"A similiar example would be "Air America" where the government controls the funds and employees. This is not covered by the "freedom of press"."
First off, you mean "Voice of America." Secondly, that's a special case since they are also restricted from broadcasting to audiences within the US. A "more better" analogy would be PBS, over which the government has control only over (their share of) the funding, not the content.
"Accountability is a complete red herring in the first place."
Actually, it's non-existent. When was the last time a software publisher took responsibility for any problems with it? There may be no "accountability" with the Linux stack, but MSFT is hoping you don't wonder where the accountability is in Windows; after all, you don't see MSFT churning out checks for lost productivity due to Windows problems, do you?
In the software world, accountability is a myth at best, especially after you agree to the EULA. The next best thing is reliability (if you have to handle problems on your own then you better hope there's no problems to begin with), which Linux seems to have in spades with respect to Windows products.
For the sake of Australia/New Zealand. Trust me, they get screwed far more often and in far worse ways than do Europe when it comes to games. They get Europe's leftovers just as Europe gets ours.
And I have no idea where South/Latin America comes into all this...
"What's to prevent this being used by police to block their images when they're beating or otherwise mistreating people?"
A Polaroid.
Seriously, all this does is reduce the number of usable cameras down to around what they were, say, ten years ago.
Yes, when you're in public there's some sort of "expectation" of being fair game for photographers; so is leaving your window blinds open. But there's a difference between your window facing a forest and facing a parking garage. The former understanding is that such eyes were rare, and now they're suddenly not.
And some factory in some Chinese country (PRC, ROC, whichever) has been churning out Game Axes for how long now? Another FamiClone; yay.
Wake me up when someone releases a new Famicom copier, then I'll get excited. With my Super Wild Card I have all my SNES games on a single Zip disk, and I'd really like to be able to do something similar with my NES library so I can put all those carts into storage and clear some shelf space (without copyright violations, so the internet is not an option).
Besides, what's the point in a portable Famicom when it's half the size of an NES cart? They don't fit in your pocket very well.
Now for the next survey: look out at the parking lot and see how many of the cars you see are *ahem* "modified" Honda Civics.
So my console of choice isn't the console of choice for folks who don't practice personal hygene now that mommy and daddy aren't around to make them do it, drink until alcohol poisoning and think joining a fraternity is a good idea. Like with Acclaim, I think I can handle the loss.
"You have to beat Metriod Prime 1 and 2, you have to beat Smash Brothers, you have to beat Wind Waker, and so on. It's hard."
I think you're overblowing this a little. Sure, we can probably give a little credit to Nintendo for scaring Acclaim off the console, but with the risk also comes great rewards; when a game is good, the GameCube version of that game consistently sells better than the PS2 or Xbox version, even though raw numbers suggest that the PS2 should do better. Even gamers that own both a GCN and a PS2, when given a choice, tend to buy the GCN version of a game.
Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the PS2 comes with a number of bonus videos that the smaller GCN disc couldn't hold. Guess which version sold more.
Weather kills far more people in the US than foreign aggression. It is national defense (heck, NOAA even has their own uniformed, commissioned corps), just not defending from what you're too short-sighted to think of.
"If at 16 I found a girl in my class hot, what has changed to make me NOT find a 16 year old hot?"
The difference is that over the years you've had the opportunity to talk to real 16-year-old girls and get to know more about them than just their looks, and hopefully you'll know better than to even bother with them. As others have pointed out, even without laws teenage girls are scary! In short, they're as confused as you were when you were 16 (well, not you personally since you're still 14 and all, but the proverbial "you"), they don't "know better" and somebody's going to crash and burn and it won't be them.
Now, if you're a computer geek and never actually talked to a 16-year-old girl before (beyond doing her homework for her), you have an excuse for not knowing better, but there comes a point where it's difficult to look at a woman (whatever her age), the way she holds herself and the way she dresses and such and not get a feel about her basic personality. I realize it sounds presumptive, prejudiced, condescending and all sorts of other bad words, but most of the eye-catching teenaged girls wear things and do things that scream "Look, I have cleavage! Buy me things!" Once you learn to recognize it for what it's for, it's really not attractive to look at any more.
Perhaps your older friend is able to separate looks and personality and can look at teenaged eye-candy and not think of others he knew at that age; personally, as a 27-year-old I have a hard time not rolling my eyes at such girls. Maybe I envy your friend a little.:)
You mean like trade? How about them Permanent Normal Trade Relations the US has with China?
The importation of personal articles is limited to those intended for personal use and imported in reasonable quantities. The value of the items contained in each shipment must not exceed (12.08 USD) and the total value of the shipment received annually by each family may not exceed (96.66 USD).
If this is what cooperation with China on trade looks like, I'm kinda curious about how the Chinese would "cooperate" with the US on space exploration.
"So yeah, he has access to it, but he gets to be in debt for the next ten years of his life paying it off, with interest, of course, because he's doing it on a payment plan."
What's ten years here or there when we're talking about a millenium life span? In today's terms where we're barely pushing a century here and there, that's like having to work a year to pay off the debt. It's not as if you'll have to worry about being pressured into retirement any time soon.
"they're immediately going to start doing everything in their (significant) power to make sure it doesn't get into the hands of what they consider the 'unwashed masses'."
That only really happens with finite resources, like members of Congress. If all these elite folks have to do to make more money is whip up another batch of Immortality Serum in the kithen sink and sell it, why wouldn't they? After all, if they get to where they are because of greed, then greed would compell them to continue selling it; it's not as if they'd be sacrificing their own immortality to give it to others (as they would have to do with their members of Congress).
Rule of thumb: if you're getting a paycheck, you're not a slave. Also, if you're allowed to leave, you're not a slave. Slavery, serfdom and indentured servitude have all been illegal in the US since the 1860's and what little that actually happens continues generally because those being taken advantage of are afraid of being deported. When was the last time any of us saw a debtor's prison? At any rate...
"but what do you do here when somebody declares bankruptcy after treatment?"
Huh? I'm not sure you understand what bankruptcy means. The government steps in, limits what your debtors can claim of yours, what the banks are allowed to take they are then forced to make do with, whether it covers your debts or not. Essentially it's "reorganizing debt" the hard way, but if someone declares bankruptcy "after treatment" then they're treated the same as everybody else: they lose some of their posessions, their credit history is nuked and they start over again.
"Imagine what the average working person could do with a second lifetime where they own their own home from the beginning "
About the only real advantage they'd have would be the ability to borrow against their home, taking out a mortgage. In return, you're expected to eventaully pay back more than the value of your house.
With that mortgage, you could either buy some more stuff and eventually work off the debt, or you could invest it in something. However, remember that "invest" means "give money to somebody else in the hopes that they'll make more money with it and give some of it to you." Money doesn't just sit there and magicly grow; the interest your money garners in a savings account is the bank giving you a cut of what they earned when they gave your money to somebody else in the form of a loan or mortgage.
"Now imagine the same thing with people will millions of dollars in assets and dozens of lifetimes of experience."
They have two choices: they can buy a lot of stuff and then spend a century or two working minimum wage to pay back their debts, or they could invest the money in somebody else, who would then have the same two choices: materialism or investment. Eventually there will be somebody who chooses materialism over further investment and they will be the ones working. However, debt is finite: it's exactly as much as you spent. There are recurring things to spend money on like food and utilities, but if you're given an essentially unlimited amount of time, pennies tossed into a sock drawer will eventually accumulate.
In such a future you could get rich working in McDonald's because you could work there for however long it would take to accumulate your millions. Employers would also have an incentive to pay for The Treatment in health plans because, in the long run, it will eventaully be cheaper than having to train your replacement after you're unable to continue working.
The only real threat would be automation; mechanical "employees" who don't have to be paid at all to do menial tasks. On the other hand, though, would there be such a push for automation if more people were willing to "get rich slow," not having to outrun their lifespan in order to accumulate wealth any more?
"How hard would it be for people with a centuries-long lifetime to manipulate society so the emphemerals believe that the immortals are graced by god."
Good help is hard to find when you have to keep retraining folks after the previous crew died of old age.
Slashdot Mirror
"A similiar example would be "Air America" where the government controls the funds and employees. This is not covered by the "freedom of press"."
First off, you mean "Voice of America." Secondly, that's a special case since they are also restricted from broadcasting to audiences within the US. A "more better" analogy would be PBS, over which the government has control only over (their share of) the funding, not the content.
"Accountability is a complete red herring in the first place."
Actually, it's non-existent. When was the last time a software publisher took responsibility for any problems with it? There may be no "accountability" with the Linux stack, but MSFT is hoping you don't wonder where the accountability is in Windows; after all, you don't see MSFT churning out checks for lost productivity due to Windows problems, do you?
In the software world, accountability is a myth at best, especially after you agree to the EULA. The next best thing is reliability (if you have to handle problems on your own then you better hope there's no problems to begin with), which Linux seems to have in spades with respect to Windows products.
For the sake of Australia/New Zealand. Trust me, they get screwed far more often and in far worse ways than do Europe when it comes to games. They get Europe's leftovers just as Europe gets ours.
And I have no idea where South/Latin America comes into all this...
"Why not just call it a temp job?"
Because those involve contracts. "Full-time" employees don't have any promises written on paper.
"What's to prevent this being used by police to block their images when they're beating or otherwise mistreating people?"
A Polaroid.
Seriously, all this does is reduce the number of usable cameras down to around what they were, say, ten years ago.
Yes, when you're in public there's some sort of "expectation" of being fair game for photographers; so is leaving your window blinds open. But there's a difference between your window facing a forest and facing a parking garage. The former understanding is that such eyes were rare, and now they're suddenly not.
And some factory in some Chinese country (PRC, ROC, whichever) has been churning out Game Axes for how long now? Another FamiClone; yay.
Wake me up when someone releases a new Famicom copier, then I'll get excited. With my Super Wild Card I have all my SNES games on a single Zip disk, and I'd really like to be able to do something similar with my NES library so I can put all those carts into storage and clear some shelf space (without copyright violations, so the internet is not an option).
Besides, what's the point in a portable Famicom when it's half the size of an NES cart? They don't fit in your pocket very well.
Now for the next survey: look out at the parking lot and see how many of the cars you see are *ahem* "modified" Honda Civics.
So my console of choice isn't the console of choice for folks who don't practice personal hygene now that mommy and daddy aren't around to make them do it, drink until alcohol poisoning and think joining a fraternity is a good idea. Like with Acclaim, I think I can handle the loss.
"You have to beat Metriod Prime 1 and 2, you have to beat Smash Brothers, you have to beat Wind Waker, and so on. It's hard."
I think you're overblowing this a little. Sure, we can probably give a little credit to Nintendo for scaring Acclaim off the console, but with the risk also comes great rewards; when a game is good, the GameCube version of that game consistently sells better than the PS2 or Xbox version, even though raw numbers suggest that the PS2 should do better. Even gamers that own both a GCN and a PS2, when given a choice, tend to buy the GCN version of a game.
Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the PS2 comes with a number of bonus videos that the smaller GCN disc couldn't hold. Guess which version sold more.
Yes, because there's nothing like naming three game titles that nobody knows a damned thing about to boost pre-release buzz.
"16 people with DSes sit around a revolution in one city and play on a team against 16 people sitting around a revolution with DSes in another city."
There are still people bitching about "having to buy four GBAs" to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Do you really think this idea would fly?
"Interesting bits like gyroscope sensing controllers"
GYROMITE!!!!
Because Now You're Playing with Power(TM)!
Weather kills far more people in the US than foreign aggression. It is national defense (heck, NOAA even has their own uniformed, commissioned corps), just not defending from what you're too short-sighted to think of.
"If at 16 I found a girl in my class hot, what has changed to make me NOT find a 16 year old hot?"
:)
The difference is that over the years you've had the opportunity to talk to real 16-year-old girls and get to know more about them than just their looks, and hopefully you'll know better than to even bother with them. As others have pointed out, even without laws teenage girls are scary! In short, they're as confused as you were when you were 16 (well, not you personally since you're still 14 and all, but the proverbial "you"), they don't "know better" and somebody's going to crash and burn and it won't be them.
Now, if you're a computer geek and never actually talked to a 16-year-old girl before (beyond doing her homework for her), you have an excuse for not knowing better, but there comes a point where it's difficult to look at a woman (whatever her age), the way she holds herself and the way she dresses and such and not get a feel about her basic personality. I realize it sounds presumptive, prejudiced, condescending and all sorts of other bad words, but most of the eye-catching teenaged girls wear things and do things that scream "Look, I have cleavage! Buy me things!" Once you learn to recognize it for what it's for, it's really not attractive to look at any more.
Perhaps your older friend is able to separate looks and personality and can look at teenaged eye-candy and not think of others he knew at that age; personally, as a 27-year-old I have a hard time not rolling my eyes at such girls. Maybe I envy your friend a little.
What page do find the bit about Ye Olde BSD dying?
Eh, you'll only be hungry again in a few hours anyway.
"No... boy-band members going up?"
Everybody knows about the Boy Band Gap between China and the West!
If this is what cooperation with China on trade looks like, I'm kinda curious about how the Chinese would "cooperate" with the US on space exploration.
If the Chinese companies win, will we see the PlayStation 2 and Xbox prices drop to those of the GameCube?
"So yeah, he has access to it, but he gets to be in debt for the next ten years of his life paying it off, with interest, of course, because he's doing it on a payment plan."
What's ten years here or there when we're talking about a millenium life span? In today's terms where we're barely pushing a century here and there, that's like having to work a year to pay off the debt. It's not as if you'll have to worry about being pressured into retirement any time soon.
"they're immediately going to start doing everything in their (significant) power to make sure it doesn't get into the hands of what they consider the 'unwashed masses'."
That only really happens with finite resources, like members of Congress. If all these elite folks have to do to make more money is whip up another batch of Immortality Serum in the kithen sink and sell it, why wouldn't they? After all, if they get to where they are because of greed, then greed would compell them to continue selling it; it's not as if they'd be sacrificing their own immortality to give it to others (as they would have to do with their members of Congress).
"Working slaves can forget about it."
Rule of thumb: if you're getting a paycheck, you're not a slave. Also, if you're allowed to leave, you're not a slave. Slavery, serfdom and indentured servitude have all been illegal in the US since the 1860's and what little that actually happens continues generally because those being taken advantage of are afraid of being deported. When was the last time any of us saw a debtor's prison? At any rate...
"but what do you do here when somebody declares bankruptcy after treatment?"
Huh? I'm not sure you understand what bankruptcy means. The government steps in, limits what your debtors can claim of yours, what the banks are allowed to take they are then forced to make do with, whether it covers your debts or not. Essentially it's "reorganizing debt" the hard way, but if someone declares bankruptcy "after treatment" then they're treated the same as everybody else: they lose some of their posessions, their credit history is nuked and they start over again.
"Imagine what the average working person could do with a second lifetime where they own their own home from the beginning "
About the only real advantage they'd have would be the ability to borrow against their home, taking out a mortgage. In return, you're expected to eventaully pay back more than the value of your house.
With that mortgage, you could either buy some more stuff and eventually work off the debt, or you could invest it in something. However, remember that "invest" means "give money to somebody else in the hopes that they'll make more money with it and give some of it to you." Money doesn't just sit there and magicly grow; the interest your money garners in a savings account is the bank giving you a cut of what they earned when they gave your money to somebody else in the form of a loan or mortgage.
"Now imagine the same thing with people will millions of dollars in assets and dozens of lifetimes of experience."
They have two choices: they can buy a lot of stuff and then spend a century or two working minimum wage to pay back their debts, or they could invest the money in somebody else, who would then have the same two choices: materialism or investment. Eventually there will be somebody who chooses materialism over further investment and they will be the ones working. However, debt is finite: it's exactly as much as you spent. There are recurring things to spend money on like food and utilities, but if you're given an essentially unlimited amount of time, pennies tossed into a sock drawer will eventually accumulate.
In such a future you could get rich working in McDonald's because you could work there for however long it would take to accumulate your millions. Employers would also have an incentive to pay for The Treatment in health plans because, in the long run, it will eventaully be cheaper than having to train your replacement after you're unable to continue working.
The only real threat would be automation; mechanical "employees" who don't have to be paid at all to do menial tasks. On the other hand, though, would there be such a push for automation if more people were willing to "get rich slow," not having to outrun their lifespan in order to accumulate wealth any more?
"How hard would it be for people with a centuries-long lifetime to manipulate society so the emphemerals believe that the immortals are graced by god."
Good help is hard to find when you have to keep retraining folks after the previous crew died of old age.
"The greats of any given generation only become great when those before them have exited the stage."
You're assuming that they won't "exit the stage" voluntarily. People can still retire even if they're no loger forced into it.
"Why do these cheat codes exist in the final product?"
To sell hint books.
Bah. Even with shoulder-fired weapons no other hockey video game can hold a candle to Nintendo's Ice Hockey!
OK, maybe Konami's Blades of Steel... maybe...
"As long as I can easily buy a clone or make my own (with no restrictions)"
So, what's the EULA from your cable company look like? Are you restricted only to "propery licensed" DVRs on your service?
FBI: Do you have the express permission of ABC and the National Football League to record and copy the preceding program?
Peter: Uh...just the NFL.