Looks like they're talking about metric tons. This page says that it'll take a total of 1,999,200 grams of metal (9,996 g Gold; 1,232,840 g Silver; 736,372 g Copper; 16,660 g Zinc; 3,332 g Tin), which is about 2 metric tons. At market prices, that's 114,781,936 yen or $1,019,462. Guess they're saying it'll take four times that weight of actual phones to get that much metal ("The production process will reduce this eight tonnes down to around two").
Actually, that is the case. The government is a giant monopoly organization (1:34), but it just so happens that they don't have to obey the normal rules of morality.
Whatever you want to call it, it's obviously taking someone else's rightfully owned property without their permission. They (or someone who gave it to them willingly) have produced something of value and earned that wealth. To take it is wrong-- lawful or not.
The great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer pointed out that there are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth; one, the above way of production and exchange, he called the "economic means." The other way is simpler in that it does not require productivity; it is the way of seizure of another's goods or services by the use of force and violence. This is the method of one-sided confiscation, of theft of the property of others. This is the method which Oppenheimer termed "the political means" to wealth. It should be clear that the peaceful use of reason and energy in production is the "natural" path for man: the means for his survival and prosperity on this earth. It should be equally clear that the coercive, exploitative means is contrary to natural law; it is parasitic, for instead of adding to production, it subtracts from it. The "political means" siphons production off to a parasitic and destructive individual or group; and this siphoning not only subtracts from the number producing, but also lowers the producer's incentive to produce beyond his own subsistence. In the long run, the robber destroys his own subsistence by dwindling or eliminating the source of his own supply. But not only that; even in the short-run, the predator is acting contrary to his own true nature as a man.
Think hard about protectionism and you will find that the only way to go is true free trade (not that the TPP is about free trade; it's about subsidizing special interests). As the Mises Institute suggests, "all recent thousand-page international trade agreements should be replaced with a single, clearly worded paragraph that allows any U.S. business (or consumer) to trade with any other business (or consumer) anywhere else in the world on terms that are mutually satisfactory. Period." I believe you may find the following passage enlightening.
Petition of the Manufacturers of Candles, Waxlights, Lamps, Candlelights, Street Lamps, Snuffers, Extinguishers, and the Producers of Oil, Tallow, Resin, Alcohol, and, Generally, of Everything Connected with Lighting
To the Members of the Chamber of Deputies. Gentlemen:
You are on the right road. You reject abstract theories, and have little consideration for cheapness and plenty. Your chief care is the interest of the producer. You desire to protect him from foreign competition and reserve the national market for national industry.
We are about to offer you an admirable opportunity of applying your — what shall we call it? — your theory? No; nothing is more deceptive than theory — your doctrine? your system? your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you abhor systems, and as for principles you deny that there are any in social economy. We shall say, then, your practice — your practice without theory and without principle.
We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to ours for the production of light that he absolutely inundates our national market with it at a price fabulously reduced. The moment he shows himself, our trade leaves us — all consumers apply to him; and a branch of native industry, having countless ramifications, is all at once rendered completely stagnant. This rival, who is none other than the sun, wages war mercilessly against us, and we suspect that he has been raised up by perfidious Albion (good policy nowadays), inasmuch as he displays toward that haughty island a circumspection with which he dispenses in our case.
What we pray for is that it may please you to pass a law ordering the shutting up of all windows, skylights, dormer-windows, outside and inside shutters, curtains, blinds, bull's-eyes; in a word, of all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures, by or through which the light of the sun has been in use to enter houses, to the prejudice of the meritorious manufactures with which we flatter ourselves that we have accommodated our country — a country that, in gratitude, ought not to abandon us now to a strife so unequal.
We trust, gentlemen, that you will not regard this our request as a satire, or refuse it without at least first hearing the reasons which we have to urge in its support.
And, first, if you shut up as much as possible all access to natural light, and create a demand for artificial light, which of our French manufactures will not be encouraged by it?
If more tallow is consumed, then there must be more oxen and sheep; and, consequently, we shall behold the multiplication of meadows, meat, wool, hides, and above all, manure, which is the basis and foundation of all agricultural wealth.
If more oil is consumed, then we shall have an extended cultivation of the poppy, of the olive, and of rape. These rich and soil-exhausting plants will come at the right time to enable us to avail ourselves of the increased fertility that the rearing of additional cattle will impart to our lands.
Our heaths will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will, on the mountains, gather perfumed treasures, now wasting their fragrance on the desert air, like the flowers from which they emanate. Thus, there is no branch of agriculture that shall not greatly develop.
Silence can be disapproval when there's no 'No' option on the ballot. Voting for a specific candidate says "I support this guy." Not voting says either (as you note) "I don't care who wins" OR "I approve of none of them."
Yay! Let's make everything we don't like illegal because... justice!
The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property.
So, the real question is: what's the difference between a contractor and an employee. Are they not pretty much the same thing? Why is there a special class for "employees"? I understand that it's the case for most countries, but it still escapes me why we can't let people do work without attempting to regulate it. This case shows that the system set up to handle this is inadequate to properly address the situation.
When I linked to that article, I wasn't necessarily trying to convince anyone that intellectual property should be abolished. I just wanted to point out that copyright infringement is in no way "stealing."
While the idea that "even if utilitarianism is not a good basis for ethics, that doesn't mean that a fundamental ideology should rule everything, even when the results aren't good for people," is a matter of opinion, I can address your note about slavery. Most libertarians claim that voluntary slavery is not possible because it's not possible to contract your will away. Thus, he would have to use the threat of violence to induce you to obey. Your rights to yourself are inalienable and thus cannot be infringed by others even if you want them to be. You would be making a promise you both know would be impossible to fulfill and such a contract would be unenforceable and invalid. While it's possible to separate me from my property to give you control, it's not possible to separate me from me. As for the comparison of taxation to slavery, it's not exactly the best analogy. Taxation is more comparable to theft than slavery, since you're not forced to work (but you are forced to pay if you work). Conscription, on the other hand, is.
As for copyright law, I guess you're going for the utilitarian justification, given that you support a short (arbitrary) monopoly. What historical precedent makes you think copyright makes people more likely to produce good work? How do you justify infringing on real property rights to enforce this?
No, but if ebay did come up with a price they wanted you to sell for, that wouldn't make you their employee. You still have the choice to either accept their conditions or deny them. If they decide your denial makes you less valuable to do business next time, how is that wrong? When you accept the ride, you're accepting the prices, commission, etc. Contractors to work on the terms of the contract, whatever that may be. If they don't like it, they can deny it.
Copyright isn't stealing. Since property rights are the rights to control a scarce resource, they cannot apply to "creative" works since they are not source. It would make no sense to have property law if there was unlimited land with identical value. If I took a fruit from a fruit vendor but the basket had infinite fruit, he cannot claim I have done anything wrong.
Copyright law itself is a violation of property rights. It tells people that they cannot use their pen and paper to write a copy of someone else's work. It forbids people from writing certain data to their hard disks.
It's true that you can't hope for the government to do anything right. However, the writers of the constitution weren't perfect. Copyright law was the hot new stuff when it was written and so they put it right in:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Under a reasonable legal system I should be able to sue you for ruining my property value (and my air, for that matter). There's no need for a specific law for every possible annoyance. That way, the owner can make sure whatever he puts on his property won't annoy his neighbors. If he lets quiet, normal people stay, that should be fine. Now it's just a case of the government building a moat around the hotel business.
What's legal and what isn't is arbitrary. Just look at copyright law terms. Protected classes exist because there was enough political pressure at some point to make them a "legally protected class." As we're all aware, the law isn't perfect. Even though I fall into the class of left-handed young male I don't feel it's wrong to charge me more for insurance and that would be true even if handedness were a protected class. People who discriminate unfairly only hurt themselves. People who discriminate based on empirical data should be able to do so, "legally protected class" or not.
I think it's a little disingenuous to use the US as an example of the free market, where, according to the heritage institute:
The regulatory burden continues to increase. Over 180 new major federal regulations have been imposed on business operations since early 2009 with estimated annual costs of nearly $80 billion. Labor regulations are not rigid, but other government policies, such as excessive occupational licensing, restrict growth in employment opportunities. Damaging monetary policies, tangled webs of corporate welfare, and various subsidies have bred economic distortions.
Regulations, taxes, and other government-imposed restrictions on businesses are all barriers to entry and create conditions that are perfect for the creation of a monopoly. When the government mandates that you serve rural areas to create an ISP (or in some cases bans it outright due to corporate capture) or that you use expensive proprietary electronic medical record systems for a private practice, it makes it very difficult to start a competing business. Mergers don't normally create monopolies. There are few true examples of national or international monopolies, despite the fact that governments foster them. If any firm in a free market attempts to take advantage of its market power, it will be obvious to others (there will be high profits) who may not be in the market that there is money to be made, thus prompting them to enter the market and undercut the monopolistic firm.
Somalia is just a collection of weak, ineffective governments on top of each other. It's not quite an anarchy, but it's interestingly done much better since the collapse of the government (as of 2009), suggesting that in markets where the free market has been able to enter, life has improved. It's not a great place to live by any standards but has done relatively well compared to its neighbors. Of course, it looks like people are trying to ruin it by strengthening the state.
On a side note, the government is not here to "protect you" from the wealthy. It's here to extract resources from you to stay in power. If pretending to be against the wealthy (while transferring money to them through lucrative contracts and favors) helps achieve that end, it will be done.
Why might that be? What makes you think there will be a monopoly in a free market situation, where setting up a cell phone company is as simple as setting up a tower or two (and providing a price low enough that people are willing to give up coverage)?
Neglect for music and art has more to do with funding than any desire to cram more stuff in. There are schools where they can't even afford basic supplies like paper. How are they going to have instruments that students can use (as most can't afford a personal instrument) or art supplies such as canvas and paint if they can't afford even more basic supplies?
Where do you get the idea that "they can't even afford basic supplies like paper?" From the school board (who may have intentionally under-budgeted for visible items such as paper) and teachers who have a vested interest in making it sound like the schools are destitute? Throwing more money at the problem will not fix education.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like they're talking about metric tons. This page says that it'll take a total of 1,999,200 grams of metal (9,996 g Gold; 1,232,840 g Silver; 736,372 g Copper; 16,660 g Zinc; 3,332 g Tin), which is about 2 metric tons. At market prices, that's 114,781,936 yen or $1,019,462. Guess they're saying it'll take four times that weight of actual phones to get that much metal ("The production process will reduce this eight tonnes down to around two").
Surely not on earth.
Duplicate of Is Google's AI-Driven Image-Resizing Algorithm Dishonest? (November 19, 2016)
You do realize that the makeup of the "1%" has a high turnover, right?
Actually, that is the case. The government is a giant monopoly organization (1:34), but it just so happens that they don't have to obey the normal rules of morality.
Replying to undo mod to 'Troll'. I meant to mod 'Insightful,' sorry!
Whatever you want to call it, it's obviously taking someone else's rightfully owned property without their permission. They (or someone who gave it to them willingly) have produced something of value and earned that wealth. To take it is wrong-- lawful or not.
The great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer pointed out that there are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth; one, the above way of production and exchange, he called the "economic means." The other way is simpler in that it does not require productivity; it is the way of seizure of another's goods or services by the use of force and violence. This is the method of one-sided confiscation, of theft of the property of others. This is the method which Oppenheimer termed "the political means" to wealth. It should be clear that the peaceful use of reason and energy in production is the "natural" path for man: the means for his survival and prosperity on this earth. It should be equally clear that the coercive, exploitative means is contrary to natural law; it is parasitic, for instead of adding to production, it subtracts from it. The "political means" siphons production off to a parasitic and destructive individual or group; and this siphoning not only subtracts from the number producing, but also lowers the producer's incentive to produce beyond his own subsistence. In the long run, the robber destroys his own subsistence by dwindling or eliminating the source of his own supply. But not only that; even in the short-run, the predator is acting contrary to his own true nature as a man.
Think hard about protectionism and you will find that the only way to go is true free trade (not that the TPP is about free trade; it's about subsidizing special interests). As the Mises Institute suggests, "all recent thousand-page international trade agreements should be replaced with a single, clearly worded paragraph that allows any U.S. business (or consumer) to trade with any other business (or consumer) anywhere else in the world on terms that are mutually satisfactory. Period." I believe you may find the following passage enlightening.
Petition of the Manufacturers of Candles, Waxlights, Lamps, Candlelights, Street Lamps, Snuffers, Extinguishers, and the Producers of Oil, Tallow, Resin, Alcohol, and, Generally, of Everything Connected with Lighting
To the Members of the Chamber of Deputies.
Gentlemen:
You are on the right road. You reject abstract theories, and have little consideration for cheapness and plenty. Your chief care is the interest of the producer. You desire to protect him from foreign competition and reserve the national market for national industry.
We are about to offer you an admirable opportunity of applying your — what shall we call it? — your theory? No; nothing is more deceptive than theory — your doctrine? your system? your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you abhor systems, and as for principles you deny that there are any in social economy. We shall say, then, your practice — your practice without theory and without principle.
We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to ours for the production of light that he absolutely inundates our national market with it at a price fabulously reduced. The moment he shows himself, our trade leaves us — all consumers apply to him; and a branch of native industry, having countless ramifications, is all at once rendered completely stagnant. This rival, who is none other than the sun, wages war mercilessly against us, and we suspect that he has been raised up by perfidious Albion (good policy nowadays), inasmuch as he displays toward that haughty island a circumspection with which he dispenses in our case.
What we pray for is that it may please you to pass a law ordering the shutting up of all windows, skylights, dormer-windows, outside and inside shutters, curtains, blinds, bull's-eyes; in a word, of all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures, by or through which the light of the sun has been in use to enter houses, to the prejudice of the meritorious manufactures with which we flatter ourselves that we have accommodated our country — a country that, in gratitude, ought not to abandon us now to a strife so unequal.
We trust, gentlemen, that you will not regard this our request as a satire, or refuse it without at least first hearing the reasons which we have to urge in its support.
And, first, if you shut up as much as possible all access to natural light, and create a demand for artificial light, which of our French manufactures will not be encouraged by it?
If more tallow is consumed, then there must be more oxen and sheep; and, consequently, we shall behold the multiplication of meadows, meat, wool, hides, and above all, manure, which is the basis and foundation of all agricultural wealth.
If more oil is consumed, then we shall have an extended cultivation of the poppy, of the olive, and of rape. These rich and soil-exhausting plants will come at the right time to enable us to avail ourselves of the increased fertility that the rearing of additional cattle will impart to our lands.
Our heaths will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will, on the mountains, gather perfumed treasures, now wasting their fragrance on the desert air, like the flowers from which they emanate. Thus, there is no branch of agriculture that shall not greatly develop.
The same remark applies to navigation. Thousands
Silence can be disapproval when there's no 'No' option on the ballot. Voting for a specific candidate says "I support this guy." Not voting says either (as you note) "I don't care who wins" OR "I approve of none of them."
The constitution was written by men and men are fallible. Maybe paying restitution to the victim might be a good way to punish criminals?
The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property.
(Frédéric Bastiat)
So, the real question is: what's the difference between a contractor and an employee. Are they not pretty much the same thing? Why is there a special class for "employees"? I understand that it's the case for most countries, but it still escapes me why we can't let people do work without attempting to regulate it. This case shows that the system set up to handle this is inadequate to properly address the situation.
When I linked to that article, I wasn't necessarily trying to convince anyone that intellectual property should be abolished. I just wanted to point out that copyright infringement is in no way "stealing."
While the idea that "even if utilitarianism is not a good basis for ethics, that doesn't mean that a fundamental ideology should rule everything, even when the results aren't good for people," is a matter of opinion, I can address your note about slavery. Most libertarians claim that voluntary slavery is not possible because it's not possible to contract your will away. Thus, he would have to use the threat of violence to induce you to obey. Your rights to yourself are inalienable and thus cannot be infringed by others even if you want them to be. You would be making a promise you both know would be impossible to fulfill and such a contract would be unenforceable and invalid. While it's possible to separate me from my property to give you control, it's not possible to separate me from me. As for the comparison of taxation to slavery, it's not exactly the best analogy. Taxation is more comparable to theft than slavery, since you're not forced to work (but you are forced to pay if you work). Conscription, on the other hand, is.
As for copyright law, I guess you're going for the utilitarian justification, given that you support a short (arbitrary) monopoly. What historical precedent makes you think copyright makes people more likely to produce good work? How do you justify infringing on real property rights to enforce this?
No, but if ebay did come up with a price they wanted you to sell for, that wouldn't make you their employee. You still have the choice to either accept their conditions or deny them. If they decide your denial makes you less valuable to do business next time, how is that wrong? When you accept the ride, you're accepting the prices, commission, etc. Contractors to work on the terms of the contract, whatever that may be. If they don't like it, they can deny it.
Copyright isn't stealing. Since property rights are the rights to control a scarce resource, they cannot apply to "creative" works since they are not source. It would make no sense to have property law if there was unlimited land with identical value. If I took a fruit from a fruit vendor but the basket had infinite fruit, he cannot claim I have done anything wrong.
Copyright law itself is a violation of property rights. It tells people that they cannot use their pen and paper to write a copy of someone else's work. It forbids people from writing certain data to their hard disks.
For a more complete explanation of why property rights for "creative" work makes no sense, see: The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide or Against Intellectual Property (73-page Book).
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
With most trade deals, you know what you're getting. With the EU, you have to submit to whatever Brussels mandates. There's a big difference.
Under a reasonable legal system I should be able to sue you for ruining my property value (and my air, for that matter). There's no need for a specific law for every possible annoyance. That way, the owner can make sure whatever he puts on his property won't annoy his neighbors. If he lets quiet, normal people stay, that should be fine. Now it's just a case of the government building a moat around the hotel business.
What's legal and what isn't is arbitrary. Just look at copyright law terms. Protected classes exist because there was enough political pressure at some point to make them a "legally protected class." As we're all aware, the law isn't perfect. Even though I fall into the class of left-handed young male I don't feel it's wrong to charge me more for insurance and that would be true even if handedness were a protected class. People who discriminate unfairly only hurt themselves. People who discriminate based on empirical data should be able to do so, "legally protected class" or not.
It's slashdot. No Unicode support, so he can't write with Hanzi.
I think it's a little disingenuous to use the US as an example of the free market, where, according to the heritage institute:
The regulatory burden continues to increase. Over 180 new major federal regulations have been imposed on business operations since early 2009 with estimated annual costs of nearly $80 billion. Labor regulations are not rigid, but other government policies, such as excessive occupational licensing, restrict growth in employment opportunities. Damaging monetary policies, tangled webs of corporate welfare, and various subsidies have bred economic distortions.
Regulations, taxes, and other government-imposed restrictions on businesses are all barriers to entry and create conditions that are perfect for the creation of a monopoly. When the government mandates that you serve rural areas to create an ISP (or in some cases bans it outright due to corporate capture) or that you use expensive proprietary electronic medical record systems for a private practice, it makes it very difficult to start a competing business. Mergers don't normally create monopolies. There are few true examples of national or international monopolies, despite the fact that governments foster them. If any firm in a free market attempts to take advantage of its market power, it will be obvious to others (there will be high profits) who may not be in the market that there is money to be made, thus prompting them to enter the market and undercut the monopolistic firm.
Somalia is just a collection of weak, ineffective governments on top of each other. It's not quite an anarchy, but it's interestingly done much better since the collapse of the government (as of 2009), suggesting that in markets where the free market has been able to enter, life has improved. It's not a great place to live by any standards but has done relatively well compared to its neighbors. Of course, it looks like people are trying to ruin it by strengthening the state.
On a side note, the government is not here to "protect you" from the wealthy. It's here to extract resources from you to stay in power. If pretending to be against the wealthy (while transferring money to them through lucrative contracts and favors) helps achieve that end, it will be done.
Why might that be? What makes you think there will be a monopoly in a free market situation, where setting up a cell phone company is as simple as setting up a tower or two (and providing a price low enough that people are willing to give up coverage)?
Neglect for music and art has more to do with funding than any desire to cram more stuff in. There are schools where they can't even afford basic supplies like paper. How are they going to have instruments that students can use (as most can't afford a personal instrument) or art supplies such as canvas and paint if they can't afford even more basic supplies?
Where do you get the idea that "they can't even afford basic supplies like paper?" From the school board (who may have intentionally under-budgeted for visible items such as paper) and teachers who have a vested interest in making it sound like the schools are destitute? Throwing more money at the problem will not fix education.
Maybe he bought it for his company?