and i think you will find that a majority of americans don't either
if any of the issues you described above were put to vote (as the provisions actually exists, not as described with your trumped up hyperbolic propagandistic terminology), you will have to accept the results, unless it is you wish to impose your will against the desires of majority, hypocrite?
for example: more cameras in housing projects. you might be shocked to find that this is enthusiastically supported by housing project residents. so what are you supposed to about the fact that what you want clashes with what the people want?
at this point, it is revealed as to whether or not you are true person of the people, or just another asshole with a narrow, stunted interpretation of reality who wishes to impose their will against our wishes
i don't see a search for justice in your words. i see a shrill propagandized fool who doesn't understand what is really going on in the world. mainly, that people are fed up with crime. talk to their concerns about crime (or are criminals illusionary? not a problem?) and then you get your way
for example, describe your problems above to the average resident of a brazilian favela, or your average resident of a south african slum, and i think their reaction would be enthusiasm, and a desire that their government actually care about their safety as much as they do in the usa
the amount of criminals in prison is seen as some horrid american oddity? but your average resident of bangladesh or the philippines or heck, certain areas outside paris or london, who see the corruption and petty crime they are immersed in daily, would not react with joy that their prisons are so small in comparison, but that some of this american seriousness towards crime come their way too
you see prisoners behind bars, but you do not see that criminality is real, and must be fought, or it is good people who are imprisoned, in their own neighborhoods, by criminals
in the 1980s, nyc was a war zone of crime. seriously vile criminals were getting let out on technicalities, the justice system was broken. now, new york city is one of the safest places on earth. real estate is soaring. and it was all due to a get tough approach to crime. in a way, by copying the serious attitudes of places like singapore. also, with high real estate rates. people want to live in singapore and new york city... because they are SAFE
i would not trade these things for cities chock a blcok with criminals due to your concern which seems more focused on the rights of people who transgress against others, rather than on actual good law abiding citizens
you deal with crime in your ideolgoy first. or your ideology will never have traction in this world. because crime is real, and all of your concerns are secondary. deal with it
i guess its easier to shoot the messenger than deal with reality
all i see is bunch of denial in your words above. at some point in your future, maybe you will realize all i am doing is describing something that's already happening, not advocating for something ideologically that we should do. there's nothing for me to enforce, or advocate for. the avalanche is already in the process of rolling down the hill. nothing you say or do will stop it
i need say no more. this whole thread is an act of intellectual charity on my part for someone who can't see what is happening. what i am describing is merely what is ALREADY HAPPENING, and it is your job to adapt, or die. currently, you seem to be choosing obsolescence. fine, what do i care?
1. we are all born vessels of purity, and the world corrupts us. the idea is to limit exposure to this corruption, and thereby remain a coherent person
2. we are all born with the seeds of rape and murder in our hearts. the idea then is catharsis: express your asocial transgressive tendencies harmlessly on sexual and violent media, and therefore you feel no compulsion to visit those tendencies on real people in real life
i mean its not like the ancient roman or chinese empires, with very little media, were places of calm and devoid of transgression. the opposite in fact is true. the history of mankind is LESS violence and transgression with more civilization (i'm talking domestically... in terms of war, population growth, the rise of nationalism, the march of technology has meant some spectacularly awesome killing fields). people are always talking about how we are all doomed, everyone is getting more violent, etc. the opposite in fact, is the real truth. people are just historically myopic. for every horrible story of murder and mayhem on your 6 o'clock news, human history offers far far worse, in much greater per capita bulk
and you only need to spend 5 minutes in your average kindergarten to come to the undeniable realization that bad behavior is innate, not taught
the fact is, if you took a psychologically normal human being and exposed them to 16 hours a day of violent pornography or violent fps videogames for 10 months, they will not become rapists or murderers. however, a psychologically problematic person might eventually rape or murder. anything could set him off, from his neighbor's barking dog or his boss's reprimands. such a psychologically unhealthy person might also seek out pornography and violent media, in a desperate attempt to get the catharsis most psychologically normal people take for granted. therefore, when violent videogames or pornography are found in the homes of rapists and murderers, someone somehwere will always say "see? that's the cause"
when in fact, there's no causal relationship at all. do some people REALLY believe that if you waved a magic wand and removed all sexual and violent media that everyone would be tranquilized and crime would drop?
in 100% honesty, i assert the opposite: we should ENCOURAGE people to use violent and sexual media. the result would be a LESS violent and sexually transgressive society. i say this with a completely straight face. i believe this wholly and thoroughly
japan has one of the highest production rates of pornography in the world. it also has one of the lowest rates of rape in the world:
any country can emulate japan's enviable murder and rape statistics: just make pornography and violent media freely and widely available
the simply truth is, if you are honestly interested in the reduction of real world rape and murder, you are also interested in promoting, yes PROMOTING, violent videogame and pornography consumption. i sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that
it all gets back to the psychological notion of CATHARSIS
and understanding that we are NOT vessels of purity that are corrupted. we all carry rape and murder in our hearts. the question is: do we eject these asocial tendencies harmlessly on a computer screen? or in the real world?
access to violent and sexual media is the deciding factor, and MORE access to violent and sexual media results in LESS real world rape and murder
monarchies are simply expensive useless national follies. like a favorite national breed of lap dog or a famous national landmark. except, unlike a landmark or a pet, the maintenance costs for a monarchy are rather high. prohibitively high, in my view
but if the dutch want to keep footing a bill for an expensive useless national pasttime, who am i to judge? tulips, dikes, windmills, wooden clogs... and some old ditzy broad in a castle. whatever. ridiculous
just don't make believe a monarchy in today's day and age affords the "protections" you listed above. it simply doesn't. it doesn't play out the way you imagine
either the queen has power, or not. if she has no power, then the dutch system has all the same positive and negative attributes as germany, usa, france... PLUS you have an expensive, pointless figurehead. what i don't understand is what you think that expensive, pointless figurehead adds to the governmental mix to make it somehow superior to a system without the expensive, pointless figurehead
in other words, to me, you seem to see value in what essentially has no value
either the queen has power, or not. if she has no power, what's the point of having a monarchy?
your current attitude towards me is as if i have personally introduced the compact disc, and i am now forcing people by personal fiat to stop using vinyl, because i said so. that i'm taking away the right of artists too choose vinyl. wtf?
the way you describe the situation is of course ridiculous. cds replaced vinyl because they're obviously better. that's all that is happening here: the internet is replacing labels and distributors. because it's BETTER. there is no function you can describe for a distributor or label that is not done by the internet now, for far cheaper if not completely free. thus: bye bye distributor and label
the labels and the distributors will simply die, because they have been replaced, technology has replaced them, not me. distributors and labels are going away not because i dislike them, but because their existence is now unnecessary. they don't add anything of value anymore. get it?
you act like i hate horses just because i say the automobile will do away with horse transportation. no, i'm merely describing an inevitable technological change. your whole reaction to me is nothing more than shooting the messenger
labels and distributors are a dying breed. because of the internet. not because of some intrusive ideology from some guy you are arguing with on the internet. now deal with it
or continue yelling at me, as if i am the one driving this inevitable technological process. who needs adjusting to reality when you can just shoot the messenger, right? whatever
would you kindly substantiate? that sounds like hysterical hyperbole to me
you refer to "a society that copes with illegal substances as a matter of routine police work"
ok, that's good
and that's exactly what the hell we are doing!
is that you get wrapped up in the "war on drugs" part? that's verbiage. it's ok if you don't like that verbiage. but you need to talk about actual actions that you dislike if you want to say anything useful. currently you seem to dislike fantasy "martial law style tactics" that don't actually exist
but highly addictive drugs- meth, cocaine, heroin: these chemicals destroy freedom, they put bars in the mind
more freedom is destroyed by the taking of drugs than the most despotic totalitarian regime orwell could ever imagine in his worst nightmares. unless, of course, that regime used force addiction as a means of control
stop with the drugs are harmless routine, moron. drug addiction is perhaps the most potent freedom destroying forces in the history of mankind, and some retards like you act derive opinions about the issue completely ignoring a small tiny issue: ADDICTION
Distributors have historically functioned as promoters. Under your preferred business model, who would perform that function?
hmmm... that's a hard one. maybe something that begins with "i" and ends in "nternet"
actuallly, that's actually what distributors will morph into: promoters. pop music isn't going away. in fact this business model: giving away music for free for exposure has an obvious predecessor: radio. so they give away the mp3s for free, and thereby sell warm butts in stadium seats. presto bingo: $$$
Not everybody has a home PC and high-speed Internet access, especially the older generation that listens to pop standards and vocal jazz.
absolutely. and for 10-20 more years, this niche will still function, before fading away into the graveyard with player piano rolls and 78 rpm records
retiring at 40? making 6 figures for the rest of his life for doing nothing?
i'm sorry, but you set up again a false conflict: that if i think that that financial arrangement is abusive of taxpayers, then i hate police officers. why can't i respect police officers, support their right to make a good income, and reject this highly abusive pension arrangement? of course i can do that. so stop smearing my words, asshole
i'm through talking to you. you aren't able to talk about the issues, you have to continually distill the most outrageous deduction from something i say and then argue against that, as if that has anything to do with what i am saying. it's like i say i support gay marriage, and you say that means i support men marrying boys. or that i am for marijuana legalization, and you saying therefore i'm for methamphetamine legalization. that's the way you argue. and it basically means you're a fucking asshole not worth anyone's time
world before internet: 99% of artists were poor. 0.9% one hit wonders signed contracts with distributors in which they got pennies and a ride in a limo for a few months. 0.1% muscled in on the distributor's game and made fair money
world after internet: 99% artists are still poor (this is the way it always was and always will be). 0.5% make enough contact over the internet with their fans to make some money from gigs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail ). another 0.4% realize enough revenue from ancillary means to be moderately financially successful. the final 0.1% are still making u2 and jayz money, from all their tie-ins
sure, the ancillary revenues are tiny fractions of what the marketplace was like before the internet, but artists still make more because mos tof the cash in the pre-internet world went to distributors anyways
your problem is you fall for the contrived bullshit concept that distributors not making money anymore is the same as artists not making money anymore
but, don't believe me that distributors are a joke and artists should just go it out on their own, listen to an actual artist:
Radiohead's Thom Yorke warns of 'sinking' record labels
Radiohead singer Thom Yorke has told aspiring musicians to avoid the "sinking ship" of major record labels.
Giving advice to young artists in a new school textbook, he said: "When the corporate industry dies it will be no great loss to the world.
"So, I guess I would say, don't tie yourself to the sinking ship because, believe me, it's sinking."
Radiohead were signed to EMI for 12 years but released their last album In Rainbows via their own website in 2007.
EMI is now in a particularly precarious position, with major debts and restructuring issues following a takeover by private equity firm Terra Firma in 2007.
The songwriter made his comments in the Rax Active Citizenship Toolkit, published next month by New Internationalist magazine for students of GCSE Citizenship Studies.
'Matter of time'
In the interview, carried out in February, Yorke said the fate of new artists was "an obsession" of bandmate Ed O'Brien, who is a leading member of lobby group the Featured Artists' Coalition.
Yorke said: "When we discuss it, he says it's simply a matter of time - months rather than years - before the music business establishment completely folds.
"He is involved in trying to build a world where artists would finally get paid. But we are up against the self-protecting interests of that industry."
Radiohead are currently working on new material, but it is not known how they will release it.
Yorke has recently been performing with a new band, Atoms For Peace, and is playing a solo show at the Big Chill festival in Herefordshire in August.
so please stop swallowing the contrived lie that artists need distributors. its tired. its false. its a dead fake maneuver you are either intellectually being dishonest about or are actually quite cluelessly naive about
the truth is, distributors are parasites that only existed because someone had to manufacture the media. the internet has made that process defunct, and so distributors themselves are now defunct, no matter how hard they try to grandfather themselves into our cultural space with bullshit legal maneuvers that are destined to fail regardless
In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.
now you tell me: do i have valid grounds to find this unacceptable?
you introduce a false conflict: that if i stand against the union stooge, that i must by some inference be supporting the ceo making 7 figures while his company crashes and burns
why can't i hate both?
why can't i hate the coddled union stooge AND the coddled ceo, at the same time?
and, most importantly, i reject the notion we should all make the same amount. please tell me we don't need to go into a remedial education about why communism fails
i support capitalism with socialist safety nets. or socialism with capitalist engines. whatever. i simply am complaining about these union stooges obviously getting away with murder. just as much murder as the ceo scumbags with the golden parachutes from the companies they helped destroy
it would be great if we all made $150K a year. now enunciate the real world plan in which that is possible
thought so
all you have is wish fulfillment fantasy, not valid social commentary
i actually consider myself quite liberal and have voted Democratic all my life. but when it comes to unions, i see only a bloated historical anachronism that does more harm than good
some alien 43 dimensional child's entry in the local science fair
"look: i've created self-replicating life based on a few simple rules!"
and the judge says: "but it's only 4 dimensions, and one of the dimensions is only one way. shoddy, very simplistic, not a good middle school level effort"
to which the alien's mom says: "don't worry honey, next year we'll put baking soda and vinegar in a paper mache cone and simulate a volcano!"
and the alien child says: "that's ok mom, i don't like science anymore, i want to be a ranch hand. bye bye, little universe critters, i always thought you were cute"
and then he pulls the plug on his simulation, and trillions of animal, plant, and human lives on earth and septillions of lives on the other inhabited planets cease to exist in a puff
all of copyright law is based on a dead technological era. well, copyright law as applied to agreements between creators, say: the company that films the adaptation of harry potter and jk rowlings, for example, is still valid, because the parties in the agreement are finite
but copyright law as applied to end consumers is completely and utterly unenforceable. its not like you need to have a vinyl printing plant or a tape duplicator to spread media anymore. you simply need to be able to point and click. additionally, its completely international, and completely without economics: the cost to send 100,000 copies of lady gaga to johannesburg, novosibirsk, cartagena, etc is exactly the same as sending one copy of lady gaga across town. your agerage 15 year old today has more publishing power worldwide than bertelsmann, time warner, etc., had in 1990. this really means something, and what it means is: copyright law (as applied to end consumers), is dead, and unenforceable
so let them make ACTA as draconian as the morons want. who fucking cares? 10,000 lawyers in western countries versus 10 million media hungry, technologically savvy and, most importantly, POOR teenagers, worldwide, is no contest. of course i understand the EFF, they are protesting on the matter of principle. and to this extent, they should protest, and you should join them. but remember who we are dealing with here: the media industry. a bunch of sociopathic assholes. principles don't matter to them, so the EFF won't sway them. so i say: go ahead register your principled objections, to clear your conscience, but do not grow disheartened by a lack of response from the lizards. rejoice in the fact the lizards are at an end game, and are dying out, and that there ridiculous ACTA is a useless folly
its called disruptive technology for a reason: it disrupts the status quo. the printing press did away with monarchies, the gun did way with the feudal caste system, the automobile created suburbia, the nuclear bomb did away with world wars, etc.: technology changes society and the law. the law and society do not change technology. well, that's never stopped one shortsighted asshole after another from trying, but their efforts are always futile and pointless, just causing a lot of temporary pain for innocent bystanders. in the end, none of their posturing matters: the internet will assimilate the media industry, resistance is futile
the internet has rendered copyright law as applied to end consumers null and void, despiter all the believers to the contrary, despite all the power they hold. its a fait accompli
the media industry's job now is to embrace its obsolescence. of course, it goes down kicking and screaming instead. but again, who fucking cares? let them pass the most draconian ACTA anyone can imagine in their worst nightmares. UNENFORCEABLE. END OF STORY
RIP, vinyl record era copyright law. i'm certain you will exist on the books for a long time to come. but in terms of being an enforceable concept on end consumers in an internet-using society, you're toast
at one time, when gilded age corporatist assholes employed pinkerton's thugs to kneecap guys just trying to earn enough to feed his children, unions were heroic and noble
in today's day and age, a union is nothing more than a lottery ticket for lazy assholes to earn way way more than middle class salaries, for doing far less, and be accountable and responsible for nothing
additionally, no one can afford to manufacture anything here anymore because of union mandated salary levels, so everything is now done in chinese sweatshops. a committed anti-corporatist would respond it is the corporatists who drive jobs out of the country, not the unions. to which i would respond that that is easy to say, until you actually have to buy the goods with the sticker shock attached to them just so a union member can have lavish benefits and upper middle class salaries well beyond yours
the unions help drive jobs out of the country by demanding far too much for workers. the irony being, in china, people are now unionizing, get this, against the communist government's wishes (that extra twist of historical irony practically makes my head explode)
is it possible in this world to have the balance of power between the unions and the corportatists simply give workers a decent wage and keep jobs domestic and keep goods and services affordable?
and can GOVERNMENT unions simply be mandated out of existence, please?
Mark Gorton is a confident guy. He's confident about his ideas. He's confident about his enthusiasms. And he's confident that his successes -- like making money on Wall Street and promoting alternative transportation in New York -- provide a record that backs him up.
But that confidence faces a new test. Two weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that he and the popular file-sharing service he created, LimeWire, were liable for copyright infringement and could be forced to pay up to $450 million in damages.
Mr. Gorton, 43, says he did not think it would come to this point. He thought that the record industry, sometime since the lawsuit was filed in 2006, would come to appreciate his vision for the future of LimeWire -- a paid subscription service providing unlimited downloads of licensed songs -- and want to join forces instead of continuing litigation.
"Perhaps I was naïve," Mr. Gorton said in an interview last week at LimeWire's office near Chinatown in Manhattan. "If I knew when the lawsuit started what I know now about the music industry, maybe we would have done something different."
first wall street trader i ever felt sorry for. his other passion is alternative transportation: he rides his bike to work every day. not your average wall street sleazeball
and he idealistically thought that an honest p2p play was a good idea, downplaying the shortsighted sociopathology of the music publishing industry. bad bet
now if limewire were some open source project with nothing but pseudoanonymous college students behind it, it would still be sued into oblivion, but there would be no follow up lawsuit seeking to drain the defendants of all their worth. this guy, on the other hand, is going to made destitute, simply for the crime of thinking positively about the real future of media. unfortunately, the zombie legal past of media has marked him for death
music industry: the next limewire won't be fronted by anyone, and there will be no way to block it, and no one to sue. the internet has permanently changed the legal status quo of media. you have a bunch of laws from the days of vinyl records, that are simply unenforceable in the age of the internet. your job now is shut up and die, blood sucking assholes
YOU'RE NOT NEEDED ANYMORE. YOU AND YOUR UNENFORCEABLE LAWS ARE A HISTORICAL ANACHRONISM. JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY
is that they would take the electrophoresis gel, slurp it down like jello, then spit it out as diamond bullets at the researchers. then it would take the southern blot, kick it so hard it would turn into a northern, western and eastern blot and actually blot out the word "southern" from all maps ever printed
finally, his genes, when put in the polymerase chain reaction, would replicate uncontrollably, each new sequence of chuck norris genes gaining umpteenth levels of mystical levels of martial arts power, until the polymerase chain reaction would actually set off a runaway nuclear chain reaction. the upside of this nuclear chain reaction is that it would create elements never before seen by man, and when overhearing some of the physicists from down the hall the biochemists hurriedly call into their lab that these new elements are supposed to be unstable, chuck norris's genes would be so insulted they would spontaneously stabilize every single radioactive element in the known universe, then spontaneously rewrite the fundamental laws of nature so that radioactivity itself ceased to exist
bouymen didi surviveorSURVIVEDidunno WHAT yourtryinto saybout me MAN survival im striving surviving man i dunnowhatyer talking someone wheres my drin i said ineed mydrinkwhered didiput the keyys
government exists because all of the abuses of government would continue if there were no government, only worse: corporations and mafia would fill the power void, commit the abuses you dislike about government now, and then a couple dozen worse abuses
government is a necessary evil. governments commit abuses, yes. the best that can be done is continually clean up government and continually prevent it from going bad
but to believe that you can get rid of government merely means you don't understand the full range of evils that are out there or are possible in this world. you're quite clueless
1. a rich society is a complex society. it is not possible to be a rich society and everyone is toiling in the same type of job
2. a complex society has members whose income is from various, complicated sources, representing the full spectrum of possible job types and services a mature rich society makes possible, and needs
3. therefore, tax sources must reflect the various sources of income, or certain members of society get away with being undertaxed and not paying their fair share
with me so far, asshole?
currently, you believe that a simpleminded hamfisted approach to taxes is somehow superior: that there might be 20-30 types of revenue stream out there... but you only need to tax one or two. what?!
all you wind up doing is making taxes even more unfair than they currently are. you probably do this to justify your own desire to contribute less than you should. so with every word you write, you demonstrate even more what a freeloading parasitical asshole you are
and go ahead, keep hording gold. its value is so high now, its got nowhere to go except down. it really says a lot about your investment intelligence that you think buying an investment when its value is skyhigh is a wise course of action. unless you believe society is going to breakdown and we're going to be living like mad max. that you believe that a pile of gold makes you anything more than just a big fat target in such a world says even more about your intelligence
luckily "a world run by thieves" is hysterical hyperbole on your part, not reality
to continue to derive benefits from the community, and to view contributions to the maintenance of that community as letting your "blood be sucked" just because there are thieves somewhere in that community, is incredibly retarded
either go live in the woods, and use nothing of the community. or contribute to the community you are a part of. if that community has problems, that in no way excuses you from your obligation to contribute. if a thief exists, you should be interested in catching him: you should be interested in the health of your community
but you don't care about the health of your community. you see someone else freeloading off your community, and you think that is a signal to justify your own parasitism! hilarious
thieves do exist, and all you can think of is "well, then i should be a thief too". you are a freeloading parasitical selfish piece of shit who commits the even worse sin of not admitting what he is. you actually rationalize your parasitism as somehow correct and noble. incredible
thank you for the journey into the mind of a thief, and how they rationalize their sorry existence. what an asshole
i've notices you've responded a lot in this thread. therefore the issue is dear to your heart
there's a saying, shakespeare: "methinks the lady doth protest too much". that you say so frequently and loudly that you don't care about a characterization of you only means that the characterization strikes its mark very close, and you know it
the proof of what i think of you requiring no defense from you is when you simply do not respond to attacks on beliefs you hold
the simple truth is, you fight tooth and nail because much of what is being said here strikes so close and rings so true, and you are beginning to realize it
which is good, because it means you are thinking about your parasitical existence, and you yourself are wondering about your place in the world
someday you will get to the truth, you are far from it now. but you will get to it on your own. indeed, i won't get you there by insulting in a comment thread on slashdot. so good luck on your lonely journey back to moral and intellectual coherence my friend
right now, you are nothing more than a freeloading vampiric parasite, and you are beginning to realize it, as demonstrated by your vigorous rejections here, which is good
Slashdot Mirror
and i think you will find that a majority of americans don't either
if any of the issues you described above were put to vote (as the provisions actually exists, not as described with your trumped up hyperbolic propagandistic terminology), you will have to accept the results, unless it is you wish to impose your will against the desires of majority, hypocrite?
for example: more cameras in housing projects. you might be shocked to find that this is enthusiastically supported by housing project residents. so what are you supposed to about the fact that what you want clashes with what the people want?
at this point, it is revealed as to whether or not you are true person of the people, or just another asshole with a narrow, stunted interpretation of reality who wishes to impose their will against our wishes
i don't see a search for justice in your words. i see a shrill propagandized fool who doesn't understand what is really going on in the world. mainly, that people are fed up with crime. talk to their concerns about crime (or are criminals illusionary? not a problem?) and then you get your way
for example, describe your problems above to the average resident of a brazilian favela, or your average resident of a south african slum, and i think their reaction would be enthusiasm, and a desire that their government actually care about their safety as much as they do in the usa
the amount of criminals in prison is seen as some horrid american oddity? but your average resident of bangladesh or the philippines or heck, certain areas outside paris or london, who see the corruption and petty crime they are immersed in daily, would not react with joy that their prisons are so small in comparison, but that some of this american seriousness towards crime come their way too
you see prisoners behind bars, but you do not see that criminality is real, and must be fought, or it is good people who are imprisoned, in their own neighborhoods, by criminals
in the 1980s, nyc was a war zone of crime. seriously vile criminals were getting let out on technicalities, the justice system was broken. now, new york city is one of the safest places on earth. real estate is soaring. and it was all due to a get tough approach to crime. in a way, by copying the serious attitudes of places like singapore. also, with high real estate rates. people want to live in singapore and new york city... because they are SAFE
i would not trade these things for cities chock a blcok with criminals due to your concern which seems more focused on the rights of people who transgress against others, rather than on actual good law abiding citizens
you deal with crime in your ideolgoy first. or your ideology will never have traction in this world. because crime is real, and all of your concerns are secondary. deal with it
likewise, what hacker is going to report that someone reverse engineered his hack?
i guess its easier to shoot the messenger than deal with reality
all i see is bunch of denial in your words above. at some point in your future, maybe you will realize all i am doing is describing something that's already happening, not advocating for something ideologically that we should do. there's nothing for me to enforce, or advocate for. the avalanche is already in the process of rolling down the hill. nothing you say or do will stop it
i need say no more. this whole thread is an act of intellectual charity on my part for someone who can't see what is happening. what i am describing is merely what is ALREADY HAPPENING, and it is your job to adapt, or die. currently, you seem to be choosing obsolescence. fine, what do i care?
adios, luddite. welcome to the dustbin of history
1. we are all born vessels of purity, and the world corrupts us. the idea is to limit exposure to this corruption, and thereby remain a coherent person
2. we are all born with the seeds of rape and murder in our hearts. the idea then is catharsis: express your asocial transgressive tendencies harmlessly on sexual and violent media, and therefore you feel no compulsion to visit those tendencies on real people in real life
i mean its not like the ancient roman or chinese empires, with very little media, were places of calm and devoid of transgression. the opposite in fact is true. the history of mankind is LESS violence and transgression with more civilization (i'm talking domestically... in terms of war, population growth, the rise of nationalism, the march of technology has meant some spectacularly awesome killing fields). people are always talking about how we are all doomed, everyone is getting more violent, etc. the opposite in fact, is the real truth. people are just historically myopic. for every horrible story of murder and mayhem on your 6 o'clock news, human history offers far far worse, in much greater per capita bulk
and you only need to spend 5 minutes in your average kindergarten to come to the undeniable realization that bad behavior is innate, not taught
the fact is, if you took a psychologically normal human being and exposed them to 16 hours a day of violent pornography or violent fps videogames for 10 months, they will not become rapists or murderers. however, a psychologically problematic person might eventually rape or murder. anything could set him off, from his neighbor's barking dog or his boss's reprimands. such a psychologically unhealthy person might also seek out pornography and violent media, in a desperate attempt to get the catharsis most psychologically normal people take for granted. therefore, when violent videogames or pornography are found in the homes of rapists and murderers, someone somehwere will always say "see? that's the cause"
when in fact, there's no causal relationship at all. do some people REALLY believe that if you waved a magic wand and removed all sexual and violent media that everyone would be tranquilized and crime would drop?
in 100% honesty, i assert the opposite: we should ENCOURAGE people to use violent and sexual media. the result would be a LESS violent and sexually transgressive society. i say this with a completely straight face. i believe this wholly and thoroughly
japan has one of the highest production rates of pornography in the world. it also has one of the lowest rates of rape in the world:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita
japan also has free and widely available access violently transgressive media. and it also has very low murder rates
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
any country can emulate japan's enviable murder and rape statistics: just make pornography and violent media freely and widely available
the simply truth is, if you are honestly interested in the reduction of real world rape and murder, you are also interested in promoting, yes PROMOTING, violent videogame and pornography consumption. i sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that
it all gets back to the psychological notion of CATHARSIS
and understanding that we are NOT vessels of purity that are corrupted. we all carry rape and murder in our hearts. the question is: do we eject these asocial tendencies harmlessly on a computer screen? or in the real world?
access to violent and sexual media is the deciding factor, and MORE access to violent and sexual media results in LESS real world rape and murder
where they have a monarch and the military has staged a number of coups regardless?
your words do match reality, friend
i think nepal has the best idea:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/asia/03nepal.html
monarchies are simply expensive useless national follies. like a favorite national breed of lap dog or a famous national landmark. except, unlike a landmark or a pet, the maintenance costs for a monarchy are rather high. prohibitively high, in my view
but if the dutch want to keep footing a bill for an expensive useless national pasttime, who am i to judge? tulips, dikes, windmills, wooden clogs... and some old ditzy broad in a castle. whatever. ridiculous
just don't make believe a monarchy in today's day and age affords the "protections" you listed above. it simply doesn't. it doesn't play out the way you imagine
either the queen has power, or not. if she has no power, then the dutch system has all the same positive and negative attributes as germany, usa, france... PLUS you have an expensive, pointless figurehead. what i don't understand is what you think that expensive, pointless figurehead adds to the governmental mix to make it somehow superior to a system without the expensive, pointless figurehead
in other words, to me, you seem to see value in what essentially has no value
either the queen has power, or not. if she has no power, what's the point of having a monarchy?
i'm describing a technological change
your current attitude towards me is as if i have personally introduced the compact disc, and i am now forcing people by personal fiat to stop using vinyl, because i said so. that i'm taking away the right of artists too choose vinyl. wtf?
the way you describe the situation is of course ridiculous. cds replaced vinyl because they're obviously better. that's all that is happening here: the internet is replacing labels and distributors. because it's BETTER. there is no function you can describe for a distributor or label that is not done by the internet now, for far cheaper if not completely free. thus: bye bye distributor and label
the labels and the distributors will simply die, because they have been replaced, technology has replaced them, not me. distributors and labels are going away not because i dislike them, but because their existence is now unnecessary. they don't add anything of value anymore. get it?
you act like i hate horses just because i say the automobile will do away with horse transportation. no, i'm merely describing an inevitable technological change. your whole reaction to me is nothing more than shooting the messenger
labels and distributors are a dying breed. because of the internet. not because of some intrusive ideology from some guy you are arguing with on the internet. now deal with it
or continue yelling at me, as if i am the one driving this inevitable technological process. who needs adjusting to reality when you can just shoot the messenger, right? whatever
would you kindly substantiate? that sounds like hysterical hyperbole to me
you refer to "a society that copes with illegal substances as a matter of routine police work"
ok, that's good
and that's exactly what the hell we are doing!
is that you get wrapped up in the "war on drugs" part? that's verbiage. it's ok if you don't like that verbiage. but you need to talk about actual actions that you dislike if you want to say anything useful. currently you seem to dislike fantasy "martial law style tactics" that don't actually exist
but highly addictive drugs- meth, cocaine, heroin: these chemicals destroy freedom, they put bars in the mind
more freedom is destroyed by the taking of drugs than the most despotic totalitarian regime orwell could ever imagine in his worst nightmares. unless, of course, that regime used force addiction as a means of control
stop with the drugs are harmless routine, moron. drug addiction is perhaps the most potent freedom destroying forces in the history of mankind, and some retards like you act derive opinions about the issue completely ignoring a small tiny issue: ADDICTION
Distributors have historically functioned as promoters. Under your preferred business model, who would perform that function?
hmmm... that's a hard one. maybe something that begins with "i" and ends in "nternet"
actuallly, that's actually what distributors will morph into: promoters. pop music isn't going away. in fact this business model: giving away music for free for exposure has an obvious predecessor: radio. so they give away the mp3s for free, and thereby sell warm butts in stadium seats. presto bingo: $$$
Not everybody has a home PC and high-speed Internet access, especially the older generation that listens to pop standards and vocal jazz.
absolutely. and for 10-20 more years, this niche will still function, before fading away into the graveyard with player piano rolls and 78 rpm records
retiring at 40? making 6 figures for the rest of his life for doing nothing?
i'm sorry, but you set up again a false conflict: that if i think that that financial arrangement is abusive of taxpayers, then i hate police officers. why can't i respect police officers, support their right to make a good income, and reject this highly abusive pension arrangement? of course i can do that. so stop smearing my words, asshole
i'm through talking to you. you aren't able to talk about the issues, you have to continually distill the most outrageous deduction from something i say and then argue against that, as if that has anything to do with what i am saying. it's like i say i support gay marriage, and you say that means i support men marrying boys. or that i am for marijuana legalization, and you saying therefore i'm for methamphetamine legalization. that's the way you argue. and it basically means you're a fucking asshole not worth anyone's time
you wouldn't call yourself the velvet flamebait
and here's my flame free rebuttal:
world before internet: 99% of artists were poor. 0.9% one hit wonders signed contracts with distributors in which they got pennies and a ride in a limo for a few months. 0.1% muscled in on the distributor's game and made fair money
world after internet: 99% artists are still poor (this is the way it always was and always will be). 0.5% make enough contact over the internet with their fans to make some money from gigs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail ). another 0.4% realize enough revenue from ancillary means to be moderately financially successful. the final 0.1% are still making u2 and jayz money, from all their tie-ins
sure, the ancillary revenues are tiny fractions of what the marketplace was like before the internet, but artists still make more because mos tof the cash in the pre-internet world went to distributors anyways
your problem is you fall for the contrived bullshit concept that distributors not making money anymore is the same as artists not making money anymore
but, don't believe me that distributors are a joke and artists should just go it out on their own, listen to an actual artist:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10272490.stm
so please stop swallowing the contrived lie that artists need distributors. its tired. its false. its a dead fake maneuver you are either intellectually being dishonest about or are actually quite cluelessly naive about
the truth is, distributors are parasites that only existed because someone had to manufacture the media. the internet has made that process defunct, and so distributors themselves are now defunct, no matter how hard they try to grandfather themselves into our cultural space with bullshit legal maneuvers that are destined to fail regardless
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/business/economy/21pension.html
now you tell me: do i have valid grounds to find this unacceptable?
you introduce a false conflict: that if i stand against the union stooge, that i must by some inference be supporting the ceo making 7 figures while his company crashes and burns
why can't i hate both?
why can't i hate the coddled union stooge AND the coddled ceo, at the same time?
and, most importantly, i reject the notion we should all make the same amount. please tell me we don't need to go into a remedial education about why communism fails
i support capitalism with socialist safety nets. or socialism with capitalist engines. whatever. i simply am complaining about these union stooges obviously getting away with murder. just as much murder as the ceo scumbags with the golden parachutes from the companies they helped destroy
it would be great if we all made $150K a year. now enunciate the real world plan in which that is possible
thought so
all you have is wish fulfillment fantasy, not valid social commentary
i actually consider myself quite liberal and have voted Democratic all my life. but when it comes to unions, i see only a bloated historical anachronism that does more harm than good
some alien 43 dimensional child's entry in the local science fair
"look: i've created self-replicating life based on a few simple rules!"
and the judge says: "but it's only 4 dimensions, and one of the dimensions is only one way. shoddy, very simplistic, not a good middle school level effort"
to which the alien's mom says: "don't worry honey, next year we'll put baking soda and vinegar in a paper mache cone and simulate a volcano!"
and the alien child says: "that's ok mom, i don't like science anymore, i want to be a ranch hand. bye bye, little universe critters, i always thought you were cute"
and then he pulls the plug on his simulation, and trillions of animal, plant, and human lives on earth and septillions of lives on the other inhabited planets cease to exist in a puff
its a farce
all of copyright law is based on a dead technological era. well, copyright law as applied to agreements between creators, say: the company that films the adaptation of harry potter and jk rowlings, for example, is still valid, because the parties in the agreement are finite
but copyright law as applied to end consumers is completely and utterly unenforceable. its not like you need to have a vinyl printing plant or a tape duplicator to spread media anymore. you simply need to be able to point and click. additionally, its completely international, and completely without economics: the cost to send 100,000 copies of lady gaga to johannesburg, novosibirsk, cartagena, etc is exactly the same as sending one copy of lady gaga across town. your agerage 15 year old today has more publishing power worldwide than bertelsmann, time warner, etc., had in 1990. this really means something, and what it means is: copyright law (as applied to end consumers), is dead, and unenforceable
so let them make ACTA as draconian as the morons want. who fucking cares? 10,000 lawyers in western countries versus 10 million media hungry, technologically savvy and, most importantly, POOR teenagers, worldwide, is no contest. of course i understand the EFF, they are protesting on the matter of principle. and to this extent, they should protest, and you should join them. but remember who we are dealing with here: the media industry. a bunch of sociopathic assholes. principles don't matter to them, so the EFF won't sway them. so i say: go ahead register your principled objections, to clear your conscience, but do not grow disheartened by a lack of response from the lizards. rejoice in the fact the lizards are at an end game, and are dying out, and that there ridiculous ACTA is a useless folly
its called disruptive technology for a reason: it disrupts the status quo. the printing press did away with monarchies, the gun did way with the feudal caste system, the automobile created suburbia, the nuclear bomb did away with world wars, etc.: technology changes society and the law. the law and society do not change technology. well, that's never stopped one shortsighted asshole after another from trying, but their efforts are always futile and pointless, just causing a lot of temporary pain for innocent bystanders. in the end, none of their posturing matters: the internet will assimilate the media industry, resistance is futile
the internet has rendered copyright law as applied to end consumers null and void, despiter all the believers to the contrary, despite all the power they hold. its a fait accompli
the media industry's job now is to embrace its obsolescence. of course, it goes down kicking and screaming instead. but again, who fucking cares? let them pass the most draconian ACTA anyone can imagine in their worst nightmares. UNENFORCEABLE. END OF STORY
RIP, vinyl record era copyright law. i'm certain you will exist on the books for a long time to come. but in terms of being an enforceable concept on end consumers in an internet-using society, you're toast
at one time, when gilded age corporatist assholes employed pinkerton's thugs to kneecap guys just trying to earn enough to feed his children, unions were heroic and noble
in today's day and age, a union is nothing more than a lottery ticket for lazy assholes to earn way way more than middle class salaries, for doing far less, and be accountable and responsible for nothing
additionally, no one can afford to manufacture anything here anymore because of union mandated salary levels, so everything is now done in chinese sweatshops. a committed anti-corporatist would respond it is the corporatists who drive jobs out of the country, not the unions. to which i would respond that that is easy to say, until you actually have to buy the goods with the sticker shock attached to them just so a union member can have lavish benefits and upper middle class salaries well beyond yours
the unions help drive jobs out of the country by demanding far too much for workers. the irony being, in china, people are now unionizing, get this, against the communist government's wishes (that extra twist of historical irony practically makes my head explode)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/business/global/11strike.html
is it possible in this world to have the balance of power between the unions and the corportatists simply give workers a decent wage and keep jobs domestic and keep goods and services affordable?
and can GOVERNMENT unions simply be mandated out of existence, please?
the founder has gobs of cash:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/business/media/24limewire.html
first wall street trader i ever felt sorry for. his other passion is alternative transportation: he rides his bike to work every day. not your average wall street sleazeball
and he idealistically thought that an honest p2p play was a good idea, downplaying the shortsighted sociopathology of the music publishing industry. bad bet
now if limewire were some open source project with nothing but pseudoanonymous college students behind it, it would still be sued into oblivion, but there would be no follow up lawsuit seeking to drain the defendants of all their worth. this guy, on the other hand, is going to made destitute, simply for the crime of thinking positively about the real future of media. unfortunately, the zombie legal past of media has marked him for death
music industry: the next limewire won't be fronted by anyone, and there will be no way to block it, and no one to sue. the internet has permanently changed the legal status quo of media. you have a bunch of laws from the days of vinyl records, that are simply unenforceable in the age of the internet. your job now is shut up and die, blood sucking assholes
YOU'RE NOT NEEDED ANYMORE. YOU AND YOUR UNENFORCEABLE LAWS ARE A HISTORICAL ANACHRONISM. JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY
is that they would take the electrophoresis gel, slurp it down like jello, then spit it out as diamond bullets at the researchers. then it would take the southern blot, kick it so hard it would turn into a northern, western and eastern blot and actually blot out the word "southern" from all maps ever printed
finally, his genes, when put in the polymerase chain reaction, would replicate uncontrollably, each new sequence of chuck norris genes gaining umpteenth levels of mystical levels of martial arts power, until the polymerase chain reaction would actually set off a runaway nuclear chain reaction. the upside of this nuclear chain reaction is that it would create elements never before seen by man, and when overhearing some of the physicists from down the hall the biochemists hurriedly call into their lab that these new elements are supposed to be unstable, chuck norris's genes would be so insulted they would spontaneously stabilize every single radioactive element in the known universe, then spontaneously rewrite the fundamental laws of nature so that radioactivity itself ceased to exist
bouymen didi surviveorSURVIVEDidunno WHAT yourtryinto saybout me MAN survival im striving surviving man i dunnowhatyer talking someone wheres my drin i said ineed mydrinkwhered didiput the keyys
SHARRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN
its almost as accurate as gps
government exists because all of the abuses of government would continue if there were no government, only worse: corporations and mafia would fill the power void, commit the abuses you dislike about government now, and then a couple dozen worse abuses
government is a necessary evil. governments commit abuses, yes. the best that can be done is continually clean up government and continually prevent it from going bad
but to believe that you can get rid of government merely means you don't understand the full range of evils that are out there or are possible in this world. you're quite clueless
1. a rich society is a complex society. it is not possible to be a rich society and everyone is toiling in the same type of job
2. a complex society has members whose income is from various, complicated sources, representing the full spectrum of possible job types and services a mature rich society makes possible, and needs
3. therefore, tax sources must reflect the various sources of income, or certain members of society get away with being undertaxed and not paying their fair share
with me so far, asshole?
currently, you believe that a simpleminded hamfisted approach to taxes is somehow superior: that there might be 20-30 types of revenue stream out there... but you only need to tax one or two. what?!
all you wind up doing is making taxes even more unfair than they currently are. you probably do this to justify your own desire to contribute less than you should. so with every word you write, you demonstrate even more what a freeloading parasitical asshole you are
and go ahead, keep hording gold. its value is so high now, its got nowhere to go except down. it really says a lot about your investment intelligence that you think buying an investment when its value is skyhigh is a wise course of action. unless you believe society is going to breakdown and we're going to be living like mad max. that you believe that a pile of gold makes you anything more than just a big fat target in such a world says even more about your intelligence
luckily "a world run by thieves" is hysterical hyperbole on your part, not reality
to continue to derive benefits from the community, and to view contributions to the maintenance of that community as letting your "blood be sucked" just because there are thieves somewhere in that community, is incredibly retarded
either go live in the woods, and use nothing of the community. or contribute to the community you are a part of. if that community has problems, that in no way excuses you from your obligation to contribute. if a thief exists, you should be interested in catching him: you should be interested in the health of your community
but you don't care about the health of your community. you see someone else freeloading off your community, and you think that is a signal to justify your own parasitism! hilarious
thieves do exist, and all you can think of is "well, then i should be a thief too". you are a freeloading parasitical selfish piece of shit who commits the even worse sin of not admitting what he is. you actually rationalize your parasitism as somehow correct and noble. incredible
thank you for the journey into the mind of a thief, and how they rationalize their sorry existence. what an asshole
i've notices you've responded a lot in this thread. therefore the issue is dear to your heart
there's a saying, shakespeare: "methinks the lady doth protest too much". that you say so frequently and loudly that you don't care about a characterization of you only means that the characterization strikes its mark very close, and you know it
the proof of what i think of you requiring no defense from you is when you simply do not respond to attacks on beliefs you hold
the simple truth is, you fight tooth and nail because much of what is being said here strikes so close and rings so true, and you are beginning to realize it
which is good, because it means you are thinking about your parasitical existence, and you yourself are wondering about your place in the world
someday you will get to the truth, you are far from it now. but you will get to it on your own. indeed, i won't get you there by insulting in a comment thread on slashdot. so good luck on your lonely journey back to moral and intellectual coherence my friend
right now, you are nothing more than a freeloading vampiric parasite, and you are beginning to realize it, as demonstrated by your vigorous rejections here, which is good