So much hate directed defenseless kids. That is sad. On the bright side, you have self selected yourself out of the gene pool and for that I am eternally grateful.
"I wish there were more restraunts here that excluded children, as they can ruin an otherwise good experience."
Since my kids will be the ones paying for your pension, I'll call that a fair trade. You can wish they would shut up or go away now and in a few decades, they can wish you would take up smoking and mountain climbing.
OSS != Public Domain. One common and legitimate use of GPL is dual licensing. I release something as GPL. You are free to use it, fork it, modify it and pass it on as long as you stick to the rules laid out in the license. If you don't want to release YOUR own code, then you can license it from me commercially as I'm still the copyright holder. This little bit is critical for OSS to flourish. Many people create code as a hobby and give it away, but are not generally prone to doing so *instead* of eating and paying the bills. Dual licensing allows someone to give away software to those who have the religion and still pay the bills from those who don't. It allows companies to do the OSS thing, which gives us CVS, SVN, Eclipse, MySQL, etc.
Or perhaps I just plain don't want anyone to use my work for certain uses, period. E.g. the US Navy has a game engine called Delta 3D. It is used to create training simulations. It is LGPL so that the contractors who use it don't have to release their source code and it is basically an integration of best of breed components that are compatible with LGPL. Suppose that you were a contentious objector who had created a component useful to game engines, such as an AI superclient and you did NOT want the military using it. Then release it as GPL and they won't touch it with a 10' pole.
So you know a professional artist? Have you ever asked them how they would feel if everything they created was always public domain by default? None of the ones I know (three pianists in the family) would be happy with that.
And I can't help but notice that you only distribute binaries of your IRC client and not source. I'll refrain from any cheesy demands that you release your source as there are many legitimate reasons not to do so, but I do find it interesting. May I ask if you use GPL code in your - free as in beer, but not free as in speech - closed source IRC client?
"The GPL mainly serves to give back the freedoms that copyright takes away."
WRONG! I suggest you go read up on GPL. It USES copyright as a device to keep software free. And it is not okay to incorporate it into closed source codebases. MIT and LGPL allow that, but not GPL.
The rest of your post just leaves me speechless. Do you actually KNOW an artist? You can never actually created anything in your entire life have you?
"I have a moral problem with copyright, the idea that someone else should be given veto power over my freedom of speech in order to make a buck. I have no moral problem with films or music themselves."
You avoided the question. What would you do with the CC licence case I described above? And would it be okay to use GPL code in a closed source codebase?
"So what? Thanks to the nature of information, it's possible to avoid trading for it without having to give anything up. The rights holder isn't getting paid either way, so why is it any better for consumers to go without (lose-lose) than to download and enjoy the work anyway (win-lose)? Giving it up only serves to punish themselves."
Which pretty much answers my question above. You sir, have a self serving concept of morality.
Well... StarFish Prime did make for pretty pictures:P
Seriously, the hydrazine is just diplomatic cover and everyone knows it. What surprises me is the fact that it is even announced beforehand. Tests are test for a reason. They are never guaranteed to succeed and if they fail, it is embarrassing. If it fails, they keep mum. If it succeeds, just issue a press release "we shot it down because of the hydrazine danger".
I'll call your bluff here. I won't make it easy and choose a typical commercial license either or use a major studio or record label as my example. Creative Commons has a myriad of different licenses for an artist to choose from. Does he want it to be freely distributed for noncommercial use? Does he want to allow derivative works? Etc. Let's assume that the artist has chosen one that allows free distribution for non-commercial use and derivative works, as long as those derivative works are non-commercial. This works out to the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Do you have an obligation to follow the specifications of his chosen license? According to your statement above, you feel that you are free as a bird to use it for commercial purposes. After all, he did try to trample your freedom and dictate to you how you can distribute his work. What if he does not want derivative works? Let's not talk about art for a moment. Let's talk about code. Suppose someone distributes code under GPL. GPL is a license with very strong terms. Suppose you find it inconvenient to have this code as GPL. Do you have a right to ignore the GPL license and incorporate this code into a closed source codebase? Here is the zinger... GPL only works because of copyright. If you did that, it would be a copyright violation.
You should spend some time lurking on deviant art. Artists go through a lot of angst about having their work stolen and many have horror stories about not being paid for a commission or having someone use their work, unattributed and unremunerated. These people pour their hearts into their work in a way that I never would with a piece of code. In fact, the consensus there is that when an artist takes a commission, they should retain all distribution rights to prevent the customer from commissioning someone cheap and then reselling it for megabucks. I've commissioned a couple of logos through deviant art for an open source project I'm on. In both cases, I allowed the artist to retain ownership and license them under one of the CC licenses that corresponds roughly to GPL.
Please respect their rights as human beings before you make them collateral damage in your "moral"crusade. Then again, in my cynicism, I believe that there is nothing moral about this crusade.
I never said that it is *always* wrong to break the law. Given your extreme example of slavery, it would be right to break the law.
And by the way, equating copying and slavery IS faux morality. That argument has certainly not changed my mind about the self interestes nature of the moral posturing. If people had a real, genuine moral problem with the way music and films were produced and distributed, they would boycott them. Boycotting also means NOT listening or watching. That would change the industry in a heartbeat. They don't boycott the product of the MPAA and RIAA because they lack either the discipline to turn their backs on top-down pop culture or really, genuinely do want that product, but don't want to pay for it. Pirating something is not a moral statement against distribution systems. It is a statement that you want what they make, but are unwilling to trade for it. Therefore the RIAA and MPAA feel justified in their actions. After all, in that case, these people (the entertainment industry) "know" that the other people want what they make, but piracy is cutting into sales.
So rather than moral posturing, how about a bit of discipline instead? If people stopped buying from major record labels/studios AND the torrents vanished from the scene, then I'd respect the argument as a moral one. Until then, I'm not impressed.
"Well, yes. Why wouldn't it? Are you one of those people who believes every law must be obeyed at all times, no matter how wrong it might be?"
Can I trust you to only break laws that don't harm others in some way? What if you believe that my wife should be "shared" and neither she nor I agree? Victimless "crimes" are something I don't lose a lot of sleep over, but the vast majority of laws - wrong headed or not - don't fall into this category. The law is an attempt by society (at least in democracies) to carve out the best set of rules for society to live by. Sometimes legislators are corrupt. More often, they are simply ill informed and mean well, but don't deeply understand the subject matter and don't grasp the subtleties of the laws they make. Often, they fall into the trap of fads and sound bites; whatever the media has judged the flavor of the month. There is a good way to deal with stupid laws; agitate, organize, get the law changed. There is also a bad way to deal with stupid laws; break it and be self righteous about it. This last part is what irritates me about PB and its supporters. I don't mind the torrenting so much. Realistically, these people were not going to pay for it anyway - OR - they find the pirated version more convenient (look ma! No restrictions on what I can play this thing on). What I do mind the faux morality.
"Can an artist distribute by having armed men broadcast his music in public areas and then charge for the pleasure of listening, for example?"
You can't seriously mean this as an argument in favor of torrenting? I believe the proper term in this case is red herring. Try an argument along the lines of "they don't have a right to install a rootkit" and you'll get more mileage.
"1) Artists don't have exclusive control over how they distribute. The only thing that they have ultimate control over is whether or not they choose to do so in the first place."
Sorry, but I disagree with this point. Yes, there is fair use, but yes, they can also lock it with DRM if they please, distribute only on vinyl, distribute it with a restrictive EULA that states that you can only listen to it on a hot summer night when the moon is full (y'know, to experience it as the artist meant it to be experienced) or whatever. The market may not accept some of these measures, but that does not preclude the artist from trying.
"2) Expanding the control over the distribution means decreasing the rights of the recipients of the media."
Agreed and this is why I don't buy DRMed music or anything made by Sony. Which brings us back to point 1.
"I don't believe he has that freedom. You presuppose that #3 is being done correctly, or that it's some sort of right inherently granted to the creator that would therefore be immoral."
Even if it is being done incorrectly, does that excuse breaking the law? If you live in a democracy (and please don't trot out any tiresome slogans about democracy being a farce and the need for revolution), then you have the power to change the law through organizing.
And I do believe that the artist does have the power to set an EULA within the law, just as we have to power to accept the terms and listen, or not accept them and pass. Anything else is the selfish narcissism of the rich (all of us who live in the west classify as rich here) masquerading as socialism - we're talking about entertainment here, not the difference between starvation and having enough to eat.
An artist can choose his distribution model. If he wants to freely distribute it and make his money on concerts, the can go with a creative commons license and be done with it. If he chooses a different scheme, that is his choice. As the creator, he has the freedom of choice and it is not our right to dictate to him how he goes about it. If we don't like his terms, we can simple not listen to his music. Nobody has put a gun to our heads and forced us to listen to Purple Rain.
Disclaimer - I too dislike the RIAA and MPAA. I too loathe DRM. I too torrent - specifically "Avatar" season episodes for my Kids that are no available in the country I'm in. I also feel that people should be compensated for their work and when I can finally order the season 3 compilation on DVD, I will. A lot of this moral posturing of Pirate Bay and its supporters is simply a cover for "I'm a cheap bastard and don't want to pay for my entertainment".
It's not the cost of the hardware. No funding means no research assistantships or postdocs. Considering that grad students and postdocs are the backbone of scientific research, this is an issue.
"So you haven't had to turn to cmd.exe in windows? How many times have you had to tweak the registry?"
The average Windows user never touches the registry and probably has never touched the command line. Many people simply can't be bothered with it as they are no interested.
Stepping away from computing for an example; I'm not interested in investing strategy. I'm sure that if it was my hobby and I got good at it, I could make lots of money. As it is, I've mostly lost money in the past. Do I know that my bottom line would benefit from me investing the time? Absolutely! Is it important enough to me to bother? Not a chance!
Most of the human population is this way about their computer.
"You can buy a shit load of grid tied windmills for 1.8 billion dollars..."
I'm no fan of coal either, but windmills are snake oil. They are loud, ugly (they have given Germany's North Sea coast an industrial look) and kill birds with a vengance. Oh and the cost per joule is outrageous.
How about Geothermal instead? The tech is proven. The up front cost is higher than a coal plant, but its lifetime per/joule cost is actually substantially lower.
PS: I agree with you, but that use of caps does not help your argument.
"and peer review wouldn't be a problem if people were motivated to do science for science's sake rather than greed"
If it were greed, they would become lawyers rather than scientists. I think the real motivator is ego. I saw some colossal egos while I was a graduate student and still in academia. I'd reckon that the ego of the biggest media-hound CEO is no bigger than that of a good sized portion of academia. Unless you were talking about grant money. Scientists do chase grant money like lawyers chase ambulances; but that is to fuel their ego and stature.
It's also not so simple. In the fields where it is customary to keep hardbound lab notebooks, write in ink and never skip a page (even a portion of one), plagiarism is probably not a big problem. There, the problem is self-plagiarism - publishing the same work multiple times to inflate publication counts - and just plain cooking the books when it comes to analysis. I've seen top notch scientists see what they want to see in the data and disregard non-supporting data as artifacts. That latter problem I think comes about because you can't publish negative results in a respectable journal. "I had this idea, tested it and it came out negative" is not as sexy as "new discovery". Never mind that the negative result is also a critical contribution to collective knowledge.
You are asking for a simple yes or no answer to a complex question. America's worldwide military presence has a complex history. Historically (prior to the second world war), the US had a weak, minimalistic military; essentially just a middleweight navy with hardly much of an army. An enormous driving factor in America's busybody, self-appointed world-police role is the second world war; namely the runup and things like Czechoslovakia being sold out by Western European countries. The conventional wisdom in America is that it was wrong to stand idly by while a bombastic dictator was essentially able to conquer a country with the tacit approval of that Britain and France. This "if we don't play policeman, nobody will" plays a large role in this habit of poking the beehive, if not among leaders (who may themselves have Machiavellian strategic agendas), but among the public; especially the Republican leaning part of the electorate most inclined to support foreign adventures. Disagree with them or poke fun at their naiveté if you want, but these people (the usually working class supporters of a strong military) really believe this. Politicians also tend to believe it at some level. Nobody, no matter how cynical, is completely immune to the prevailing worldview of their nationality.
To give you a yes or no answer, I'd reckon that the US would be as safe or even more safe of its military presence in the wider world was smaller. In fact, then the US would be able to join the moralistic crowd of rich, but weak nations that lectures others about what they should be doing; a position it has exchanged with Europe since WWII.
Now I'll counter with a question. Would the world be better or worse off?
Taiwan would likely have been invaded by now. America's strong military and ambiguous position on defending the island probably helps keep tensions there down. Chinese military planners can neither discount American involvement, nor count on it. If they could count on American help, they could plan for it with certainty as Japan Japan did prior to Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a move designed to disable the Americans so that they could not interfere with a Japanese takeover of Southeast Asia and Indonesia's oil. The ambiguity of the American position means that Chinese planning such a move against the US raises the possibility of China having to fight an unnecessary war against a powerful foe. The ambiguity of the American position also prevents Tiawan from recklessly proclaiming independence. On the whole, the US acts as a stabilizing influence in East Asia. A China/Tiawan war is far less likely and the possibility that they will eventually come to a mutually agreeable solution is greater.
On the other hand, the Iraq war would not have happened. Whether peace would be prevailing in the region is hard to say. Wars did not start with America's presence and there are intense rivalries for regional influence; rivalries fuelled by oil wealth. Israel would be much weaker relative to its enemies. The real question is - and I don't think anyone can really answer this - would that lead to a mutually agreeable solution, or to Israel being overrun and an ensuing genocide? Asking that question is just asking for people to come out of the woodwork and ra-ra their side.
The job of the army is not to "prevent" future combat, but to prepare for it and execute if if needed. The diplomatic job of preventing it falls to... well, diplomats and politicians.
And I hate to say it, but we do live in a Bismarkian world where military strength, like economic clout, is an asset on the scorecard of diplomatic maneuver. If you are poor and weak, nobody will listen to you. If you are rich and weak or poor and strong, people might listen. If you are rich and strong, your diplomats carry the most clout.
Being an American that has lived in Germany for the past seven years, I can say two things. Firstly, people see the value in their taxes then they personally see the benefits. In Germany, this comes in the form of many things, including the bizarre scheme where they give me back something on the order of 600 because of my two kids. As far as I'm concerned, they could have simply taxed me 600 less and kept the overhead for other projects rather than taxing me more (overhead for the beamte and their cushsy jobs) , but the people around me love it. The other thing I learned is that at my income level, my US and German taxes are not appreciably different. If fact, I pay less tax in Germany because the property tax on my house is diddly squat. In most places in the US, 'd get raped on property taxes.
So my take home lessons are A) European taxes being much higher than American ones are a myth (disclaimer - I do not live in Sweden) and B) People are cooler with taxes when they personally get the pork.
Slashdot Mirror
So much hate directed defenseless kids. That is sad. On the bright side, you have self selected yourself out of the gene pool and for that I am eternally grateful.
That's for closed primaries if you want to vote in them and anyway, you don't have to answer.
"I wish there were more restraunts here that excluded children, as they can ruin an otherwise good experience."
Since my kids will be the ones paying for your pension, I'll call that a fair trade. You can wish they would shut up or go away now and in a few decades, they can wish you would take up smoking and mountain climbing.
Navigating by compass is obsolete? That's like saying that keeping candles in your house in case of extended blackouts is obsolete.
Some things on that list are either silly or shortsighted.
OSS != Public Domain. One common and legitimate use of GPL is dual licensing. I release something as GPL. You are free to use it, fork it, modify it and pass it on as long as you stick to the rules laid out in the license. If you don't want to release YOUR own code, then you can license it from me commercially as I'm still the copyright holder. This little bit is critical for OSS to flourish. Many people create code as a hobby and give it away, but are not generally prone to doing so *instead* of eating and paying the bills. Dual licensing allows someone to give away software to those who have the religion and still pay the bills from those who don't. It allows companies to do the OSS thing, which gives us CVS, SVN, Eclipse, MySQL, etc.
Or perhaps I just plain don't want anyone to use my work for certain uses, period. E.g. the US Navy has a game engine called Delta 3D. It is used to create training simulations. It is LGPL so that the contractors who use it don't have to release their source code and it is basically an integration of best of breed components that are compatible with LGPL. Suppose that you were a contentious objector who had created a component useful to game engines, such as an AI superclient and you did NOT want the military using it. Then release it as GPL and they won't touch it with a 10' pole.
So you know a professional artist? Have you ever asked them how they would feel if everything they created was always public domain by default? None of the ones I know (three pianists in the family) would be happy with that.
And I can't help but notice that you only distribute binaries of your IRC client and not source. I'll refrain from any cheesy demands that you release your source as there are many legitimate reasons not to do so, but I do find it interesting. May I ask if you use GPL code in your - free as in beer, but not free as in speech - closed source IRC client?
Apparently you did answer the GPL question. As I said in the other thread, I am speechless.
"The GPL mainly serves to give back the freedoms that copyright takes away."
WRONG! I suggest you go read up on GPL. It USES copyright as a device to keep software free. And it is not okay to incorporate it into closed source codebases. MIT and LGPL allow that, but not GPL.
The rest of your post just leaves me speechless. Do you actually KNOW an artist? You can never actually created anything in your entire life have you?
"I have a moral problem with copyright, the idea that someone else should be given veto power over my freedom of speech in order to make a buck. I have no moral problem with films or music themselves."
You avoided the question. What would you do with the CC licence case I described above? And would it be okay to use GPL code in a closed source codebase?
"So what? Thanks to the nature of information, it's possible to avoid trading for it without having to give anything up. The rights holder isn't getting paid either way, so why is it any better for consumers to go without (lose-lose) than to download and enjoy the work anyway (win-lose)? Giving it up only serves to punish themselves."
Which pretty much answers my question above. You sir, have a self serving concept of morality.
Well... StarFish Prime did make for pretty pictures :P
Seriously, the hydrazine is just diplomatic cover and everyone knows it. What surprises me is the fact that it is even announced beforehand. Tests are test for a reason. They are never guaranteed to succeed and if they fail, it is embarrassing. If it fails, they keep mum. If it succeeds, just issue a press release "we shot it down because of the hydrazine danger".
I'll call your bluff here. I won't make it easy and choose a typical commercial license either or use a major studio or record label as my example. Creative Commons has a myriad of different licenses for an artist to choose from. Does he want it to be freely distributed for noncommercial use? Does he want to allow derivative works? Etc. Let's assume that the artist has chosen one that allows free distribution for non-commercial use and derivative works, as long as those derivative works are non-commercial. This works out to the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Do you have an obligation to follow the specifications of his chosen license? According to your statement above, you feel that you are free as a bird to use it for commercial purposes. After all, he did try to trample your freedom and dictate to you how you can distribute his work. What if he does not want derivative works? Let's not talk about art for a moment. Let's talk about code. Suppose someone distributes code under GPL. GPL is a license with very strong terms. Suppose you find it inconvenient to have this code as GPL. Do you have a right to ignore the GPL license and incorporate this code into a closed source codebase? Here is the zinger... GPL only works because of copyright. If you did that, it would be a copyright violation.
You should spend some time lurking on deviant art. Artists go through a lot of angst about having their work stolen and many have horror stories about not being paid for a commission or having someone use their work, unattributed and unremunerated. These people pour their hearts into their work in a way that I never would with a piece of code. In fact, the consensus there is that when an artist takes a commission, they should retain all distribution rights to prevent the customer from commissioning someone cheap and then reselling it for megabucks. I've commissioned a couple of logos through deviant art for an open source project I'm on. In both cases, I allowed the artist to retain ownership and license them under one of the CC licenses that corresponds roughly to GPL.
Please respect their rights as human beings before you make them collateral damage in your "moral"crusade. Then again, in my cynicism, I believe that there is nothing moral about this crusade.
I never said that it is *always* wrong to break the law. Given your extreme example of slavery, it would be right to break the law.
And by the way, equating copying and slavery IS faux morality. That argument has certainly not changed my mind about the self interestes nature of the moral posturing. If people had a real, genuine moral problem with the way music and films were produced and distributed, they would boycott them. Boycotting also means NOT listening or watching. That would change the industry in a heartbeat. They don't boycott the product of the MPAA and RIAA because they lack either the discipline to turn their backs on top-down pop culture or really, genuinely do want that product, but don't want to pay for it. Pirating something is not a moral statement against distribution systems. It is a statement that you want what they make, but are unwilling to trade for it. Therefore the RIAA and MPAA feel justified in their actions. After all, in that case, these people (the entertainment industry) "know" that the other people want what they make, but piracy is cutting into sales.
So rather than moral posturing, how about a bit of discipline instead? If people stopped buying from major record labels/studios AND the torrents vanished from the scene, then I'd respect the argument as a moral one. Until then, I'm not impressed.
"Well, yes. Why wouldn't it? Are you one of those people who believes every law must be obeyed at all times, no matter how wrong it might be?"
Can I trust you to only break laws that don't harm others in some way? What if you believe that my wife should be "shared" and neither she nor I agree? Victimless "crimes" are something I don't lose a lot of sleep over, but the vast majority of laws - wrong headed or not - don't fall into this category. The law is an attempt by society (at least in democracies) to carve out the best set of rules for society to live by. Sometimes legislators are corrupt. More often, they are simply ill informed and mean well, but don't deeply understand the subject matter and don't grasp the subtleties of the laws they make. Often, they fall into the trap of fads and sound bites; whatever the media has judged the flavor of the month. There is a good way to deal with stupid laws; agitate, organize, get the law changed. There is also a bad way to deal with stupid laws; break it and be self righteous about it. This last part is what irritates me about PB and its supporters. I don't mind the torrenting so much. Realistically, these people were not going to pay for it anyway - OR - they find the pirated version more convenient (look ma! No restrictions on what I can play this thing on). What I do mind the faux morality.
"Can an artist distribute by having armed men broadcast his music in public areas and then charge for the pleasure of listening, for example?"
You can't seriously mean this as an argument in favor of torrenting? I believe the proper term in this case is red herring. Try an argument along the lines of "they don't have a right to install a rootkit" and you'll get more mileage.
"1) Artists don't have exclusive control over how they distribute. The only thing that they have ultimate control over is whether or not they choose to do so in the first place."
Sorry, but I disagree with this point. Yes, there is fair use, but yes, they can also lock it with DRM if they please, distribute only on vinyl, distribute it with a restrictive EULA that states that you can only listen to it on a hot summer night when the moon is full (y'know, to experience it as the artist meant it to be experienced) or whatever. The market may not accept some of these measures, but that does not preclude the artist from trying.
"2) Expanding the control over the distribution means decreasing the rights of the recipients of the media."
Agreed and this is why I don't buy DRMed music or anything made by Sony. Which brings us back to point 1.
"I don't believe he has that freedom. You presuppose that #3 is being done correctly, or that it's some sort of right inherently granted to the creator that would therefore be immoral."
Even if it is being done incorrectly, does that excuse breaking the law? If you live in a democracy (and please don't trot out any tiresome slogans about democracy being a farce and the need for revolution), then you have the power to change the law through organizing.
And I do believe that the artist does have the power to set an EULA within the law, just as we have to power to accept the terms and listen, or not accept them and pass. Anything else is the selfish narcissism of the rich (all of us who live in the west classify as rich here) masquerading as socialism - we're talking about entertainment here, not the difference between starvation and having enough to eat.
An artist can choose his distribution model. If he wants to freely distribute it and make his money on concerts, the can go with a creative commons license and be done with it. If he chooses a different scheme, that is his choice. As the creator, he has the freedom of choice and it is not our right to dictate to him how he goes about it. If we don't like his terms, we can simple not listen to his music. Nobody has put a gun to our heads and forced us to listen to Purple Rain.
Disclaimer - I too dislike the RIAA and MPAA. I too loathe DRM. I too torrent - specifically "Avatar" season episodes for my Kids that are no available in the country I'm in. I also feel that people should be compensated for their work and when I can finally order the season 3 compilation on DVD, I will. A lot of this moral posturing of Pirate Bay and its supporters is simply a cover for "I'm a cheap bastard and don't want to pay for my entertainment".
It's not the cost of the hardware. No funding means no research assistantships or postdocs. Considering that grad students and postdocs are the backbone of scientific research, this is an issue.
"So you haven't had to turn to cmd.exe in windows? How many times have you had to tweak the registry?"
The average Windows user never touches the registry and probably has never touched the command line. Many people simply can't be bothered with it as they are no interested.
Stepping away from computing for an example; I'm not interested in investing strategy. I'm sure that if it was my hobby and I got good at it, I could make lots of money. As it is, I've mostly lost money in the past. Do I know that my bottom line would benefit from me investing the time? Absolutely! Is it important enough to me to bother? Not a chance!
Most of the human population is this way about their computer.
The Europeans are nicely building a spare.
"You can buy a shit load of grid tied windmills for 1.8 billion dollars..."
I'm no fan of coal either, but windmills are snake oil. They are loud, ugly (they have given Germany's North Sea coast an industrial look) and kill birds with a vengance. Oh and the cost per joule is outrageous.
How about Geothermal instead? The tech is proven. The up front cost is higher than a coal plant, but its lifetime per/joule cost is actually substantially lower.
PS: I agree with you, but that use of caps does not help your argument.
"and peer review wouldn't be a problem if people were motivated to do science for science's sake rather than greed"
If it were greed, they would become lawyers rather than scientists. I think the real motivator is ego. I saw some colossal egos while I was a graduate student and still in academia. I'd reckon that the ego of the biggest media-hound CEO is no bigger than that of a good sized portion of academia. Unless you were talking about grant money. Scientists do chase grant money like lawyers chase ambulances; but that is to fuel their ego and stature.
It's also not so simple. In the fields where it is customary to keep hardbound lab notebooks, write in ink and never skip a page (even a portion of one), plagiarism is probably not a big problem. There, the problem is self-plagiarism - publishing the same work multiple times to inflate publication counts - and just plain cooking the books when it comes to analysis. I've seen top notch scientists see what they want to see in the data and disregard non-supporting data as artifacts. That latter problem I think comes about because you can't publish negative results in a respectable journal. "I had this idea, tested it and it came out negative" is not as sexy as "new discovery". Never mind that the negative result is also a critical contribution to collective knowledge.
> Seriously, how much energy does it take to kill someone.
100 joules or so actually in the right place
dunno...we can shashdot him and find out...
His firm's website is here: http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/
You are asking for a simple yes or no answer to a complex question. America's worldwide military presence has a complex history. Historically (prior to the second world war), the US had a weak, minimalistic military; essentially just a middleweight navy with hardly much of an army. An enormous driving factor in America's busybody, self-appointed world-police role is the second world war; namely the runup and things like Czechoslovakia being sold out by Western European countries. The conventional wisdom in America is that it was wrong to stand idly by while a bombastic dictator was essentially able to conquer a country with the tacit approval of that Britain and France. This "if we don't play policeman, nobody will" plays a large role in this habit of poking the beehive, if not among leaders (who may themselves have Machiavellian strategic agendas), but among the public; especially the Republican leaning part of the electorate most inclined to support foreign adventures. Disagree with them or poke fun at their naiveté if you want, but these people (the usually working class supporters of a strong military) really believe this. Politicians also tend to believe it at some level. Nobody, no matter how cynical, is completely immune to the prevailing worldview of their nationality.
To give you a yes or no answer, I'd reckon that the US would be as safe or even more safe of its military presence in the wider world was smaller. In fact, then the US would be able to join the moralistic crowd of rich, but weak nations that lectures others about what they should be doing; a position it has exchanged with Europe since WWII.
Now I'll counter with a question. Would the world be better or worse off?
Taiwan would likely have been invaded by now. America's strong military and ambiguous position on defending the island probably helps keep tensions there down. Chinese military planners can neither discount American involvement, nor count on it. If they could count on American help, they could plan for it with certainty as Japan Japan did prior to Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a move designed to disable the Americans so that they could not interfere with a Japanese takeover of Southeast Asia and Indonesia's oil. The ambiguity of the American position means that Chinese planning such a move against the US raises the possibility of China having to fight an unnecessary war against a powerful foe. The ambiguity of the American position also prevents Tiawan from recklessly proclaiming independence. On the whole, the US acts as a stabilizing influence in East Asia. A China/Tiawan war is far less likely and the possibility that they will eventually come to a mutually agreeable solution is greater.
On the other hand, the Iraq war would not have happened. Whether peace would be prevailing in the region is hard to say. Wars did not start with America's presence and there are intense rivalries for regional influence; rivalries fuelled by oil wealth. Israel would be much weaker relative to its enemies. The real question is - and I don't think anyone can really answer this - would that lead to a mutually agreeable solution, or to Israel being overrun and an ensuing genocide? Asking that question is just asking for people to come out of the woodwork and ra-ra their side.
I'm not advocating having only one tool in the box. A strong military is simply part of the spectrum of tools.
I do agree that Machiavellian moves are counterproductive in the long run.
The job of the army is not to "prevent" future combat, but to prepare for it and execute if if needed. The diplomatic job of preventing it falls to... well, diplomats and politicians.
And I hate to say it, but we do live in a Bismarkian world where military strength, like economic clout, is an asset on the scorecard of diplomatic maneuver. If you are poor and weak, nobody will listen to you. If you are rich and weak or poor and strong, people might listen. If you are rich and strong, your diplomats carry the most clout.
Being an American that has lived in Germany for the past seven years, I can say two things. Firstly, people see the value in their taxes then they personally see the benefits. In Germany, this comes in the form of many things, including the bizarre scheme where they give me back something on the order of 600 because of my two kids. As far as I'm concerned, they could have simply taxed me 600 less and kept the overhead for other projects rather than taxing me more (overhead for the beamte and their cushsy jobs) , but the people around me love it. The other thing I learned is that at my income level, my US and German taxes are not appreciably different. If fact, I pay less tax in Germany because the property tax on my house is diddly squat. In most places in the US, 'd get raped on property taxes.
So my take home lessons are A) European taxes being much higher than American ones are a myth (disclaimer - I do not live in Sweden) and B) People are cooler with taxes when they personally get the pork.