end of story. people have this naive idealistic expectation of ironclad neutral media. never existed. never will. get over it already. yes, some ignorant fools will believe anything they read. do you really think you can save an idiot from themselves? or that building some sort of fancy (and impossible) media neutralizer will save those idiots?
at its heart, the fear of a biased media is a sort of elitist concern. there is a sort of distrust of the average joe blow amongst an ivory tower crowd. that left to his devices, without the guidance of the elites, joe blow will screw up. this is misthropic. i trust joe blow a lot more than some self-appointed guardian of neutrality. who nominated some special class of people to be our ideological watchdogs? what about their bias? it doesn't exist? you have no bias?
everyone has a bias. if you believe you don't, it simply means you are blind to your own nature, and are therefore even more dangerous than those who consciously manipulate the media. they at least know they are doing wrong. you are engaging in ideogical manipulation and don't even know it, or believe you are serving neutrality, when that is impossible to do, and are therefore the most dangerous part of the problem, not the solution to it
large landowners and their abuses breed things like the npa in the philippines (aka "the nice people's army"). nominally communist/ socialist, the npa in turn loses it's ideological rigor and becomes just a vehicle for kidnapping and extortion to continue the brave existence of camping and robbing people in the jungle. meanwhile, every election cycle in the philippines, it seems the 200 peso note grows scarce. it is joked that this is so because they are all being used to bribe the votes for the local politician, entrenched in the local power structure that supports the local landed gentry. endless cycle
this is the state of humanity, unfortunately, but these cynical, borderline misanthropic observations are thoughts that lead us to inaction, to believe human progress is impossible. no, progress is possible, or we'd all still be living under feudal kings
so i reject the hopeless implicaitons of your thoughts, as should you. change for the better is real, it has happened, is happening, and will happen. never forget that
they are human beings, just like you and me. not some weird abstract one dimensional construct on par with fungus that just keeps growing and growing
if your view of the third world is that hopeless, then you are a misanthrope. or a racist. or both. you do not go below the rio grande or the straights of bosporus and then suddenly logic and reason cease to exist. population control is not a very difficult concept to grasp, really
but from your point of view, apparently you are all too happy for the current state of suffering to continue unstopped. for cruelty to control population instead of planning
which makes you part of the problem, asshole. you have no human conscience
so when you blather on about slavery in response for my call to put limits on ip law, this is speaking from experience?
huh?
so my call for limits on ip law is what, exactly in your mind? the first step on an unstoppable slippery slope to pol pot?
LOL
dude: its not learning from experience your thoughts come from on this issue. it comes from hysteria, fear, and panic. really
you're quite the hysterical twit. you really are
so, in your mind: ip law and its continued extension by corporate lawyers is completely natural and valid, it does not need to be reigned in. and for me to even suggest such an idea is tantamount to communist ideology. this is your position?
can people keep track of more than one concept in their minds at a time?
the issue with trust is that it exists in tension between two competing, and valid, concerns: trusting too much, and trusting too little
the professor's criticism of wikipedia starts with a bad assumption: that a trustworthy website is a valid concept, achievable in a world populated by human beings, all of them with agendas, manipulating the media they make with purposeful propganda, outright sutpidity, or simply acting in good faith, but blind to their own prejudices
NO website, anywhere, deserves 100% trust. furthermore, NO ONE visiting wikipedia is reading the articles there and believing it 100%, without a shred of doubt
once you realize those two things, you value wikipedia for what it is: a useful compendium of lore and knowledge, interspersed with the random human hiccups of propaganda, lies, vandalism, stupidity, mischievous manipulation, naivete, harmless jokes, etc. that all of us encounter every day of our lives. that we are all familiar with. on the level of the average bullshit meter all of us develop in our lives a ssocial human beings, familiar with the ways in which other human beings around us don't get it 100%, but are still valuable to us, even though fundamentally flawed
the problem with the idea of contemplating human beings as total sheep that believe everything they read is that this concept is a complete myth. it is invented by well-meaning but hysterical twits whose fear is of the common man. that the common man needs some sort of ideological guidance, whether from the left or the right, or he will screw up and believe some sort of demagoguery in the disguise of a news channel, or an online encyclopedia, or a religious man's sermon. no. the common joe blow has a brain, and he has enocuntered bullshit in his life before, and he can sniff it out again when it is in front of him. no, really. get over yourself if you think you are some great savior of the naive or that they need saving. you are the one who is naive if you believe this. do not fear the common man. if you do, you are the one who is out of touch. you are the problem, not the solution. the common man, yes, includes the ignorant, the stupid, and the propagandized. but by no means in the majority. so lose your elitist snobby anti-democratic impulses if you fear or loathe the common man: YOU are the problem if you do
everyone has a bullshit detector, to some degree. and if they don't, do you really think the antidote to the couple of morons who believe everything they read is to make the media availble to them completely bulletproof, or that such impervious media is even possible? no, you simply accept that gullible morons exist. you can't protect idiots from themselves. and then you move on
and once you realize that, you leave wikipedia the way it is, and recognize its flaws, and value it as a compendium nonetheless. as if the old encyclopedia model of a bunch of supposedly neutral scribes working in passionless isolation is a model that gives us complete agendless trustworthy neutrality? you believe that is possible? please!
the fallacies in the professor's ceritique of wikipedia is striking. he smacks of elitist fear of the common man. we get it: wikipedia isn't 100% trustworthy. duh! why is this such a horrible concept for some people to accept? they believe agendaless media is possible? ALL MEDIA IS BIASED. EVERYWHERE. ALWAYS HAS BEEN. ALWAYS WILL BE. GET OVER IT
or you are part of the problem. a spastic hysterical ivory tower of ideological purity is not what this world needs. it has enough kneejerk partisans. oh, you thought your search for completely neutrality was what you are after? doesn't exist friend. you have an agenda. you do. become aware of yourself. if you believe your pov is neutral, or if that a completely neutral pov is even possible, you are perhaps the most propagandized of all: blind to one's own nature. we are ALL ideologically compromised. every single one of us. if you can't see
you can't eat me, you will be violating my drm! do you know what a pain in the ass those ip lawyers are? you think an eternity of hunger is painful? think about that courtroom! and put away the fork!
i had misgivings the moment after i wrote those words. a world without culture isn't really worth living. however, i was simply trying to contrast the urgency between something that is biologically necessary and that which isn't. psychologically necessary, yes, but given the choice between a crate of bananas and a walkman for a 100 day stay on a desert island, the biggest culture vulture would pick the bananas too;-P
me: "there should be rational limitations on the ip legal framework"
you: "how dare you empty the cities and make us all live on farm collectives! communism is evil!!!eleventy"
whu?
kind of like:
me: "perhaps gays should be allowed to marry" you: "why are you for bestial necrophilic pedophilia!"
como?!
its called hysteria, fear. you have it. please read what i actually said: ip law is not some ayn rand natural right. it was created by society, an artificial legal construct that allows ip holders to extract financial gain for their research or creativity. it makes sense for sicety to have LIMITS on this artificial construct it created
and then you blather on about slavery in response. what a spastic twit
1. company invests billions in developing a wheat strain that grows in the desert, or orange rice with vitamin a in it, etc.
2. poor people get a hold of the crop, and grow it to feed themselves, but don't repay the company
do you force them to pay, and they starve? or do let your investment fizzle? how do you pour money into a venture which has a moral hazard attached to it?
the answer is simple, and taken straight form medical research: you only invest in research which guarantees a return. what do i mean? you spent trillions on heart attack medication, because most people having heart attacks (and are willing to treat them) are overfed overpaid rich people. meanwhile, you completely ignore malaria, which kills millions every year, because the only people who die from that are poor
so monsanto will invest billions in wheat, because wheat is primarily grown in rich northern climes, and will completely ignore tropical foods, as those crops are grown in poor countries
sorry africa, so gm yams for you
compare the prevalence of various diseases according to socioeconomic status, and you will find a direct correlation to the amount of money that goes into medical research into those diseases
now compare the prevalance of various food crops according to the GDP of the countries they are grown in. you will also find a direct correlation to the amount of $ into the biotech research in those food crops
this is the world we live in. morals and money don't mix. for those of you involved in medical or biotech research, please notice where your progress actually falls in the grand scheme of things. you serve filthy lucre, not the progress of mankind. the poor, the ones who can benefit the most from medical and food crop research, are served last, and can only hope for trickle down progress after many generations
in such a way, we are allowed to look very poorly on ip lawyers. yes, progress is served by the ip they protect, but progress only for the rich who can afford to pay for those expensive fruits (literally) of progress. but frankly, shaming people will not reverse this truth about the world we live in. a sense of high and mighty moral superiority does not pay the bills
however, it does make you immortal in terms the fame one achieves if one could find a way to serve the poor instead of serving the rich. we remember martin luther king, and mahatma gandhi. we don't remember the peers of those great men in the 20th century who served filthy lucre instead. i didn't say the way was easy, or cheap. but whoever can find a way to make it work, and give us wheat that grows in the desert, or rice with vitamin a in it, for free, for the poor, without any ip strings attached, will earn the accolades of the ages, if not a fancy BMW in the driveway
in 100 years, your nice house in the suburbs and your fancy bmw will be rust and rotting floorboards, and you will be a bunch of ash or bones. all that will live on is your name. what will you do with your time, who will you serve?
tried to burn that which they didn't understand out of ignorance. but there is no cure for fear and hysteria, so frankenstein had to go to the arctic. compatibility wasnn't possible
lesson: biotech firms need to make gm crops that grow in antarctica
has the same "problem". but you will note that patents on new drugs run out quickly. that is, in a few years, not in a few lifetimes. this is because people needs these drugs to live. likewise, poor countries thumb their noses at things like patents on AIDS drugs, and the world community pretty much supports them
why?
see, in the field of morals and ethics, there is actually something more important than *gasp* profit. so your high holy moral indignation doesn't ring true, that anyone would not consider monsanto's search for profits a god-given right... how dare they!
its not like music. you can live without music. but you can't live without life saving drugs... and you can't live without food
so i agree with you that monsanto deserves some reward for its efforts. but don't you think there is a difference between a modest protection of a few years, versus a greedy ip grab supported by legions of lawyers that extends far beyond a logical concept of financial gain?
however, what is the motivation then to say make rice with vitamin a, or wheat that grows in the desert?
balance: you harness greed in order to serve mankind. you create ip to create incentive to reward companies. but that shit gets out of hand. it metastisizes, corporate greed takes on a life of its own, and then it deserves a smackdown, to remind it that it serves us, we don't serve it
progress in the fields of technology exists to serve mankind. human society created the legal framework so that corporations serve us through progress. but if corporations begin to think that the pursuit of the almighty buck eclipses all else, such as with the idiocy ip law has become, it deserves to be broken. and don't worry about it: legions of lawyers have proven to be ineffective against music hungry teenagers. how effective do you think they will be against literally hungry people?
because we both recognize the fundamental change here: you can't charge anymore. you label as "still in business" what i label as "morph into a lesser self" but this is a trivial semantic meaning versus pragmatic meaning difference
is often used, like the phrase "paradigm shift" to give oomph to other wise boring corporate blather
however, in this case, the term disruptive technology is entirely functional: the internet is completely destroying the music industry
the book industry and the movie industry are standing in handcuffs on the stairs to the guillotine, helplessly watching their brethren being beheaded. they watch in disbelief as the cheering masses they used to lord over relish the sight of the bloodsport of their demise
i'm sorry, but a free and open network where any media can be transmitted effortlessly and without interception is not a business opportunity. its a replacement for an industry based on distribution. people keep talking about the fact that the music industry could have gotten in front of changing technology and used it to their advantage, rather than change taking place without them while they sat in denial. i have the contrary opinion: i think the music industry would never have been able to get in front of this steamroller
they were never able to, no matter how much time they had to prepare. there is simply no way for the music industry to harness the internet to their continued existence. the internet, the substance of it, is simply anathema to what they do: charge a fee for music distribution. the internet is simply replacing them. effortless free distribution has no economics too it. there's no money to be made
of course there is money to be made in related industries: concerts, advertising tie-ins, band and brand building, etc. but anything having to do with distributing media is simply a free advertising platform, nothing more. the anicllary businesses is what the music industry will morph into, a decimated diminished form of its former self
the only way the music industry could survive unaltered by the internet is to invent a time machine and go back to the 1960s and murder the arpanet researchers. you cannot harness that which means your doom. asking or expecting the music industry to get in front of technological change and make it work for them is like asking the incan and aztec nobility to get in front of the spanish conquistadors and use them to their advantage. as in: no way that's going to happen
your doom is your doom. music distribution conglomerates are simply a business model for the historical dustbin. there is no other way to interpret what the internet means to them. the internet is not a "business challenge" for them to meet with fast footwork and fancy innovative thinking. it is simply an appointment with death. and i will be mourning their passing just as soon as i get over my shock and pain over the passing of the dtuch east india company. as in: who cares. the world keeps turning, life keeps changing. its a done deal. the story is over. goodbye sony bmg, bertelsmann, et al. buh bye. stop banging on your coffin. your dead. realize it
with my desktop cold fusion apparatus, and i can power los angeles from my basement!
seriously, i hope this pans out. this is earthshattering. if they can successfully scale the production process, combined with its functionality with cheap and nontoxic aluminum, then cheap room temperature superconduction in the general public will occur in our lifetimes, with all of the neergy saving and future device classes that this breakthrough implies
welcome to life: it's complex, and it isn't easy. and if i told you my definitions, you might not agree on it, or maybe you would, depending on the substance
and because it isn't easy, and it's hard to define anything clear cut, and people constantly bicker, doesn't mean that there still isn't a need to draw boundaries
life is not black and white, there are a lot of grey areas. a lot of choices in life are not between roses and shit, but between roses with centipedes on it versus roses with spiders on it, or between shit with tiny flecks of gold in it and shit and with tiny blobs of gold in it
it is hard to draw boundaries. but most importantly, because it is hard to draw boundaries, DOESN'T MEAN WE DON'T DRAW BOUNDARIES in some vain attempt to offend no one. because no boundaries at all is worse than boundaries that don't please everyone
i am 100% certain that in this thread on slashdot it is impossible to convince you 100% of what i think is wrong. but perhaps you would agree with 90% or 75% of my thinking
and of that remaining 10%, or 25%, it doesn't matter to me. because what is most important to me is that you agree with me that there are in fact SOME substances no one should take. because if you think that just because it is a continuum and it is hard to draw the line, that all substances are ok. if you think that, then you're clearly failing to understand all of the variables in this subject matter
1. the image of the sport would change, and less people would be interested in getting into the sport (the athlete derives pleasure form exertion, not doping)
2. the image of the sport would change, and less people would be interested in watching the sport (the fan's psychological connection the human struggle would lessen, as you demonstrate with weightlifting)
ok, so a lot of baseball has steroids, but few people know the extent. but the hoopla around barry bonds, andy petite, etc., is still breaking: people are learning about it. baseball managment could allow the drugs, but then sport would fade in interest, as you show with weightlifting, people would watch soccer instead, because its more "authentic". and if soccer was found to be full of amphetamines, or whatever, guess what? people would be disinterested in that as well, and move on to some other sport they found more pleasurable to watch. pleasurable to watch, ebcause it is AUTHENTIC: about a human struggle. rather than about doping
if any sport wants to retain interest, simple human interest in any sport which is where the money comes from, it needs to crack down on drug use. there's no way around that. you can't keep it secret
its a central point about drug use people consistently don't understand: we all think of it as cheating life. some of us may take it anyways, and not care, but we also think less of ourselves in subtle ways. if you say that is not true of yourself, then perhaps you never had any self-regard, or aren't that self-aware. those who are aware of us, they think less of us too. fans think less of athletes. people are less interested in getting in science if the image of science becomes one of a bunch of pill poppers, etc.
and none of this is out of moral prudishness. its simply identity politics, its about psychology of how one thinks about who and what they are. simply because if less of your achievement is about YOU, less is interesting about you too. and there's just no way around that philosophical point other than to stop taking drugs
you can start with plain white bread on one end of the spectrum, and adrenalin shots directly to the brain through the eyeball on the other
simply because there is a continuum, rather than a hard break, does that mean there is no valid reason for establishing an area of chemical enhancement that should be out of reach?
and i'm not talking prudish, moral reasons, i'm talking strict utilitarian and logical reasons: toxic effects, long term deterioration, psychological alterations, etc.
so when i go "maybe this substance isn't a good idea to take" is it valid to respond to that "its the same as eating food, you're just a prude!"
no, its not. because you are responding to a point that is not the point i am actually making
to a hospital bed in the ER, calling myself walt whitman, saying i live in a circus. i know what i am talking about
meanwhile, you seem to wish to portray using something like lsd and heroin as nothing more than downing a shot of whiskey. dude, your awesome. i bet you can guzzle polonium 210 and snort ricin. i think the issue here is not my false alarm, but your false complacency
who knows, maybe you have an 18/100 constitution. but your portrayal, or your experience, is far from that of the typical human body and mind, regardless of any fearmongering in the media
all human societies that have encountered what something like heroin does to those who take it have outlawed the behavior. mainly because the behavior is detrimental to that society. meanwhile, you seem to have worked out a wonderful argument about legalizing all drugs... in a vacuum. you haven't considered any of the social effects of these drugs. how the viral addictiveness spreads, how it destroys families, an ability to hold a job... the need to feed, house, and clothe zombies that would otherwise be productive parts of society
something like marijuana should be legal: its less harmful than alcohol. but meth, cocaine, heroin? if those drugs enacted their toll on addicts in a vacuum, yes, you are correct. but when you see how the behavior plays out in a human society, you see human society react in such a way that curtails the use of that specific drug. because the use of that drug hurts society in a way that your argument doesn't address
Slashdot Mirror
1. all media has a bias
2. the only antidote is a healthy bullshit meter
end of story. people have this naive idealistic expectation of ironclad neutral media. never existed. never will. get over it already. yes, some ignorant fools will believe anything they read. do you really think you can save an idiot from themselves? or that building some sort of fancy (and impossible) media neutralizer will save those idiots?
at its heart, the fear of a biased media is a sort of elitist concern. there is a sort of distrust of the average joe blow amongst an ivory tower crowd. that left to his devices, without the guidance of the elites, joe blow will screw up. this is misthropic. i trust joe blow a lot more than some self-appointed guardian of neutrality. who nominated some special class of people to be our ideological watchdogs? what about their bias? it doesn't exist? you have no bias?
everyone has a bias. if you believe you don't, it simply means you are blind to your own nature, and are therefore even more dangerous than those who consciously manipulate the media. they at least know they are doing wrong. you are engaging in ideogical manipulation and don't even know it, or believe you are serving neutrality, when that is impossible to do, and are therefore the most dangerous part of the problem, not the solution to it
large landowners and their abuses breed things like the npa in the philippines (aka "the nice people's army"). nominally communist/ socialist, the npa in turn loses it's ideological rigor and becomes just a vehicle for kidnapping and extortion to continue the brave existence of camping and robbing people in the jungle. meanwhile, every election cycle in the philippines, it seems the 200 peso note grows scarce. it is joked that this is so because they are all being used to bribe the votes for the local politician, entrenched in the local power structure that supports the local landed gentry. endless cycle
this is the state of humanity, unfortunately, but these cynical, borderline misanthropic observations are thoughts that lead us to inaction, to believe human progress is impossible. no, progress is possible, or we'd all still be living under feudal kings
so i reject the hopeless implicaitons of your thoughts, as should you. change for the better is real, it has happened, is happening, and will happen. never forget that
they are human beings, just like you and me. not some weird abstract one dimensional construct on par with fungus that just keeps growing and growing
if your view of the third world is that hopeless, then you are a misanthrope. or a racist. or both. you do not go below the rio grande or the straights of bosporus and then suddenly logic and reason cease to exist. population control is not a very difficult concept to grasp, really
but from your point of view, apparently you are all too happy for the current state of suffering to continue unstopped. for cruelty to control population instead of planning
which makes you part of the problem, asshole. you have no human conscience
'ts called hysteria, fear.'
no, it's called "learning from experience".
so when you blather on about slavery in response for my call to put limits on ip law, this is speaking from experience?
huh?
so my call for limits on ip law is what, exactly in your mind? the first step on an unstoppable slippery slope to pol pot?
LOL
dude: its not learning from experience your thoughts come from on this issue. it comes from hysteria, fear, and panic. really
you're quite the hysterical twit. you really are
so, in your mind: ip law and its continued extension by corporate lawyers is completely natural and valid, it does not need to be reigned in. and for me to even suggest such an idea is tantamount to communist ideology. this is your position?
you're just trolling me, right?
can people keep track of more than one concept in their minds at a time?
the issue with trust is that it exists in tension between two competing, and valid, concerns: trusting too much, and trusting too little
the professor's criticism of wikipedia starts with a bad assumption: that a trustworthy website is a valid concept, achievable in a world populated by human beings, all of them with agendas, manipulating the media they make with purposeful propganda, outright sutpidity, or simply acting in good faith, but blind to their own prejudices
NO website, anywhere, deserves 100% trust. furthermore, NO ONE visiting wikipedia is reading the articles there and believing it 100%, without a shred of doubt
once you realize those two things, you value wikipedia for what it is: a useful compendium of lore and knowledge, interspersed with the random human hiccups of propaganda, lies, vandalism, stupidity, mischievous manipulation, naivete, harmless jokes, etc. that all of us encounter every day of our lives. that we are all familiar with. on the level of the average bullshit meter all of us develop in our lives a ssocial human beings, familiar with the ways in which other human beings around us don't get it 100%, but are still valuable to us, even though fundamentally flawed
the problem with the idea of contemplating human beings as total sheep that believe everything they read is that this concept is a complete myth. it is invented by well-meaning but hysterical twits whose fear is of the common man. that the common man needs some sort of ideological guidance, whether from the left or the right, or he will screw up and believe some sort of demagoguery in the disguise of a news channel, or an online encyclopedia, or a religious man's sermon. no. the common joe blow has a brain, and he has enocuntered bullshit in his life before, and he can sniff it out again when it is in front of him. no, really. get over yourself if you think you are some great savior of the naive or that they need saving. you are the one who is naive if you believe this. do not fear the common man. if you do, you are the one who is out of touch. you are the problem, not the solution. the common man, yes, includes the ignorant, the stupid, and the propagandized. but by no means in the majority. so lose your elitist snobby anti-democratic impulses if you fear or loathe the common man: YOU are the problem if you do
everyone has a bullshit detector, to some degree. and if they don't, do you really think the antidote to the couple of morons who believe everything they read is to make the media availble to them completely bulletproof, or that such impervious media is even possible? no, you simply accept that gullible morons exist. you can't protect idiots from themselves. and then you move on
and once you realize that, you leave wikipedia the way it is, and recognize its flaws, and value it as a compendium nonetheless. as if the old encyclopedia model of a bunch of supposedly neutral scribes working in passionless isolation is a model that gives us complete agendless trustworthy neutrality? you believe that is possible? please!
the fallacies in the professor's ceritique of wikipedia is striking. he smacks of elitist fear of the common man. we get it: wikipedia isn't 100% trustworthy. duh! why is this such a horrible concept for some people to accept? they believe agendaless media is possible? ALL MEDIA IS BIASED. EVERYWHERE. ALWAYS HAS BEEN. ALWAYS WILL BE. GET OVER IT
or you are part of the problem. a spastic hysterical ivory tower of ideological purity is not what this world needs. it has enough kneejerk partisans. oh, you thought your search for completely neutrality was what you are after? doesn't exist friend. you have an agenda. you do. become aware of yourself. if you believe your pov is neutral, or if that a completely neutral pov is even possible, you are perhaps the most propagandized of all: blind to one's own nature. we are ALL ideologically compromised. every single one of us. if you can't see
i would be screaming about ip law too ;-P
you can't eat me, you will be violating my drm! do you know what a pain in the ass those ip lawyers are? you think an eternity of hunger is painful? think about that courtroom! and put away the fork!
i had misgivings the moment after i wrote those words. a world without culture isn't really worth living. however, i was simply trying to contrast the urgency between something that is biologically necessary and that which isn't. psychologically necessary, yes, but given the choice between a crate of bananas and a walkman for a 100 day stay on a desert island, the biggest culture vulture would pick the bananas too ;-P
synopsis:
me: "there should be rational limitations on the ip legal framework"
you: "how dare you empty the cities and make us all live on farm collectives! communism is evil!!!eleventy"
whu?
kind of like:
me: "perhaps gays should be allowed to marry"
you: "why are you for bestial necrophilic pedophilia!"
como?!
its called hysteria, fear. you have it. please read what i actually said: ip law is not some ayn rand natural right. it was created by society, an artificial legal construct that allows ip holders to extract financial gain for their research or creativity. it makes sense for sicety to have LIMITS on this artificial construct it created
and then you blather on about slavery in response. what a spastic twit
1. company invests billions in developing a wheat strain that grows in the desert, or orange rice with vitamin a in it, etc.
2. poor people get a hold of the crop, and grow it to feed themselves, but don't repay the company
do you force them to pay, and they starve? or do let your investment fizzle? how do you pour money into a venture which has a moral hazard attached to it?
the answer is simple, and taken straight form medical research: you only invest in research which guarantees a return. what do i mean? you spent trillions on heart attack medication, because most people having heart attacks (and are willing to treat them) are overfed overpaid rich people. meanwhile, you completely ignore malaria, which kills millions every year, because the only people who die from that are poor
so monsanto will invest billions in wheat, because wheat is primarily grown in rich northern climes, and will completely ignore tropical foods, as those crops are grown in poor countries
sorry africa, so gm yams for you
compare the prevalence of various diseases according to socioeconomic status, and you will find a direct correlation to the amount of money that goes into medical research into those diseases
now compare the prevalance of various food crops according to the GDP of the countries they are grown in. you will also find a direct correlation to the amount of $ into the biotech research in those food crops
this is the world we live in. morals and money don't mix. for those of you involved in medical or biotech research, please notice where your progress actually falls in the grand scheme of things. you serve filthy lucre, not the progress of mankind. the poor, the ones who can benefit the most from medical and food crop research, are served last, and can only hope for trickle down progress after many generations
in such a way, we are allowed to look very poorly on ip lawyers. yes, progress is served by the ip they protect, but progress only for the rich who can afford to pay for those expensive fruits (literally) of progress. but frankly, shaming people will not reverse this truth about the world we live in. a sense of high and mighty moral superiority does not pay the bills
however, it does make you immortal in terms the fame one achieves if one could find a way to serve the poor instead of serving the rich. we remember martin luther king, and mahatma gandhi. we don't remember the peers of those great men in the 20th century who served filthy lucre instead. i didn't say the way was easy, or cheap. but whoever can find a way to make it work, and give us wheat that grows in the desert, or rice with vitamin a in it, for free, for the poor, without any ip strings attached, will earn the accolades of the ages, if not a fancy BMW in the driveway
in 100 years, your nice house in the suburbs and your fancy bmw will be rust and rotting floorboards, and you will be a bunch of ash or bones. all that will live on is your name. what will you do with your time, who will you serve?
tried to burn that which they didn't understand out of ignorance. but there is no cure for fear and hysteria, so frankenstein had to go to the arctic. compatibility wasnn't possible
lesson: biotech firms need to make gm crops that grow in antarctica
morals and ethics is so complicated. all this whining. as if their concerns are valid. pffft
has the same "problem". but you will note that patents on new drugs run out quickly. that is, in a few years, not in a few lifetimes. this is because people needs these drugs to live. likewise, poor countries thumb their noses at things like patents on AIDS drugs, and the world community pretty much supports them
why?
see, in the field of morals and ethics, there is actually something more important than *gasp* profit. so your high holy moral indignation doesn't ring true, that anyone would not consider monsanto's search for profits a god-given right... how dare they!
its not like music. you can live without music. but you can't live without life saving drugs... and you can't live without food
so i agree with you that monsanto deserves some reward for its efforts. but don't you think there is a difference between a modest protection of a few years, versus a greedy ip grab supported by legions of lawyers that extends far beyond a logical concept of financial gain?
however, what is the motivation then to say make rice with vitamin a, or wheat that grows in the desert?
balance: you harness greed in order to serve mankind. you create ip to create incentive to reward companies. but that shit gets out of hand. it metastisizes, corporate greed takes on a life of its own, and then it deserves a smackdown, to remind it that it serves us, we don't serve it
progress in the fields of technology exists to serve mankind. human society created the legal framework so that corporations serve us through progress. but if corporations begin to think that the pursuit of the almighty buck eclipses all else, such as with the idiocy ip law has become, it deserves to be broken. and don't worry about it: legions of lawyers have proven to be ineffective against music hungry teenagers. how effective do you think they will be against literally hungry people?
because we both recognize the fundamental change here: you can't charge anymore. you label as "still in business" what i label as "morph into a lesser self" but this is a trivial semantic meaning versus pragmatic meaning difference
mod parent up
is often used, like the phrase "paradigm shift" to give oomph to other wise boring corporate blather
however, in this case, the term disruptive technology is entirely functional: the internet is completely destroying the music industry
the book industry and the movie industry are standing in handcuffs on the stairs to the guillotine, helplessly watching their brethren being beheaded. they watch in disbelief as the cheering masses they used to lord over relish the sight of the bloodsport of their demise
i'm sorry, but a free and open network where any media can be transmitted effortlessly and without interception is not a business opportunity. its a replacement for an industry based on distribution. people keep talking about the fact that the music industry could have gotten in front of changing technology and used it to their advantage, rather than change taking place without them while they sat in denial. i have the contrary opinion: i think the music industry would never have been able to get in front of this steamroller
they were never able to, no matter how much time they had to prepare. there is simply no way for the music industry to harness the internet to their continued existence. the internet, the substance of it, is simply anathema to what they do: charge a fee for music distribution. the internet is simply replacing them. effortless free distribution has no economics too it. there's no money to be made
of course there is money to be made in related industries: concerts, advertising tie-ins, band and brand building, etc. but anything having to do with distributing media is simply a free advertising platform, nothing more. the anicllary businesses is what the music industry will morph into, a decimated diminished form of its former self
the only way the music industry could survive unaltered by the internet is to invent a time machine and go back to the 1960s and murder the arpanet researchers. you cannot harness that which means your doom. asking or expecting the music industry to get in front of technological change and make it work for them is like asking the incan and aztec nobility to get in front of the spanish conquistadors and use them to their advantage. as in: no way that's going to happen
your doom is your doom. music distribution conglomerates are simply a business model for the historical dustbin. there is no other way to interpret what the internet means to them. the internet is not a "business challenge" for them to meet with fast footwork and fancy innovative thinking. it is simply an appointment with death. and i will be mourning their passing just as soon as i get over my shock and pain over the passing of the dtuch east india company. as in: who cares. the world keeps turning, life keeps changing. its a done deal. the story is over. goodbye sony bmg, bertelsmann, et al. buh bye. stop banging on your coffin. your dead. realize it
i lolled. thanks
so i can get driving directions?
did they catch any pictures of fear and terror as well?
with my desktop cold fusion apparatus, and i can power los angeles from my basement!
seriously, i hope this pans out. this is earthshattering. if they can successfully scale the production process, combined with its functionality with cheap and nontoxic aluminum, then cheap room temperature superconduction in the general public will occur in our lifetimes, with all of the neergy saving and future device classes that this breakthrough implies
satellite mounted high power rfid readers
i am of course joking but i just scared myself thinking about the spy agency/ military bureaucrats who would actually sign off on this concept
welcome to life: it's complex, and it isn't easy. and if i told you my definitions, you might not agree on it, or maybe you would, depending on the substance
and because it isn't easy, and it's hard to define anything clear cut, and people constantly bicker, doesn't mean that there still isn't a need to draw boundaries
life is not black and white, there are a lot of grey areas. a lot of choices in life are not between roses and shit, but between roses with centipedes on it versus roses with spiders on it, or between shit with tiny flecks of gold in it and shit and with tiny blobs of gold in it
it is hard to draw boundaries. but most importantly, because it is hard to draw boundaries, DOESN'T MEAN WE DON'T DRAW BOUNDARIES in some vain attempt to offend no one. because no boundaries at all is worse than boundaries that don't please everyone
i am 100% certain that in this thread on slashdot it is impossible to convince you 100% of what i think is wrong. but perhaps you would agree with 90% or 75% of my thinking
and of that remaining 10%, or 25%, it doesn't matter to me. because what is most important to me is that you agree with me that there are in fact SOME substances no one should take. because if you think that just because it is a continuum and it is hard to draw the line, that all substances are ok. if you think that, then you're clearly failing to understand all of the variables in this subject matter
if everyone were allowed to enhance
1. the image of the sport would change, and less people would be interested in getting into the sport (the athlete derives pleasure form exertion, not doping)
2. the image of the sport would change, and less people would be interested in watching the sport (the fan's psychological connection the human struggle would lessen, as you demonstrate with weightlifting)
ok, so a lot of baseball has steroids, but few people know the extent. but the hoopla around barry bonds, andy petite, etc., is still breaking: people are learning about it. baseball managment could allow the drugs, but then sport would fade in interest, as you show with weightlifting, people would watch soccer instead, because its more "authentic". and if soccer was found to be full of amphetamines, or whatever, guess what? people would be disinterested in that as well, and move on to some other sport they found more pleasurable to watch. pleasurable to watch, ebcause it is AUTHENTIC: about a human struggle. rather than about doping
if any sport wants to retain interest, simple human interest in any sport which is where the money comes from, it needs to crack down on drug use. there's no way around that. you can't keep it secret
its a central point about drug use people consistently don't understand: we all think of it as cheating life. some of us may take it anyways, and not care, but we also think less of ourselves in subtle ways. if you say that is not true of yourself, then perhaps you never had any self-regard, or aren't that self-aware. those who are aware of us, they think less of us too. fans think less of athletes. people are less interested in getting in science if the image of science becomes one of a bunch of pill poppers, etc.
and none of this is out of moral prudishness. its simply identity politics, its about psychology of how one thinks about who and what they are. simply because if less of your achievement is about YOU, less is interesting about you too. and there's just no way around that philosophical point other than to stop taking drugs
you can start with plain white bread on one end of the spectrum, and adrenalin shots directly to the brain through the eyeball on the other
simply because there is a continuum, rather than a hard break, does that mean there is no valid reason for establishing an area of chemical enhancement that should be out of reach?
and i'm not talking prudish, moral reasons, i'm talking strict utilitarian and logical reasons: toxic effects, long term deterioration, psychological alterations, etc.
so when i go "maybe this substance isn't a good idea to take" is it valid to respond to that "its the same as eating food, you're just a prude!"
no, its not. because you are responding to a point that is not the point i am actually making
to a hospital bed in the ER, calling myself walt whitman, saying i live in a circus. i know what i am talking about
meanwhile, you seem to wish to portray using something like lsd and heroin as nothing more than downing a shot of whiskey. dude, your awesome. i bet you can guzzle polonium 210 and snort ricin. i think the issue here is not my false alarm, but your false complacency
who knows, maybe you have an 18/100 constitution. but your portrayal, or your experience, is far from that of the typical human body and mind, regardless of any fearmongering in the media
all human societies that have encountered what something like heroin does to those who take it have outlawed the behavior. mainly because the behavior is detrimental to that society. meanwhile, you seem to have worked out a wonderful argument about legalizing all drugs... in a vacuum. you haven't considered any of the social effects of these drugs. how the viral addictiveness spreads, how it destroys families, an ability to hold a job... the need to feed, house, and clothe zombies that would otherwise be productive parts of society
something like marijuana should be legal: its less harmful than alcohol. but meth, cocaine, heroin? if those drugs enacted their toll on addicts in a vacuum, yes, you are correct. but when you see how the behavior plays out in a human society, you see human society react in such a way that curtails the use of that specific drug. because the use of that drug hurts society in a way that your argument doesn't address