Why not electronic toys to poor children?
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Geek Charities?
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· Score: 2
Here's what I do. When times are good for me and my consulting business (as they have been this year), I go down to the local mall where they set up a tree with wishes from poor children who would otherwise not get any toys for Christmas. I then look for the one card from some child who wants something relatively outrageous, like (one year) a Playstation and a bunch of games.
I then buy it for him or her.
I figure it's like this: the children who make those wishes are told to keep them small (like around $15-$20), because the bigger the wish, the less likely they are to get them. And there is always one kid who bucks the system, who wants something big, and who would rather wish what he/she wants and run the risk of not getting it, than wish for something small he/she doesn't want.
Bucking the system in that sort of way is what (to me) being a geek is all about. And so I go down to the mall when I can and reward small children, to get them started on a road where they wish big and act big and build big things.
If you can afford to buy a computer for a small child who wishes for one, do so! We need people who wish for things they're told they cannot have, and who learn to act on those wishes rather than be told "you can't have that, you insolent child."
is that a number of viruses that have been spread around the 'net were VBA macros. The problem I see with this is that if Microsoft requires a "software developer" to purchase a Verisign signature to sign all applications, this is going to have to extend to guys who hack together Excel spreadsheets or embed simple VBA macros into Word to sum rows in a table.
I'm wondering how pissed off some random accountant is going to get when he can no longer share his Excel spreadsheets with others in the office.
Further, when you put digital signatures in the way of a virus hackers, I wonder how long it will take before someone figures out how to hack a Microsoft Windows list of root certificates. By hacking the root certificates to include another root certifier beyond Verisign, you can easily circumvent signature security by generating your own key signatures. That's because the whole key signature system relies on a handful of trusted root certificates that come preinstalled on a Windows machine, and if you can add your own "trusted" root certificate, then it's a slam dunk to sign every bit of virus code that you wish to send out.
Plus remember, even if the force the gun is pointed at is an enemy, the decision to pull the trigger is often political as well, based on rules of engagement which are formulated before engagement takes place. Combine this with the possibility of the enemy capturing a robot plane and using it as a "robot shield" to trick out the sensors, and you have a potential problem.
Uh, because that's where the water is? Besides, they've already done it (to a supprising amount of rural damage) throughout the rest of China. Why leave Tibet out of the fun?
For once Katz may be right, far be it from me to say:). My uncle worked for just one company after he got out of the military. AT&T paid him good money to be a loyal engineer, and he was precisely that. He worked till he retired just a few years ago. He got a good pension having worked for just AT&T his whole career.
My father was the same story: he worked for the Santa Fe rail road for most of his working life, and retired not all that long ago during a resizing/early retirement package offer when the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific were in merger talks.
But before my father retired, he worked about a dozen other jobs bouncing from one career to another right out of college. My understanding is that this was typical of my father and his friends: most of them didn't hold a stable job for years after college, and finally found a company to make their career at after bouncing around several other jobs.
This is quite simply the best description of true magick that I've ever seen.
Thanks. Borrowed it from Crowley.
Belief shapes reality.
My two cents: belief shapes reality because reality is so fucking huge and our brains are so relatively small that it is difficult to perceive all of reality. So our beliefs shapes reality because our beliefs shapes the perseptual filter we all apply to the universe in order to break it down into managable chunks.
Further, so many things affect our perseptual filter that we may not even be conscious of. For example, I once had a "girlfriend" who was predisposed to cheating on me without my knowing. Because she was predisposed to cheat, she perceived the world as full of cheaters--and of course justified her cheating by the fact that I was "obviously" cheating on her every opportunity I could. (I wasn't.) Her perseptual filter affected how she perceived my actions and my words: perhaps I would stay at work late for an assignment--she saw me screwing the secretary.
One thing which people work on which is a really big deal is to try to fix their perseptual filter so they see reality more clearly--or at least, stop warping it so much that they cannot function in a reasonable, adult fashion.
Cultural conditioning must be overcome.
This is an important one because many of us have our perseptual filters totally warped by whatever reality we were raised in. For example, I have a severe blockage when it comes to aspects of my sexuality, because I was raised in a heavily bible-thumped region, and I took a lot of the crud to heart as I was growing up. That blockage, caused by a religion I don't necessarly subscribe to, has made it difficult to relate as freely as I would like with my wife on a sexual level.
I mention this because it's extremely common in many areas of the United States.
When we overcome our cultural conditioning, even the cultural conditioning of the culture of the people we choose to relate to (such as geeks, for example), we can overcome many of the "limitations" that the culture we are embedded in place upon us. That is, we can overcome the things in our perseptual filter which tell us "nerds dress funny" or "nerds are socially awkward", and see both ourselves and our friends in a completely new light.
Again, this may have no relation or usefulness to you. Most people need structure, order and rules imposed on them from outside, resulting in the consensual reality we see (to varying degrees)every day.
On this I will disagree if only because everyone of us can use a perseptual filter tuneup of one form or another.
What I said was that you are not justified in making money on the basis of preventing other people from acting on information, which is what IP currently allows.
On this I disagree (obviously), as I believe that to some extent I should be able to control the information I produce. More below.
You propose that I stunt my self determination and self sufficiency by trying to tell me what I can and cannot do with information.
Because it stunts my self-determination and self-sufficiency by preventing me from making an earning as an information provider.
It is a fundamental paradox of philosophy that "freedom" sometimes requires restriction in order to truely be free. For example, if you wish to be thin, you cannot eat everything in site. If you wish to be an accomplish pianist, you must devote yourself to the piano which means giving up other freedoms you may have otherwise enjoyed.
This extends to relationships and interactions as well: if you are dating one person, that person may require you to not date another or else the first will leave you. And if you wish to learn something from me, I may require you to compensate me so that I may be free to continue to teach, rather than have to give up teaching in order to put food on my table.
Actually, I do not propose to stunt your self-determination and self-evolution. I do propose that I may wish to stunt these things if (a) your self-determination and self-evolution requires something from me, and (b) my giving these things without compensation will stunt my self-determination and self-evolution. That a situation may arise that my self-evolution and self-determination as an information provider may be stunted is part of this philosophical paradox: I need to eat, I need to put food on the table, and the time it takes for me to produce information is time that I (in your world) cannot use to put food on my table.
What you fail to realize is that information alone is rarely enough anyway - your services will still be in demand, not for some information that escaped your control in the past, but for your problem solving skills.
Oh, I realize this well enough--as a freelance software developer, I get paid to produce information (in the form of custom software) on demand. And I do produce free software--open source modules which I give away because I like working on those modules.
Yet--to specify that any program I sell in the future I cannot necessarly control the sale of that software, or guarentee income from that sale--that takes away one of my rights as an information producer. To me, if we should take away that right, and to what degree we should take away that right: that's the debate. I have no problems with giving up some of my rights as an information producer. But your solution seems to me to be too draconian.
Music is produced and promoted with the primary goal of selling CD's, not producing great art. Of course there are exceptions, and you may not believe this at all. I personally would not miss any of the crappy music that would disappear if the labels all went out of business.
I wouldn't miss the crappy music either, but taking away the artists rights to make money off their own music doesn't strike me as a good way to have great music. Part of the reason why we have crappy music is because the RIAA strips artists of their rights for promises of large payouts which never happen--and only the intelligent who figure out ways to cut corners in the production process survive. It's too draconian to assume that these artists will be better off if we do an "RIAA" on them and take away their right to sell their own music.
Well, I've never published anything on Napster, and I don't care for Metallica, but I still don't agree with your assertion. You are sharing your experience. Do you not show pictures or slides of your skiing trip to share the experience. Videotapes of your wedding that your sick mother missed? Recordings of sounds you hear are no different. They are clearly a way to share an experience. That is self evident.
Yeah, but there is a far cry from having a bunch of friends over and sharing an evening with them while I show slides or play music, and uploading those pictures or that music to Gnuster or Napster.
There is no experience sharing because the publishing process is anonymous. There is no commentary. There is no face-to-face enjoyment of the process, or the periodic stopping of the music to bring a couple more beers. Instead, your pictures or the music you uploaded to napster just shows up as another item in a long list of "hits" on a search engine, or appears as a sliding bar showing the number of bytes downloaded.
This isn't sharing an experience by any stretch of the imagination.
What you apparently fail to understand is that you cannot prove any statements you or anyone else makes about your natural rights.
I personally believe there are no "natural rights"--only those rights we as a civilized society create for ourselves to govern our own behavior.
But "natural rights?" Nature won't sentence me to serve time in jail if I steal your car or murder your dog or spray paint graffiti on your house. Nature doesn't give a damn if I take a large hacksaw to your head and cut your brains out. Only you, and the people around you, care. And I fully expect if I were to attempt to do these things I would be stopped (and rightfully so) by the people around you--not by a passing grizzly bear or a couple of Canadian ducks that happen to observe my crimes.
Because the only rights we have are the rights we grant each other, the only rights which are "inalienable" are those rights we believe God has granted us.
By the way, this is what our founding fathers believed when they created the United States on the "social compact" form of goverment. The "rights" we enjoy are actually restrictions on our freedoms which we implicitly agree to in order to enjoy the fruits of a civilized society. And most of these restrictions are simple, logical, and "obviously necessary"--such as restrictions on my ability to steal material posessions that you may own, or restrictions on my ability to cause you harm which prevent you from going about your life.
Other restrictions, on the other hand, are more balancing acts: our founding fathers believed in a limited from of Intellectual Property as was necessary only to provide information produces an opportunity to be reasonably compensated for their time and effort, yet provide for that same information to fall within the public domain after a reasonable period of time. That's because our founding fathers believed (as I do) that information producers should be able to benefit from their work--yet not at the cost of preventing others from building off their work, or learning what they can from that work.
Please prove to me that you have a natural right to own patterns or ideas. You say you can't?
Oh, but I can--at least to within a definition of "rights" which stem from a common agreement between individuals to act in a civilized manner. Of course, as there are no "natural rights" beyond what human beings agree to, I assume apriori that people who agree to a social compact wish to behave in a "reasonable" manner--which is not a given. (For example, slavery is not reasonable, but built into our constitution.)
The proof goes something like this:
1) It takes time and effort to produce information.
2) That time and effort, for really good information, is sufficient to prevent an information producer from engaging in other activities which would put food on his/her table.
3) In order to assure that information producers produce information, it is reasonable that they be compensated. Of course this assumes we wish information producers to produce information--and so this suggests we need to "value" that information in such a way as to provide incentives (or not) on information which we as a society may deem as valuable (or not).
That is, I assume we want the information. And I assume we want the information enough to be willing as individuals in a society to pay for that information.
4) In order to be compensated, an information provider needs to be able to control the spread of that information in a "reasonable manner" so that when information goes out, payment comes back.
In this case, "ownership" is not (nor has it ever been) ownership of an "idea" in the traditional sense that I can own a shoe or a baseball. In this case, "ownership" is an abstraction whose sole purpose is to provide a way for information producers to be compensated for their time, expense, and efforts in producing that information, in direct proportion to the value we as a society may place on that information.
I have never been convinced that it makes sense to give away this right. I do not believe that good music, art, software, food, other luxeries of life, or the ability to make a living depend on curbing that right. You apparently believe that they do.
But here's the thing. No-one will ever stop you (at least now, dunno in the future--but if they do, I'll fight it as hard as I can) from inviting a bunch of people over and performing a Metallica CD for them while commenting on how lousy a musician Lars is.
You are not prevented from telling stories, sharing your experiences, showing slide shows, playing music, or otherwise interacting with other people on a one-on-one basis. This is the core of "high fidelity" meme sharing, anyways--personal, one-on-one interaction, or interaction with a small group.
But there is a far cry between this and publishing. Once you start publishing, the question arises: are you publishing your own contributions? Or are you repackaging someone else's stuff? The current law permits you to publish a review, and even exerpt portions of that work for the purposes of review--that is, for the purposes of sharing your experiences with regards to that work to another.
What I am suggesting is that simply taking someone else's work and repackaging it is not sharing an experience with "high fidelity." It's not sharing an experience at all. And as such, software like Napster doesn't even come within a country mile of this "high fidelity experience sharing" which you describe.
You can't just call them unproven garbage when your moral beliefs have no more proof than mine.
My "moral" evidence (which I will gladly omit the term "moral" as irrelevant in the future) relies on one simple and unquestionable fact:
It takes time and effort to produce information.
So the question is, should we expect information producers to produce their information for free, so that you may be free to republish their hard work without compensating them, in the name of "high fidelity experience sharing?"
I think it's wrong to take food off someone's table if (a) they worked hard on something that (b) has value to society to a degree that members of that society would pay for that work if they had to. And don't even talk to me about voluntary payments--only the most naive fool would believe that a system of voluntary payments would ever work to the same degree if only because most proposed systems of voluntary payments have no regulatory checks to assure that payments are made. (And when we have to provide regulatory checks to assure that a "voluntary" payment is made, it's no longer voluntary, anyways.)
So if society values it enough to send a check if they have to, and if it takes time and effort to produce information, it strikes me as wrong to prevent an information produce from being compensated. Period.
American and French citizens have a right to decide immigration policy.
If that's what you were trying to say, you should have said that in the first place, instead of going off on this wierd-ass tangent about "taxpayers" and "building this country."
The "people want to be murdered" analog is not, because even in a crowd, it is the exception, rather than the rule that someone will be murdered.
I said "large enough"--for example, the city of Los Angeles is a "large enough crowd." And it is inevitable that in the city of Los Angeles, someone will be murdered.
So, again, by the same analogy, "people want to be murdered."
Again you are confusing "must be shared" with "can be shared". Different things entirely.
By saying "must be shared", I am talking from the perspective of the information producer (and not information "horder", more below). That is, from the perspective of the information producer, once I've (as a producer) created information (in the form of a song, an essay, a computer program, whatever), in your world view I face the problem that the moment I release the information to someone, unless I hunt down everyone and deal with them on a one-on-one transaction (which is impractical for something which I may want to mass produce and sell), I must eventually deal with the fact that my information will be shared freely without my control or even consent.
That is because it is inevitable that, while not everyone may wish to share my information freely, some will--and in your world view, there is not a damned thing I can do about it.
Thus, from a practical perspective, it's "must be shared," not "can be shared."
And again, you're assuming that you have a right to make money on that information. Sorry, but in my book you don't have a right to make money by hoarding information.
Again, I am talking from the perspective of the information producer, not the information agrigator (or "horder.") In fact, I do have the right to "hoard" information that I may produce--I just don't publish. For example, I may have in my posession nude pictures of my wife which we took one evening when we had too much wine and nothing else to do. Am I a "hoarder" because I choose not to publish the information (electronic images) even though those pictures have already been produced?
So the question is, do I have the right to make money producing information? Do I have the right to sell naked pictures of my wife (say) in compensation for the embarasment she may feel about having naked pictures of her floating around? Or, do I have the right to make money selling computer programs I wrote?
The question here is not one of "hoarding"--I can do that by not publishing. The question is do I have the right to control who gets the information I produced when I publish it, and can I do so in a way which permits me to be compensated for the time and effort it cost me to produce that information?
Again, I say that if I do not have the right to get paid for my time in producing information that I may have otherwised wished to sell, my incentive to produce information (naked pictures, music, essays, computer programs, whatever) is singificantly less--if only because I need to do something else which does make money so I can continue to put food in my table. And that something else is time which I cannot devote to taking nude pictures, programming, or writing essays.
And again, the fact that lies are immoral has no bearing on this topic. Whether or not IP is allowed to exist, lies will still be immoral.
But lies are information, and it is clear that you do see limits on what sort of information may be propagated, and how they may be propogated.
So then the question is not one of if the free flow of information should be restricted (you just admited that "lies" are immoral, and perhaps should be restricted), but how and why information flow should be restricted.
Sucker bet anyways, as it's pretty obvious that only a damned fool would deny the stupidity of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded room. (The penultimate example of "free flow of information" which perhaps shouldn't be permitted.)
You have a right to make money by providing a good or service that I cannot or do not have time to provide for myself. If you aren't motivated to provide a good or service that is in demand, then you lose.
But this is completely at odds with your earlier assertion that information should be freely exchanged in a sort of "high fidelity" meme transfer. That's because as an information producer, if I am unable to control in any way when (not "if") information I produce will be shared, then I am unable to control any sort of income which may be generated by controlling how that information gets spread.
I want to see art created by people doing it because they are compelled to by something in their soul.
But we're not just talking about art, aren't we? We're talking about software, pictures, essays--a whole range of "information" that goes beyond some painting or little ditty about Jack and Dianne.
Besides, why should attempting to make some money off the art you produce be a bad thing, or even degrade the quality of the art produced? Michelangelo was commissioned (read: paid) to paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel, yet I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who would disagree with the notion that Michelangelo's work isn't a masterpiece of high art.
I'm sorry for you if you've bought into the corporate notion that sharing experiences in high fidelity is immoral.
As someone who actually produces information I have no problem with your desire for "high fidelity" memory sharing, except when you "share" work produced by me in a manner which prohibits or eliminates my ability to be compensated for my hard work and effort.
And that's what this whole argument boils down to: to what extent should my rights to make money off work I produced be taken away from me in order to better society. It's pretty damned clear that things like the DMCA is a really fscked up idea in that it stifles our Founding Father's notion of the ineffiable search for Truth by restricting the ability for people to build off each other's works.
On the other hand, it's pretty clear that this notion of "high fidelity" meme sharing, while in and of itself not inherently bad, does not justify posting Metallica songs on Napster. That's because you're not sharing your experiences that you may had when listening to Metallica (be it revulsion or just annoyance)--you're just publishing Metallica songs without authorization.
I've been accused of GIGO!
That's because when you did your "philosophical search", it appears to me you started with a bunch of assumptions: that (a) "high fidelity" meme sharing is a good thing, and (b) existing IP laws interfere with "high fidelity" meme sharing (like you can't invite your friend over and play your Metallica disk for him in person--that you can only engage in this transaction by publishing, without comment, Metallica).
Further, you assume (c) that "high fidelity" meme sharing is achieved through publishing Metallica without their permission (regardless if you need their permission to publish), or equivalently, (d) that publishing is a form of "high fidelity" meme sharing--dispite the fact that you are not sharing your experience, only the song itself.
These (and other) apriori assumptions are the garbage in--it appears you do not prove these assertions, only make them. What do you expect, but garbage out?
I for one wait for Jesus Christ to come back. How do I know He will come back? Because He told us He would.
And you believe everything people tell you, right?
You stiff-necked people - you must prove to me that there is no God, because it's been proven already to me that there IS a God, and His incarnation of flesh is named Jesus, and one day, He will return.
"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men,
to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward
of your Father which is in heaven.
"Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not
sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrits do
in the synagogues and in the streets, that they
may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you,
They have their reward.
"But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand
know what thy right hand doeth:
"That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father
which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee
openly.
"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as
they hypocrits are: for they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the
streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I
say unto you, They have their reward.
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy
closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret; and they Father
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as
the heathen do: for they think that they shall be
heard for their much speaking.
"Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your
Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before
ye ask him."...
Matthew 6:1-8.
By demanding that I explain my religion to you, and by standing up in your righteousness before men, you act as the fool on the corner of the street shouting repetitions so that men may hear your vain prostrations. Jesus himself said you will have your reward--but it won't be alongside the Father.
Witnessing is a tricky thing at best. Many in the United States, in large part due to the history of Baptists and others in the south in the last century, take it that "witnessing" involves pounding the bible on street corners attempting to convert the "wicked"--not even knowing if the next "wicked" person coming down the street is Jesus Christ Himself, freshly arrived and steeling into town as a thief in the night, as Christians believe he will appear.
But it's pretty clear that this sort of "vain repitition" and building vast monuments and sounding large trumphets to "God" that are only witnessed by men is exactly the sort of crap that Jesus Christ warned against in Matthews. And it's pretty clear why He warned us about this sort of person: time and time again televangelists are revealed to be nothing more than side-show carnies, thiefs, adulterers and con-men who claim they act in the name of God but who really only serve themselves.
That is the reward Jesus Christ was talking about when he said "Verily I say unto you, They have their reward." This is the reward of sin--the reward of self-delusion in the form of "righteousness"--the very reward you appear to be trying to strive for when you "proclaim" publically for all to see.
Best to witness silently, by example--to share a kind word rather than beat people over the head because you think their belief in God is not good enough for you. It isn't for you to judge our beliefs--that right is reserved to God and God alone.
Why? Because Jesus Christ said so. If Jesus Christ is your Lord and Saviour, then why do you so flagrently ignore His Word?
Gnostics believed that the world was created not by God, but by an evil being called Demiurge.
Except that it's unclear if the Demiurge is evil or just uncaring (not the same thing), and it's unclear if the Demiurge even exists, or if the Demiurge is a "being" below the ultimate who believes it is the ultimate because it's simply too dumb to look "up."
Further, most modern day Gnostics I know are more interested in what I would call "Zen Gnosticism"--that is, they are interested in achieving a direct communion with the Divine through various means, some highly intellectual (the Enochian system comes to mind), some very emotionally intuitive.
But that's because if done right, Life is mystical. (Anyone who has never seen the mists clear off a New England lake in the early morning and felt the cold air on their face, and started having a feeling of mysticism really needs to have their heart checked.)
Cool! I never met a practitioner of ancient Indian religion!
Or are you refering to that bullshit that a bunch of Germans came up with at the beginning of the century which was based on some really bad (and since debunked) anthropology?
And I'd like to point out that (a) Native Americans don't want converts and would rather just have all these damned white-light neo-Pagan "shamans" fuck off and die. (Being Native American myself, and one who recently wasn't ashamed of that fact, I can tell you that the only people who want to be Native American are the very people Native Americans would rather just drop dead.)
Oh, and (b) there are a number of organizations such as the OTO who forbid proselytizing, or even proselytizing about not proselytizing--has to do with belonging to a secret, oath-bound organization which positively forbids that sort of thing, AFAIK.
Does that mean they believe in magic (magik) or whatever? Sheesh. I'm betting not.
Actually, it depends on how you define magic(k). For example, I doubt anyone here would claim not to believe in the notion of magick as "the use of one's will to effect change in the universe."
I'm typing, as it is my will--and that is causing a change, if only in the fact that the typing is causing a post to appear on SlashDot.
When you really press people like Ceremonial Magicians, they tell you what they're really doing is engaging in "linguistic programming"--that is, they're doing all this oga-booga junk because they think it's cool, and that inherent "coolness" may effect change in their subconscious in such a way as to help them (for example) manage their cravings for cigarettes or help them focus so tomorrow's job interview may go better. That is, their "magick" is the use of their will to effect change in their own subconscious.
There are plenty of people who believe as I do that this notion of "sending mystical energy out to some unseen person" is a load of horse puckies--except that the effort in "sending mystical energy out" may cause the person doing the sending to behave better around the unseen person they're trying to "help." On the other hand, given how plain rotten most people are in their day to day lives, I couldn't give a tinker's damn if someone finds to be nicer in their day to day lives involves carving wierd looking Tolkienish ruins into wax candles and burning them out in the woods while they dance naked to the blood of the moon. Just as long as they're nicer to me...
But there are necessarly limits to what Science can explain--limits imposed by Godel's incompleteness theorm, and by the nature of Science as a refind version of Logical Positivism. (That is, there are limits on what Science can explain because it's model of explaining the universe presupposes a number of postulates, such that there is no unseen intelligent force who controls the throw of the dice to it's own ends.)
Beyond what Science can explain are a number of areas of philosophy which relate to human existance. For example, why are we here? While the answer provided by Science (that we are the chance happenings of an uncaring universe) may be intellectually satisfying to some, this sort of existentialist void is emotionally unsatisfying to most who really give it some thought.
My personal take, picked up from someone else, is that Science is great at explaining the "how" of the universe. Theology or philosophy or religion or whatever the heck you want to call it is great at providing the "why."
Have you noticed that few, if any, Napster advocates are arguing that it should be legal to purchase a copy of Windows 2000 and share it with a community of Windows fans on the Internet via a peer-to-peer networking system? Why not? Is it because there are no fans or potential fnas of Windows 2000?
This is an apples and oranges argument. "Why not?" Because if you are already an owner of Windows 2000, then you already have a copy in data format. When I download an MP3 from Napster, it's because I don't want to take the time to rip and encode the tracks of my CDs--I have them in audio format, but not data format. Napster saves me the time. That's why, Mr. Petreley.
Not everyone who downloads music from Napster owns the CD. Frankly, it takes less time for me to rip a CD than it does to find it on Napster--and unless you are really good at Napster and have a really crappy computer, it should take less time for you to rip a CD as well. The software to rip a CD and turn it into an MP3 is out there, and many good versions of ripper software can be had for free. Try poking around www.mp3.com.
Umm, maybe I'm a bit slow, but why would someone interested only in "getting stuff without paying for it" go out and "buy existing information that is not free"?!? It seems that would be more of a selfless act, like providing food to the homeless, who are hungry, and can't afford to buy it themselves. (I realize this isn't a perfect analogy)
"this isn't a perfect analogy." DUH!
What would be a perfect analogy and a truely selfless act is if you were to buy licenses for everyone you gave the information to for free. For example, if I were to post a Metallica song from a single on the net, but for everyone who downloaded the song, I were to buy the single on CD and send the CD to them for free. That's selfless.
Buying one disk and sharing it with my friends is not selfless. Why? Because in exchange perhaps my friends will go out and buy one disk and share it with me--and if I have 20 friends, my music budget has dropped to 1/20th of what it would have been otherwise.
It seems obvious that this article was written purely to incite a riot, and as such, it was well done.
If "incite a riot", you mean "I strongly disagree with the points raised," perhaps you're right. If you mean "the points raised are totally off-base, and are only ment to piss people off", bullshit--not only is information free, but it's expensive as well. Or do you think it costs nothing for Metallica (our favorite whip-it boys) to produce a record album?
A priori, there is no moral reason why copying and sharing pure patterns, regardless of their origin, is immoral. I don't care if somebody spent a whole lifetime to create a pattern. I have considered several kinds of moral thinking - Kant's categorical imperative, Mill's utilitarianism, Chritianity, and my own intuitive ideas on what is moral. I simply fail to see how, in light of these moral theories, copying patterns could be immoral.
Application of moral theory without asking the right questions is sort of like feeding garbage to a computer: you only get garbage out.
I believe people have a basic human right to record and remember their life experiences as accurately as they see fit - using their brains or brain aumenting devices such as computers, tape recorders, or some day neural implants. I also believe they have the right to share their experiences with arbitrary fidelity.
Do you agree or disagree with the notion that people should also be free to interact with others as they so choose? That is, if person A and person B were to meet, that they may mutually choose to interact in any way they wish without undue influence by a third party or government organization?
If you do believe this, then do you believe that person A and person B should be able to codify their interaction in the form of a contract that either person A or person B may then ask a competant court to enforce in the even that either person A or person B chooses to back out unilaterally? (As a concrete example of this, consider an agreement to buy a car for payment. If person B's check bounces, effectively person B has backed out of the contract. Should person A have the right to sue in a competant court to force person B to either return the car or pay for it?)
If you believe in contracts, then do you believe that person A should be able to enter into a non-disclosure contract with person B, in exchange for some due consideration?
If not, why not? That is, what is your rational for taking away the rights of A and B to interact with each other as they so choose?
Intellectual Property is not like real property: information cannot be "owned" in the same sense as a physical object. What "Intellectual Property" really is is a set of interlocking contracts, both implied and explicit, which restrict the flow of information. That is, "Intellectual Property" laws are implied contracts that are set up in order to protect person A (who generated the information, music, book, computer program, etc.). When we debate Intellectual Property, what we are really debating is "what set of implied contracts" (sales contracts are "implied contracts"), should society codify in law, and what set of "explicit contracts" (NDAs are explicit contracts) should we prevent person A from entering into.
In essence, the debate about if information should be free is in part a debate as to which freedoms of interaction should we take away from person A as an information producer.
Of course some freedoms need to be takwn away if we are to function as a reasonable society: I for one won't miss the "freedom" of sticking a knife through someone's chest and ripping their heart out as they bleed to death on the floor in front of me. But with regards to information, it's not quite as cut and dry as some sort of existential imperitive that people somehow be able to blather everything I happen to share with them to the world without my being able to tell them not to blather.
If you seek to limit these self-evident (to me, at least) rights, you had better have a damned good reason that benefits everyone more than it harms everyone. I can't think of such a reason.
I'm glad you put in the phrase "to me, at least", as it is not self-evident to me that all information must be shared without restriction. Otherwise, I may just post that video of you, naked, humping a mule with a naked midget girl on it's back to your church group. Nevermind the fact it's a fake.
Another reason I can think of for restricting information is that information is expensive: if you take away my right to make money on that information, then I may not be as motivated to produce that information.
If you don't want your information to be spread, the keep it in your head. If you send sound waves, text, or code in someone's direction, then that becomes part of their life experience which they then have the right to remember and share as they see fit.
There is a big difference between saying to a friend "wow, I really heard this really kick ass song from Metallica--you've really got to get their latest CD!" and posting a Metallica song on Napster.
You are absolutely right. If you don't want to share it, then don't share it. If you do share it with someone else, then they, as free men, might wish to share it with others without requiring any additional effort whatsoever from you.
You know, this begs the question "what is Freedom."
For example, if the first man, as a condition of sharing his information with a second man, asks the second man to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Is the second man "free", even though he is no longer allowed to share the information he got from the first man?
An ironic twist on the term "freedom" is that while one may be free to do anything he so chooses, in order to pick one thing, that person may have to close the door on another. For example, barring physiological disorders, one can either eat anything and everything in site, or one can be thin--but not both. Or, in the above case, if the first person so wishes it, the second man may have access to the first man's information but with the proviso that the second man can no longer distribute that information.
That is how patterns are owned, by the way. Not that ideas can inherently be "owned" in the same sense that a physical object can, but that the first man may place restrictions on redistribution of information the first man agenerated which prevent that information's spread.
What we as a society have been arguing about, by the way, is to what degree should we take away the freedom the first man has in restricting how others use his information, for the good of society. But make no bones about it--if we allow information to be "free", what we are really doing is taking away the first man's rights to enter contracts of one form or another with people the first man may wish to share his information with.
You cannot equate the (supposedly) mindful actions of dozens or hundreds or thousands of people with the inevitability of gravity--otherwise, I could argue that "people want to be murdered" because in a large enough crowd, inevitably someone is going to get shot...
So let's see. He pays taxes, so he is helping to build France. Of course unemployment in France is not 0% so there are a number of French citizens who are contributing less to building up France than this immigrant is.
So by this logic, as "the people who have built up their country have the right to decide", that means that France should disenfranchise the unemployed and give voting rights to working immigrants who pay taxes. Right?
I'm not saying that immigrants should automatically be granted voting rights and citizens who don't work should be disenfranchised. What I am saying is that this notion that "taxpayers built France", and thus immigrants who pay taxes shouldn't have any say is illogical as hell.
I know I shouldn't bite, but are you really this bloody stupid?
But liberal revisionist is rampant in USia, and has been since the 60s when the liberals managed to work their way into the educational system. Their policies of guilt have been written into every "history" textbook in an attempt to suppress the truth - that your "Native Americans" are no more native to USia than we are.
Using that argument, we should also argue that humans are not native to any region of the Earth, except from a narrow strip of savanna in Africa. That is, we are all African--and arguing that anyone is "native" to Europe or Asia or whereever is as stupid as arguing that "native Americans" aren't native to America.
While there is a grain of truth to the assertion we are all African, I believe it's not unreasonable to presume that any group of people who settle a region previously uninhabited by humans, who create in relative isolation a unique culture--and who evolve physiological differences because of their environment and relative isolation--could be argued as "native" to that land.
As a native American, the "crime" that was committed against our people is twofold. First, significant damage was done to native American culture as foreigners who arrived in America after years of isolation did significant cultural damage, as well as killed a number of my relatives and ancestors. Second, laws were enacted which (even within my relatively short lifetime) discriminated against native Americans. (For example, my mother was not legally allowed to drink alcohol in Arizona until the late 60's, dispite being well over drinking age. Or that one policy that California batted around when creating the California Indian registration laws was to tattoo the registration number (mine is 69065) on Indian's forearms in order to expite recognition.)
I will be the first to agree that there is a lot of "liberal bullshit" out there with regards to native Americans. But this ain't it.
Indeed, evidence that white men lived in America some 10,000 years ago has been suppressed by the liberal establishment because it contradicts their position on this matter. Don't be fooled by their fables.
One skull, hotly debated as to if it looks like Jean-Luc Piccard--and this is evidence that whites were in America 10,000 years ago? What is clear is that people were here 10,000 years ago, and--white or not--they had a unique hunter-gatherer culture which was wiped out when the Spanards and later the English arrived here.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's what I do. When times are good for me and my consulting business (as they have been this year), I go down to the local mall where they set up a tree with wishes from poor children who would otherwise not get any toys for Christmas. I then look for the one card from some child who wants something relatively outrageous, like (one year) a Playstation and a bunch of games.
I then buy it for him or her.
I figure it's like this: the children who make those wishes are told to keep them small (like around $15-$20), because the bigger the wish, the less likely they are to get them. And there is always one kid who bucks the system, who wants something big, and who would rather wish what he/she wants and run the risk of not getting it, than wish for something small he/she doesn't want.
Bucking the system in that sort of way is what (to me) being a geek is all about. And so I go down to the mall when I can and reward small children, to get them started on a road where they wish big and act big and build big things.
If you can afford to buy a computer for a small child who wishes for one, do so! We need people who wish for things they're told they cannot have, and who learn to act on those wishes rather than be told "you can't have that, you insolent child."
is that a number of viruses that have been spread around the 'net were VBA macros. The problem I see with this is that if Microsoft requires a "software developer" to purchase a Verisign signature to sign all applications, this is going to have to extend to guys who hack together Excel spreadsheets or embed simple VBA macros into Word to sum rows in a table.
I'm wondering how pissed off some random accountant is going to get when he can no longer share his Excel spreadsheets with others in the office.
Further, when you put digital signatures in the way of a virus hackers, I wonder how long it will take before someone figures out how to hack a Microsoft Windows list of root certificates. By hacking the root certificates to include another root certifier beyond Verisign, you can easily circumvent signature security by generating your own key signatures. That's because the whole key signature system relies on a handful of trusted root certificates that come preinstalled on a Windows machine, and if you can add your own "trusted" root certificate, then it's a slam dunk to sign every bit of virus code that you wish to send out.
Plus remember, even if the force the gun is pointed at is an enemy, the decision to pull the trigger is often political as well, based on rules of engagement which are formulated before engagement takes place. Combine this with the possibility of the enemy capturing a robot plane and using it as a "robot shield" to trick out the sensors, and you have a potential problem.
Uh, because that's where the water is? Besides, they've already done it (to a supprising amount of rural damage) throughout the rest of China. Why leave Tibet out of the fun?
For once Katz may be right, far be it from me to say :). My uncle worked for just one company after he got out of the military. AT&T paid him good money to be a loyal engineer, and he was precisely that. He worked till he retired just a few years ago. He got a good pension having worked for just AT&T his whole career.
My father was the same story: he worked for the Santa Fe rail road for most of his working life, and retired not all that long ago during a resizing/early retirement package offer when the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific were in merger talks.
But before my father retired, he worked about a dozen other jobs bouncing from one career to another right out of college. My understanding is that this was typical of my father and his friends: most of them didn't hold a stable job for years after college, and finally found a company to make their career at after bouncing around several other jobs.
I must be tired, but when I read the headline, the first thought that went through my mind was "why did they go through so much trouble for me?"
- Bill Woody
This is quite simply the best description of true magick that I've ever seen.
Thanks. Borrowed it from Crowley.
Belief shapes reality.
My two cents: belief shapes reality because reality is so fucking huge and our brains are so relatively small that it is difficult to perceive all of reality. So our beliefs shapes reality because our beliefs shapes the perseptual filter we all apply to the universe in order to break it down into managable chunks.
Further, so many things affect our perseptual filter that we may not even be conscious of. For example, I once had a "girlfriend" who was predisposed to cheating on me without my knowing. Because she was predisposed to cheat, she perceived the world as full of cheaters--and of course justified her cheating by the fact that I was "obviously" cheating on her every opportunity I could. (I wasn't.) Her perseptual filter affected how she perceived my actions and my words: perhaps I would stay at work late for an assignment--she saw me screwing the secretary.
One thing which people work on which is a really big deal is to try to fix their perseptual filter so they see reality more clearly--or at least, stop warping it so much that they cannot function in a reasonable, adult fashion.
Cultural conditioning must be overcome.
This is an important one because many of us have our perseptual filters totally warped by whatever reality we were raised in. For example, I have a severe blockage when it comes to aspects of my sexuality, because I was raised in a heavily bible-thumped region, and I took a lot of the crud to heart as I was growing up. That blockage, caused by a religion I don't necessarly subscribe to, has made it difficult to relate as freely as I would like with my wife on a sexual level.
I mention this because it's extremely common in many areas of the United States.
When we overcome our cultural conditioning, even the cultural conditioning of the culture of the people we choose to relate to (such as geeks, for example), we can overcome many of the "limitations" that the culture we are embedded in place upon us. That is, we can overcome the things in our perseptual filter which tell us "nerds dress funny" or "nerds are socially awkward", and see both ourselves and our friends in a completely new light.
Again, this may have no relation or usefulness to you. Most people need structure, order and rules imposed on them from outside, resulting in the consensual reality we see (to varying degrees)every day.
On this I will disagree if only because everyone of us can use a perseptual filter tuneup of one form or another.
What I said was that you are not justified in making money on the basis of preventing other people from acting on information, which is what IP currently allows.
On this I disagree (obviously), as I believe that to some extent I should be able to control the information I produce. More below.
You propose that I stunt my self determination and self sufficiency by trying to tell me what I can and cannot do with information.
Because it stunts my self-determination and self-sufficiency by preventing me from making an earning as an information provider.
It is a fundamental paradox of philosophy that "freedom" sometimes requires restriction in order to truely be free. For example, if you wish to be thin, you cannot eat everything in site. If you wish to be an accomplish pianist, you must devote yourself to the piano which means giving up other freedoms you may have otherwise enjoyed.
This extends to relationships and interactions as well: if you are dating one person, that person may require you to not date another or else the first will leave you. And if you wish to learn something from me, I may require you to compensate me so that I may be free to continue to teach, rather than have to give up teaching in order to put food on my table.
Actually, I do not propose to stunt your self-determination and self-evolution. I do propose that I may wish to stunt these things if (a) your self-determination and self-evolution requires something from me, and (b) my giving these things without compensation will stunt my self-determination and self-evolution. That a situation may arise that my self-evolution and self-determination as an information provider may be stunted is part of this philosophical paradox: I need to eat, I need to put food on the table, and the time it takes for me to produce information is time that I (in your world) cannot use to put food on my table.
What you fail to realize is that information alone is rarely enough anyway - your services will still be in demand, not for some information that escaped your control in the past, but for your problem solving skills.
Oh, I realize this well enough--as a freelance software developer, I get paid to produce information (in the form of custom software) on demand. And I do produce free software--open source modules which I give away because I like working on those modules.
Yet--to specify that any program I sell in the future I cannot necessarly control the sale of that software, or guarentee income from that sale--that takes away one of my rights as an information producer. To me, if we should take away that right, and to what degree we should take away that right: that's the debate. I have no problems with giving up some of my rights as an information producer. But your solution seems to me to be too draconian.
Music is produced and promoted with the primary goal of selling CD's, not producing great art. Of course there are exceptions, and you may not believe this at all. I personally would not miss any of the crappy music that would disappear if the labels all went out of business.
I wouldn't miss the crappy music either, but taking away the artists rights to make money off their own music doesn't strike me as a good way to have great music. Part of the reason why we have crappy music is because the RIAA strips artists of their rights for promises of large payouts which never happen--and only the intelligent who figure out ways to cut corners in the production process survive. It's too draconian to assume that these artists will be better off if we do an "RIAA" on them and take away their right to sell their own music.
Well, I've never published anything on Napster, and I don't care for Metallica, but I still don't agree with your assertion. You are sharing your experience. Do you not show pictures or slides of your skiing trip to share the experience. Videotapes of your wedding that your sick mother missed? Recordings of sounds you hear are no different. They are clearly a way to share an experience. That is self evident.
Yeah, but there is a far cry from having a bunch of friends over and sharing an evening with them while I show slides or play music, and uploading those pictures or that music to Gnuster or Napster.
There is no experience sharing because the publishing process is anonymous. There is no commentary. There is no face-to-face enjoyment of the process, or the periodic stopping of the music to bring a couple more beers. Instead, your pictures or the music you uploaded to napster just shows up as another item in a long list of "hits" on a search engine, or appears as a sliding bar showing the number of bytes downloaded.
This isn't sharing an experience by any stretch of the imagination.
What you apparently fail to understand is that you cannot prove any statements you or anyone else makes about your natural rights.
I personally believe there are no "natural rights"--only those rights we as a civilized society create for ourselves to govern our own behavior.
But "natural rights?" Nature won't sentence me to serve time in jail if I steal your car or murder your dog or spray paint graffiti on your house. Nature doesn't give a damn if I take a large hacksaw to your head and cut your brains out. Only you, and the people around you, care. And I fully expect if I were to attempt to do these things I would be stopped (and rightfully so) by the people around you--not by a passing grizzly bear or a couple of Canadian ducks that happen to observe my crimes.
Because the only rights we have are the rights we grant each other, the only rights which are "inalienable" are those rights we believe God has granted us.
By the way, this is what our founding fathers believed when they created the United States on the "social compact" form of goverment. The "rights" we enjoy are actually restrictions on our freedoms which we implicitly agree to in order to enjoy the fruits of a civilized society. And most of these restrictions are simple, logical, and "obviously necessary"--such as restrictions on my ability to steal material posessions that you may own, or restrictions on my ability to cause you harm which prevent you from going about your life.
Other restrictions, on the other hand, are more balancing acts: our founding fathers believed in a limited from of Intellectual Property as was necessary only to provide information produces an opportunity to be reasonably compensated for their time and effort, yet provide for that same information to fall within the public domain after a reasonable period of time. That's because our founding fathers believed (as I do) that information producers should be able to benefit from their work--yet not at the cost of preventing others from building off their work, or learning what they can from that work.
Please prove to me that you have a natural right to own patterns or ideas. You say you can't?
Oh, but I can--at least to within a definition of "rights" which stem from a common agreement between individuals to act in a civilized manner. Of course, as there are no "natural rights" beyond what human beings agree to, I assume apriori that people who agree to a social compact wish to behave in a "reasonable" manner--which is not a given. (For example, slavery is not reasonable, but built into our constitution.)
The proof goes something like this:
1) It takes time and effort to produce information.
2) That time and effort, for really good information, is sufficient to prevent an information producer from engaging in other activities which would put food on his/her table.
3) In order to assure that information producers produce information, it is reasonable that they be compensated. Of course this assumes we wish information producers to produce information--and so this suggests we need to "value" that information in such a way as to provide incentives (or not) on information which we as a society may deem as valuable (or not).
That is, I assume we want the information. And I assume we want the information enough to be willing as individuals in a society to pay for that information.
4) In order to be compensated, an information provider needs to be able to control the spread of that information in a "reasonable manner" so that when information goes out, payment comes back.
In this case, "ownership" is not (nor has it ever been) ownership of an "idea" in the traditional sense that I can own a shoe or a baseball. In this case, "ownership" is an abstraction whose sole purpose is to provide a way for information producers to be compensated for their time, expense, and efforts in producing that information, in direct proportion to the value we as a society may place on that information.
I have never been convinced that it makes sense to give away this right. I do not believe that good music, art, software, food, other luxeries of life, or the ability to make a living depend on curbing that right. You apparently believe that they do.
But here's the thing. No-one will ever stop you (at least now, dunno in the future--but if they do, I'll fight it as hard as I can) from inviting a bunch of people over and performing a Metallica CD for them while commenting on how lousy a musician Lars is.
You are not prevented from telling stories, sharing your experiences, showing slide shows, playing music, or otherwise interacting with other people on a one-on-one basis. This is the core of "high fidelity" meme sharing, anyways--personal, one-on-one interaction, or interaction with a small group.
But there is a far cry between this and publishing. Once you start publishing, the question arises: are you publishing your own contributions? Or are you repackaging someone else's stuff? The current law permits you to publish a review, and even exerpt portions of that work for the purposes of review--that is, for the purposes of sharing your experiences with regards to that work to another.
What I am suggesting is that simply taking someone else's work and repackaging it is not sharing an experience with "high fidelity." It's not sharing an experience at all. And as such, software like Napster doesn't even come within a country mile of this "high fidelity experience sharing" which you describe.
You can't just call them unproven garbage when your moral beliefs have no more proof than mine.
My "moral" evidence (which I will gladly omit the term "moral" as irrelevant in the future) relies on one simple and unquestionable fact:
It takes time and effort to produce information.
So the question is, should we expect information producers to produce their information for free, so that you may be free to republish their hard work without compensating them, in the name of "high fidelity experience sharing?"
I think it's wrong to take food off someone's table if (a) they worked hard on something that (b) has value to society to a degree that members of that society would pay for that work if they had to. And don't even talk to me about voluntary payments--only the most naive fool would believe that a system of voluntary payments would ever work to the same degree if only because most proposed systems of voluntary payments have no regulatory checks to assure that payments are made. (And when we have to provide regulatory checks to assure that a "voluntary" payment is made, it's no longer voluntary, anyways.)
So if society values it enough to send a check if they have to, and if it takes time and effort to produce information, it strikes me as wrong to prevent an information produce from being compensated. Period.
American and French citizens have a right to decide immigration policy.
If that's what you were trying to say, you should have said that in the first place, instead of going off on this wierd-ass tangent about "taxpayers" and "building this country."
The "people want to be murdered" analog is not, because even in a crowd, it is the exception, rather than the rule that someone will be murdered.
I said "large enough"--for example, the city of Los Angeles is a "large enough crowd." And it is inevitable that in the city of Los Angeles, someone will be murdered.
So, again, by the same analogy, "people want to be murdered."
Again you are confusing "must be shared" with "can be shared". Different things entirely.
By saying "must be shared", I am talking from the perspective of the information producer (and not information "horder", more below). That is, from the perspective of the information producer, once I've (as a producer) created information (in the form of a song, an essay, a computer program, whatever), in your world view I face the problem that the moment I release the information to someone, unless I hunt down everyone and deal with them on a one-on-one transaction (which is impractical for something which I may want to mass produce and sell), I must eventually deal with the fact that my information will be shared freely without my control or even consent.
That is because it is inevitable that, while not everyone may wish to share my information freely, some will--and in your world view, there is not a damned thing I can do about it.
Thus, from a practical perspective, it's "must be shared," not "can be shared."
And again, you're assuming that you have a right to make money on that information. Sorry, but in my book you don't have a right to make money by hoarding information.
Again, I am talking from the perspective of the information producer, not the information agrigator (or "horder.") In fact, I do have the right to "hoard" information that I may produce--I just don't publish. For example, I may have in my posession nude pictures of my wife which we took one evening when we had too much wine and nothing else to do. Am I a "hoarder" because I choose not to publish the information (electronic images) even though those pictures have already been produced?
So the question is, do I have the right to make money producing information? Do I have the right to sell naked pictures of my wife (say) in compensation for the embarasment she may feel about having naked pictures of her floating around? Or, do I have the right to make money selling computer programs I wrote?
The question here is not one of "hoarding"--I can do that by not publishing. The question is do I have the right to control who gets the information I produced when I publish it, and can I do so in a way which permits me to be compensated for the time and effort it cost me to produce that information?
Again, I say that if I do not have the right to get paid for my time in producing information that I may have otherwised wished to sell, my incentive to produce information (naked pictures, music, essays, computer programs, whatever) is singificantly less--if only because I need to do something else which does make money so I can continue to put food in my table. And that something else is time which I cannot devote to taking nude pictures, programming, or writing essays.
And again, the fact that lies are immoral has no bearing on this topic. Whether or not IP is allowed to exist, lies will still be immoral.
But lies are information, and it is clear that you do see limits on what sort of information may be propagated, and how they may be propogated.
So then the question is not one of if the free flow of information should be restricted (you just admited that "lies" are immoral, and perhaps should be restricted), but how and why information flow should be restricted.
Sucker bet anyways, as it's pretty obvious that only a damned fool would deny the stupidity of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded room. (The penultimate example of "free flow of information" which perhaps shouldn't be permitted.)
You have a right to make money by providing a good or service that I cannot or do not have time to provide for myself. If you aren't motivated to provide a good or service that is in demand, then you lose.
But this is completely at odds with your earlier assertion that information should be freely exchanged in a sort of "high fidelity" meme transfer. That's because as an information producer, if I am unable to control in any way when (not "if") information I produce will be shared, then I am unable to control any sort of income which may be generated by controlling how that information gets spread.
I want to see art created by people doing it because they are compelled to by something in their soul.
But we're not just talking about art, aren't we? We're talking about software, pictures, essays--a whole range of "information" that goes beyond some painting or little ditty about Jack and Dianne.
Besides, why should attempting to make some money off the art you produce be a bad thing, or even degrade the quality of the art produced? Michelangelo was commissioned (read: paid) to paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel, yet I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who would disagree with the notion that Michelangelo's work isn't a masterpiece of high art.
I'm sorry for you if you've bought into the corporate notion that sharing experiences in high fidelity is immoral.
As someone who actually produces information I have no problem with your desire for "high fidelity" memory sharing, except when you "share" work produced by me in a manner which prohibits or eliminates my ability to be compensated for my hard work and effort.
And that's what this whole argument boils down to: to what extent should my rights to make money off work I produced be taken away from me in order to better society. It's pretty damned clear that things like the DMCA is a really fscked up idea in that it stifles our Founding Father's notion of the ineffiable search for Truth by restricting the ability for people to build off each other's works.
On the other hand, it's pretty clear that this notion of "high fidelity" meme sharing, while in and of itself not inherently bad, does not justify posting Metallica songs on Napster. That's because you're not sharing your experiences that you may had when listening to Metallica (be it revulsion or just annoyance)--you're just publishing Metallica songs without authorization.
I've been accused of GIGO!
That's because when you did your "philosophical search", it appears to me you started with a bunch of assumptions: that (a) "high fidelity" meme sharing is a good thing, and (b) existing IP laws interfere with "high fidelity" meme sharing (like you can't invite your friend over and play your Metallica disk for him in person--that you can only engage in this transaction by publishing, without comment, Metallica).
Further, you assume (c) that "high fidelity" meme sharing is achieved through publishing Metallica without their permission (regardless if you need their permission to publish), or equivalently, (d) that publishing is a form of "high fidelity" meme sharing--dispite the fact that you are not sharing your experience, only the song itself.
These (and other) apriori assumptions are the garbage in--it appears you do not prove these assertions, only make them. What do you expect, but garbage out?
I for one wait for Jesus Christ to come back. How do I know He will come back? Because He told us He would.
...
And you believe everything people tell you, right?
You stiff-necked people - you must prove to me that there is no God, because it's been proven already to me that there IS a God, and His incarnation of flesh is named Jesus, and one day, He will return.
"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men,
to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward
of your Father which is in heaven.
"Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not
sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrits do
in the synagogues and in the streets, that they
may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you,
They have their reward.
"But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand
know what thy right hand doeth:
"That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father
which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee
openly.
"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as
they hypocrits are: for they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the
streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I
say unto you, They have their reward.
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy
closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret; and they Father
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as
the heathen do: for they think that they shall be
heard for their much speaking.
"Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your
Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before
ye ask him."
Matthew 6:1-8.
By demanding that I explain my religion to you, and by standing up in your righteousness before men, you act as the fool on the corner of the street shouting repetitions so that men may hear your vain prostrations. Jesus himself said you will have your reward--but it won't be alongside the Father.
Witnessing is a tricky thing at best. Many in the United States, in large part due to the history of Baptists and others in the south in the last century, take it that "witnessing" involves pounding the bible on street corners attempting to convert the "wicked"--not even knowing if the next "wicked" person coming down the street is Jesus Christ Himself, freshly arrived and steeling into town as a thief in the night, as Christians believe he will appear.
But it's pretty clear that this sort of "vain repitition" and building vast monuments and sounding large trumphets to "God" that are only witnessed by men is exactly the sort of crap that Jesus Christ warned against in Matthews. And it's pretty clear why He warned us about this sort of person: time and time again televangelists are revealed to be nothing more than side-show carnies, thiefs, adulterers and con-men who claim they act in the name of God but who really only serve themselves.
That is the reward Jesus Christ was talking about when he said "Verily I say unto you, They have their reward." This is the reward of sin--the reward of self-delusion in the form of "righteousness"--the very reward you appear to be trying to strive for when you "proclaim" publically for all to see.
Best to witness silently, by example--to share a kind word rather than beat people over the head because you think their belief in God is not good enough for you. It isn't for you to judge our beliefs--that right is reserved to God and God alone.
Why? Because Jesus Christ said so. If Jesus Christ is your Lord and Saviour, then why do you so flagrently ignore His Word?
Gnostics believed that the world was created not by God, but by an evil being called Demiurge.
Except that it's unclear if the Demiurge is evil or just uncaring (not the same thing), and it's unclear if the Demiurge even exists, or if the Demiurge is a "being" below the ultimate who believes it is the ultimate because it's simply too dumb to look "up."
Further, most modern day Gnostics I know are more interested in what I would call "Zen Gnosticism"--that is, they are interested in achieving a direct communion with the Divine through various means, some highly intellectual (the Enochian system comes to mind), some very emotionally intuitive.
If done right, Zen is mystical.
But that's because if done right, Life is mystical. (Anyone who has never seen the mists clear off a New England lake in the early morning and felt the cold air on their face, and started having a feeling of mysticism really needs to have their heart checked.)
Cool! I never met a practitioner of ancient Indian religion!
Or are you refering to that bullshit that a bunch of Germans came up with at the beginning of the century which was based on some really bad (and since debunked) anthropology?
And I'd like to point out that (a) Native Americans don't want converts and would rather just have all these damned white-light neo-Pagan "shamans" fuck off and die. (Being Native American myself, and one who recently wasn't ashamed of that fact, I can tell you that the only people who want to be Native American are the very people Native Americans would rather just drop dead.)
Oh, and (b) there are a number of organizations such as the OTO who forbid proselytizing, or even proselytizing about not proselytizing--has to do with belonging to a secret, oath-bound organization which positively forbids that sort of thing, AFAIK.
Does that mean they believe in magic (magik) or whatever? Sheesh. I'm betting not.
Actually, it depends on how you define magic(k). For example, I doubt anyone here would claim not to believe in the notion of magick as "the use of one's will to effect change in the universe."
I'm typing, as it is my will--and that is causing a change, if only in the fact that the typing is causing a post to appear on SlashDot.
When you really press people like Ceremonial Magicians, they tell you what they're really doing is engaging in "linguistic programming"--that is, they're doing all this oga-booga junk because they think it's cool, and that inherent "coolness" may effect change in their subconscious in such a way as to help them (for example) manage their cravings for cigarettes or help them focus so tomorrow's job interview may go better. That is, their "magick" is the use of their will to effect change in their own subconscious.
There are plenty of people who believe as I do that this notion of "sending mystical energy out to some unseen person" is a load of horse puckies--except that the effort in "sending mystical energy out" may cause the person doing the sending to behave better around the unseen person they're trying to "help." On the other hand, given how plain rotten most people are in their day to day lives, I couldn't give a tinker's damn if someone finds to be nicer in their day to day lives involves carving wierd looking Tolkienish ruins into wax candles and burning them out in the woods while they dance naked to the blood of the moon. Just as long as they're nicer to me...
But there are necessarly limits to what Science can explain--limits imposed by Godel's incompleteness theorm, and by the nature of Science as a refind version of Logical Positivism. (That is, there are limits on what Science can explain because it's model of explaining the universe presupposes a number of postulates, such that there is no unseen intelligent force who controls the throw of the dice to it's own ends.)
Beyond what Science can explain are a number of areas of philosophy which relate to human existance. For example, why are we here? While the answer provided by Science (that we are the chance happenings of an uncaring universe) may be intellectually satisfying to some, this sort of existentialist void is emotionally unsatisfying to most who really give it some thought.
My personal take, picked up from someone else, is that Science is great at explaining the "how" of the universe. Theology or philosophy or religion or whatever the heck you want to call it is great at providing the "why."
Have you noticed that few, if any, Napster advocates are arguing that it should be legal to purchase a copy of Windows 2000 and share it with a community of Windows fans on the Internet via a peer-to-peer networking system? Why not? Is it because there are no fans or potential fnas of Windows 2000?
This is an apples and oranges argument. "Why not?" Because if you are already an owner of Windows 2000, then you already have a copy in data format. When I download an MP3 from Napster, it's because I don't want to take the time to rip and encode the tracks of my CDs--I have them in audio format, but not data format. Napster saves me the time. That's why, Mr. Petreley.
Not everyone who downloads music from Napster owns the CD. Frankly, it takes less time for me to rip a CD than it does to find it on Napster--and unless you are really good at Napster and have a really crappy computer, it should take less time for you to rip a CD as well. The software to rip a CD and turn it into an MP3 is out there, and many good versions of ripper software can be had for free. Try poking around www.mp3.com.
Or are you being dishonest here? Hmmmmm????
Umm, maybe I'm a bit slow, but why would someone interested only in "getting stuff without paying for it" go out and "buy existing information that is not free"?!? It seems that would be more of a selfless act, like providing food to the homeless, who are hungry, and can't afford to buy it themselves. (I realize this isn't a perfect analogy)
"this isn't a perfect analogy." DUH!
What would be a perfect analogy and a truely selfless act is if you were to buy licenses for everyone you gave the information to for free. For example, if I were to post a Metallica song from a single on the net, but for everyone who downloaded the song, I were to buy the single on CD and send the CD to them for free. That's selfless.
Buying one disk and sharing it with my friends is not selfless. Why? Because in exchange perhaps my friends will go out and buy one disk and share it with me--and if I have 20 friends, my music budget has dropped to 1/20th of what it would have been otherwise.
It seems obvious that this article was written purely to incite a riot, and as such, it was well done.
If "incite a riot", you mean "I strongly disagree with the points raised," perhaps you're right. If you mean "the points raised are totally off-base, and are only ment to piss people off", bullshit--not only is information free, but it's expensive as well. Or do you think it costs nothing for Metallica (our favorite whip-it boys) to produce a record album?
A priori, there is no moral reason why copying and sharing pure patterns, regardless of their origin, is immoral. I don't care if somebody spent a whole lifetime to create a pattern. I have considered several kinds of moral thinking - Kant's categorical imperative, Mill's utilitarianism, Chritianity, and my own intuitive ideas on what is moral. I simply fail to see how, in light of these moral theories, copying patterns could be immoral.
Application of moral theory without asking the right questions is sort of like feeding garbage to a computer: you only get garbage out.
I believe people have a basic human right to record and remember their life experiences as accurately as they see fit - using their brains or brain aumenting devices such as computers, tape recorders, or some day neural implants. I also believe they have the right to share their experiences with arbitrary fidelity.
Do you agree or disagree with the notion that people should also be free to interact with others as they so choose? That is, if person A and person B were to meet, that they may mutually choose to interact in any way they wish without undue influence by a third party or government organization?
If you do believe this, then do you believe that person A and person B should be able to codify their interaction in the form of a contract that either person A or person B may then ask a competant court to enforce in the even that either person A or person B chooses to back out unilaterally? (As a concrete example of this, consider an agreement to buy a car for payment. If person B's check bounces, effectively person B has backed out of the contract. Should person A have the right to sue in a competant court to force person B to either return the car or pay for it?)
If you believe in contracts, then do you believe that person A should be able to enter into a non-disclosure contract with person B, in exchange for some due consideration?
If not, why not? That is, what is your rational for taking away the rights of A and B to interact with each other as they so choose?
Intellectual Property is not like real property: information cannot be "owned" in the same sense as a physical object. What "Intellectual Property" really is is a set of interlocking contracts, both implied and explicit, which restrict the flow of information. That is, "Intellectual Property" laws are implied contracts that are set up in order to protect person A (who generated the information, music, book, computer program, etc.). When we debate Intellectual Property, what we are really debating is "what set of implied contracts" (sales contracts are "implied contracts"), should society codify in law, and what set of "explicit contracts" (NDAs are explicit contracts) should we prevent person A from entering into.
In essence, the debate about if information should be free is in part a debate as to which freedoms of interaction should we take away from person A as an information producer.
Of course some freedoms need to be takwn away if we are to function as a reasonable society: I for one won't miss the "freedom" of sticking a knife through someone's chest and ripping their heart out as they bleed to death on the floor in front of me. But with regards to information, it's not quite as cut and dry as some sort of existential imperitive that people somehow be able to blather everything I happen to share with them to the world without my being able to tell them not to blather.
If you seek to limit these self-evident (to me, at least) rights, you had better have a damned good reason that benefits everyone more than it harms everyone. I can't think of such a reason.
I'm glad you put in the phrase "to me, at least", as it is not self-evident to me that all information must be shared without restriction. Otherwise, I may just post that video of you, naked, humping a mule with a naked midget girl on it's back to your church group. Nevermind the fact it's a fake.
Another reason I can think of for restricting information is that information is expensive: if you take away my right to make money on that information, then I may not be as motivated to produce that information.
If you don't want your information to be spread, the keep it in your head. If you send sound waves, text, or code in someone's direction, then that becomes part of their life experience which they then have the right to remember and share as they see fit.
There is a big difference between saying to a friend "wow, I really heard this really kick ass song from Metallica--you've really got to get their latest CD!" and posting a Metallica song on Napster.
I'm sorry if you don't see the difference.
You are absolutely right. If you don't want to share it, then don't share it. If you do share it with someone else, then they, as free men, might wish to share it with others without requiring any additional effort whatsoever from you.
You know, this begs the question "what is Freedom."
For example, if the first man, as a condition of sharing his information with a second man, asks the second man to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Is the second man "free", even though he is no longer allowed to share the information he got from the first man?
An ironic twist on the term "freedom" is that while one may be free to do anything he so chooses, in order to pick one thing, that person may have to close the door on another. For example, barring physiological disorders, one can either eat anything and everything in site, or one can be thin--but not both. Or, in the above case, if the first person so wishes it, the second man may have access to the first man's information but with the proviso that the second man can no longer distribute that information.
That is how patterns are owned, by the way. Not that ideas can inherently be "owned" in the same sense that a physical object can, but that the first man may place restrictions on redistribution of information the first man agenerated which prevent that information's spread.
What we as a society have been arguing about, by the way, is to what degree should we take away the freedom the first man has in restricting how others use his information, for the good of society. But make no bones about it--if we allow information to be "free", what we are really doing is taking away the first man's rights to enter contracts of one form or another with people the first man may wish to share his information with.
Lousy analogy.
Water runs downhill because of gravity.
You cannot equate the (supposedly) mindful actions of dozens or hundreds or thousands of people with the inevitability of gravity--otherwise, I could argue that "people want to be murdered" because in a large enough crowd, inevitably someone is going to get shot...
So let's see. He pays taxes, so he is helping to build France. Of course unemployment in France is not 0% so there are a number of French citizens who are contributing less to building up France than this immigrant is.
So by this logic, as "the people who have built up their country have the right to decide", that means that France should disenfranchise the unemployed and give voting rights to working immigrants who pay taxes. Right?
I'm not saying that immigrants should automatically be granted voting rights and citizens who don't work should be disenfranchised. What I am saying is that this notion that "taxpayers built France", and thus immigrants who pay taxes shouldn't have any say is illogical as hell.
I know I shouldn't bite, but are you really this bloody stupid?
But liberal revisionist is rampant in USia, and has been since the 60s when the liberals managed to work their way into the educational system. Their policies of guilt have been written into every "history" textbook in an attempt to suppress the truth - that your "Native Americans" are no more native to USia than we are.
Using that argument, we should also argue that humans are not native to any region of the Earth, except from a narrow strip of savanna in Africa. That is, we are all African--and arguing that anyone is "native" to Europe or Asia or whereever is as stupid as arguing that "native Americans" aren't native to America.
While there is a grain of truth to the assertion we are all African, I believe it's not unreasonable to presume that any group of people who settle a region previously uninhabited by humans, who create in relative isolation a unique culture--and who evolve physiological differences because of their environment and relative isolation--could be argued as "native" to that land.
Hense, native Americans. Hense, Arians. Hense, Asians.
As a native American, the "crime" that was committed against our people is twofold. First, significant damage was done to native American culture as foreigners who arrived in America after years of isolation did significant cultural damage, as well as killed a number of my relatives and ancestors. Second, laws were enacted which (even within my relatively short lifetime) discriminated against native Americans. (For example, my mother was not legally allowed to drink alcohol in Arizona until the late 60's, dispite being well over drinking age. Or that one policy that California batted around when creating the California Indian registration laws was to tattoo the registration number (mine is 69065) on Indian's forearms in order to expite recognition.)
I will be the first to agree that there is a lot of "liberal bullshit" out there with regards to native Americans. But this ain't it.
Indeed, evidence that white men lived in America some 10,000 years ago has been suppressed by the liberal establishment because it contradicts their position on this matter. Don't be fooled by their fables.
One skull, hotly debated as to if it looks like Jean-Luc Piccard--and this is evidence that whites were in America 10,000 years ago? What is clear is that people were here 10,000 years ago, and--white or not--they had a unique hunter-gatherer culture which was wiped out when the Spanards and later the English arrived here.