. Therefore, we have property taxes. If you don't like the system, write your elected representative; however, be aware that your fellow taxpayers like having those things( police, schools, etc.) and will not vote to remove property taxes if it means having to lose those things.
You're in the minority. The foundation of a democratic system is that majority rules. Therefore you are compelled to do things you would not otherwise want to do, ie pay property taxes. If the property taxes are too high where you are, you are free to find somewhere else to live; essentially "voting with your feet." If enough people move out of the area because of excessive property tax, the system will correct itself.
I think we should spend more money on education than we do on medicare (ie, more money on children than old people: the richest age group)
Agreed. I'd include things like WIC, subsidized child care, and the like in that; those things aid the working poor.
cut taxes so that people can spend more money on employees
That's a good idea in theory; however, the money won't go to the employees, it'll go into the pockets of the executives and stockholders.
lower the minimum wage to create more entry level jobs
No minimum wage job I've ever seen is "entry level". They're "be glad we gave you a job", "raise? you're lucky we don't fire you, go mop the floor", no-advancement-possible jobs. All lowering the minimum wage will do is drag down salaries across the board. The resulting decrease in buying power could very well drag the whole economy down.
cut property taxes to reduce rent and the overall cost of living.
Again, if you're talking about a landlord-renter situation, the rents will not come down, they will stay the same, with more money staying in the pocket of the owners; in other words, the rich get richer.
The means by which we fund social programs are what cause them to exist in the first place.
Reagan tried that "trickle-down" theory in the 80s.. and it didn't work then, either. All these suggestions you've made do acheive one thing: they make more money available to the wealthy. The wealthy do not wish to have company; they'll keep the money for themselves instead of improving matters for the less fortunate. (Yes, that's a stereotype, but it's one well rooted in the facts.)
Speaking of "attitude adjustment" your response sounds pretty harsh.
Hey, I call them like I see them. I don't think it was overly harsh, but feel free to disagree.
Unfortunately, here in America, I can buy a house on some land and do all of that but still not own property because my property tax will always force me to pay rent to the government (at least in my state).
By that logic, nobody owns anything which is subject to taxation. So we're living in a country without personal property already! Sweden's got nothing on us, apparently.
As far as the property tax goes, would you be willing give it up knowing that it would result in no police, no fire department, no town water supply (subsidized by taxes, the balance billed), no street repair, no school system, and on and on? The money has to come out of someone's pocket. Granted, there is a lot of waste and redundancy in local governments, but no matter how efficient the system might be, those things still require money to function.
And I hate to sound like a broken record, but if you think we pay too much tax, try living in Europe or Canada for a while. I promise you that'll change your mind quickly.
Since my home is one of those basic necessities of life, I will never be truly free unless I truly own it otherwise I will always be dependent on someone else.
Welcome to civilization. I wouldn't consider being dependent on others for some of the necessities of life giving up your freedom. You're free to get those necessities from someone else, or try to provide your own; nothing is stopping you.
Freedom of expression and the freedom to share ideas are both very important but not as important as food and shelter.
Take that to the logical extreme; if I understand you correctly, you'd be perfectly happy with a tax-free home and a subsistence farm, and you'd be willing to trade the ability to express yourself? Doesn't sound like living to me; sounds like purgatory. Food and shelter are required to live; freedom of expression and to share ideas make life worth living.
Unfortunately, we spend far more on public housing than public safety.
This, I agree with. Public safety should be funded to at least the level of public housing; ideally, both would have adequate budgets.
Oh, wait.. you meant we spend too much on public housing. OK, but you realize you're trading one problem (expensive public housing) for another (an explosion in the homeless population.) The taxpayers pay for it one way or another.
I'd like to point out for the record that that phrase is not of my invention. To put it another way, wouldn't you consider someone taking away some of your rights against your wishes a violent act? Poor people experience that every day.
Of course socialism doesn't truly protect the most important of all rights: the right to earn and keep property.
If you truly consider that the most important right of all, above every other right, you're pathologically materialistic and need an attitude adjustment.
In a society where personal property is de-emphasized, there is one benefit that you may be overlooking: nobody is subjected to the violence of poverty. There is a direct correlation between the number of freedoms enjoyed (and protected) in this country (I'm in the USA) and the income of the citizen in question. Before SLAPP legislation (and even after) people who spoke in a way that made the rich people (read: big business) look bad, or that called on them to take responsibility for their actions, were frequently named in lawsuits with no basis in the law, not designed to be won, or even tried, but intended to force the speaker to choose between shutting up and going bankrupt defending themselves. The current actions of the MPAA and the RIAA are analogous to this scenario, except the big money in this case is defending its "right" to require its customers to give them as much money as possible.
If you turn that example on its head, you'll see what I'm talking about: Let's say I'm a computer technician, with a clientele that includes small businesses and residential customers, and let's also say I'm really the only game in town. One day, someone, somewhere, invents a program that allows my customers to share information that I've given them in the course of doing my job. This is information that I've spent time and resources acquiring, and as a result of this sharing I lose business. If I tried to sue the developer of this program for my "lost business" I'd get laughed out of court, mostly because I can't afford the lawyers that have $3000 suits.
The gap between the rich and the poor in this country is widening every day, and there's really no middle class anymore; we're a country of haves and have-nots. These days it seems the only rights you have are the ones you can afford to defend. A deemphasis on personal material gain would alleviate this.
Somebody, please: Prove humanity is better than that. Mod this troll down.
Trouble is, he's right. People are shallow, greedy, willfully ignorant creatures who only work for the greater good when forced. The only thing keeping society from imploding is the rule of law.. and when the leaders start ignoring it we're all in a lot of fucking trouble.
Pensions funds don't have this luxury... if their rules tell them to invest in a particular stock because of its position, then they have to buy shares in it. It's the big fund holders who're upset over Google, not the little guys.
Disclaimer: I'm a contractor for Google. I own no stock.
If the "rules" force the pension administrators to buy GOOG soley on its price, then the "rules" are retarded and need to be changed. Do the pension funds seriously have no component in their investment decisions that allows for consideration of a companies' viability and/or practices that affect the stock price?
Remind me to invest more in my 401k. Pensions in the USA are dead.
Outside your house, on your property, some dude hangs around all day, every day, dealing drugs while you are gone. Is it fair to put YOU in jail for 20 years in this case? You should have known that someone can stand on you lawn and sell drugs, right?
It is if you know about it and do nothing. The analogy here is that you have a responsibility for what data enters and leaves your wireless access point, just the same as you have a responsibility to know what's going on on your property. The drug dealer case hinges on whether or not you have actual knowledge of the crime taking place; a lawyer will argue that there was no reasonable way for you to know that, and most likely you'll be found not guilty. But keeping your WAP open and not monitoring traffic is like bricking over your windows and wearing blinders as you walk to your car; it's willful ignorance of what is occurring on your property. Leaving your WAP open is a conscious act that you've taken; you assume the risk of being held responsible for what travels over your network. Ignorance of the technology involved IMHO should not be a valid defense. I might not know how my car works in excruciating detail (analogous to an unsophisticated computer user) but I can't very well plead ignorance when I run someone over, eg "Gee, I didn't know that I would hurt someone if I struck them with my car." The courts should hold people responsible to a basic level of knowledge. And before you go all "Securing an access point is complicated hurr", Linksys has reduced the process to one click. Not too much to ask.
I have shared my wlan for 3 years, and will continue to do so in the future.
Then don't complain when the feds knock on your door with an arrest warrant; you knew what could happen and chose to ignore the possibility.
That didn't keep Lexmark from trying to prevent reverse engineering of their printer refills, did it? IMHO that's more analogous to what's going on here.
Not saying it's right, but it's not THAT big a stretch based on precedent.
It'd be an interesting test case for the DMCA, wouldn't it? In this case it's not specifically copy or content protection software that's being circumvented, but a feature designed to maintain (potentially) a marketing agreement, if in fact that's what this turns out to be.
If an ISP starts filtering content, then they're no longer acting as a common carrier. Suddenly, they become legally responsible for the content being transmitted over their lines, and copyright owners can then sue them into the ground.
Where's the threat to their common carrier status here? IANAL but seems to me the only people who can revoke their common carrier status are the FCC, ie the Federal government. See my earlier post; that's unlikely to happen so long as politicians are bought and paid for.
The people who are (semi)early VOIP adopters are smart enough to suspect shenanigans
VOIP users = very small minority of the population. Smart people = also a very small minority of the population. The intersection of these groups is another order of magnitude smaller than the population of either group alone. Small enough, to where that group doesn't present any kind of real threat to Comcast.
- and change ISPs -
To who, exactly? If you think Comcast is bad, try dealing with Verizon or SBC. At least Comcast owns their own network and doesn't bounce the blame for a problem from one place to another; they'll tell you flat out it's your fault. At least they don't waste your time.
and tell all their friends to avoid Comcast.
See above.
And hte last thing for cable broadband providers: If you filter VOIP, you can't be considered a common carrier. I mean you are actively looking at packets that pass through your network now. you could be sued for not filtering P2P, and tons of other shit.
Do you honestly think Comcast gives a flying turd about getting sued by its customers? The amount of money they can make by destroying the competition is much larger than anything they'd have to pay to settle a lawsuit, and the risk of a finding against them in a court of law is remote (as most people will bankrupt themselves long before a suit sees a courtroom, and a class action could take years, and will eventually be settled for an amount far less than the profit they will have realized by then.) As far as Comcast is concerned, their network, their rules; they'll continue to filter their network as they see fit (restricting general bandwidth for power users, filtering torrent traffic, fucking up VoIP etc.) until someone forces them to act otherwise. AFAIK the only entity that could do that would be the federal government, and Comcast and its executives donate far more to politicians' campaigns than you or I do.
Slashdot Mirror
Guess it isn't everyone then.
And IMHO this is how the Microsoft problem will solve itself; MS will collapse under the weight of its own incompetence. They'll push out another steaming insecure bloated pile of OS dung, it'll break every computer from here to Taipei, and everyone in the Fortune 500 will sue them. The legal system will finally break their monopoly, not through anti-trust actions but civil torts.
Why big business hasn't sued MS over some of these more egregious security holes is a mystery to me. Do the lawyers and the CIOs/CTOs not have each others' email addresses?
Oh wait, I'm expecting someone with a C at the beginning of his title to be anything other than an empty suit that fires people and collects a 7 figure bonus at the end of the year. Nevermind. We're boned.
Just because something sounds insane doesn't necessarily mean it is. People thought the Wright brothers were insane to try to build a plane that would carry human beings. More than one person ridiculed their ideas as preposterous, citing that if Man were meant to fly, he'd have wings.
I'm not saying the UFO types aren't one step away from the looney bin, but it remains to be seen which side of that fine line this particular phenomenon comes down on. Scientific theory demands an open mind; something is a viable theory until it can be disproven.
I hope someone attempts to duplicate these results. Win or lose, it's interesting.
Me, and lots of other people. Available at any hardware store.
Your point is valid, but IMHO there's another reason that IT departments will be forced to provide upgrades for the users they support. I like to call it the "CEO wants it" effect.
CEO reads about some new faster chip/doodad/memory/whatever. CEO immediately wants new notebook/desktop/PDA etc. because the one they have suddenly becomes "too slow." (Nevermind that the CEO him/herself, with remarkably few exceptions, never ever ever uses the full capacity of their current machine, no matter how old it is. Having your AA print email for you to read doesn't require a dual core procesor.) Once the CEO has his/her new shiny machine that they didn't need, all the other CxO's want one right away too, because now they feel inadequate. Once you start getting into ordering multiple machines of the same spec, you're forced to standardize on that spec for all new machines that are rolled out (at least at every company I've ever worked at) so that the support is manageable.
A month later the CEO reads about another faster chip/doodad/memory/whatever. Lather rinse repeat.
Seriously, raise your hand if you have a CEO that even knows what his/her own Windows password is. My last 2 didn't.
And I'm not denying that it's not irresponsible for the banks to do this. Your analogy, while extreme, is reasonably applicable. However, I'd suggest that if someone were scattering guns in your yard, you'd have far more legal recourse agains them, and would be irresponsible if you didn't follow up on that :)
Yes, it's true that the banks are the cause of the problem. But by ignoring the danger that you've involuntarily found yourself in, you take on a small measure of responsibility as well.
Yes, you *shouldn't* have to, but denying reality just gets you into avoidable trouble.
Like I said before, if you don't do what you can to minimize the risk (no matter where the risk came from), you bear some responsibility. Take the analogy of crossing the street: Sure, some people speed and run red lights. Yes, it's their fault for breaking the law, but if you just strolled out into the street without looking both ways and got whacked, then it'd be your fault as well as his/hers. So you can insist that you shouldn't have to check for cars coming because you've got the right of way, but being right doesn't help you when you get whacked. The driver created the risk, but you as the pedestrian didn't do what you could to minimize said risk. Standing by and doing nothing does not make you blameless; quite the opposite actually.
I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, or that people don't take precautions and get screwed anyway. I'm saying it's better than doing nothing, because it DOES reduce the risk.
The truth of the matter is, if someone wants to steal your identity, they're going to, just like someone can steal your car if they really want to. But there are things you can do to make a bad situation a little less bad, like doing the cross-cut shredder thing, requesting your name be removed from credit reporting agencies' listings of pre-screened individuals, being careful with your SSN as much as you can, etc.
It's not going to remove the threat entirely. The banks do have an obligation to clean up their act, but they're not COMPLETELY to blame. While you're waiting for that to happen, these are steps you can take to reduce the risk. Even if you never got another credit card solicitation in the mail, and cut up all your cards, etc, there's still a risk of identity theft. We as consumers have an obligation to do our part, and that part includes forcing banks to take more responsibility.
Because you're the one that gets hurt if your identity gets stolen. Hell, I shouldn't *have* to lock my house when I leave, but I do, because 1) It's minimally time consuming and 2) the aggravation incurred when locking one's door is infinitesimal compared to the aggravation of getting robbed.
Not saying it's right, but IMHO if you can do something to prevent a problem and you don't, you're just as responsible as anyone else involved.
Your rates aren't high because of fraud. Your rates are high because of greed.
That's a pretty fine hair to split, but OK.
Sure you do. Live somewhere else where they don't have property tax; those places do exist. That's a difficult thing to do, to uproot everything and move, but if property taxes bother you that much, and you don't choose to do anything about it, then IMHO you have no right to complain.
I fail to see how this is different. The money for the things currently supported by taxation has to come from somewhere; does it really make a difference where, if it's all coming out of your pocket anyway? Would you accept a $500 cut in your property taxes if it meant it cost $500 to register your car?
I just choose to see it as a positive that I don't pay as much tax as others, rather than a negative that I have to pay a particular tax at all.
I see the ability to own land as a freedom. I also see the right to be protected from fire, crime, unsafe roads as a freedom. There's no free lunch, and I have better ways to spend my time than trying to get something for nothing.
You do own your land. The law says that you have to pay property tax on it. The law is in place to fund (broken record time) things like police, fire departments, etc. that serve the entire community. The only way for those things to exist is for everyone to contribute their fair share. And again, even if the property taxes were abolished, for town services to be maintained, other sources of revuenue, which would still be money out of your pocket, would have to be found.
The property you are so reluctant to pay your fair share of property tax on is yours to do with as you wish within the law. Sell it, improve it, fill it with trees, asphalt, windmills, whatever, it's yours. You own it. That ownership comes with conditions, but you still own it. If you own a car, you are obliged to register it in order to drive on public roads. In your view, does that mean there is a missing freedom there? I'm sure you could argue it's a safety concern, but paying property tax makes everyone safer, so that argument doesn't work IMHO.
Why isn't it possible? What are you doing to make it possible? There's any number of things that you can do; mobilize like-minded residents in your community, meet with your elected representatives to present your ideas, start a petition, etc. There is a system you can take advantage of. The risk is that your wishes may not be the same as the majority of the community, in which case, you're out of luck. That's how the system has worked as long as the US has e
Society as a whole has decided that things like police departments, public schools, road maintenance, and so forth are worth paying for. Therefore, we have property taxes. If you don't like the system, write your elected representative; however, be aware that your fellow taxpayers like having those things( police, schools, etc.) and will not vote to remove property taxes if it means having to lose those things.
You're in the minority. The foundation of a democratic system is that majority rules. Therefore you are compelled to do things you would not otherwise want to do, ie pay property taxes. If the property taxes are too high where you are, you are free to find somewhere else to live; essentially "voting with your feet." If enough people move out of the area because of excessive property tax, the system will correct itself.
As far as the property tax goes, would you be willing give it up knowing that it would result in no police, no fire department, no town water supply (subsidized by taxes, the balance billed), no street repair, no school system, and on and on? The money has to come out of someone's pocket. Granted, there is a lot of waste and redundancy in local governments, but no matter how efficient the system might be, those things still require money to function.
And I hate to sound like a broken record, but if you think we pay too much tax, try living in Europe or Canada for a while. I promise you that'll change your mind quickly. Welcome to civilization. I wouldn't consider being dependent on others for some of the necessities of life giving up your freedom. You're free to get those necessities from someone else, or try to provide your own; nothing is stopping you. Take that to the logical extreme; if I understand you correctly, you'd be perfectly happy with a tax-free home and a subsistence farm, and you'd be willing to trade the ability to express yourself? Doesn't sound like living to me; sounds like purgatory. Food and shelter are required to live; freedom of expression and to share ideas make life worth living.
Oh, wait.. you meant we spend too much on public housing. OK, but you realize you're trading one problem (expensive public housing) for another (an explosion in the homeless population.) The taxpayers pay for it one way or another.
I'd like to point out for the record that that phrase is not of my invention. To put it another way, wouldn't you consider someone taking away some of your rights against your wishes a violent act? Poor people experience that every day.
In a society where personal property is de-emphasized, there is one benefit that you may be overlooking: nobody is subjected to the violence of poverty. There is a direct correlation between the number of freedoms enjoyed (and protected) in this country (I'm in the USA) and the income of the citizen in question. Before SLAPP legislation (and even after) people who spoke in a way that made the rich people (read: big business) look bad, or that called on them to take responsibility for their actions, were frequently named in lawsuits with no basis in the law, not designed to be won, or even tried, but intended to force the speaker to choose between shutting up and going bankrupt defending themselves. The current actions of the MPAA and the RIAA are analogous to this scenario, except the big money in this case is defending its "right" to require its customers to give them as much money as possible.
If you turn that example on its head, you'll see what I'm talking about: Let's say I'm a computer technician, with a clientele that includes small businesses and residential customers, and let's also say I'm really the only game in town. One day, someone, somewhere, invents a program that allows my customers to share information that I've given them in the course of doing my job. This is information that I've spent time and resources acquiring, and as a result of this sharing I lose business. If I tried to sue the developer of this program for my "lost business" I'd get laughed out of court, mostly because I can't afford the lawyers that have $3000 suits.
The gap between the rich and the poor in this country is widening every day, and there's really no middle class anymore; we're a country of haves and have-nots. These days it seems the only rights you have are the ones you can afford to defend. A deemphasis on personal material gain would alleviate this.
If the "rules" force the pension administrators to buy GOOG soley on its price, then the "rules" are retarded and need to be changed. Do the pension funds seriously have no component in their investment decisions that allows for consideration of a companies' viability and/or practices that affect the stock price?
Remind me to invest more in my 401k. Pensions in the USA are dead.
That didn't keep Lexmark from trying to prevent reverse engineering of their printer refills, did it? IMHO that's more analogous to what's going on here.
Not saying it's right, but it's not THAT big a stretch based on precedent.
It'd be an interesting test case for the DMCA, wouldn't it? In this case it's not specifically copy or content protection software that's being circumvented, but a feature designed to maintain (potentially) a marketing agreement, if in fact that's what this turns out to be.
Not saying it's right, but that's the way it is.