Stallman has talked about the ethical dilemma for years and as far as I can tell, it exists with all propriety software:
-I write propriety software. -I decide I don't want to support it any more. -You "really need" or want to use my software. You paid for it, so you should be able to use it, right? -You find a bug that is a "show stopper" for you in some way. -You ask me to fix it. -I politely tell you to "stuff it".
Is it ethical to break a license to fix software that you didn't create? Even if I don't care if you fix it, if I don't give you written permission to do so, you are probably still breaking the law. What if fixing the software illegally will help save someone's life in some odd way?
That's the whole "ethical" dilemma and I agree with him that it is an absurd situation to be in and it makes no practical sense when you take money out of the picture.
FYI: His point isn't "rubbish" just because YOU don't agree with it. I happen to agree with him, so that pretty well proves that it's not complete "rubbish".
So by your line of thinking, if someone thought YOU were "bad" (whatever that means), you wouldn't object to them killing YOU? Jews were "bad" by some people's definition, so I guess that was OK too, huh?
"Killing all the bad people" won't make the problem go away, it just makes room for the next wave of "bad" people. Grow up.
I don't recall them being so concerned about "Russian civilians" in those videos I saw of Russian Police Officers beating the living shit out of so called "criminals". Of course, I'm sure they make certain to use those techniques on ONLY the criminals.
"The difference is the methods involved, where people artificially interfere with breeding and natural selection by means of selecting crops themselves or directly cut and paste genes to that effect."
And that's the whole point. You want to be logical, OK. Let's be logical and scientific about it:
History has shown me time and again that giant multinational corporations are more concerned with doing things the PROFITABLE way, which is not necessarily, the safest/smartest/cleanest/healthiest way. So WHY should I believe that ADM, etc. won't do something "bad" to my food, cover it up, and lie about it?
It's not about being a luddite, it's about knowing, from experience, that the CEO of the company in charge of "Engineering the Future of Our Food!" is probably an asshole who doesn't care what impact he has on other people or the environment.
Additionally, I don't know about you, but I gave up on the notion of the "noble researcher/scientist a long time ago. From his (scientist) perspective, his job with the big food multi-national is probably just as soul-crushing as any other corporate gig.
"Should I check those test results one more time? Fuck it! It's Tuesday, my boss is an ahole, I've got to fill out my 10 page quarterly review, and I just don't fucking care right now. I'm going to Chotchkie's..."
Yeah, I want those guys tinkering around with the basic building blocks of my food.
TLDR: You assume there's no reason to NOT trust them, and I say there's no reason TO trust them.
It's painfully obvious that all is not well in the "Urban Black Community". I think we can agree on that. I've been getting all this unsolicited advice and all these fucking lectures, so if you guys know so fucking much, why don't you fix the fucking problem already?
"We" have tried to fix the problem, but apparently what we've done so far hasn't worked. I'm sure most of "us" would be more than happy to let you take a shot at. Hell, it's not like we could really stop you anyway.
That would have been really fucking helpful last week when those 5 assholes were shooting at each other in front of my mothers house while I was visiting there with my kids.
And when you get done "fixing" "black people", from what I've seen, the "Mexicans" and the "Puerto Ricans" can use your help as well. I know they could use help in my old neighborhood.
You see, that's the problem with many of you "white people". Anytime someone mentions ANYTHING to do with "black people" being treated unfairly in any way, you stumble all over yourselves to say as loudly as you can "I'm not a racist, BUT..." and then you go into your "special treatment" spiel. Then you trot out your fucking immigrant story and segue into your "up by their own bootstraps" and "personal responsibility" lecture aimed towards black people.
Not once did I say I wanted anything, or that I was unhappy about anything. Hell, I've not even stated that I think reparations are a good idea. I just said that it was a tacky fucking joke, and now I'm getting lectured left and right by a bunch of amateur sociologists.
Jump to conclusions much? And not just you. All three of you so far.
You need to decide what you're talking about. "Reparations" and an apology are two completely different things.
The United States Government, and any other organization that has existed since slavery was prominent in this country MOST CERTAINLY SHOULD apologize if they benefited financially from slavery.
If murder has no statute of limitations, I don't see why slavery should have one either.
And what the fuck does asking for money have to do with hating white people? Nice try with the "reverse racism" argument though. That is, unless you're trying to imply that the United States Government is "Caucasian". Because if you believe that's true, I think you've just demonstrated why reparations might not be such a bad idea.
I thought the US government was "colorless", but apparently YOU don't feel that way. Maybe I'm the one that's mis-informed...
a) I didn't mention anything about reparations. I just thought that his joke about having the descendants of slaves pay him reparations for the privilege of living in the United States was crass and insensitive.
2) I know how humor works, dork...thanks for the explanation.
III) And it IS an invalid point. If I rape your girlfriend/sister/mother should I get a lesser sentence because she wanted to have a baby anyway?
I know this has been modded as "Funny", but when I think about my ancestors getting the living shit kicked out of them and being forced to work all day and then being feed nasty food, I just don't really feel like laughing. When I think about my grandmother being spat on as a little girl just because of the color of her skin, I don't really feel like laughing. When I think about all the times I was called "Nigger Boy" as a kid, and then told to "ignore it" or "laugh it off", I don't really feel like laughing.
But yeah:
"Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! Have Black People send ME Money! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!"
Actually, now that I think about it: "You're an asshole."
-YOUR writing contains fallacies. -YOU didn't link to the article in question nor to the case file. -YOUR analysis is THIRD hand. -YOU DID go further with that second paragraph. -YOU are not a lawyer. -YOU misspelled defenSe. -YOU are a Canadian.
TLDR: You suck at being a dismissive asshole. Why should we believe you any more than the other guy? At least he was PRETENDING to be a nice person, and he actually took the time to write out his thoughts, but you couldn't be bothered.
I was actually going to give your opinion a chance by following the links to see what they had to say. This is the first thing I saw. Here's the first "fact" that I saw at the op of the first page you linked to:
'The so-called "compromise" negotiated by Sens. Ben Nelson and Susan Collins is almost as bad as earlier versions of the stimulus.'
Oh really? Is that a "fact"? That's funny, because it looks an awful lot like an opinion to me. I see absolutely nothing that can be objectively corroborated in that statement. Nothing I can check. Only a nebulous reference to something that's supposed to be "bad". Is it boogey man bad? I'll never know...
Needless to say, I didn't bother with the rest of the links you provided. I would assume that their "facts" are of a similarly high quality.
"Corporations may be people in some legal respects, but they sure as hell can't vote."
Where the hell have you been for the last 30 years? My election ballots are printed on cheap paper and covered with checkboxes and chads and all kinds of crap. Their ballots are much nicer. They're printed on really sturdy green paper with detailed portraits of dead presidents on them. Plus, I only get one piece of paper, but they get to vote with a whole bunch.
"introducing text2speach makes textbook dangerously close to audiobook"
I'm getting tired of this "dangerously close" mentality when it comes to media. I think it's stupid, and unfair. We have distinctions for a reason. Dangerously close is just that: close, but not the same thing. How difficult is that concept to grasp? Should Ford not have been able to sell the Mustang (or vice versa) just because it was "dangerously close" to a Camero?
If they're so fucking concerned about it, then maybe they should revoke distribution rights for all their stuff completely, but they have no intention of doing that. They're not really worried about it. They're just greedy and they're trying to squeeze a little extra blood out of this really big stone.
If they pull this bullshit off, next they'll be telling me that I don't have the right to use text to speech software on my computer at home because I didn't pay for the fucking "audio performance rights". Because, after all, text to speech is "dangerously close" to the audio book, and if I wanted to HEAR the book, then I should have either bought the audiobook version ONLY, or paid the "Deluxe Licensing Fee" to give me access to both. Because remember, I can't own my copy of the GD book anymore, I'm just "renting it permanently" or some other nonsense.
Seriously, these are words to live by. I wish I had my rights too, but screw that, I'd rather sit around and complain about how this country sucks AT HOME instead of in a cell.
Bollocks. Never seen it, or heard of it, except from software vendors trying to scare people. And I live in Hong Kong and have seen a fair sample of pirated software. Pirates are actually pretty good at customer service, most give full refund or exchange on demand. They have no interest in selling infected software, it would just rebound on them. Can't say it never happens, but there has been plenty of infected factory fresh legal software. The risk is not larger, in my experience.
I know for a FACT that at least one of my children is still young enough that they have difficulty separating "real stuff" from "TV Stuff", so therefore it would be IRRESPONSIBLE for me to casually plop my kid down in front of anything just because some advertising director said it was "appropriate for everyone". Until my child is able to make those distinctions, they will be shielded from whatever I deem "inappropriate".
Besides, can you give ME a LOGICAL correlation between PETA and some half naked woman sucking-off a cucumber and rubbing it on her snatch on a TV commercial? I know that's an exaggeration, but I really don't feel like explaining the concept of selling things with sex to a 5/6 year old...It's just not worth the effort it would take. I don't even like football anyway...
"so we may, I suggest, reasonably claim that they're all incompetent in that regard."
I think you just mispronounced "exceptionally greedy". They didn't drop the ball, there are LOTS of dirty, stinking rich people in the G7 countries. They've done just fine. Which is all they've ever really intended anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Stallman has talked about the ethical dilemma for years and as far as I can tell, it exists with all propriety software:
-I write propriety software.
-I decide I don't want to support it any more.
-You "really need" or want to use my software. You paid for it, so you should be able to use it, right?
-You find a bug that is a "show stopper" for you in some way.
-You ask me to fix it.
-I politely tell you to "stuff it".
Is it ethical to break a license to fix software that you didn't create? Even if I don't care if you fix it, if I don't give you written permission to do so, you are probably still breaking the law. What if fixing the software illegally will help save someone's life in some odd way?
That's the whole "ethical" dilemma and I agree with him that it is an absurd situation to be in and it makes no practical sense when you take money out of the picture.
Exactly!
Scientist X: No, no, no! Your theory is all wrong, there are only 95.3 Jigga-watts in a Mega-Joule of Amptonium!
Scientist Y: Preposterous, my paper PROVES that there are indeed 98.6 Jigga-watts in a Mega-Joule of Amptonium!
Joe Sixpack: What the hell is a Jigga-watt!?!?
FYI: His point isn't "rubbish" just because YOU don't agree with it. I happen to agree with him, so that pretty well proves that it's not complete "rubbish".
So by your line of thinking, if someone thought YOU were "bad" (whatever that means), you wouldn't object to them killing YOU? Jews were "bad" by some people's definition, so I guess that was OK too, huh?
"Killing all the bad people" won't make the problem go away, it just makes room for the next wave of "bad" people. Grow up.
I don't recall them being so concerned about "Russian civilians" in those videos I saw of Russian Police Officers beating the living shit out of so called "criminals". Of course, I'm sure they make certain to use those techniques on ONLY the criminals.
"Information doesn't have rights -- people do."
That, is a very good point. I'm sure it falls on deaf ears here, but a good point regardless of what the anti-social "nerd patrol" here thinks.
If a judge can tell you that you can't plant marijuana, why can't he tell you that you can't plant a specific type of beet?
"The difference is the methods involved, where people artificially interfere with breeding and natural selection by means of selecting crops themselves or directly cut and paste genes to that effect."
And that's the whole point. You want to be logical, OK. Let's be logical and scientific about it:
History has shown me time and again that giant multinational corporations are more concerned with doing things the PROFITABLE way, which is not necessarily, the safest/smartest/cleanest/healthiest way. So WHY should I believe that ADM, etc. won't do something "bad" to my food, cover it up, and lie about it?
It's not about being a luddite, it's about knowing, from experience, that the CEO of the company in charge of "Engineering the Future of Our Food!" is probably an asshole who doesn't care what impact he has on other people or the environment.
Additionally, I don't know about you, but I gave up on the notion of the "noble researcher/scientist a long time ago. From his (scientist) perspective, his job with the big food multi-national is probably just as soul-crushing as any other corporate gig.
"Should I check those test results one more time? Fuck it! It's Tuesday, my boss is an ahole, I've got to fill out my 10 page quarterly review, and I just don't fucking care right now. I'm going to Chotchkie's..."
Yeah, I want those guys tinkering around with the basic building blocks of my food.
TLDR: You assume there's no reason to NOT trust them, and I say there's no reason TO trust them.
I think you're an idiot so I guess we're even then.
Too bad more things can't work themselves out like that, huh?
Wow. You might not be a racist, but you certainly are an asshole. Thanks for your...uh..."input". I'm not sure what all THAT was about, but thanks.
5 kids? LOL @ you.
And another thing:
It's painfully obvious that all is not well in the "Urban Black Community". I think we can agree on that. I've been getting all this unsolicited advice and all these fucking lectures, so if you guys know so fucking much, why don't you fix the fucking problem already?
"We" have tried to fix the problem, but apparently what we've done so far hasn't worked. I'm sure most of "us" would be more than happy to let you take a shot at. Hell, it's not like we could really stop you anyway.
That would have been really fucking helpful last week when those 5 assholes were shooting at each other in front of my mothers house while I was visiting there with my kids.
And when you get done "fixing" "black people", from what I've seen, the "Mexicans" and the "Puerto Ricans" can use your help as well. I know they could use help in my old neighborhood.
You see, that's the problem with many of you "white people". Anytime someone mentions ANYTHING to do with "black people" being treated unfairly in any way, you stumble all over yourselves to say as loudly as you can "I'm not a racist, BUT..." and then you go into your "special treatment" spiel. Then you trot out your fucking immigrant story and segue into your "up by their own bootstraps" and "personal responsibility" lecture aimed towards black people.
Not once did I say I wanted anything, or that I was unhappy about anything. Hell, I've not even stated that I think reparations are a good idea. I just said that it was a tacky fucking joke, and now I'm getting lectured left and right by a bunch of amateur sociologists.
Jump to conclusions much? And not just you. All three of you so far.
Jesus.Fucking.Christ!
You need to decide what you're talking about. "Reparations" and an apology are two completely different things.
The United States Government, and any other organization that has existed since slavery was prominent in this country MOST CERTAINLY SHOULD apologize if they benefited financially from slavery.
If murder has no statute of limitations, I don't see why slavery should have one either.
And what the fuck does asking for money have to do with hating white people? Nice try with the "reverse racism" argument though. That is, unless you're trying to imply that the United States Government is "Caucasian". Because if you believe that's true, I think you've just demonstrated why reparations might not be such a bad idea.
I thought the US government was "colorless", but apparently YOU don't feel that way. Maybe I'm the one that's mis-informed...
a) I didn't mention anything about reparations. I just thought that his joke about having the descendants of slaves pay him reparations for the privilege of living in the United States was crass and insensitive.
2) I know how humor works, dork...thanks for the explanation.
III) And it IS an invalid point. If I rape your girlfriend/sister/mother should I get a lesser sentence because she wanted to have a baby anyway?
Nice try though...
I know this has been modded as "Funny", but when I think about my ancestors getting the living shit kicked out of them and being forced to work all day and then being feed nasty food, I just don't really feel like laughing. When I think about my grandmother being spat on as a little girl just because of the color of her skin, I don't really feel like laughing. When I think about all the times I was called "Nigger Boy" as a kid, and then told to "ignore it" or "laugh it off", I don't really feel like laughing.
But yeah:
"Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! Have Black People send ME Money! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!"
Actually, now that I think about it: "You're an asshole."
Damnit! You beat me to it!
I used to feel bad because I never went to an "Ivy League" school or some other top tier university. Not anymore :)
I'd laugh some more if it didn't make me want to cry :(
-YOUR writing contains fallacies.
-YOU didn't link to the article in question nor to the case file.
-YOUR analysis is THIRD hand.
-YOU DID go further with that second paragraph.
-YOU are not a lawyer.
-YOU misspelled defenSe.
-YOU are a Canadian.
TLDR: You suck at being a dismissive asshole. Why should we believe you any more than the other guy? At least he was PRETENDING to be a nice person, and he actually took the time to write out his thoughts, but you couldn't be bothered.
I was actually going to give your opinion a chance by following the links to see what they had to say. This is the first thing I saw. Here's the first "fact" that I saw at the op of the first page you linked to:
'The so-called "compromise" negotiated by Sens. Ben Nelson and Susan Collins is almost as bad as earlier versions of the stimulus.'
Oh really? Is that a "fact"? That's funny, because it looks an awful lot like an opinion to me. I see absolutely nothing that can be objectively corroborated in that statement. Nothing I can check. Only a nebulous reference to something that's supposed to be "bad". Is it boogey man bad? I'll never know...
Needless to say, I didn't bother with the rest of the links you provided. I would assume that their "facts" are of a similarly high quality.
"Corporations may be people in some legal respects, but they sure as hell can't vote."
Where the hell have you been for the last 30 years? My election ballots are printed on cheap paper and covered with checkboxes and chads and all kinds of crap. Their ballots are much nicer. They're printed on really sturdy green paper with detailed portraits of dead presidents on them. Plus, I only get one piece of paper, but they get to vote with a whole bunch.
"introducing text2speach makes textbook dangerously close to audiobook"
I'm getting tired of this "dangerously close" mentality when it comes to media. I think it's stupid, and unfair. We have distinctions for a reason. Dangerously close is just that: close, but not the same thing. How difficult is that concept to grasp? Should Ford not have been able to sell the Mustang (or vice versa) just because it was "dangerously close" to a Camero?
If they're so fucking concerned about it, then maybe they should revoke distribution rights for all their stuff completely, but they have no intention of doing that. They're not really worried about it. They're just greedy and they're trying to squeeze a little extra blood out of this really big stone.
If they pull this bullshit off, next they'll be telling me that I don't have the right to use text to speech software on my computer at home because I didn't pay for the fucking "audio performance rights". Because, after all, text to speech is "dangerously close" to the audio book, and if I wanted to HEAR the book, then I should have either bought the audiobook version ONLY, or paid the "Deluxe Licensing Fee" to give me access to both. Because remember, I can't own my copy of the GD book anymore, I'm just "renting it permanently" or some other nonsense.
THIS is TRUTH.
Seriously, these are words to live by. I wish I had my rights too, but screw that, I'd rather sit around and complain about how this country sucks AT HOME instead of in a cell.
Bollocks. Never seen it, or heard of it, except from software vendors trying to scare people. And I live in Hong Kong and have seen a fair sample of pirated software. Pirates are actually pretty good at customer service, most give full refund or exchange on demand. They have no interest in selling infected software, it would just rebound on them. Can't say it never happens, but there has been plenty of infected factory fresh legal software. The risk is not larger, in my experience.
Trojan Hides In Pirated Copies of Apple iWork '09
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/23/0127253
That's funny, I thought being able to commandeer a FUCKING AIRPLANE with a box-cutter was the real problem. Silly me.
It might not be paranoid or moronic (says you), but it doesn't fix the REAL problem at all. Not even a little bit.
And by the way, "4 guys with box-cutters" is NOT the reason "9/11 happened". It was a little more complicated than that...
Don't oversimplify things.
I know for a FACT that at least one of my children is still young enough that they have difficulty separating "real stuff" from "TV Stuff", so therefore it would be IRRESPONSIBLE for me to casually plop my kid down in front of anything just because some advertising director said it was "appropriate for everyone". Until my child is able to make those distinctions, they will be shielded from whatever I deem "inappropriate".
Besides, can you give ME a LOGICAL correlation between PETA and some half naked woman sucking-off a cucumber and rubbing it on her snatch on a TV commercial? I know that's an exaggeration, but I really don't feel like explaining the concept of selling things with sex to a 5/6 year old...It's just not worth the effort it would take. I don't even like football anyway...
"so we may, I suggest, reasonably claim that they're all incompetent in that regard."
I think you just mispronounced "exceptionally greedy". They didn't drop the ball, there are LOTS of dirty, stinking rich people in the G7 countries. They've done just fine. Which is all they've ever really intended anyway.
Mission accomplished?